lost numbers by making excessive demands on his remaining
brave divisions which he sacrificed literally to the last man.
Kusmanek had tried to prevent the withdrawal of the Russian divisions by a sortie of the 23rd Honved Inf. Div. with 12 bat- talions and 7 batteries in the direction of Rokietnica. Radko Dimitriev's plan was, while keeping up the bombardment against the whole ring of forts, to make a demonstration on the N. front and direct the main attack on the S. front against the Siedliska group. The Russian infantry had gradually worked its way up to the ring of forts. The number of siege batteries had been successively augmented mainly long-distance lo-cm. field-gun batteries, but also some is-cm. and 2i-cm. batteries.
When the Austro-Hungarian offensive had begun on Oct. 4 there was no more time to be lost. The bombardment was doubled in intensity, and on Oct. 5 a coup de main was attempted by a Russian division against the Siedliska group. But the attack was broken by the fire of the defenders, and the division streamed back to its positions, losing heavily. On the 6th three other divisions met the same fate, when, after a bombardment of the N. and S. fronts had increased to the utmost violence, they attempted to take the Siedliska group by storm. Kusmanek, not to be misled by the Russian demonstrations, had recognized in time the direction in which the main attack would be delivered and had raised the strength of the most exposed section of the defence (Section VI.) from n to 25 battalions and increased its artillery to some 350 guns.
The crisis came on Oct. 7. The 76th Inf. Regt. of the Russian igth Inf. Div. had on the previous night crept up unnoticed to Fort I. and the infantry lines adjoining it. At dawn one bat- talion of the regiment succeeded in entering the fort. After a furious battle, heroically led by the commandant, Lt.-Col. Svrljuga, the 149 survivors of the Russians who had forced an entry laid down their arms. The courageous garrison had with- drawn to the interior of the fort, defending it section by section, and all attempts to smoke them out and kill them failed. The neighbouring flanking batteries at Hurko were able to prevent Russian reinforcements from coming in. While this attack was in progress the 6gth Reserve Div. on the Grodek Road, the 6oth and I3th in front of Jaksmanici, and the 3rd Rifle Bde. on the S. front had lost heavily by unsuccessful assaults.
In the night of the 7th to the 8th the Russians renewed their furious attacks but without penetrating at any point. A general attack, which was to have followed on the next day, did not take place; and only the Siedliska group was again the object of assaults by Radko Dimitriev's decimated divisions, both morn- ing and evening. This last desperate effort also failed completely, and bled the Russians so severely as to put a complete stop to their attacks from that time onward. After more than 7 2 hours of embittered fighting a gradual detente set in, none too soon for the overstrained nerves and spirits of the defenders.
On the gth the first effects of the approaching relief were felt. In the course of the night the Russian cavalry divisions on the W. front had withdrawn, and during the day the investing ring began to be opened by the troops on the N. and S. fronts, while those on the S.E. and E. fronts gradually retired to their posi- tions in the line of investment. With the entry into the fortress of the first Austro-Hungarian cavalry patrol on the evening of the gth and of infantry detachments on the nth, the relief of Przemysl was accomplished.
Of the Austro-Hungarian armies the III., under Boroevic', advanced direct on Przemysl. Three corps of this army forced a battle upon portions of the siege army N. of Przemysl, and, on the nth, beat them back across the river, now greatly swollen by a downpour of many days, with enormous losses. The Rus- sians thereupon entrenched themselves on the E. bank of the river. The Russian VIII. Army now established itself on the heights S.E. of Przemysl up to the Chyrow-Sanok area. The III. Army, at a good distance, faced the E. front of Przemysl.
Radko Dimitriev had imagined that he could subdue Przemysl in a very short time. But all these enormous sacrifices proved vain. During a siege of barely three weeks he had lost nearly
K,ooo dead and wounded without having any results to show,
for the works of the fortress had suffered very little, and the Austro-Hungarian losses were quite small. ,On the other side the brave conduct of the Austro-Hungarian defenders had saved a powerful fortress which, in the forthcoming battles on the San, afforded a good basis as a point d'appui for the field armies and was able to come to their aid when their supplies failed.
Period Between the First and Second Sieges. When the Austro- Hungarian armies on the San and S. of the fortress as far as Chyrow advanced to attack along the whole front, the hope of an interval for reconstruction, which the fortress so urgently needed, was by no means realized. On the contrary, lying as it did in the centre of the battle front, it was obliged to take a most active part in the battle now developing, lending garrison troops to the field armies on the one hand and helping generously with the provisioning and supplies on the other.
Very soon after the relief the 23rd Honved Inf. Div. was with- drawn to reinforce the III. Army. It played a successful part in the hardest battles, especially distinguishing itself in the storm- ing of the strong Magiera height.
Altogether there were taken from the garrison, which also made repeated sorties onto the foreground of the E. front, 22 battalions and 27 batteries. Further assistance was given by the artillery support from the ring of forts.
Even greater tean the active part taken in the battle, and far more lowering in its effect on the garrison, was the support in material given by the fortress to the field armies. During the long rainy period before the relief the lines of communication for the fresh drafts of the armies had become an absolute bog. In addition to this, the Russians in their retreat had systemati- cally destroyed roads, bridges and railways (the railway termini were Rzeszow and Zagorz), to the great detriment of the system supplying the armies. It was only natural that every deficiency that arose in the armies, in so far as it could not be made good by transport from the rear, should be supplied by the fortress, which, in spite of all, possessed considerable reserves of material. The fighting armies, from whose attack far-reaching results were expected at the time, had at all costs to be maintained in good fighting condition until the railways were reconstructed.
As it was confidently expected that the borrowed stores about 21 days' rations had been supplied by the fortress and the munitions and other material could be replaced almost immediately, the fortress came in the end to be considered as, to all intents and purposes, the base of supplies for the armies. Presently the Army Higher Command realized the mistake that had been made in this matter, and not only forbade all further withdrawal of supplies from the fortress but, in the days imme- diately preceding the retreat, ordered the armies in their turn to provide it with supplies. On Oct. 28, too, railway communication was restored by way of Chyrow, after the repair of the bridge at Nizankowice, and masses of supplies began to be hastily poured into the fortress.
Yet another burden was imposed upon the fortress by the bringing into it of the wounded and of prisoners, in addition to the very large number of civilian inhabitants. The wounded, it is true, were evacuated almost at once into the interior, before the second siege, but during the second siege 2,000 prisoners were brought into the fortress, and 18,000 civilians had remained with- in it. So that, taking the average establishment at 128,000 men and 14,500 horses, there were, at the time of the second siege, 148,000 men and 14,500 horses to provide for. By eking out supplies to the utmost, and in the end slaughtering horses, the provisioning of the fortress would last until the second half of March. If the working of the railway coming up thrcugh Chyrow had started one week earlier, no supplies need have left the for- tress, and its stores would undoubtedly have been replenished on such a scale that it could have held out until the spring offensive had come into effect. The starving-out of the fortress, which forced on its commander the heart-breaking decision to capitu- late, and the setting free of the Russian armies investing it would then have been avoided.
Second Siege, Nov. 6 iQi4-March 2 1915. On Nov. 5 the fortress was isolated for the second time, after the field armies
