Stanley Washburn

Dated:
Lwow, Galicia,
April 1, 1915.

I

The news of the fall of Przemysl reached Petrograd on the morning of March 23, and the announcement was given out by the War Office at noon. The spring is very late in Russia this year, and so much snow and such intense cold have not been known so late in March for more than a hundred years. On the 23rd it was snowing heavily in Petrograd and a biting wind was sweeping through the streets. Save for an occasional street car and foot passengers the Moika and even the Nevsky Prospekt were at noon almost as empty as at midnight. And then came the announcement that the great fortress in Galicia had fallen. In an hour the news was all over the town and in spite of the inclement weather the streets were thronged with eager Russians, from Prince to Moujik, anxiously asking each other if the news which had been so long promised could really be true. The fall of Przemysl it must be remembered had been reported at least a dozen times in Petrograd before this.

There are people in as well as out of Russia, who like to say that the man in the street over here cares nothing for the war and knows less, but on this particular day these people were silent. It was no wonder. If ever a people genuinely rejoiced over good news it was the citizens of all classes of Russia’s capital when it became known that Przemysl was at last in Russian hands. By three in the afternoon, crowds had organized themselves into bands, and with the Russian flag waving in front, and a portrait of the Czar carried before, dozens of bands marched through the streets chanting the deep-throated Russian National anthem; one of the most impressive hymns in the world.

Though the snow was still falling and a nipping wind blowing, thousands of the crowds that now perambulated the streets stood bareheaded in the blast as each procession passed. Old retired generals of seventy and more stood at rigid attention as the portrait of their monarch and the flag of their nation was borne past. Moujiks, princes, men and women, the aged and the young alike, displayed the same spirit of ardour and enthusiasm as each demonstration came down the street. While it is true that there is not in Russia what we in the West call public opinion, yet a stranger living here during this war comes to feel that there is growing up a spirit that is uniting all classes. This is the great hope for the war. It is also Russia’s hope for the future. In another generation it is destined to bring forth greater progress and unity than the Empire of the Czar has ever known.

Occupation of Przemysl by the Russians. Austrians leaving as prisoners. The Russians entering the town.

The people of Petrograd have followed the war much more closely than one would have believed possible. Over here there has been action from the day the war started, and hardly a month when gigantic movements of some sort or other have not been under weigh. Petrograd has been called on again and again to furnish new troops, and from September until to-day there has not been a week that one could not see new troops drilling in the streets. Russia has had great successes and great setbacks, but each alike strengthens the same stubborn determination to keep pressing forward.

There was great disappointment when the Russian army withdrew a few weeks ago from East Prussia, but it began to abate when it became known that the German advance was checked. The Russians, as is their habit, had pulled themselves together, and slowly but surely were pushing back the invader just as they did in the dreary days following the Samsonov disaster in the first days of the war. Then came the news of Galicia and the greatest single success that the war has brought to any of the Allies, or for that matter to any of the belligerent powers. When the details of the numbers of the captured began to leak out, the importance of the success was first realized, and not without reason did the Russians begin to allude to the fall of Przemysl as a second Metz. It was generally believed that the garrison shut up within the fortress did not total above 50,000 men, and none were more surprised than the victors, when they learned that more than 131,000 soldiers and nearly 4,000 officers had fallen into their hands, not to mention a number of guns of all calibres amounting probably to above 300. These unfortunately have been rendered useless by the Austrians and must be charged as a heavy loss to them rather than as any direct military asset gained by the Russians.

Austrian prisoners leaving Przemysl.

Russian occupation of Przemysl. Austrian officers pay a last visit to the Russian head-quarters before leaving for Lwow.

Well may the Russians take pride in what their new army has accomplished, for one must go back to the taking of Plevna to find any such landmark in the history of Russian siege operations. The last great siege in Muscovite history was that of Port Arthur, and one cannot but contrast the state of matters in Russia ten years ago, and now. Port Arthur fell after a long series of disasters to the Russian arms, and the people all over the Empire received the tidings without interest and with that dumb resignation to disaster that is characteristic of their fatalistic temperament. A spirit of hopelessness and despondency and pessimism pervaded every class of Russian society. Announcements of new defeats were heard without surprise and almost without interest. “Of course, what do you expect?” one would hear on all sides, “Russian troops never win.” But now there is quite a different point of view. Even the moujik has come to feel a pride and confidence in his army and in its victories. Their successes are his successes, and their defeats are his defeats.

One who takes interest in studying the psychology of countries comes to realize that pride of race and confidence in one’s blood is the greatest asset that any nation can possess. Throughout Russia, the cause in which her Armies are engaged has come to be more nearly understood than any war she has ever engaged in. It is not true of course that the peasant knows as much as does the British Tommy; nor is there anything like the same enlightenment that prevails in the Western Armies. But in fairness to Russia she must not be judged from a Western standpoint, but compared with herself ten years ago.

As has been written by a dozen writers from Russia in the last six months the new spirit was crystallized when the war began. It has had its ups and its downs with the varying reports from the Front, but as each defeat has been turned into a stepping stone for a subsequent advance, public confidence has gradually mounted higher and higher, until, with the fall of Przemysl, we find Russian sentiment and confidence in Russia at probably the highest point that has ever been reached in the history of the Empire. The dawn of the new day of which we hear so much over here now, bears every indication of being the beginning of the much heralded new Era in this country.

II

Galicia is still under martial law, and one cannot even enter the new Russian province without a permit issued by the General Staff. It is of course even more difficult for one to get into the actual theatre of war. A wire, however, from the Staff of the Generalissimo to the powers that be in Petrograd, made the way to Przemysl possible, and a few days after the fortress had fallen the writer reached Lwow. The Russian-gauged railroad has been pushed south of the old frontier line to the town of Krasne, famous as the centre of the battle-line of Austrian defence in the days when the armies of Russky were pushing on toward Lwow.

Cossack patrol entering Przemysl.

Russian occupation of Przemysl. Governor’s bodyguard entering Government House.

It was originally intended to widen the Austrian tracks to take the Russian rolling stock, so that trains might proceed direct to the capital of Galicia; but it was found that the expense of carrying on operations which meant the widening of every bridge and the strengthening of every culvert and elevated way, to take the heavier equipment, would involve time and expense scarcely less than building a new line complete. The result is that one still changes carriages some distance out of Lwow, a handicap that is trifling for passenger traffic, but involving very real inconvenience and delays in the handling of the vast amount of freight and munitions that go to supply the huge armies in the field in Galicia.

Lwow itself is no longer the dismal place that it was in the early autumn when almost every public building was a hospital, and the station a receiving depot for the thousands of fresh wounded that poured in by train-loads from the positions on the San and from the trenches before Przemysl, which was just then undergoing its first investment. Where stretchers and throngs of wounded formerly filled every available foot of ground in the huge terminus a few months ago, all is now orderly and very much as in the days before the war. The hotels which in October were filled to overflowing with officers and Red Cross nurses, are now comparatively quiet, and the city itself, barring troops going through and prisoners coming from Przemysl, is not far from normal. A few hours after arriving the writer was received by Count Brobinsky, who frankly expressed his delight and relief at the capture of the Galician fortress.

There are of course a large number of Austrians in Galicia, and ever since the Russian occupation in September a pro-German-Austrian propaganda has been kept up here. Every reverse to the Dual Alliance has been minimized as much as possible, and every effort was subtly made by the German-Austrian agents of the enemy to prevent the peasants and that portion of the population here which sympathizes with the Russians, from co-operating in the new rÉgime. They were assured that soon the Austrians would be coming back, and fears of reprisals when the day came have no doubt restrained a large number of Little Russians, Poles and others from openly supporting the efforts of the new government to restore Galicia to its normal state. But with each month it has become increasingly difficult for the Austrian sympathizers to make the public believe that the Russian occupation was only a temporary wave that would shortly recede. Austro-German advances in Bukowina, and the really serious aggressive attempts through the Carpathians no doubt helped to render conditions unsettled. Then came the check of the Austrian advance in Bukowina and the gradual reclaiming by the Russians of the ground lost at the first impetus of the enemy’s offensive. This was followed by the failure of the relieving column to make satisfactory headway toward its objective at Przemysl.

In spite of all these very obvious failures to achieve any definite advantage over the Russians, the spirits of the anti-Russian element were kept buoyed up by the spectacle of the great fortress in Galicia still holding out. “As long as Przemysl stands out there is hope,” seems to have been the general opinion of all who wished ill to the Russians. Thus the fortress, which at the outset might have been abandoned with small loss of prestige to the Austrians, gradually came to have a political as well as military significance of the most far reaching importance. In the general crash after the battle of the Grodek line, the loss of a town which until then had never been heard of in the West, outside of military circles, would have escaped anything more than passing comment. Not until the Russian armies had actually swept past its trenches and masked its forts, did the world at large know that such a place was on the map; even then the greatest interest manifested was in the vexed question as to how its name was pronounced, if indeed it could be done at all, an opinion which was held by not a few people. This place which could have been given up earlier in the war without any important sacrifice was held tenaciously and became one of the vital points of strategy in the whole campaign. An army which turned out to be a huge one, was isolated from the field armies of Austria at a time when she needed every able-bodied man that she could get; and Przemysl, which, as we see now, was doomed from the start, was allowed to assume an importance in the campaign which made its fall not only a severe military loss but a blow to the hopes of the Austrians, both at home and in Galicia. The fall of this fortress has gone further towards shattering any hopes of ultimate victory that have been entertained than anything that has occurred since the war started.

Destroyed by the Austrians before leaving Przemysl.

Principal street in Przemysl.

As Count Brobinsky, who for six months now has been straggling to readjust Galicia to the normal, said, his task has now been enormously simplified, and there is scarcely an element left here that now believes there is any chance of Austria winning back her lost province. The Austrian agents have abandoned hope, and the Russian sympathizers are now openly declaring their loyalty to the new rÉgime. There is, however, a class of bureaucrats left here aggregating, I am informed, nearly 40,000 in number. This class is composed of Poles, Austrians and others who for generations have been holding the best offices at the disposal of the Vienna government. These are of course, almost to a man, out of their lucrative posts, and represent the element that has most vigorously, if quietly, attempted to undermine the activities of the government installed here by Russia. But even these see in the collapse of their great fortress the evaporation of their chief hopes.

As Galicia is still under martial law, all the motor cars have been taken over by the military authorities and so, even armed with passes and permits, we found it all but impossible to reach Przemysl. The best horses here are in the army service, and the few skinny horses attached to the cabs find it difficult even to stagger from the station to the hotel, and it was out of the question to go by carriage the 94 kilometres to Przemysl. But when we told Count Brobinsky of our difficulties, he solved them by promptly placing a huge military touring car at our disposal; he further paved the way for a pleasant trip to the scene of the Russian achievement by giving us a personal letter of introduction to General Atrimanov, the new Russian commandant of the captured fortress.

III

The spring is late here as it is throughout Russia this year, and it was snowing heavily as our big touring car, with a soldier as chauffeur, threaded its way in the early morning through the narrow streets of Lwow and out into the open country which was now almost white. Before we have been twenty minutes on the road we begin to pass occasional groups of dismal wretches in the blue uniform which before this war was wont to typify the might of the Hapsburgs, but which now in Galicia is the symbol of dejection and defeat. Through the falling snow they plod in little parties of from three to a dozen; evidently the rear guard of the column that went through yesterday, for they are absolutely without guards, and are no doubt simply dragging on after their regiments.

Austrian and Hungarian prisoners en route to Lwow.

From Lwow almost due west runs the line of the highway to Grodek where we get our first glimpse of prisoners in bulk. Here, at the scene of some of the fiercest fighting that the war has produced, is a rest station for the columns that are making the journey to Russian captivity on foot from Przemysl to Lwow, and I know not how far beyond. As we motor into the town the three battalions of the 9th Hungarian regiment of the 54th Landsturm brigade are just straggling into the town from the west. With a few Russians who seem to be acting as guides and nurses rather than as guards, they file through the streets and into a great square of a barracks. Here they are marshalled in columns of four, and marched past the door of the barracks where an official counts the individual fours and makes a note of the number that have passed his station. Beyond in a grove the ranks are broken, and the weary-looking men drop down under the trees, regardless of the snow and mud, and shift their burdens and gnaw at the hunks of bread and other provisions furnished them by the Russians.

It is hard to realize that the haggard despondent rabble that we see has ever been part of an actual army in being. Most of them were evidently clothed for a summer campaign, and their thin and tattered uniform overcoats must have given but scant warmth during the winter that has passed. The line is studded with civilian overcoats, and many of the prisoners have only a cap or a fragment of a uniform which identifies them as ever having been soldiers at all. The women of the village pass up and down the line giving the weary troops bits of provision not in the Russian menu. All the men are wan and thin, with dreary hopelessness written large upon their faces, and a vacant stare of utter desolation in their hollow eyes. They accept gladly what is given and make no comment. They get up and sit down as directed by their guards, apparently with no more sense of initiative or independence of will than the merest automatons. We pause but a few minutes, for the roads are bad and we are anxious to get over the muddy way as quickly as possible.

The western portion of Grodek was badly knocked up by shell fire during the battle in September, and the barren walls of charred buildings remain to tell the story of the Austrian effort to stay the tide of the Russian advance that swept them out of position after position during the first weeks of the war. Grodek was reported to have been utterly destroyed at the time, but as a fact, not more than one-fifth of the buildings were even damaged by the artillery fire.

Austrian prisoners resting by the roadside during their march from Przemysl.

Just east of Sadowa Wisznia, the scene of another Austrian stand, we come upon a regiment attached to the 54th Landsturm brigade. This is the tenth regiment, and, with the exception of a few non-commissioned officers, is composed entirely of Slovaks and Hungarians. They are resting as we motor up, and for nearly a mile they are sitting dejectedly by the side of the road, some with heads resting wearily against tree trunks, while dozens of others are lying in the snow and mud apparently asleep. As nearly as I could estimate, there is about one Russian to a hundred prisoners. In any case one has to look about sharply to see the guards at all. It reminds one a bit of trying to pick a queen bee out of a swarm of workers. Usually one discovers the guard sitting with a group of prisoners, talking genially, his rifle leaning against the trunk of a tree near by.

We stopped here for about half an hour while I walked about trying to find some prisoners who could speak German, but for the most part that language was unknown to them. At last I discovered a couple of non-commissioned officers, who, when they heard that I was an American, opened up and talked quite freely. Both took great pride in repeating the statement that Przemysl could never have been taken by assault, and that it had only surrendered because of lack of food.

One of the men was from Vienna and extremely pro-German in his point of view. He took it as a matter of course that the Austrians were defeated everywhere, but seemed to feel a confidence that could not be shaken in the German troops. He knew nothing of the situation outside of his own garrison, and when told of Kitchener’s new British Army, laughed sardonically. “It is a joke,” he said, “Kitchener’s army is only on paper, and even if they had half a million as they claim to have, they would be of no use. The English cannot fight at all.” When told that over two million men had been recruited in the British Empire he opened his eyes a bit, but after swallowing a few times he came back, “Well even if they have it does not matter. They can’t fight.”

The other man whom I questioned was mainly interested in how long the war was going to last. He did not seem to feel any particular regret at the fall of the fortress, nor to care very much who won, as long as it would soon be over so that he could go home again. As for the rank and file I think it perfectly safe to suggest that not one in a hundred has any feeling at all except that of hopeless perpetual misery. They have been driven into a war for which they care little, they have been forced to endure the hardships of a winter in the trenches with insufficient clothing, a winter terminating with a failure of food supplies that brought them all to the verge of starvation. The fall of the fortress means to them three meals of some sort a day, and treatment probably kinder than they ever got from their own officers. They are at least freed from the burden of war and relieved of the constant menace of sudden death which has been their portion since August.

The road leading west from Sadowa Wisznia is in fearful condition owing to the heavy traffic of the Russian transport, and in places the mud was a foot deep. The country here is flat with occasional patches of fir and spruce timber. It is questionable if there ever was much prosperity in this belt; and since it has been swept for six months by contending armies, one cannot feel much optimism as to what the future has in store for the unfortunate peasants whose homes are destroyed, and whose live stock is said to have been taken off by the Austrians as they fell back before the Russians.

IV

One’s preconceived idea of what a modern fortress looks like vanishes rapidly as one enters Przemysl. In time of peace it is probable that a layman might pass into this town without suspecting at all that its power of resisting attack is nearly as great as any position in all Europe. Now, of course, innumerable field works, trenches, and improvised defences at once attract the attention; but other than these there is visible from the main road but one fortress, which, approached from the east is so extremely unpretentious in appearance that it is doubtful if one would give it more than a passing glance if one were not on the lookout for it.

Przemysl itself is an extremely old town which I believe was for nearly 1,000 years a Russian city. From remote days of antiquity it has been a fortress, and following the ancient tradition, each successive generation has kept improving its defences until to-day it is in reality a modern stronghold. Why the Austrians have made this city, which in itself is of no great importance, the site of their strongest position, is not in the least obvious to the layman observer. The town itself, a mixture of quaint old buildings and comparatively modern structures, lies on the east bank of the river San—which at this point is about the size of the Bow river at Calgary, in Canada—and perhaps 3 kilometres above the point where the small stream of the Wiar comes in from the south. The little city is hardly visible until one is almost upon it, so well screened is it by rolling hills that lie all about it. Probably the prevailing impression in the world has been that the Russian great guns have been dropping shells into the heart of the town; many people even in Lwow believe it to be in a half-ruined condition. As a matter of fact the nearest of the first line of forts is about 10 kilometres from the town itself, so that in the whole siege not a shell from the Russian batteries has fallen in the town itself. Probably none has actually fallen within 5 kilometres of the city. There was therefore no danger of the civilian population suffering anything from the bombardment while the outer line of forts held as they did from the beginning.

The only forts or works which we were given the opportunity of seeing, were those visible from the road, the authorities informing us that they had reason to believe that many of the trenches and positions were mined, and that no one would be permitted in them until they had been examined by the engineers of the army and pronounced safe. If the works seen from the road are typical of the defences, and I believe they are, one can quite well realize the impregnable nature of the whole position. The road from Lwow comes over the crest of a hill and stretches like a broad ribbon for perhaps 5 kilometres over an open plain, on the western edge of which a slight rise of ground gives the elevation necessary for the first Austrian line. To the north of the road is a fort, with the glacis so beautifully sodded that it is hardly noticeable as one approaches, though the back is dug out and galleried for heavy guns. Before this is a ditch with six rows of sunken barbed wire entanglements, and a hundred yards from this is another series of entanglements twelve rows deep, and so criss-crossed with barbed wire that it would take a man hours to cut his way through with no other opposition.

To the right of the road runs a beautifully constructed line of modern trenches. These are covered in and sodded and buried in earth deep enough to keep out anything less than a 6-inch field howitzer shell unless it came at a very abrupt angle. To shrapnel or any field gun high explosive shell, I should think it would have proved invulnerable. The trench itself lies on a slight crest with enough elevation to give loop holes command of the terrain before. The field of fire visible from these trenches is at least 4 kilometres of country, and so perfectly cleared of shelter of all sorts that it would be difficult for a rabbit to cross it unseen. The ditch and two series of wire entanglements extend in front of the entire position. This line is, I believe, typical of the whole outer line of fortifications, which is composed of a number of forts all of which are tied together with the line of trenches. The outer line is above 40 kilometres in circumference, from which it may be judged to what great expense Austria has been put in fortifying this city. I was not able to get any accurate information as to the number of guns which the Austrians have on their various positions, but the opinion of a conservative officer was, that, excluding machine guns, there were at least 300 and possibly a greater number. The inventory has not yet been completed by the Russians. These are said to range in calibre from the field piece up to heavy guns of 30 centimetres. I was informed that there were a few 36 and one or two of the famous 42 centimetres here when the war started, but that the Germans had borrowed them for their operations in the West. In any case it is hard to see how the big guns, even of the 30 centimetres, would be of any great value to a defence firing out over a crest of hills in the distant landscape behind which, in an irregular line of trenches, an enemy lay.

After a few experiments against the works, the Russians seem to have reached the conclusion that it would not be worth while even to attempt carrying the trenches by assault. Indeed, in the opinion of the writer neither the Russians nor any other troops ever could have taken them with the bayonet; the only method possible would have been the slow and patient methods of sapping and mining which was used by the Japanese at Port Arthur. But methods so costly, both in time and lives, would seem to have been hardly justified here because, as the Russians well knew, it was merely a question of time before the encircled garrison would eat itself up, and the whole position would then fall into their hands without the cost of a single life.

The strategic value of Przemysl itself was in no way acutely delaying the Russian campaigns elsewhere, and they could afford to let the Austrian General who shut himself and a huge army up in Przemysl, play their own game for them, which is exactly what happened. There was no such situation here as at Port Arthur, where the menace of a fleet in being locked up in the harbour necessitated the capture of the Far Eastern stronghold before the Russian second fleet could appear on the scene and join forces with it. Nor was there even any such important factor as that which confronted the Germans at LiÈge. To the amateur it seems then that the Austrians, with eyes open, isolated a force which at the start must have numbered nearly four army corps, in a position upon which their programme was not dependent, and under conditions which made its eventual capture a matter of absolute certainty providing only that the siege was not relieved from without by their own armies from the South.

The lesson of Przemysl may be a very instructive one in future wars. The friends of General Sukomlinoff, the Russian Minister of War, are claiming with some reason that what has happened here is a vindication of the Minister’s theory, that fortresses in positions which are not of absolute necessity to the military situation should never be built at all, or should be abandoned at the inception of war rather than defended unwisely and at great cost. It is claimed that if the Warsaw forts had not been scrapped some years ago, the Russian Army to-day would be standing a siege, or at least a partial siege, within the city, rather than fighting on a line of battle 40 kilometres to the west of it. Port Arthur is perhaps an excellent example of the menace of a fortified position of great strength. So much had been done to make that citadel impregnable that the Russians never dreamed of giving it up. The result was that a position, which was doomed to succumb eventually, was made the centre of all the Russian strategy. For months the army in the North was forced to make attempt after attempt to relieve the position, with the results that they lost probably four times the number of the garrison in futile efforts to relieve it. A fortress which has cost large sums of money must be defended at any cost to justify the country that has incurred the expense. Forces which can probably be ill spared from field operations are locked up for the purpose of protecting expensive works which, as in the case of Przemysl, yield them little or nothing but the ultimate collapse of their defence, and the consequent demoralization of the field armies which have come to attach an importance to the fortress which, from a strategic point of view, it probably never possessed.

V

The last few kilometres of the road into Przemysl was alive with Russian transport plodding into the town, but the way was singularly free from troops of any sort. With the exception of a few Cossack patrols and an occasional officer or orderly ploughing through the mud, there was nothing to indicate that a large Russian army was in the vicinity. It is possible that it has already been moved elsewhere; in any case we saw nothing of it.

Between the outer line of forts and the Wiar river are a number of improvised field works, all of which looked as though they could stand a good bit of taking, but of course they were not as elaborate as the first line. The railroad crosses the little Wiar on a steel bridge, but the bridge now lies a tangle of steel girders in the river. It is quite obvious that the Austrian commander destroyed his bridges west of the town because they afforded direct communications with the lines beyond; but the bridge over the Wiar has no military value whatsoever, the others being gone, save to give convenient all rail access to the heart of Przemysl itself. The town was given up the next day and, as the natural consequence of the Austrian commander’s conception of his duty, all food supplies had to be removed from the railway trucks at the bridge, loaded into wagons, and make the rest of the journey into the town in that way, resulting in an absolutely unnecessary delay in relieving the wants of the half-famished garrison within. The only bright spot that this action presents to the unprejudiced observer is that it necessitated the dainty, carefully-shod Austrian officers walking three kilometres through the mud before they could embark on the trains to take them to the points of detention for prisoners in Russia. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the rank and file of the garrison were actually on the verge of starvation, and that the civilian population were not far from the same fate. As near as one can learn the latter consisted of about 40,000 persons. I am told that the prisoners numbered 131,000 men and some 3,600 officers, and that perhaps 20,000 have died during the siege from wounds and disease. This, then, makes a population at the beginning of nearly 200,000 in a fortification which, as experts say, could have easily been held by 50,000 troops. One officer even went so far as to declare that in view of the wonderful defensive capacity of the position 30,000 might have made a desperate stand. The fortress was thus easily three times over garrisoned. In other words there were perhaps at the start 150,000 mouths to feed in the army alone, when 50,000 men would have been able to hold the position. This alone made the approach of starvation sure and swift. The fact that in this number of men there were 3,600 officers, nine of the rank of General, indicates pretty clearly the extent to which the garrison was over officered. Kusmanek, the commander of the fortress, is said to have had seventy-five officers on his personal staff alone.

As far as one can learn there was no particular pinch in the town until everything was nearly gone, and then conditions became suddenly acute. It is improbable that economy was enforced in the early dispensing of food supplies, and the husbanding of such resources as were at hand. When the crisis came, it fell first upon the unfortunate soldiers, with whom their officers seem to have little in common. Transport horses were killed first, and then the cavalry mounts went to the slaughter house to provide for the garrison. The civilians next felt the pinch of hunger, and every live thing that could nourish the human body was eaten. Cats I am told were selling at ten kr. each and fair-sized dogs at twenty-five kr. The extraordinary part of the story is that according to evidence collected from many sources the officers never even changed their standards of living. While the troops were literally starving in the trenches, the dilettantes from Vienna, who were in command, were taking life easily in the CafÉ Sieber and the CafÉ Elite. Three meals a day, fresh meat, wines, cigarettes and fine cigars were served to them up to the last.

One of the haggard starved-looking servants in the hotel where I was quartered told me that several of the staff officers lived at the hotel. “They,” he said, “had everything as usual. Fresh meat and all the luxuries were at their disposal until the last. Yet their soldier servant used to come to me, and one day when I gave him half of a bit of bread I was eating, his hands trembled as he reached to take it from me.” My informant paused and then concluded sardonically, “No, the officers did not suffer. Not they. It was cafÉs, billiards, dinners and an easy life for them to the end. But the rest of us. Ah, yes, we have suffered. Had the siege lasted another week we should all have been black in the face for want of food.”

An Austrian sister who had been working in the hospital confirmed the story. “Is it true that people were starving here?” I asked her. “Indeed it is true,” she told me, “the soldiers had almost nothing and the civilians were little better off. As for us in the hospitals—well, we really suffered for want of food.” “But how about the officers?” I asked. She looked at me sharply out of the corner of her eyes, for she evidently did not care to criticize her own people, but she seemed to recall something and her face suddenly hardened as she snapped out: “The officers starve? Well, hardly. They lived like dukes always.” More she would not say, but the evidence of these two was amply confirmed by the sight of the sleek well-groomed specimens of the “dukes” that promenade the streets. While the soldiers were in a desperate plight for meat, the officers seemed to have retained their own thoroughbred riding horses until the last day. I suppose that riding was a necessity to them to keep in good health. The day before the surrender they gave these up, and 2,000 beautiful horses were killed, not for meat for the starving soldiers be it noted, but that they might not fall into the hands of the Russians. Perhaps I can best illustrate what happened by quoting the words of a Russian officer who was among the first to enter the town. “Everywhere,” he told me, “one saw the bodies of freshly-killed saddle horses, some of them animals that must have been worth many thousand roubles. Around the bodies were groups of Hungarian soldiers tearing at them with knives; with hands and faces dripping with blood, they were gorging themselves on the raw meat. I have never seen in all my experience of war a more horrible and pitiable spectacle than these soldiers, half crazed with hunger, tearing the carcasses like famished wolves.” My friend paused and a shadow crossed his kindly face. “Yes,” he said, “it was horrible. Even my Cossack orderly wept—and he—well, he has seen much of war and is not over delicate.”

I can quote the statement of the Countess Elizabeth Schouvalov, of whom more anon, as further corroborative evidence of conditions existing in the town. The Countess, who is in charge of a distribution station to relieve the wants of the civil population, said to me: “It is true that the people were starving. Common soldiers occasionally fell down in the street from sheer weakness for want of food. Some lay like the dead and would not move. But their officers!” A frown passed over her handsome features. “Ah!” she said, “they are not like the Russians. Our officers share the hardships of the men. You have seen it yourself,” with a glance at me, “you know that one finds them in the trenches, everywhere in uniforms as dirty as their soldiers, and living on almost the same rations. A Russian would never live in ease while his men starved. I am proud of my people. But these officers here—they care nothing for their men. You have seen them in the streets. Do they look as though they had suffered?” and she laughed bitterly.

I had not been above a few hours in Przemysl before it was quite clear to me, at least, that Przemysl surrendered for lack of food, and that while the officers were living luxuriously, their men were literally starving. That they let them starve while they kept their own pet saddle horses seems pretty well established from the evidence obtainable. One wonders what public opinion would say of officers in England, France or America who in a crisis proved capable of such conduct?

In my comments on the Austrian officers I must of course limit my observations to the types one sees, and hears about, in Przemysl. Out of 3,600 officers there must have been men of whom Austria can be proud, men who did share their men’s privations, and these, of course, are excepted from the general observations.

VI

Immediately on reaching the town we sought out the head-quarters of the new Russian Commandant of the fortress. Over the door of the building, in large gold letters, were words indicating that the place had formerly been the head-quarters of the 10th Austrian Army Corps. At the entrance two stolid Russian sentries eyed gloomily the constant line of dapper Austrian officers that passed in and out, and who were, as we subsequently learned, assisting the Russians in their task of taking over the city. General Artimonov, the new governor, received us at once in the room that had been vacated only a few days before by his Austrian predecessor General Kusmanek. On the wall hung a great picture of the Austrian Emperor. The General placed an officer, Captain Stubatitch, at our disposal, and with him our way was made comparatively easy. From him and other officers whom we met, we gathered that the Russians were utterly taken by surprise at the sudden fall of the fortress, and dumbfounded at the strength of the garrison, which none believed would exceed the numbers of the Russians investing them; the general idea being that there were not over 50,000 soldiers at the disposal of the Austrian commander.

Three days before the fall a sortie was made by some 30,000 Hungarian troops. Why out of 130,000 men only 30,000 were allotted to this task in such a crisis does not appear. Neither has any one been able to explain why, when they did start on their ill-fated excursion, they made the attempt in the direction of Lwow rather than to the south, in which direction, not so very far away, the armies of Austria were struggling to reach them. Another remarkable feature of the last sorties was, that the troops went to the attack in their heavy marching kit. Probably not even the Austrians themselves felt any surprise that such a half-hearted and badly organized undertaking failed with a loss of 3,500 in casualties and as many more taken prisoners. One does not know how these matters are regarded in Austria, but to the laymen it would seem that some one should have a lot of explaining to do as to the last days of this siege. Officers who have been over the ground state that in view of the vast numbers of the garrison, and the fact that they were well supplied with ammunition, there would have been great chance of an important portion of the beleaguered breaking through and getting clean away to the south; but no attempt of this nature seems to have been made.

The night before the surrender, the Austrians began destroying their military assets, and for two hours the town was shaken with the heavy explosions of bridges and war material of all sorts. Every window facing the San river was broken by the overcharge of the explosives that destroyed the bridges. Simultaneously the work of destroying the artillery was going on in all the forts with such efficiency, that it is doubtful if the Russians will get a single piece that can be used again. The soldiers even destroyed the butts of their muskets, and the authorities, who were evidently keen on this part of the work, arranged for tons of munitions to be dumped into the river. Others were assigned to kill the saddle-horses.

By daylight the task seems to have been completed and negotiations for surrender were opened by the Austrians. Our guide, Captain Stubatitch, was the first Russian to enter the town as a negotiator, and through him the meeting of ranking officers was arranged—a meeting that resulted in the unconditional surrender of the fortress. The original terms agreed on between Kusmanek and General Silivanov, the commander of the Russian forces, did not permit the Austrian officers to carry their side arms; but a telegram from the Grand Duke spared them the humiliation of giving up their swords, a delicate courtesy, which it seems to the writer was quite wasted on the supercilious Austrian officers. In the first place there has been no formal entrance of Russian troops, Silivanov himself not yet having inspected his prize. The first Russians to enter came in six military touring cars absolutely without any escort, and went quietly and unostentatiously to the head-quarters of the Austrian commander where the affairs of the town were transferred with as little friction as the changing of the administration of one defeated political party into the hands of its successor. Following the officials, small driblets of troops came in to take over sentry and other military duties, and then came the long lines of Russian transport bringing in supplies for the half-famished garrison. All told, probably there have not been above a few thousand Russian soldiers in Przemysl since its capitulation, and these were greeted warmly by both prisoners and civilians. There has been no friction whatever and everybody seems well satisfied with the end of the siege. The greatest task at first was the relief of the population, both soldiers and civilians. Countess Schouvalov, whom I have mentioned before, came the second day and immediately began feeding the population from the depÔt where she organized a kitchen and service of distribution which alone takes care of 3,000 people a day. The Army authorities arranged for the care of the soldiers and much of the civil population as well, and in three days the situation was well in hand and practically all the suffering eliminated.

I have talked with many people in Przemysl, and civilians and prisoners alike speak of the great kindness of the Russians from the ranking officers down to the privates, all of whom have shown every desire to ameliorate the distress. The difficulty of feeding so vast a throng necessitated the immediate evacuation of the prisoners, and an evacuation office was at once organized. Batches of prisoners started toward Lwow at the rate of about ten thousand a day, which is about all the stations along the route can handle conveniently with supplies. The officers are sent out in small blocks by rail once a day, and are, I believe for the most part taken directly to Kiev, where they will remain until the end of the war.

General Kusmanek himself departed the first day in a motor car to the head-quarters of Silivanov and thence with the bulk of his staff to Kiev. Those who have seen him describe him as a youngish man looking not over forty, but in reality fifty-four. A man who saw him the day of the surrender told me that he had accepted the situation very casually, and had seemed neither depressed nor mortified at the turn events had taken. The ranking officer left in Przemysl is General Hubert, formerly Chief of Staff, who is staying on to facilitate the transfer of administrations; the head-quarters is filled with a mixture of officers and orderlies of both armies working together in apparent harmony.

The fall of Przemysl strikes one as being the rarest thing possible in war—namely a defeat, which seems to please all parties interested. The Russians rejoice in a fortress captured, the Austrians at a chance to eat and rest, and the civilians, long since sick of the quarrel, at their city once more being restored to the normal.

WARSAW IN APRIL, 1915