WHEN WORLD WAR I ERUPTED, THE GREATEST CHALLENGE relative to Fortress Przemyśl was the need to remedy the decades of neglect the citadel had endured before the 1914 alarm and mobilization periods. On July 31, the three Galician army corps (I, X, and XI) received notification of the alarm period prior to war. Habsburg Supreme Command had earlier deployed X Corps to the Fortress Przemyśl area partially because of the fortress’s proximity to the battlefront and because its mission was to assist in protecting the July 1 rearward deployment (Rückverlegung) of the Habsburg army to the San-Dniester River lines. This change in deployment was significant for the fortress, as it protected against enemy assaults on the San River. Although Habsburg prewar planners had anticipated that tsarist cavalry masses would attempt to disrupt a Habsburg mobilization, such actions did not occur in 1914. At the time of the deployment, the skeleton Fortress Przemyśl garrison remained seriously under strength and inadequately equipped for any military action, consisting of a mere five infantry battalions, a field artillery section, three regiments of fortress artillery, and a number of sapper (engineer) companies.
On the battlefield, a combination of factors sealed the fate of the initial 1914 Austro-Hungarian Galician military campaign, not the least of which was General Conrad’s faulty mobilization and deployment planning. On July 3, Conrad had ordered his troops to redeploy back to the San-Dniester River when they mobilized, though the prewar Operations Bureau had scheduled them to be railroad-transported far forward to the Galician frontier. This Rückverlegung resulted in long troop marches in the August heat back to the originally designated frontier lines following mobilization. In the process, any possibility of obtaining a victory over the rapidly assembling Russian units vanished. Moreover, the Habsburgs suffered 40 percent casualties during the initial Lemberg campaigns, and concomitant lack of reserve formations meant that those lost could not immediately be replaced. Consequently, Habsburg Supreme Command had to reorganize its shattered army in October 1914, but the new formations no longer possessed the capabilities of the original army. Too many professional officers, noncommissioned officers, and professional soldiers had been sacrificed, and the newly mobilized recruits and reserve officers could not match them on the battlefield.
The defeat of Habsburg infantry units on the battlefield was further ensured by a lack of adequate artillery support. In addition, the dense Habsburg troop formations became easy targets for the more accurate and more numerous tsarist artillery pieces. Compounding the increasingly dangerous military situation was the earlier decision to detain three Second Army divisions in the Balkan theater as the remaining forces were redeployed to Galicia. The three divisions quickly became embroiled in battle against Serbia, making it difficult to transfer them to the Russian front, where the enemy continued to hold a significant numerical superiority over the beleaguered Habsburg forces.1
Fortress vulnerability resulted from the terrain exposure to the enemy between individual bastion perimeter works and from the garrison’s significant lack of manpower. No serious resistance could be anticipated to halt an early enemy foray against it, particularly with the order for the rearward deployment to the immediate fortress area. In addition, cement and earthen works only half-enclosed some citadel artillery positions, while infantry defensive lines had no protection except for the earth itself. If the Russian army had supplied its later siege troops with modern heavy artillery pieces, it could have quickly forced the garrison to capitulate.
Enormous quantities of building and other materials were needed to prepare the citadel for military action. The massive influx of troops, labor units, civilian workers, and tons of material produced enormous traffic jams and chaos in the fortress environs during early August 1914. While frantic construction commenced, numerous reconnaissance missions radiated out from the fortress. The construction workers had no military training, while inexperienced reservists comprised the majority of military labor crews. Most of the latter had been issued obsolete single-shot Wendl rifles and lacked adequate weapons training. Furthermore, obsolete fortress wagons, many fifty years old and utilized at the battle of Königgrätz during the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, proved much too cumbersome for fall and winter mountain supply column service. Use of local smaller wagons and Galician panja horses became standard.
Map 2.1. Mobilization and deployment, 1914.
Earthen embankments and dry moats blanketed the terrain around each fortress defensive structure. During the 1914 deployment period, the construction of multiple new field positions improved the citadel’s defensive value. A series of new continuous infantry trench lines supplemented each of the external fortress rings, while workers also modified and improved existing structures. In addition, they dug new positions for field artillery batteries as well as improving and extending forward positions beyond the important fortress perimeter at Helicha, Pod Mazurami, Batycze, and Na Gorach. These extended positions proved significant on numerous occasions during the September–October and early November 1914 through March 1915 sieges, partly because they compelled tsarist siege forces rearward, removing the inner citadel city and military structures from enemy artillery range.
Workers had only partially completed the second infantry defensive lines when construction had to be halted because of the disastrous field army defeat at the second battle of Lemberg on September 11, 1914. The outer fortress circumference measured about forty-five kilometers and consisted of forty-two main positions. Fifteen of these, as mentioned earlier, had been designated main fortress structures; the remaining twenty-seven served supportive roles to them. Two of the eight major military defensive districts that occupied the fortress’s inner ring also contained major support facilities. Defensive District I, situated on the right bank of the San River, contained the fortress garrison hospital, two railroad depots, ammunition magazines, fortress headquarters, five barracks complexes, and multiple food magazines. Defensive District II was located on the river’s left bank. Defensive Districts III through V, positioned outside the inner two, reposed along the left bank of the San River, while VI through VIII occupied the right riverbank.
On August 2, 1914, preliminary measures were taken to prepare the fortress against an anticipated Russian attack. Initial efforts protected the garrison from the expected enemy mass cavalry strikes, which never occurred. The X Corps deployment in the fortress area also provided some protection for the citadel. The entire Fourth Army deployed before the bastion. Prewar planning estimated that weeks and possibly even months of preparation would be required to ready the fortress for effective military service; however, in 1914 only six weeks were available because of the field army’s disasters on the battlefield, which forced an extended retreat behind the San River and Fortress Przemyśl to the Biala-Dunajec River lines.
After Austria-Hungary’s belated declaration of war on Russia on August 6 to assure the success of the Minimal “B” rail transport to the Balkan theater,2 General Conrad was determined to establish his headquarters in Fortress Przemyśl. This greatly exacerbated the problems for the fortress commander, General Kusmanek von Burgneustädten, who had received his command assignment just a few months before the outbreak of war. This also interfered with the efforts to place the fortress on war footing. In particular, it intensified security and communications problems. Adding to the chaos, the X Corps mobilization to prevent a Russian strike against the citadel also occurred within the fortress environs.
Garrison sorties, or offensive operations launched from the fortress perimeters, commenced after the Russian army initially encircled the fortress in late September 1914. They continued until early 1915, following the second tsarist siege in early November 1914. Their missions entailed binding opposing enemy forces to prevent their transfer against the Habsburg field armies, interrupting enemy transportation moves, and ascertaining enemy positions and troop concentrations. Unfortunately for the men under his command, General Kusmanek would repeatedly launch the sorties in the same direction and with 23rd Honvéd Infantry Division troop units, the fortress offensive unit. The failure to implement thorough preparations for the various missions and to utilize sufficient manpower for each endeavor was a classic example of Habsburg military ambition exceeding available resources.
The garrison’s multinational composition further complicated its unenviable predicament. Many of its second-line Landsturm units contained a majority of Ruthenian (Ukrainian) troops, with the homes of their loved ones often located behind enemy lines. Of the sixty-five fortress garrison battalions, forty and one-half consisted of Landsturm troops, and of these, nineteen and one-half consisted of Ruthenian soldiers. Astute Russian propaganda influenced these troops, many of whom were considered unreliable in combat and a security threat. Exacerbating the situation, Ruthenian soldiers had not received adequate training, proper weapons, or the communications and signal equipment necessary for battlefield effectiveness, which left them wholly unsuitable for the rigors of fortress warfare. Officers encountered great difficulties in attempting to train the illiterate Ruthenian troops. Such troops proved incapable of performing even the most rudimentary military functions, such as challenging personnel at guard posts with single passwords.3
When offered it, Fortress Commander Kusmanek requested that he not receive Ruthenian Landsturm Infantry Regiment 19 for fortress duty, because it had left its neighboring units in the lurch, even abandoning its equipment on the battlefield during the fateful September Habsburg retreat. The reinforcing 111th Landwehr Infantry Brigade also reputedly possessed unreliable Landsturm officers. Very few active or reserve officers served in such units except at the highest command levels. Landsturm troops required training in the most basic military skills. Such officers, with the exception of regimental and battalion commanders and regimental adjutants, served with inactive Landsturm units. Thus, they lacked familiarity with many of the recent military advancements and, as older soldiers, often proved physically unfit for active duty. In general, all Landsturm troops lacked the physical fortitude for the severe rigors of offensive operations, particularly during winter weather conditions. Such units also lacked machine guns, proper artillery support, and other vital equipment, and had to implement multiple improvisational measures to form fortress supply trains properly and even to establish a functional supply transportation structure.4
The September 1914 battles at Lemberg decimated the 23rd Honvéd Infantry Division, which became the main Fortress Przemyśl offensive force for all major breakout (sortie) missions. The division soldiers, originally deployed on the Third Army’s left flank, panicked during the Lemberg battle and fled from the front.5 During the bloody October campaigning, the division again suffered 50 percent casualties while attempting to disrupt the tsarist siege! After the fort had been liberated from its first siege during early October 1914, the unit participated in the gruesome Magiera Mountain battle with the Habsburg Third Army, where it was bled white again. General Conrad ordered the division involved in battle east of the bulwark to return to fortress garrison duty before the second Russian siege commenced in early November 1914.
Returning to the chronological events, on August 3, Conrad ordered Fortresses Kraków and Przemyśl, as well as the improvised San-Dniester River bridgehead units, to be placed on war standing. By mid-August, the 97th and 111th Landsturm Infantry Brigades, both composed mainly of Ruthenian peasants, had arrived for fortress duty.
Transportation problems occurred immediately in the bulwark, largely because too few commissioned and noncommissioned officers had been assigned to organize the many wagon units. Initially only three commissioned officers and one noncommissioned officer commanded three thousand enlisted men while having responsibility for approximately fifteen hundred wagons and thirty-five hundred horses in the main fortress wagon park.6 With the constant commotion and chaos during the early mobilization period, the number of available wagons and horses fluctuated daily, at times even hourly. Already during early August 1914, the unregulated utilization of horses and wagons had created incredible confusion that officials had to bring under immediate control. Hundreds of commandeered wagons simply disappeared. Until authorities instituted an effective control system, multiple teams of wagons and horses vanished for days at a time. Fortress provisioning and transportation duties had to be adjusted to accommodate these unacceptable circumstances. Finally, on August 12, a system for available wagons was established, along with critical measures such as provisioning for basic necessities such as feed for the horses. Between August 18 and 30, the wagon park commanding officer, on his own initiative, scavenged hay along the fortress perimeter to feed the starving animals.7
On August 16, Habsburg Supreme Command transferred its headquarters into the fortress. Armament and construction activities began in earnest with the arrival of twenty-seven thousand civilian workers, as well as many local farmers, four hundred officers, and three thousand horses mobilized specifically for this purpose. The civilian labor force’s primary responsibility was to construct infantry defensive lines and artillery battery and blocking positions along the fortress rings, but they also helped build other vital structures such as depots, barracks, and ammunition dumps. The civilian workers also filled multiple gaps in interval positions between the major fortress works to protect against an enemy assault. When the first Russian units approached the fortress environs on September 15, workers had constructed seven new fortress rings, twenty-four protected heavy artillery posts, fifty kilometers of covered approaches and infantry line trenches, and two hundred new battery positions. Laboring up to fourteen hours a day, the workers also emplaced a thousand kilometers of barbed wire in three lines outside the fortress perimeter and laid multiple minefields. They also created artillery and infantry fields of fire through wooded areas by cutting down 1,000 hectares (247 acres) of forest, but prolonged periods of rain prevented burning the wood. Seventy military labor sections, eight engineer companies, and the several thousand civilian workers made noteworthy contributions during the fortress’s six-week preparation period.8
In addition, the workers constructed ammunition dumps, a military hospital, fortress headquarters, and other military structures. Four airfields—the main one in Fortress Przemyśl-Zuravica with Fliegerkompagnie (Flight) Company 8, an alternative location in Hureczko village, a reserve site in Bakionczyce-Blonie, and a field airport between Buszkourczki-Zuravica—were built. During the first siege, the citadel did not have an airplane unit because the flight company had been redeployed. Workers also constructed two new bridges over the San River. Fortress Przemyśl’s overall resistance capabilities nevertheless remained inadequate. If the enemy had possessed heavy artillery, many fortress walls could have been destroyed, as most were twenty to thirty years old and could not absorb the latest heavy artillery and mortars.
Meanwhile, garrison troops were shifted from one location to another, often disrupting unit cohesiveness. General Kusmanek decided to extend some of the fortress perimeter positions forward from the citadel walls, particularly in the areas where he believed the Russians would attack, such as Siedliska (Defensive District VI). During the October siege, Siedliska became the target for mass Russian assaults. Kusmanek also launched sorties when he determined it to be necessary to protect the new construction projects, and regular reconnaissance missions launched from the bastion also served security purposes.
On August 21, an air reconnaissance mission flew over a wide stretch of Podolio, where the Second Army’s XII Corps located no enemy. One day later (August 22), Conrad ordered the First and Fourth Armies to launch an offensive toward Lublin and Cholm. Meanwhile, a tsarist army was partially assembled to march in a southwesterly direction between the Bug and Vistula Rivers. There was a general uncertainty regarding enemy intentions in the vital area between the Dniester and Bug Rivers. On the Habsburg eastern flank, the Russian Eighth Army had crossed the Zbrucz River at the upper Bug River frontier.
The next day (August 23), the Russian Third and Eighth Army left flank forces entered eastern Galicia, while the tsarist Fourth Army advanced on a broad front toward Lublin. The Habsburg First and Fourth Army offensive momentarily gave Conrad the initiative, but he ignored the growing threat from the east. He then ordered the Third Army to march to the north as rapidly as possible to defend the Fourth Army’s exposed flank area. The First Army’s success at Krasnik led to orders for the Russian Ninth Army to be redeployed to the endangered tsarist positions between the Bug and Vistula Rivers.
The Third Army received orders on August 24 for its troops to deploy to the high ground west of Przemyslany, while the Fourth Army launched its own offensive against reputedly weak enemy forces between the Dniester River and Tarnopol-Proskurov. As the military movements continued, gaps formed between the First and Fourth Armies and between the Fourth and Third Armies, and a rapidly increasing enemy threat to the eastern flank counterbalanced the favorable battle reports from the northern theater.
On August 25, the Third Army continued its movement without knowing that superior enemy troops had already invaded East Galicia on the eastern flank. The Third Army planned to defeat the Russians before they could unite all their forces; if it did not do so by August 26, it would have to calculate on much stronger enemy troop numbers. The Second Army’s XII Corps mission was to halt any enemy incursions across the Zbrucz River. The Third Army received orders to launch an offensive in the general line to Zloczov to halt the enemy incursions against the Zlota Lipa to the north toward Ravaruska. The Third Army had to hold the enemy fast if it attacked from the direction of Brody and Tarnopol to the east. The battle at Zloczov began to introduce the factors that led to military disaster on the northern front.
It soon became apparent that the enemy intended to deploy troop concentrations on the high terrain before the southern fortress walls; simultaneously, long enemy troop columns approached the areas of Nizankovice-Rybotycze, deploying particularly strong forces in the vicinity of Nizankovice, a key railroad and railroad bridge site. Surprisingly, the enemy did not appear to threaten Defensive District VIII, as fortress command had originally anticipated; rather, they continued marching troop units to the west.9 Significant enemy activity also commenced on the southwest fortress front, but no systematic effort to approach the fortress walls ensued.
General Kusmanek, determined to actively defend the fortress, implemented several active countermeasures on his own initiative. He launched sorties to disturb Russian troop movements around the fortress environs and to bind as many enemy troops as possible at the citadel. On September 2, General Kusmanek ordered the evacuation of the Ruthenian inhabitants living close to the fortress perimeter areas, which involved burning twenty-one local villages and twenty-three hamlets situated in the fortress line of observation or artillery fire. However, the uprooting of the poor, illiterate peasants proved to be a terrible undertaking. Participating troops witnessed the destruction and burning of homes, barns, crops, and even churches.10 The villagers, often misunderstanding their dire predicament, were forcibly evicted from their homes by gendarme and military units, witnessing the destruction of their villages and losing many of their worldly goods. Soldiers helped peasants glean salvageable personal belongings, and even collected money to help ease the suffering of the villagers.11 Many of the very old and very young struggled to keep up with the departing ragged wagons and horse-cart caravans and were ultimately abandoned. Livestock was often left in the fields. A good number of the mostly Ruthenian peasants, however, soon returned to their burned-out homes. The fortunate ones had some livable area remaining and moved back in. Those whose homes had been completely destroyed by fire moved into the cellars, mere holes in the ground, or lived in their small panja wagons to survive on their own.
Garrison units even razed larger structures such as grain warehouses. They demolished hundreds of wagons and extensive food supplies, which would have proved valuable in the latter months of the fortress’s last siege. By September 2, garrison troops had deforested a thousand hectares of fortress terrain outside its perimeter area and leveled all large structures.12
During early September 1914, innumerable Second and Third Army stragglers passed through the fortress environs. To better maintain the flow of wagon traffic, Third and Second Army Commands ordered their supply trains to circumvent the fortress perimeter rather than travel through the bulwark. On September 4, General Kusmanek ordered the evacuation of all civilians who did not possess a three-month food supply or who were considered of questionable loyalty. Nonetheless, between twenty and thirty thousand inhabitants remained in the bastion city section. The poorest inhabitants suffered uprooting most frequently, since they could not fend for themselves. As September progressed, the sound of gunfire became increasingly pronounced in the fortress environs. Garrison troop units received assignments to their fortress works (Werke) and barracks and began preparation for twenty-hour duty as Landsturm troops continued retraining for fortress duty.
Map 2.2. Military situation, September 2–September 11, 1914.
Fortunately for Fortress Przemyśl, a newly assigned artillery battalion had gained valuable combat experience in the Serbian campaign before being transferred to fortress duty. Newly designated fortress troop units during mid-September included the badly defeated Third Army, three Landsturm infantry brigades, the k.u.k. 93rd, 108th, and Hungarian 97th Infantry Brigades. The earlier mauled 23rd Honvéd Infantry Division and the 97th Landsturm Infantry Brigade had fled from the Lemberg battle to Fortress Przemyśl.13 Fortress troops, meanwhile, had to defend the higher terrain areas where laborers raced to complete the construction of new positions outside the citadel’s perimeter walls. Eventually, a sufficient number of laborers had become available for the projects, but it remains unclear why the elevated terrain outside the fortress perimeter had not been established as priority defensive positions in the original fortress plans. Meanwhile, Defensive District VII proved difficult to defend because the entrenched enemy occupied the opposing high ground. The outer perimeter fortress walls’ close proximity to the citadel city enabled the Russians to fire artillery shells into it, which made it necessary to extend certain defensive positions forward to place the city out of tsarist firing range.
Habsburg Supreme Command calculated that the food supplies and ammunition hastily delivered to Fortress Przemyśl would prove sufficient for a three-month period. Original prewar plans provided 137 days of provisions, far greater than the specified 90-day supply for an anticipated 85,000 garrison soldiers and 3,700 horses. During the first bulwark siege from September 23 to October 9, however, the fortress garrison was over capacity, housing 131,000 troops, including the reinforcing troops and 21,000 horses. Thus, a ninety-day supply of items, particularly ammunition, did not exist.14 The overly frugal prewar estimates ensured that the fortress would have insufficient provisions for a long siege, and the excessive troop and horse numbers dangerously strained the garrison food supplies throughout late 1914 and into 1915.
Meanwhile, farther east, the Habsburg Second, Third, and Fourth Armies launched an early September offensive to recapture Lemberg after its September 2 surrender. The ambitious strategy created a dangerous gap between the Fourth and the First Army that the Russians quickly exploited. Tsarist troops poured into the gap and threatened to encircle the Fourth Army’s southern flank positions before that army successfully reversed its main forces’ advance direction 180 degrees following the successful battle at Komarov. The Fourth Army’s mission then became to attack the tsarist infantry divisions crushing the hopelessly outnumbered eastern flank Habsburg Third Army’s seven divisions, but this maneuver, in turn, dangerously enlarged the gap between the First and Fourth Armies. When two enemy corps attacked the First Army’s rear echelon positions, it produced a catastrophic situation, particularly because no replacement or reserve troops were available. The First Army received orders to delay the seemingly irresistible tsarist advance, while its supply trains continued a rapid retrograde movement before the army’s infantry troops could retreat behind the San River.
The Habsburg offensive to reconquer Lemberg produced no positive results, as it could not overcome the deadly accurate Russian artillery fire and superior troop numbers. Reinforcements from the newly created Russian Ninth Army, originally intended to be deployed against Germany, reversed direction to the southwest Austro-Hungarian front. The Russians attempted to turn the tide of battle south of Lublin and Cholm, where Habsburg forces had originally achieved battlefield success. As Russian troop numbers steadily increased, so did their advantage. General Conrad ultimately had to withdraw his First and Fourth Armies. He did so to shorten his front lines, while simultaneously attempting to intercept the Russian Third Army forces bearing down on his right flank.
The First Army suddenly felt Russian pressure on its right flank. Simultaneously, superior Russian forces advanced into eastern Galicia toward defensive lines at Zlota Lipa. On September 10, the First Army was forced to retreat. Troops were exhausted and low on ammunition. The question was, could the First Army hold the enemy behind the San River? After fighting for seventeen straight days, the First Army was ordered to delay the Russian advance until Habsburg troops had been able to retreat behind the San River at Lemberg. The Fourth Army left flank forces had been threatened by encirclement.15 Two enemy corps had broken through the First and Fourth Armies.
As it withdrew, however, the First Army received orders to prevent the enemy from severing Habsburg connections westward to the homeland so that the retreat could continue. Eyewitness reports from a small Galician village described the ensuing Habsburg retreat, noting the enormous amount of supplies discarded by the troops. Many horses died and hundreds of supply wagons were wrecked as a result of the terrible road conditions. The Russians captured vast amounts of valuable Habsburg war material such as supply wagons, artillery pieces, horses, rifles, and ammunition. The retreating troops also destroyed supplies and food items during the retrograde operation. Starving, exhausted, and dispirited troops begged for food as they passed through villages, but more often than not the villagers had none to spare. Increasingly desperate, the soldiers scavenged for cabbages, carrots, and raw potatoes in the fields, and they often broke into homes, seizing whatever they could find.
The second devastating Lemberg battlefield defeat finally convinced General Conrad on September 11, 1914, that he had to initiate an immediate retreat to save his reeling armies from further disaster. The Habsburg armies could not move to the southwest because they would lose contact with the allied German forces at their northern flank. Simultaneously, Conrad requested that his ally transfer at least three army corps to the vicinity of Fortress Kraków to cooperate in the next allied campaign. The mid-September retreat resulted in enormous losses. The demoralized Habsburg troops initially retreated to the San River, but they desperately required rest and rehabilitation, and could not defend the river line in their present condition. Therefore, the retreat had to be continued farther westward into the Carpathian Mountains. During the heavy autumn rains that ensued, many weary soldiers fell ill. Four hundred thousand Habsburg soldiers became casualties in the first campaign, which constituted 40 percent of the original deployment numbers. Only the enemy’s failure to press its advantage, an often-repeated phenomenon during the war, spared Conrad’s armies from annihilation.
In addition to German reinforcements, General Conrad also requested to be in command of the resulting multinational military endeavor. This request sparked the first of many confrontations regarding proper leadership. Conrad considered himself eminently qualified to lead allied contingents and indeed commanded the vast majority of troops presently deployed on the eastern front. German military leaders, however, adamantly refused to place their troops under foreign command. Conrad’s dismissal of numerous generals following the disastrous 1914 opening campaigns increased Germany’s lack of confidence in his leadership. Nevertheless, at this juncture, the German High Command feared the collapse of its ally’s army. In mid-September 1914, hastily summoned allied meetings resulted in a promise of additional German contingents to be transferred to the eastern front. Although Conrad’s main concern was to have the allied front united to initiate cooperative military operations, the bulk of these new formations, designated the Ninth Army, would be deployed to Upper Silesia to protect the major German industrial center, rather than to Conrad’s requested Fortress Kraków area.
The Habsburg forces withdrew 150 kilometers to West Galicia and into the Carpathian Mountains. The defeated army rapidly became disorganized as it crowded onto the few traversable routes, which spread chaos and panic through the surviving ranks. On September 11, tsarist army units advanced into the enlarging gap between the First and Fourth Armies only to find that the First Army had already initiated its retreat a day earlier, on September 10.
The Habsburg Second and Third Armies also retreated into western Galicia, resulting in a seemingly endless stream of defeated and apathetic troops appearing before Fortress Przemyśl. The difficult, hilly terrain, enduring inclement fall weather, and excessive troop and wagon traffic in the area of Fortress Przemyśl severely impeded any possibility for an organized retreat from the San River. Four weeks of unrelenting rain, cold temperatures, and heavy military wagon traffic transformed the already poor and narrow Galician roadways into a treacherous obstacle course. Other natural passageways proved either too steep or too muddy to traverse safely. Rapidly fleeing supply train columns became hopelessly intertwined, exacerbating the chaotic conditions around the fortress.
General Conrad visited the front lines on September 10, one of the few occasions he did so during the entire time of his active duty. He departed Fortress Przemyśl at 8:20 a.m., initially to visit Third Army headquarters, and returned at 3 p.m. On the same day, Habsburg First Army right flank troops were attacked, hurled back, and forced to retreat. The retrograde movement had only three possible retreat routes through the swampy Tarnov region, impeding the movement of troops who were already exhausted.16
Habsburg Third Army supply trains had to pass through the Fortress Przemyśl environs as continuous rainfall caused terrible terrain conditions on the perimeter. The muddy morass quickly bogged down XI Corps to the north and III Corps to the south; ultimately, Third Army supply trains were forced to pass through the citadel, wreaking havoc and chaos on the bulwark’s streets.17 Thousands of wounded soldiers and horses were abandoned in the fortress during the army’s passage through it. The Habsburg retreat on September 11 created panic in the ranks, which was exacerbated by the inexperienced and multinational troops. Nevertheless, the retreat saved the Habsburg forces from annihilation.
Conrad’s neglect of defensive warfare planning and subsequent training in the prewar period resulted in total chaos at the commencement of and during the completely unprepared and unplanned September retreat. Exhausted soldiers collapsed unnoticed along the retreat routes, often abandoned to be captured by the enemy. The weary troops slogged through incessant rainfall, and regiments originally composed of one hundred officers and over four thousand infantry troops had been reduced to 10 percent of their original numbers.
On September 12, the battle plan assumed that the Germans would deploy nine divisions north of Fortress Kraków, while the Habsburg First, Fourth, and Third Armies would be deployed on the general line along the Biała River. As the retreat commenced, Conrad grouped his armies at the southwest San River line, whereupon the First and Fourth Armies launched offensives against the tsarist forces ensconced at the west San River bank. Thus, the Third Army had to halt Russian progress to the west toward the Fortress Przemyśl and Jaroslau area, while the Second Army’s main mission was to halt the Russians pressing forward south of the fortress. The First Army had to defend and provide security at the San River line until the Fourth and Third Armies had crossed that waterway. Meanwhile, Habsburg Supreme Command headquarters had to depart Fortress Przemyśl, as it was now threatened with isolation and siege.
Habsburg Supreme Command evacuated Fortress Przemyśl on September 12 at noon.18 The Fourth Army command transferred troop units to the San River bridgeheads at Jaroslau and Sieniava to protect the approaches to Fortress Przemyśl, while Habsburg field army forces withdrew behind the San River. Before leaving the fortress, General Conrad ordered his armies to protect the San River area, emphasizing that they had to unconditionally defend the middle Galicia region. The poor physical condition of retreating Habsburg troops remained a major concern, as did the necessity to continue the retreat. However, Conrad’s concern relative to the necessity for rapid German military assistance proved decisive. The farther west the Habsburg retreat progressed, the more vital German military assistance became. The recent German military victories at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes signified that their military assistance should be available soon.19
German Chief of the General Staff General Moltke determined that the first two Eighth Army corps should be transferred to Prussia-Silesia, although the prewar Conrad-Moltke agreements determined that the allied forces should advance to Siedliska to meet allied Austro-Hungarian forces. However, because of the radical change in the Habsburg military situation on September 11, Conrad immediately requested that allied assistance be deployed to Fortress Kraków, although it ultimately arrived too late.20
The Russians had attempted to separate the three eastern Habsburg armies (Fourth, Third, and Second) from their connecting supply lines to western Galicia and the hinterland while their numerous reinforcements overwhelmed the exposed Habsburg troops. As the First Army retreated, seven or eight tsarist divisions threatened the Fourth Army’s weak northern flank positions, resulting in military catastrophe. The increasingly unfavorable situation forced the Habsburg armies to initiate their retreat, regroup, and rehabilitate over several weeks.21
Habsburg troops, however, initially had to stymie enemy progress and prevent or at least slow the advancing tsarist forces from crossing the San River. As it continued its difficult retreat, the Fourth Army’s main forces deployed behind the river stretch at the key crossing to the Jaroslau bridgehead, north of Fortress Przemyśl. Eleven infantry battalions initially defended the Jaroslau position, but the number rapidly increased to forty-three.22 On September 14, the 23rd Honvéd Infantry Division and the 97th Landsturm Infantry Brigade reported to the fortress to strengthen its troop stand.
Given the terrible Habsburg military situation, German command determined to transfer four army corps and a cavalry division to Fortress Kraków’s northern flank area. The action threatened the Russian troops assembled beyond Fortress Kraków on the northern Vistula River plain. If the Germans had launched an offensive into that Vistula River area, they would have had the opportunity to sever tsarist northwest front contact to the Austro-Hungarian front.23
On September 12, Conrad had to determine whether to deploy allied German troops at Fortress Kraków or Prussian Silesia. If the German troops deployed to the Fortress Kraków area, they would provide immediate relief to the battered allied troops there, which General Conrad considered critical. Deploying German troops to Prussian Silesia, on the other hand, would relieve enemy pressure there and prevent the Russians from launching an offensive into that critical area. Conrad’s decision, however, also had to take into account the German military situation, which was less than ideal. Their troops encountered serious supply problems and troop exhaustion following the initial Tannenberg and Masurian Lakes campaigns, and they still possessed inferior troop numbers compared to the Russians.
Meanwhile, the unanticipated Habsburg retreat raised questions concerning Romania’s neutral stance. Vienna offered Bucharest the Suczava territory if it actively entered the war on the Austro-Hungarian side. General Conrad still firmly believed that a Romanian offensive in conjunction with his forces launched against Russia would result in a tsarist defeat. In any event, Conrad understood that the Habsburg armies required a decisive victory against their Russian foe to prevent Romania from entering the war against the Dual Monarchy, while neighboring Bulgaria also continued to determine its stance based solely on the outcome of battlefield events.24
General Conrad initially grouped his defeated army southwest of the San River, where the Third Army received the mission to defend the Fortress Przemyśl–Jaroslau area. Thus, its XI Corps deployed north of the fortress environs and III Corps south of it. The First and Fourth Armies received orders to attack tsarist troops when they attempted to cross the San River, while the Second Army deployed its troops south of the citadel. Meanwhile, the second Balkan front offensive commenced against Serbia.
The Habsburg Third Army had retreated to the northern Przemyśl area as far as Nizankovice, while the Second Army deployed south of the Third Army in the area of Dobromil-Chyrov; both had the mission to halt the Russian advance toward the fortress. As the first Habsburg units marched through Fortress Przemyśl, citadel officers who had served with some of the retreating units asked about the fate of their former comrades: “Where is so and so?” The answer inevitably was that the individual had been killed or badly wounded. The retreating troops presented a frightening sight, covered with so much mud that one could not distinguish the color of their uniforms. Many no longer possessed hats or guns and wore dirty, blood-stained bandages on their bodies. Multiple units had only a small number of surviving troops. Questions about what happened to the defeated troops received responses with mere tired hand movements and a fatalistic reply: “All is lost.”
The Habsburg retreat continued until September 13, with troops marching through the nights on secondary roads and over difficult routes because no decent road connections existed in the Carpathian Mountains. As the retrograde movement progressed, the conditions of the supply train columns worsened, retarding all movement. This resulted partially from the exhaustion and malnourishment of the vital horses, but the incessant rain and deteriorating road conditions also forced multiple transport delays. Many horses had almost starved to death or suffered from exposure, but hundreds simply had been driven to death or were captured by the Russians. When the Third Army abandoned four thousand horses within the fortress, two thousand found immediate work and proved invaluable by transporting ammunition to gun placements, providing crucial movement for mobile artillery and shells and performing other important tasks.
In the Fortress Przemyśl area, coins quickly disappeared, leaving only paper money in circulation. When troops arrived in the vicinity of a village or hamlet, prices quickly increased, as did theft of common commodities required for normal village life such as petroleum, salt, sugar, and soap, because such supplies could no longer be transported by railroad. If a battle took place near a village, violent crimes and abuses became even more rampant. The advancing Russians ransacked villages caught in the path of the early September Habsburg retreat, plundering shops and houses for anything they could seize. Massed rifle, machine gun, and artillery fire frightened villagers as tsarist troops crossed the Vistula River.
The retreating Habsburg troops discarded enormous quantities of food and equipment and surrendered hundreds of kilometers of railroad track, a hundred locomotives, and fifteen thousand train cars to the enemy.25 Railroad service along the important Chyrov-Przemyśl route had to be terminated, leading to the abandonment of significant quantities of railroad rolling stock and supplies as well as sick and wounded Habsburg soldiers. Within the fortress, streets became jammed with wagons four abreast attempting to pass through the citadel, which promptly obstructed all traffic attempting to travel in the opposite direction. Third Army units remained in the citadel area for several days, creating chaos everywhere.
In his interesting book Bollwerk am San, Hermann Heiden vividly described the miserable retreat march. Every few hundred meters wagon columns had to halt for hours on end. At jammed road crossings, only energetic leadership allowed any forward movement. Light rainfall soon gave way to heavy downpours, which extended the delays. As the soldiers’ boots and the horses’ hooves sank into the mud, Cossack troops broke through gaps in the Fourth Army retreat lines on the second day of the withdrawal. Enemy artillery continued to target Fourth Army side column formations, forcing those that reached the Jaroslau area onto the Third Army supply lines leading into the fortress.26 The Fourth Army had to wage rearguard battles during the difficult retreat to protect its supply trains, but its first duty became to save the troops; therefore commanders received orders to abandon their supply wagons.27 The horrendous conditions made the movement of heavy ammunition vehicles particularly difficult. However, even tsarist units had to pause because of their losses and the effects of the strenuous battle.28 As mounted Cossack divisions advanced into critical Habsburg terrain, the victorious tsarist troops paused to rehabilitate, resupply, and receive reinforcements before they continued their forward movement, saving the retreating Habsburg troops from possible destruction.
The fleeing troops lost their cohesiveness as they rushed through dense woods and marshy terrain along the few passable routes available to them. Thoroughly exhausted and suffering from acute hunger, most of the soldiers had reached their physical limits, and their spirits were completely broken. As inexperienced reserve officers replaced the many professional officer casualties, the overall military situation worsened even further. The Habsburg army had deteriorated into what the official Austrian history termed “a skeleton army.” Providing March Brigade replacement troops partially offset the initial devastating losses, but often these inadequately trained and ill-equipped Ersatz replacement soldiers were hurled into battle as combat units in an attempt to fill the huge gaps in the front lines partially caused by the lack of available reserve formations.
The initial Galician campaign (the two battles of Lemberg) expended a catastrophic amount of professional and reserve soldiers. Habsburg troop numbers fell to 477,000 field soldiers and 26,800 cavalry troops, along with 1,578 artillery pieces, which contrasted sharply from the million-man-plus fighting force and 2,068 artillery pieces originally deployed during August 1914.29 Infantry units suffered 40 percent casualties, including the large numbers of professional soldiers. The opening campaign abruptly and dramatically destroyed any possibility of winning a short war, and the Habsburg army never fully recovered from the disastrous Lemberg battles and concomitant losses.
On September 14, as chaos continued to reign within Fortress Przemyśl, Russian units advanced to the Dukla Pass and prepared to launch an invasion into Hungary. Fortress Przemyśl retarded rapid enemy forward progress, but the tsarist soldiers nevertheless attacked the San River bridgeheads protecting Fortress Przemyśl’s northern flank approach area. General Conrad sought to avoid serious contact with enemy forces to provide sufficient time for the rehabilitation of his defeated armies and then launch an allied offensive with German divisions from the area of Fortress Kraków. Meanwhile, the Habsburg retreat continued back to the Dunajec River.30 While Third Army troops trudged through the Fortress Przemyśl environs for three days and two nights without pause, General Kusmanek dispatched two thousand wagons to Jaroslau to recoup some of the retreating troops’ abandoned supplies. The wagon column stretched eighteen kilometers, but retreating field army supply trains crisscrossed the path of the fortress wagon recovery column, splitting it into three segments. The initial eight hundred fortress wagons went astray, never to reach their destination. However, the remaining twelve hundred successfully transported supplies back to the fortress on September 15.31
Apart from the weather conditions, Third Army units experienced no serious complications during the first retreat day. However, on September 13 and 14, the combination of inclement weather, the chaos and problems created by the waterlogged roads, and heightened enemy activity quickly transformed this picture. Multiple kilometer-long wagon columns jostled each other along the few passable routes.32 The mass of fleeing people and animals soon blocked all north-south roads, as well as other routes, leading to the fortress. Discipline within the ranks had all but vanished. The delayed Russian army pursuit allowed the mass of the Habsburg northern armies some relatively quiet days as they retreated west from the San River. Between September 14 and 16, the only serious battle occurred in the wooded terrain south of the San River.33
On September 14, General Conrad requested that German Eighth Army troops in transport be placed under Austro-Hungarian command, but Emperor Wilhelm denied the request. The decision left the allied armies under the command of their own General Staffs. Although they promised to cooperate with each other, no organizational apparatus forced them to do so. General Conrad soon accused the Germans of attempting to dominate the alliance to further their own interests and regarded the negative German response, relative to the allied command request, as a personal affront and a sign of a lack of faith in the capabilities of Austro-Hungarian military commanders and troops.
Also on that day, Archduke Friedrich, nominal commander of the Austro-Hungarian forces fighting Russia, telegraphed Emperor Wilhelm concerning the failure of German troops to launch an offensive toward Siedlice. The German High Command replied that German forces were already in transit to aid their ally.34 Meanwhile, the German eastern front commander, General Paul von Hindenburg, recognized that the Habsburg army required immediate German assistance. Thus, General Erich von Ludendorff approached the German High Command and suggested that they deploy not just two corps to assist the ally, but possibly the entire German Eighth Army, which would launch a new offensive operation.35 That evening at 9:15 p.m. the announcement arrived that the entire German Eighth Army, consisting of four corps and one cavalry division, would be utilized to create a new Ninth Army with General Ludendorff as its chief of staff. In addition, two further corps would follow to be deployed on the Silesian and Polish frontier.36
The initiation of a renewed allied offensive depended upon the German ally, whose supporting troops required eighteen days to become operationally ready. On September 16, all bridges between Fortress Przemyśl and Jaroslau had to be destroyed, while the First Army received orders to delay any Russian advance over the San River and the Fourth Army regrouped its battered troops. On September 14, as Third Army Command entered Fortress Przemyśl, Fourth Army units covered that army’s rapid retreat across the San River.37 Both armies had crossed the hundred-kilometer-long San River stretch, while to the north the First Army continued its retreat movements.38 The badly weakened defending Habsburg troops could only hold the San River line for a few days, during which time General Conrad feared that the Russians would launch a double envelopment assault along the river line to entrap his forces.
Meanwhile, Conrad contemplated transferring nine infantry divisions to the Fortress Kraków area to participate in the forthcoming allied offensive with First, Fourth, and Third Armies eventually occupying the general line of the Biala-Dunajec Rivers to the Vistula River. The First Army crossed the San River on September 13, while initially only weak tsarist forces pursued it. The Third and Fourth Armies had to be deployed behind the San River on September 14, and the First Army on September 13. The First Army could not retreat any farther until Habsburg troops had been rehabilitated. Fortunately, the enemy pursued them cautiously.39
When the Second Army redeployed behind the forward Carpathian Mountain ridges south of Fortress Przemyśl, a defensive force consisting of six March (replacement) battalions, twenty-two Landsturm (third-line territorial) battalions, and three artillery batteries received the mission to halt enemy egress along the extended mountain front from the Uzsok to the Jablonica Pass. These hastily assembled second-line troops were unprepared for combat and incapable of defending the Carpathian Mountain front against regular tsarist forces. Fortunately, the Russians, also badly mauled during the initial military campaign, did not pressure this portion of the front.40
General Conrad’s pleas for immediate German assistance commenced just as the decisive battle of the Marne on the western front concluded and German troops simultaneously battled against superior enemy numbers in East Prussia and on the western front. Conrad became frantic and frustrated because his army had sustained such enormous casualties and catastrophic defeat, which he blamed on the German forces’ failure to launch an offensive into Poland. Conrad initially requested the immediate deployment of at least two German corps to the Fortress Przemyśl area, emphasizing that the Russians could easily replace their casualties, but he could not. Since he possessed no reserve units, his armies could not launch an offensive in their present state and required German assistance to do so. On September 15, the German High Command announced the formation of its new Ninth Army and preparations to assist its hard-pressed Habsburg ally. Its military objective became to entice the Russians to transfer large troop numbers from the Austro-Hungarian front to counter the new German threat, thus relieving pressure on their ally.
The question of neutral European nations remained at the forefront of allied discussions. General Conrad continued to believe that he had to win a decisive military victory over the Russians to persuade Romania to fulfill its prewar treaty obligations, or merely to remain neutral. The Romanians could have entered the conflict at any moment depending on which side achieved a decisive battlefield success. A major Habsburg victory might also have influenced Bulgaria, or perhaps even Italy, to join the Central Powers. On the Balkan front, when the Serbian troops crossed the Drina River on September 15, it raised concern in Viennese military circles, while Habsburg armies continued to retreat on the Russian front. By September 17, 1914, Romania’s threatening conduct raised the question whether Habsburg troops should be deployed in Transylvania.41
The Habsburg First Army continued to retreat slowly under tsarist Ninth Army pressure, while the enemy Fourth Army deployed a battalion of troops across the San River at Krzeszov close to Fortress Przemyśl. The tsarist Fifth Army had advanced toward Jaroslau (north of Fortress Przemyśl). Meanwhile, tsarist general Nikolai Ivanov and his chief of staff, Mihail Vasilev Alexejew, concentrated on besieging the fortress at the earliest possible date.
On September 16, General Conrad’s main concern remained that his northernmost First Army not be pushed too far south.42 That same day, tsarist Third Army infantry and artillery units appeared at the Fortress Przemyśl eastern front.43 In the interim, General Kusmanek remained concerned about the fortress’s southeast front defensive lines at Defensive District VI, which remained closer to the inner city than the other districts, so that enemy artillery fire could strike the city and San River bridges. The resulting improvements at that sector extended the Habsburg perimeter lines forward through the high terrain at Pod Mazurami to Helicha two to three kilometers forward of the fortress ring onto the opposing high terrain. Four garrison infantry battalions occupied these new positions after they had been rapidly fortified. This forced the Russians to move their siege lines rearward, which required additional troop units to man the new lines. Meanwhile, enemy Fourth and Fifth Armies crossed the San River north of the fortress, while the Eighth Army advanced south of it into the Carpathian Mountains to protect what would soon be siege armies from a flank attack through the mountains.44
First Army, which had to defend a hundred-kilometer stretch on the San River line, became threatened with encirclement because of its extensive front. Nevertheless, the army received orders to delay the Russians from crossing the river. The disposition for the troop deployments for September 16 included the order for the First Army to maintain its present positions on September 16 and 17 if possible without becoming involved in serious battle. The Second, Third, and Fourth Armies continued their reassembly of forces.
Meanwhile, reports from Bucharest regarding the battlefield results on the western and eastern fronts indicated that Romania would not join the Central Powers. To the contrary, it seemed likely to intervene against Austria-Hungary in the war. Even its king, Carol, reported the battlefield situation to be very unfavorable. By the next day, the question arose of a Romanian threat to Transylvania.45
Between September 17 and 19, the Russian Third and Eighth Armies approached the fortress and commenced a siege. The Russian Third Army and additional forces received the mission to protect the siege troops by deploying along the north Wisloka River–Rzeszów–Dynow and south of the fortress extending from Chyrov to Sambor. The mission of the Russian armies encompassed the Russian Third Army attacking the Habsburg front in the area of Radymno, encircling the fortress from the north and south, while the Eighth Army attacked the front extending from that army’s flank to protect the tsarist Third Army from the south and the roads leading to Lemberg. The Fifth Army had to drive the enemy from the right bank of the San River, cooperating with the Fourth Army to take the Jaroslau bridgehead, and then break the communications lines between the fortress and the left flank positions. After that, it would seize the surrounding area and protect the flank positions of the Fifth Army as it approached the San River. Meanwhile, the Ninth Army would take the area along the Wisloka River, covering the right flank of the entire tsarist front while it also secured the Vistula River line and the San River bridges.
Emperor Wilhelm again contacted Archduke Friedrich on September 17, informing him that General Hindenburg would command the new German Ninth Army consisting of five army corps. The remaining weakened German Eighth Army forces had the mission to defend East Prussia while the new offensive operations unfolded on the Austro-Hungarian front.46 In the meantime, Habsburg Supreme Command continued to worry that the enemy could outflank its First Army positions; therefore, that army had to retreat to the west and southwest. The Fourth, Third, and Second Armies received orders to delay any retrograde movement from the San River, while the bridgeheads protecting Fortress Przemyśl had to be defended as long as possible. A day earlier General Conrad had ordered his armies to withdraw from the San River line and avoid decisive battle. The Second Army had to retreat to the Dukla Pass area. The other three armies prepared defensive positions behind the Biala and Dunajec Rivers. The First Army encountered strong enemy cavalry forces, which pressed its troops back toward the lower Wisloka River.
General Conrad and German general Ludendorff met on September 18 at Neu Sandec to discuss allied strategy for a joint October campaign against their opponent.47 It was agreed that everything depended on enemy action. General Ludendorff determined to launch the German Ninth Army forces against the Russian west flank positions situated along the Vistula River if they approached Fortress Kraków; such an action would expose the tsarist northern flank troop formations on the right Vistula River front. At the meeting, General Ludendorff raised an interesting question of transferring the Habsburg Second Army from the Carpathian Mountain region into the area north of Fortress Kraków to increase the troop numbers on that portion of the unprotected 180-kilometer-wide German front.48 He also suggested moving the First Army over the Vistula River against the flank of the tsarist troops deployed along the San River. However, inadequate troop numbers and ammunition meant that this potentially decisive strategy could not succeed.
Map 2.3. Fortress Przemyśl during the first siege, September 18–October 9, 1914.
Conrad hoped to regain the initiative against his foe, but he had no clue about Russian intentions. The Russians continued to press westward, eventually deploying troops in the Carpathian Mountain region. General Ludendorff, aware of large numbers of Russian troops now established at the middle Vistula River area, deployed the German Ninth Army north of Fortress Kraków. The decision provided an extended position from which to attack tsarist northern defensive flank forces. For General Conrad, it was imperative that Habsburg forces remain close to allied German troops in order to launch a rapid offensive on the Vistula River front. Meanwhile, the Habsburg Second Army launched an attack from its Carpathian Mountain positions to envelop the Russian forces before it.49
The ensuing German operation at the middle Vistula River area almost developed into a “thrust into the air,” but it drew immediate Russian attention and concern. The German Ninth Army deployed, as promised, between Galicia and the middle Vistula River area to relieve the battered Habsburg forces by drawing tsarist troops from them to counter the new German threat. Conrad had long wanted to launch a Habsburg offensive over the San and Vistula Rivers, but the terrible condition of his recovering troops left him unable to do so without German assistance. The October operation, which was the first combined allied effort of the war, thus occurred in west Galicia and west of the Vistula River because Conrad’s offensive plans did not seek to extend battle into the Carpathian Mountains.50
Also on September 18, the two-year-old railroad bridge at Radymno had to be destroyed because of the looming tsarist threat to the critical Chyrov-Sambor railroad line.51 The decision caused concern in Fortress Przemyśl because seven missing railroad tanker cars filled with gasoline had not been returned to the citadel. Luckily, the tankers eventually reappeared. Meanwhile, railroad officials attempted to ensure that a twenty-two-tanker-car train could be returned to the fortress before all bridges had to be destroyed. Cossack troops threatened to capture the train, but it managed to depart for the bulwark just before explosives were set off to cripple the railroad crossings behind it.52 Enemy troops soon reached the Dynov area, the end station of a subsidiary railroad line to the fortress, where earlier infantry ammunition had been transported into the citadel. A garrison infantry battalion located and successfully rescued an automobile column that had been halted at Dynov and attempted to return to the fortress.
On September 19 and 20, as the Habsburg armies continued their retrograde troop movements, and although terrible road conditions resulted in multiple march stoppages, the pursuing Russians did not press them.53 Meanwhile, on the Balkan front, heavy battle continued along the lower Drina River. Systematic tsarist artillery barrages commenced against the fortress inner city and the San River bridges as the Russian Fourth and Fifth Armies rapidly approached the fortress’s northern and eastern perimeter regions. A major Russian objective became to seize the two-track railroad line leading to the fortress and to methodically destroy all rail lines to the citadel as they progressed.
Vanguard Russian units crossed the San River at the significant Radymno and Jaroslau locations. North of Fortress Przemyśl at Walawa, the Russians could be observed crossing the river and approaching the citadel’s northern front. The tsarist Eighth Army and portions of the Third Army shifted their troop concentrations to the citadel’s south and southwest front, while two cavalry divisions completed the encirclement of the fortress’s western front by September 24.54
In Fortress Przemyśl, Slavic Ruthenian citizens and soldiers increasingly found themselves accused of treasonous activities for reputedly pinpointing Habsburg troop and artillery battery positions for the enemy. During the earlier Habsburg retreat, fleeing troops often took out their frustration over the catastrophic situation on the local peasants. Dozens were hanged and hundreds shot. Some suspected pro-Russian sympathizers arrested on September 14 were massacred while being escorted to confinement. Their remains were transferred to the main Przemyśl cemetery in 1922.55 Many local peasants also became involuntary recruits for military service, having to leave their families to fend for themselves. Garrison troops meanwhile requisitioned peasant crops, paying for them with paper money, which rapidly lost value. Soldiers, particularly Hungarian troops, who considered themselves to be in enemy (Slavic) territory often robbed or committed even more heinous crimes against the civilian population. In one specific instance, a group of Magyar Hussars (cavalry troops) attacked and killed some helpless villagers for no particular reason, then galloped away.
Hostages were sometimes taken for minor reputed transgressions that the troops, not the villagers, had committed. Some were even shot. In the meantime, because of the military activity in the area, much of the land remained untilled, creating shortages of food, clothing, and shelter for the villagers. Thus, misery became widespread. In addition to recruiting young male peasants, the military also requisitioned their oxen and horses, leaving those who remained with no way to till the fields. Rationing had to be instituted so that the villagers would not starve to death. Farmers attempted to conceal food, because if the army bought it, the price paid was below the production cost. However, by hiding crops such as rye, much was wasted or spoiled, which made food supplies even scarcer. The lack of an adequate number of farmhands resulted in famine for some villagers.
Troop movements and battle also created enormous devastation in the countryside, while contagious diseases and epidemics, among them dysentery, typhoid, influenza, and a type of skin inflammation, became common. Bodies had to be piled in heaps, as village cemeteries soon became full; almost every day one would observe a burial party progressing down a road. Thousands of acres of forest had been set on fire, either on purpose by soldiers, by artillery and rifle fire, or while trenches were being dug.
Russian Third Army troops besieged Fortress Przemyśl, while those of the newly formed Eleventh Army, composed of second-line divisions and militia brigades, surrounded the fortress. They eventually replaced the Third and Eighth Army first-line blockading soldiers. Their first mission after they reached the San River was to isolate Fortress Przemyśl and occupy the key Carpathian Mountain crossing locations at Sanok, Sambor, and Chyrov.56 On September 17, the first rifle shot and fortress artillery fired at a Russian cavalry patrol before the Siedliska Fort Work (Werk) I/5 position. On September 21, the main 280,000 Russian forces crossed the San River. The fortress utilized long-range artillery fire and small breakout efforts (sorties) to disturb the ensuing Russian siege efforts as much as possible. Habsburg soldiers deployed at the Jaroslau and Sieniava bridgeheads received orders to hold their positions unconditionally until otherwise directed.57
The Third Army continued to retreat west of the fortress, and the Fourth Army to the southwest of Rzeszov. The Russians pursued the retreating troops but did not press them.58 However, they deployed strong forces east of the fortress. The threatening fortress situation quickly interrupted the transport of wounded soldiers to rear echelon areas and delayed the arrival of units marching toward the fortress. Some lightly wounded troops and field hospital personnel fled as enemy forces approached. The commotion subsided to some degree on September 16, when Third Army troops received a much-needed rest day. On the next day, the army retreat movement recommenced just as the first enemy artillery shells struck the fortress walls. As the last Habsburg field troops abandoned the fortress area, they spotted the first enemy patrols to the north and east of the fortress walls.
The retreat of the hard-pressed Habsburg armies raised the question of the fortress’s future role and mission. Previously, its main objective had been to prevent the loss of the citadel, because the fortified San River line, especially at Fortress Przemyśl, temporarily blocked enemy pursuit of the retreating Habsburg field armies. On September 16, Habsburg Supreme Command evacuated the fortress; General Conrad, after driving for hours in the rain, arrived at Neu Sandec and ordered the fortress commander to “hold out to the very end.”59 The relocation of Habsburg headquarters from Fortress Przemyśl became necessary due to the serious threat of the enemy interrupting communications networks.60 Neu Sandec contained sufficient buildings and railroad connections behind the middle of the Habsburg army front, which facilitated contact with army commanders and the front lines. It would also be the scene of heavy fighting during the early December Limanova-Lapanov battle.
The fortress’s new mission remained to bind as many enemy units as possible to prevent their deployment against the retreating field armies. Unless it was liberated in the interim, the fortress was expected to remain active for at least three months, as it reputedly contained sufficient food and ammunition stores for that length of time. Whether the fortress could actually accomplish this was questionable. The citadel’s resistance strength could not be highly regarded, since most of the forts were at least twenty or thirty years old and armed with obsolete cannons, some dating back as far as 1861.61 Momentarily, however, Fortress Przemyśl had provided desperately needed breathing space for the Habsburg troops by delaying a rapid enemy pursuit against them. The Habsburg retreat from the San River area thus made the fortress an indispensable military asset.
During the night of September 16, all bridges between Jaroslau and the fortress were dynamited. The Second Army continued to retreat southwest of the Dukla Pass, maneuvering into the higher middle Carpathian Mountain terrain. The remaining Habsburg armies held their positions behind the Biala-Dunajec River line. Regardless of their location, all Habsburg forces suffered from the inclement fall weather conditions. The heavy rain transformed the already deficient roadways into a muddy morass of potholes, which placed enormous strain on soldiers, horses, and supply trains.62
On September 17, Second Army Command reported that its retrograde movement had been delayed and that its troops required a one- to two-day rest in their present positions; thus, the army could not attain its ordered positions until September 20 to 22. Third and Fourth Army activity also experienced serious delays. Fortress Przemyśl reported that it possessed a mobile troop stand of fifth-seven and a quarter infantry battalions, four field cannon batteries, three cavalry squadrons, and seven sapper companies, excluding the 108th Landsturm Infantry Brigade formations.63
Before the Russian siege of Fortress Przemyśl commenced, General Conrad ordered reinforcements to the citadel because he feared that it could not provide an adequate defense, creating a dangerous situation as the enemy approached it. These new citadel troops, totaling forty-three battalions, had to be oriented regarding the fortification’s special defensive requirements.64 The newly assigned troop entities deployed into their positions in separate groups rather than in their compact units, which hindered defensive preparations and hurt unit cohesion while the soldiers required additional training in fortress warfare. To delay enemy egress toward the fortress, forefield vanguard positions were established forward of the citadel perimeter on higher terrain whenever possible.
The reinforcing k.k. 111th Landsturm Infantry Brigade consisted of ten battalions, a Hungarian March Regiment containing three battalions, twelve k.u. (Hungarian) 97th Landsturm Infantry Brigade battalions, and six battalions of two Hungarian March regiments. General Conrad also added the k.k. 108th and k.k. 93rd Landsturm Infantry Brigades. Of these new units, the 108th Landsturm Infantry Brigade had the weakest troop stands. For example, a full-strength regiment consisted of about 4,600 troops, but Infantry Regiment 20 contained only 1,930 soldiers, and Regiment 21 only 1,094. The 97th Landsturm Infantry Brigade had lost 123 officers and 4,400 soldiers in battle.65 Originally, the brigade was to be transferred to the hinterland, but it then received orders to proceed to the fortress. The Habsburg retreat had, in the interim, removed all Habsburg espionage agents from behind enemy lines, which deprived the army of one of its best sources of information about the enemy. The initial fortress sortie was launched from Defensive District VI (Siedliska) toward Dusowce. Its five infantry battalions and two artillery batteries succeeded in achieving surprise and denting the tsarist siege line between Medyka and Bykov. The Russians hurriedly transferred two infantry divisions to that area to restore the military situation.
The sortie resulted in a thousand Habsburg fortress casualties and was proclaimed to be a success. As would occur so often in the future, the order for the garrison troops to retreat into the bulwark signified defeat to the participating troops. Fortress personnel observing the silent troop columns returning from the mission lost hope for the citadel’s rapid liberation. Meanwhile, Honvéd Infantry Regiment 5 had unsuccessfully attacked toward Na Gorach to reconquer surrendered forward positions, which proved impossible after the Russians seized the Jaroslau bridgehead.66 Under enemy artillery fire, the Honvéd Infantry Regiment reached a railroad line, whereupon patrols confirmed that many Cossack troops and enemy infantry units had been redeployed from there. Just before noon the regiment received orders to retreat from the Na Gorach heights because two enemy regiments threatened Honvéd Infantry Regiment 7’s left flank positions. Defensive fortress artillery fire, meanwhile, inflicted heavy tsarist losses.
The second fortress sortie launched on September 20 consisted of twelve to fourteen infantry battalions and an artillery battery. Both sorties resulted from intelligence reports indicating that tsarist troop formations continued westward. Reacting to these initial fortress efforts, tsarist troops advanced with far greater caution than they had before. Following the ensuing three-day battle, General Kusmanek determined to maintain his garrison strength, which had just sustained two thousand casualties. He also decided that Ruthenian troops should not be deployed separately in the fortress works. Honvéd soldiers had to be intermixed with them.67
As Habsburg Third Army units retreated from the western fortress perimeter area, enemy Cossack and infantry reconnaissance units approached the fortress. When tsarist troops crossed the San River at Walawa, this movement threatened Fortress Przemyśl’s contact and connections with the bridgeheads at Jaroslau and Radymno. By 5:30 p.m., tsarist artillery and troop units dispersed into several positions before Defensive District VI at Siedliska. Meanwhile, the tsarist Third Army’s slow crossing of the San River briefly delayed the complete siege of Fortress Przemyśl.68
Beginning on September 23, the enemy hastily constructed a railroad line around the entire fortress environs, which significantly limited citadel military efforts, because the Russians could now rapidly transport reinforcements to any threatened area at the citadel. That same day, General Ivanov ordered the tsarist Third and Eighth Armies to advance to Radymno-Przemyśl-Chyrov. General Aleksei Brusilov’s Eighth Army had to defend the Carpathian Mountain passes. Further north, the tsarist Fifth Army attacked through Jaroslau-Przeworsk toward Dynov–Fortress Przemyśl. The Russian Fourth and Ninth Armies had to seize the area around Rzeszov and the lower Wisloka River. Already on September 16, five and one-half cavalry divisions had been deployed to secure the northern Vistula River area and perform reconnaissance missions in the extensive region between Czenstochau and Fortress Kraków. The new enemy advance commenced on September 22.69
The critical question quickly arose of whether and when to evacuate the Jaroslau and Sieniava bridgehead positions. They initially had to be defended so that the Habsburg Fourth Army retreat could continue undisturbed. The Fourth Army received orders to unconditionally defend the Sieniava bridgehead until the evening of September 19, when it could be evacuated, but by 3:15 p.m. heavy tsarist mortar fire had already devastated the fortified defensive positions while enemy infantry units advanced to within close range of the defensive position. By 5:30 p.m., the Russians had seized both the Jaroslau and Sieniava bridgeheads, the last defensive positions before the fortress, while initially the units in Sieniava had retreated to Jaroslau with enemy troops in rapid pursuit. All nonmobile artillery pieces were rendered nonoperable, and then the bridge over the San was blown up.70
Heavy tsarist artillery fire had already commenced northeast of the Jaroslau positions during the morning hours before Russian infantry approached to within nine hundred paces of the defensive entrenchments. The bridgehead received heavy artillery fire during the afternoon of September 20, while Fortress Przemyśl troops observed strong Russian infantry forces approaching the citadel’s eastern perimeter. During the night of September 21, the Habsburg bridgehead garrison retreated; some troops marched back into the fortress, others to join the First Army.71 The Russians had to neutralize the two bridgeheads before they could unleash their full forces on Fortress Przemyśl. Habsburg forces continued their retreat on September 20, but the terrible road conditions caused many supply train stoppages, and soldiers increasingly suffered from dysentery. Fortress Przemyśl personnel reported that small enemy detachments had crossed the San River. According to intelligence estimates, up to fifty-two tsarist divisions opposed Habsburg field armies, and six or more of those prepared to besiege Fortress Przemyśl. Habsburg forces consisted of thirty-seven and one-half understrength divisions (plus two German divisions), while the German Ninth Army (ten divisions) opposed forty-nine and one-half tsarist units.72
Meanwhile, Third Army troops deployed west of Fortress Przemyśl after their departure from the citadel, while the Fourth Army deployed west of Rzeszov. Pursuing tsarist forces did not immediately press the Habsburg troops but merely maintained contact with them.73 As Romanov troops encircled the fortress, they blew up the crucial Nizankovice railroad bridge on September 19, severing the main railroad supply line to the fortress. The rebuilding of this structure became a key element in resupplying the citadel after its liberation from the Russians in early October 1914 and before its subsequent re-encirclement in early November.
At an allied meeting at Breslau convened between September 19 and 20, it was agreed that the German Ninth Army would be ready for action near Fortress Kraków by September 30. Cavalry forces would shield the forthcoming deployment for the offensive. During September, only local military actions occurred at the three northernmost fortress defensive districts. These districts required reinforcements from the fortress’s main manpower reserve pool to initiate any effective military action of their own. When the Jaroslau bridgehead position capitulated, small enemy detachments advanced closer to the fortress in the area of Sosnica-Dusowce-Walawa on September 20. Other troop units immediately approached from the Radymno position after that bridgehead had surrendered.74 When the first enemy troops crossed the San River, they encountered only Habsburg patrols. Defensive District V artillery fire assisted similar efforts from Forts XII/1, XII/2, and XIII against enemy units crossing the river.
When enemy troops quickly occupied the opposing northern fortress front, they squandered significant time by instituting overly cautious security measures as they approached the fortress. Their generally sluggish and cautious pursuit of the retreating Habsburg armies had not only spared the latter from annihilation but also given the fortress invaluable time to complete additional defensive measures and assisted the field armies in rapidly preparing to launch another offensive in conjunction with allied German troops in early October. Meanwhile, the situation on the Balkan front had reversed, and preparations commenced to transport the German troops by railroad to the Habsburg front at Fortress Kraków.
As early as September 21, significant Russian forces had deployed in the fortress area. Battle soon commenced as Russian troops attacked the southern and southwestern fortress perimeters after major forces had crossed the San River. Heavy battle ensued at fortress forefield positions between September 21 and 25. Habsburg troops had to abandon many of these forward positions, which enemy troops rapidly seized and occupied.
The Russian Fifth Army crossed the San River north of the fortress and advanced on September 22 and 23, while neighboring Third Army flank units advanced to the areas north and south of the fortress.75 Soon the Russians could cross the San River toward Fortress Przemyśl at will, significantly increasing the military threat to it. Defensive District V reported that enemy troops had already occupied the southern perimeter area of Walawa. Meanwhile, fortress artillery targeted enemy artillery units and returned their barrages. On September 22, tsarist cavalry troops besieged the western fortress area as other units advanced north and south of the fortress.76 Defensive District IV artillery fired at approaching enemy patrols while their forces established forward positions north of Batycze in forested terrain. When a fortress detachment deployed toward Na Gorach to counter the enemy activity, its western flank positions quickly became threatened with encirclement.77
The fortress continued emergency preparations for an anticipated major enemy attack. General Kusmanek emphasized constructing additional field gun emplacements, better securing the fortress walls, and establishing mobile and heavy artillery units to counter anticipated Russian assaults. These efforts closed some gaps between various infantry positions, while new construction covered approaches to the battlefield area and established telephone lines to artillery units. A shortage of manpower had previously prevented such an ambitious building program, but the improvements could no longer be delayed given the impending enemy threat.
Construction began on the high ground of Pod Mazurami–Helicha beyond Defensive District VIII forefield positions even as enemy troops approached the area. At Defensive District VII positions, the Russians maneuvered in the open, where defenders could easily observe the terrain in the area of Nizankowice. Tsarist forces became quite active before Defensive District VIII because the thickly forested terrain provided excellent cover that camouflaged them. The fortress commander intended to launch a sortie from the Pod Mazurami–Helicha area if construction of the new positions was completed by September 26.
Elsewhere, garrison intelligence detachments conducted long-range reconnaissance missions before the fortress’s southern and southwestern fronts, where it could be anticipated that the Russians would initiate their first serious military efforts. They continued these operations until the enemy forced them to retreat.78 The Russians then launched an overwhelming attack with artillery support on September 22, which the older and weary Landsturm troops could not halt until reinforcements arrived. In the meantime, two Russian corps (IX and X) deployed against the southeast fortress perimeter, while the tsarist Fifth Army (V and XVII Corps) crossed the San River stretch at Jaroslau to prepare to attack the fortress.79 On September 23, General Kusmanek ordered his troops to hurl tsarist troops back across the San River and to prevent any future crossing attempts. Defensive Districts IV and V supported these efforts with artillery fire.
On September 24, the tsarist commander decided to halt the westward advance of his armies until the siege of Fortress Przemyśl had been completed. His Fourth Army had the mission to complete the siege of the fortress within six days after marching to the area, while the Third Army besieged the fortress. The other Russian armies received orders relative to their fronts. The Eighth Army would deploy in the region between Chyrov and Sambor.
During the first siege, the exact amount of mail that accumulated in the fortress environs could not be determined, but much remained there. Following the October liberation of the fortress, for the first and only time troops could relate their actual experience in the mail now being sent out. Goods transported into the bulwark following the liberation of the fortress included newspapers, which were among the first items to arrive by automobile. Officers read them to the troops because of the short supply. Soldiers were well aware that mail service had been suspended and would be restarted on October 14. The siege disrupted all communications on the Habsburg front, including in Galicia and the Bukovina. Meanwhile, Russian planes encircled the fortress and dropped bombs on a regular basis, hurting garrison morale and spooking the troops.
Meanwhile, the Russians established positions three to six kilometers from the southern fortress front and deployed portions of four infantry divisions before fortress Defensive Districts VI and VII. The 42nd, 5th, 9th, and 31st Infantry Divisions established themselves from tsarist IX and X Corps at the southeast fortress perimeter. Other major units were reputedly deployed in the Nizankovice area, in addition to a portion of the tsarist VII Corps (9th, 31st, and 60th Reserve Infantry Divisions). Yet Russian intentions remained a mystery, a problem that plagued Habsburg Supreme Command throughout the war.
The Russians planned to complete their siege of the fortress swiftly and sever all its connections to the outside world. General Kusmanek anticipated that they would proceed rapidly against Defensive District VIII to protect their deployed cavalry flank positions in the San River valley. A fortress civilian remarked, “The Russians are in no hurry, they slowly advance toward the fortress.” In fact, their activity quickly interrupted railroad traffic and blockaded roads in the northern fortress sector. The civilian, a woman, went on to reveal: “It is still hard to understand that the greater portion of the old fortress works still stand. They are severely damaged from powerful cracks and fissures with many openings. However it holds.” Meanwhile, fortress inhabitants heard the sounds of battle raging around them. In a September 23 diary entry, the same woman wrote: “It rains-rains-rains and the thunder of the guns has let up, the night before last and yesterday artillery fire continued almost till dawn. . . . Last night you could hear the gunfire until midnight.”80
She lamented the fact that blocking mail delivery to the fortress had a very negative effect on morale for both civilians and military personnel. On September 17, the last fortress mail was officially collected and dispatched. However, mail delivery may have continued beyond that time. She stated, “Thus, today we learn from several sources that for a few days a gap existed in the siege lines, through which mail could be delivered by automobile.” On September 21, she noted that “today’s the third day without mail delivery or newspapers. To my great surprise some automobiles arrived this morning to pick up mail, including a letter to my mother.”81 A letter from an officer, Felix Holzer, confirmed this; on September 23, he stated that he had written to his wife that afternoon in haste, because “an automobile is here so this must go immediately.”
That same day, Cossack units entered the San River valley. Habsburg troops attempted to reach Dynov by automobile, about forty kilometers west of the fortress, to pick up mail and ammunition. This twenty-four-hour mission culminated in the safe arrival of a mail vehicle. Then, on September 28, a Red Cross worker stated, “Still no post!—at least letters can be delivered by automobile from Sanok. We will also find out today if we will be receiving additional mail.”82 Meanwhile, on September 24, two tsarist cavalry divisions commenced their siege of the western fortress front.83
As late as early October, a fortress civilian wrote that “the [Habsburg] army had been expected to approach the fortress for several days” and noted that “it is even more significant that the road stretch Dynov can be utilized, so the field post can once again be delivered by automobile. That is a great joy.” Bruno Wolfgang, author of Przemyśl 1914–1915, also noted that the road “stretch to Dynov, being repaired by our engineers, allows us to receive the first post.”84 The following conveys the negative effect on troops of not receiving mail: “It’s a terrible feeling to be totally isolated, no letters and no newspapers. We have no idea what is occurring in the world.” Many soldiers felt fortunate that they received correspondence from their loved ones, but when soldiers did not receive mail (which occurred much too often due to erratic deliveries), it had the opposite effect. Letters served to assure the troops that their loved ones supported them, and through the written word “spoke person-to-person.” When troops returned from their field posts in the evening, they immediately wanted to know if they had received any letters; if not, “they succumbed to a feeling of hopelessness.”85 Each field soldier and specific unit had its own field or post office. A familiar complaint often heard on the city streets in the center of the citadel concerned the lack of mail or newspapers: “We are standing in the midst as enormous history is being made, but we know nothing about it.”86 The fortress had a daily newspaper printed in German, Hungarian, and Polish, but it supplied only the “official, or allowed,” interpretation of military events. Fortress inhabitants, nevertheless, scoured each issue daily for any sign of the possibility of the fortress being liberated soon.
A further civilian diary entry noted that “the day before yesterday, cannon fire against the villages of Malkovice and Novosiolki caused them to burst into flames.” Apparently, garrison troops destroyed additional villages every day, mostly toward the Medyka area, to prevent the enemy from procuring the advantage of valuable cover for its troops as they approached the fortress. Farmers from the burned villages later appeared with their families in the city portion of the fortress carrying assorted household goods. Everything else they owned had been destroyed.87
By September 23, the fortress had been completely encircled with very little Habsburg resistance. Fortress Przemyśl’s contact with the field armies had finally been severed. Because the German front still received precedence for heavy artillery units, the tsarist siege troops continued to lack the necessary heavy caliber guns that could have destroyed the obsolete fortress walls. By September 26, nine Russian infantry divisions and two cavalry divisions blockaded the fortress, thus the citadel fulfilled its mission of binding significant enemy forces. Two Russian armies and four reserve divisions contained a total of 280,000 troops, more than twice the number of the 131,000 besieged Habsburg garrison troops.
Fortress Przemyśl, although ill prepared for its imposing challenges, successfully resisted enemy efforts to conquer it for almost six months despite being besieged in late September and again during early November. This defensive success proved important in thwarting Russian plans to initiate an offensive against Fortress Kraków, situated only two hundred kilometers to the north. Habsburg troops launched numerous offensive thrusts (sorties) from the fortress in an attempt to keep the enemy off balance and bind as many of its troops as possible to prevent their deployment against their field armies. Each effort, however, inevitably culminated in a retreat into the citadel, as any initial military successes ultimately produced troop exhaustion, serious casualty numbers, and the inevitable demoralizing withdrawal into the fortress. The troops also had to struggle against icy autumn storms. Listening posts situated outside the citadel’s perimeter in the forefields lay in mud and wet clay during heavy downpours, and in ice during colder conditions, negatively affecting the troops’ health and morale.
General Conrad was determined to initiate an allied offensive operation somewhere in the Fortress Kraków area, because the Habsburg army desperately required allied support to conduct an offensive, and it provided a convenient location because of its railroad connections. The newly formed German Ninth Army launched a two-corps thrust from north of that fortress area on September 28, while its Eighth Army advanced from East Prussia and north of the Vistula River to cooperate with the Austro-Hungarian army forces and draw enemy troops from the Habsburg front. In the interim, vanguard units of the German IV Army Corps arrived north of Fortress Kraków on September 22, while the Russians prepared to launch a major offensive to invade Germany from west of the Vistula River. The Habsburg units launched an offensive on October 3 between the Carpathian Mountains and the Vistula River with the mission to encircle the enemy forces pressing their troops. The Habsburg Second Army would also eventually advance to halt enemy progress along the southern Carpathian Mountain ridgelines below Fortress Przemyśl.
When advancing Russian field armies attained the San River stretch at Jaroslau-Radymno close to the Fortress Przemyśl eastern front, General Kusmanek reacted by hurling an infantry column through Dobromil toward the Uzsok Pass.88 Eventually, three of the eight Russian armies (the Third, Eighth, and Eleventh) participated in the siege of the Galician fortress. Meanwhile, at the fortress’s Defensive District III, major forces could be observed moving to the west. By September 23, the Russians had occupied a large area of the San valley. In the days that followed, Russian cavalry units dispatched patrols forward into the forested zone before the western fortress front Defensive District III forefields. This forced the removal of intelligence detachments from the heights of Kijov, which became an objective for future fortress sorties.
On September 24, a battalion of Honvéd Infantry Regiment 7 advanced toward Radymno to intercept and try to delay enemy forces pressing from the north and northeast. General Kusmanek also deployed garrison troops in the areas of Sosnica-Dusowce-Walawa near Radymno. Ensuing battles that developed before the fortress’s northern front perimeter area proved to be only enemy demonstrations rather than major offensive efforts. Few details exist today concerning these encounters, but numerous enemy units, such as the 78th Infantry Division, had deployed along the northern fortress front. A Reserve Infantry Division at Sosnica and the 11th Infantry Division in the Radymno area alongside tsarist vanguard units advanced toward Walawa. Behind those units stood the deployed Russian XI and XXI Corps, consisting partially of the 35th, the 44th, and the 69th Reserve Infantry Divisions, while Russian cavalry divisions continued to deploy in the San River valley. Fortress reconnaissance and security units repeatedly attempted to disrupt the advancing enemy forces.
When battle ebbed on September 24, forward Russian troop units had reached the lower Wisloka River area ready to advance to Fortress Przemyśl’s eastern front. The next day, additional tsarist cavalry forces crossed the river.89 Then the fortress launched a sortie, consisting of over six infantry battalions with two M 75 9-centimeter field cannons from Defensive District VI. The objective entailed advancing to seize the weakly held area forward of the siege line Medyka-Wielki and bind enemy forces.
On September 25, the Russians launched an overpowering attack against Defensive District VI (Siedliska) utilizing IX Corps’ 42nd and 5th and X Corps’ 9th and 31st Infantry Divisions. General Kusmanek reacted by launching three separate sortie efforts. The first major one moved in a southerly direction because tsarist troops had crossed the San River there. Some right flank Habsburg defensive forces retreated, but then launched a counterattack despite the fact that two battalions of reinforcements from Defensive District VI/3 had not arrived. General Kusmanek also launched a one-battalion sortie toward Olszany and Cisova to provide left flank security for the above missions. In the meantime, General Conrad requested that the Germans transfer twenty-four divisions to the vicinity of Fortress Kraków to cooperate in the approaching allied campaign in the Carpathian Mountain theater, which had become increasingly significant to both the Austro-Hungarian and Russian military leadership.
The major sortie commenced, representing the first time that the citadel utilized any of its main troop reserves for a major action in the fortress forefields. On September 24 and 25, intelligence reports indicated that four Russian infantry divisions had been deployed between the San and Wiar Rivers, which was confirmed a few days later. The 23rd Honvéd Infantry Division’s 46th Honvéd Brigade’s Infantry Regiments 7 and 8, as well as Honvéd Infantry Regiment 4, Honvéd Hussar (cavalry) regiments, and four Honvéd field cannon batteries, participated in the next sortie. Ten and one-half infantry battalions and four artillery batteries advanced from Defensive District VII. On September 25 garrison troops also prepared to march to the heights of Helicha to establish new defensive positions forward of the fortress perimeter. On the following day, 46th Honvéd Infantry Brigade troops advanced toward the heights of Szybenica to launch the major sortie effort. Honvéd Infantry Cannon Regiment 2 provided artillery support for the operation.
Honvéd Infantry Regiment 3 launched one and a half battalions toward the heights of Helicha; cavalry attachments provided the liaison between the advancing Honvéd units. To provide additional security to Defensive District VII’s eastern flank area, troops deployed into the forefield area, but insufficient fortress artillery support ensured that this did not provide any particular advantage. Extremely thick undergrowth and forested terrain slowed 46th Honvéd Infantry Brigade’s forward momentum, then it encountered heavy and effective enemy artillery fire against its right flank and frontal positions. Meanwhile, heavy Russian artillery fire forced a battalion of Honvéd March Regiment 4 to retreat. Tsarist units then assaulted the heights of Szybenica, while attacking Habsburg troops approaching Cisova encountered effective enemy artillery fire. The sortie units received an order to retreat at 3 p.m. after General Kusmanek thought the enemy had attacked garrison positions from multiple directions. He nevertheless claimed that the sortie mission had been a success. The retreat began at 10 p.m., but the enemy did not press the retreating troops, who had to march through woods, water, and mud. Some of these Habsburg troops were temporarily deployed at the fortress forefield perimeter as rearguard protection until the other units had successfully entered the fortress.
The fortress sortie operation initially surprised the Russians, particularly when the envelopment maneuver toward Medyka proved successful. This hurled forward Russian security positions rearward and overwhelmed tsarist soldiers immediately before the attacking garrison troops. Defensive District VI artillery and mobile 9-centimeter field cannon batteries supported the Habsburg troops. Habsburg guns could not neutralize Russian artillery fire, as they could not locate their positions. This resulted in numerous Habsburg casualties. Russian reinforcements then arrived on the battlefield, supported by intensifying artillery fire support. Effective fortress artillery fire in this instance caused multiple Russian casualties but could not turn the tide of battle. The southern flank forces’ advance also soon halted. Landsturm Infantry Regiment 18 launched a counterattack, but Russian artillery fire quickly halted any forward progress. Two enemy battalions and two or three machine gun squads then smashed into them. When darkness fell, the unit retreated.
The attacking garrison troops lost only about a hundred soldiers, but Russian forward positions had been temporarily captured, with the enemy defenders sustaining serious losses, mainly resulting from fortress artillery fire barrages against the high terrain at Medyka. The four-hour operation caused an estimated 10 percent Russian casualty rate, or thirty-two hundred fatalities, at the fortress’s Defensive District VI forward area (Siedliska group).
The Russians then realigned their units and shifted their main attack focus to the Siedliska northern perimeter area. General Kusmanek, anticipating a powerful enemy attack there, had extended the forefield positions in that area, an extremely fortunate action, although initially he could not be certain where the Russians would concentrate their assault. Colonel Hans Schwalb, commander of the fortress’s Genie (engineering) Department, claimed that during this first September siege of the fortress, the Russians had exact orientation about events in Fortress Przemyśl and appeared familiar with the most favorable directions from which to attack the fortress, specifically Defensive District VI. There, the fortress positions jutted outward from the fortress perimeter, which the enemy could easily encircle utilizing the favorable terrain to approach the citadel. In addition, tsarist forces had the advantage of being able to transport siege equipment on the railroad line to Mosciska, close to the fortress.
Initially, it appeared that the Russians might launch their major assault against Defensive District VIII because of the favorable forested terrain that extended almost to the fortress ring area; thus they could easily launch a surprise attack against the defending troops. General Kusmanek correctly assumed that the enemy targeted the Defensive District VI ring position, but the Russians also hurled troops against Defensive District VIII because of its forward positions at Tarnawce–Pod Mazurami–Helicha. Defensive District VI troops retreated over three kilometers to the fortress ring because of the enemy threat. The Russians also continued to move large troop entities to the west, particularly after they had seized the Habsburg Jaroslau and Sieniava bridgeheads.
Honvéd Infantry Regiment 7 participated in four separate firefights before being transferred to the southwest fortress front on September 26 to participate in the sortie launched toward the heights of Szybenica. According to existing evidence, the Honvéd Infantry Regiment again launched an attack from the heights of Na Gorach toward the area of Dusowce-Sosnica, as a day earlier an artillery reconnaissance patrol had encountered strong enemy fire. Just before noon, the regiment received orders to retreat from the heights of Na Gorach because the two enemy regiments threatened the Honvéd’s left flank position. The ensuing regiment retreat transpired under heavy enemy artillery and infantry fire, but the troops suffered few casualties. A fortress infantry battalion was also deployed toward Mackovice as large tsarist units advanced from the Rokietnica area over the next few days.
The Russian Third Army had now completely encircled the fortress without encountering serious Habsburg resistance. Simultaneously, the tsarist Fifth and Eighth Armies established their positions for the siege of the citadel from the north and south fortress perimeter.90 Meanwhile, General Ivanov, commander of the tsarist front, continued to move his troops west of the San River and to the eastern Vistula River bank to protect the main river crossing locations. On the German front, Stavka (the Russian high command) accelerated preparations to launch a major invasion into Germany. A slow, three-week redeployment of thirty infantry divisions commenced for the campaign. The time lapse provided the Central Powers with time to institute their own military endeavors.
However, on September 25, German troops had to retreat to their frontier. This produced a dilemma for the Russian strategists: they could not attempt to seize Fortress Kraków until they had conquered Fortress Przemyśl, which Habsburg troops would liberate on October 9, 1914.
The Third and Second Habsburg Armies reached their march goals on September 26, just as the German Ninth Army arrived north of Fortress Kraków and northeast of Czenstochau. The Habsburg First Army provided liaison and deployed beside the German army for the operation launched on September 28.91
On September 28, in the midst of all the military activity, Fortress Przemyśl civilian complaints about the absence of mail continued. One woman’s diary entry also deplored the fact that hopelessly wounded soldiers had filled all the available hospital rooms. Then, on September 30, she wrote that these wounded had serious trouble communicating with their nurses because many spoke only Polish. Troops who had lost their limbs in battle wondered what occupation they could perform or even obtain once the war ended and they could return home. The writer specifically mentioned one wounded soldier who had a wife and three children, and was expecting a fourth. He worried about informing his wife about his present physical condition.92
Intercepted Russian radio messages revealed that tsarist troops continued to cross the San and Vistula Rivers, but Habsburg air reconnaissance missions could not be launched to verify enemy activity because of the inclement weather conditions.93 On September 29, General Kusmanek learned that considerable tsarist units had advanced along the fortress’s southern perimeter area and responded by launching a sortie consisting of twelve to fourteen 23rd Honvéd Infantry Division battalions to intercept them.
Following the September fortress sortie efforts, advancing tsarist troops proceeded with far greater caution than before. During the last week of September, only tsarist artillery fire disturbed the fortress. Turning to the German front, the Ninth Army soon attempted to encircle the Russian northern flank military positions, while a strong supporting Habsburg First Army was deployed north of the Vistula River to launch the first allied offensive of the war. On September 23, General Conrad had promised to transfer five or six infantry divisions to the northern Vistula River theater from his front. He refused a request to deploy additional troops in that theater because many Russian forces remained ensconced south of the river. Thus, the Habsburg First Army prepared for battle north of the Vistula River in the area of the Dunajec River mouth–Nida River line by September 30. On October 1, four Habsburg armies initiated their own endeavor.94 These maneuvers did not receive a major enemy response, but a tsarist threat loomed from the areas of Fortress Ivangorod and Warsaw. No significant progress had been reported on the Balkan front either.
Generals Conrad, Hindenburg, and Ludendorff believed that Russia could be driven out of the war if they could deploy sufficient troop numbers on the eastern front.95 General Eric von Falkenhayn, however, firmly believed that victory could be obtained only on the western front, thus the eastern front commanders could not anticipate receiving major reinforcements. The western front “Race to the Sea” and the subsequent battle at Ypres were the priority.
By the end of September, Habsburg troops had been pressed into the Carpathian Mountains and behind the Dunajec River following their earlier, serious defeats. The Russians had advanced to within twelve kilometers of Fortress Kraków, and battle soon erupted in that area as well. They also prepared to storm Fortress Przemyśl before relieving Habsburg troops could launch an offensive to liberate it. Early October would witness a renewed Austro-Hungarian offensive that hoped to turn the extreme tsarist left flank positions and liberate the fortress. German troops supported the operation to ensure that their battered ally’s army did not collapse. As September drew to a close, it remained unclear which plan, the allied operation or the tsarist mass attacks to seize Fortress Przemyśl, would prove successful. The events that decided the fate of these operations would unfold during early October.
