Recapture of Przemyśl

The recapture of Przemyśl closed the first stage of the great Central Powers offensive in Galicia. The fortress on the San, which had capitulated to the Russians on 22 March 1915, found itself on the front line again after the breakthrough at Gorlice. This time it was the Russians who defended it against the German and Austro-Hungarian armies. The Central Powers had no time for a long siege. The German Eleventh Army of General August von Mackensen outflanked the fortress from the north, through Radymno, while two Austro-Hungarian armies attacked from the south and south-east to cut the Russians’ road to Lviv. When heavy mortars had shattered the forts of the northern front, the Russian command ordered Przemyśl to be abandoned. Early in the morning of 3 June 1915 the first German units entered the city, followed a few hours later by Austro-Hungarian ones. Russian rule in Przemyśl had lasted 73 days.

Name and dates

On this page we use the dates 24 May – 3 June 1915, that is, from Mackensen’s attack at Radymno to the entry of Central Powers troops into the fortress. Sources define the limits of this fighting differently. The British chronology of the war, on which our timeline is based, records the “battle of Przemyśl” from 24 May to 11 June, thus including the fighting that continued east of the fortress after its fall. The Austrian official history describes the “battle of Przemyśl” from 24 May to 4 June, and the article in the 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica from 24 May to 6 June. All sources agree, however, in dating the recovery of the fortress to 3 June 1915.

Polish studies, especially those from Przemyśl, often speak of a third siege of Przemyśl, which had begun as early as mid-May, when Central Powers troops approached the forts from the west and south. The ring, however, never closed. To the end the Russians held a corridor leading east, along the road and railway through Medyka to Mościska, and much of the whole battle was fought over this corridor.

Background

After the breakthrough at Gorlice at the beginning of May the Russians retreated across the whole of western Galicia. In mid-May they stood on the line of the San, from its mouth on the Vistula to Przemyśl, and further south-east on the hills between Przemyśl and the Dniester. As early as 16 May Mackensen’s troops took Jarosław and crossed to the eastern bank of the river. For the next week heavy fighting went on for the bridgeheads on the San, in which the Russians counter-attacked but failed to push the enemy back across the river. We describe it as the battle of the San.

The fortress, which the Austrians had blown up before the March capitulation, was no longer as strong as before. The Russians had, however, managed to repair some of the fortifications, rebuild and extend the positions between the forts and put up new wire entanglements in front of them. The garrison used the casemates, most of which had survived the explosions, and some of the old Austrian guns. The commandant was General Sergei Delvig, an artilleryman who had commanded the artillery of the besieging army during the second siege. The Russian command could not make up its mind what to do with the fortress. The commander of the South-Western Front, General Nikolai Ivanov, several times issued an order to evacuate and each time revoked it, because the Stavka wanted to hold Przemyśl for its moral significance. Delvig himself is said to have asked for an end to these swings, because they were undermining the spirit of an already weak garrison.

Direct responsibility for Przemyśl lay with the Eighth Army of General Aleksei Brusilov, to which the corps defending the fortress and its northern approaches were subordinated. North of it, on the San and the Lubaczówka, stood the Third Army, shattered at Gorlice. Its previous commander, General Radko Dimitriev, was replaced in the second half of May by General Leonid Lesh.

The Central Powers’ plan

The German and Austro-Hungarian commands knew that the fortress could not be taken on the march. Heavy artillery had to be brought up, and during their retreat the Russians had destroyed roads, railways and bridges. Meanwhile Przemyśl sat in the flank of the troops that had already crossed the San and prevented them from moving further east. It was therefore decided to cut it off from Lviv. Mackensen’s Eleventh Army was to strike south-east from the bridgehead on the eastern bank of the San, through Radymno, towards the Przemyśl – Mościska road. From the south the Austro-Hungarian Third Army of General Svetozar Boroević and Second Army of General Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli, reinforced by the German Beskiden Corps of General Georg von der Marwitz, were to advance on the same road. Directly under the forts stood, to the west and south, the Austro-Hungarian X Corps of General Hugo Martiny, whose headquarters had been in Przemyśl before the war, and to the north the Bavarian 11th Infantry Division of General Paul von Kneußl.

The battle began on the first day of Italy’s war with Austria-Hungary. On 24 May Boroević left to take command of the army against Italy, and the Third Army was taken over by General Paul Puhallo.

Course

Radymno, 24–26 May. On 24 May at 8 a.m., after a two-hour bombardment which, according to the Austrian official history, may have reminded the Russians of Gorlice, the infantry of the Eleventh Army went into the attack. The XLI Reserve Corps of General Hermann von François and the Austro-Hungarian VI Corps of General Arthur Arz von Straussenburg caught the projecting salient of the Russian positions near Radymno in a pincer, while the German Guard Corps attacked from the north. Around noon the Germans took Radymno. The fleeing Russians, reaching the San, came under fire from the other bank, and hundreds drowned in the river. On 25 May the strongly fortified bridgehead at Zagrody fell. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica the bridge over the San was blown up prematurely and the cut-off Russian soldiers were taken prisoner. Within two days the Central Powers took about 21,000 prisoners, 39 guns and several dozen machine guns. On 26 May Mackensen’s wedge advanced still further, to Nienowice and Chotyniec, and Przemyśl was cut off from the north.

Sieniawa, 27 May. The Russians responded with a counter-attack on Mackensen’s northern wing. In the night of 26–27 May the III Caucasian Corps struck the bridgehead at Sieniawa, held by the Austro-Hungarian 10th Infantry Division. Infantry Regiment No. 36, made up largely of Czechs, collapsed almost without a fight and dragged neighbouring units with it. The Austrians had to withdraw behind the San and the Lubaczówka. According to their official history they lost more than 9,000 men, many of them taken prisoner, and nine heavy guns. A few days later Regiment No. 36 was disbanded by order of the Emperor. The Russians, however, did not exploit their success and halted on the San, and their further attacks on the Lubaczówka were repulsed by the German X Corps.

Between Przemyśl and Mościska, 24 May – 3 June. South of the fortress the fighting went much worse. On 24 May at 4 a.m. the Beskiden Corps went into the assault, and four hours later the left wing of the Second Army. Here the Russians defended positions reinforced with concrete, in places up to seven lines of trenches deep, with a key point on the Gaj hill near Pnikut. The Austrians lacked heavy artillery and ammunition, and their divisions had been bled white. One of them had barely 1,900 rifles instead of 5,200. The attack stalled before the wire and turned into laborious sapping towards the Russian lines. By 3 June the Beskiden Corps and the Second Army had taken only a few hills near Husaków.

The peak of Mackensen’s attack, 27–28 May. Mackensen now sent the XLI Reserve Corps straight at the road from Medyka to Mościska. On 27 May the Germans took Stubno, and on 28 May Sośnica, reaching the area of Nakło. From here heavy guns could already shell the road near Medyka, the fortress’s last supply route. Mackensen went no further. His troops formed a narrow wedge with a long, exposed flank, and reconnaissance reported new Russian corps detraining near Gródek, Lubaczów and Zaklików. The Russians also sent Brusilov more divisions and the V Caucasian Corps. The Russian Stavka forbade the abandonment of Przemyśl until the Eighth Army had exhausted every possibility.

The assault on the forts, 30 May – 2 June. On the evening of 30 May the Austro-Hungarian 24th Infantry Division, with Regiments No. 45 and No. 9, stormed a fort near Prałkowce on the south-western front and took about 300 prisoners. From dawn on 31 May the Russians smothered the fort with artillery fire and counter-attacked, and after a few hours its captors had to withdraw. The attack did, however, draw part of the Russian artillery to the south-west. On the northern front of the fortress the Bavarian 11th Division and the German 82nd Reserve Division, after careful preparation, attacked the forts between the villages of Orzechowce, Duńkowiczki and Żurawica. They were shelled by German 42 cm mortars, known as Big Berthas, and Austro-Hungarian 30.5 cm mortars. According to the Austrian official history, on the evening of 31 May the garrisons of three forts and the intermediate works could not withstand the fire and withdrew behind the ring road. In the night before 1 June the 82nd Reserve Division occupied Fort XIII; at noon on 2 June the Bavarians took Fort X at Orzechowce, and in the evening further works, including Fort XII near Żurawica. The Austro-Hungarian 4th Cavalry Division occupied the forts on the right bank of the San. Polish studies distribute these gains among the individual days somewhat differently, but agree that by 2 June almost the whole northern front of the fortress had fallen.

At the same time Ivanov made a last attempt to save the situation. In the night before 1 June the Russians went over to the attack along the whole front of the German Eleventh Army and the Austro-Hungarian Fourth Army, from the Lubaczówka to Rudnik. At Rudnik they crossed the San and pushed the Austrians back a few kilometres, but against Mackensen they achieved nothing, and by 4 June their attacks had petered out.

The fall of the fortress, 3 June. On 2 June Brusilov finally decided to abandon Przemyśl. During the night the Russian units withdrew to a new line east of the city, through Medyka, and blew up the bridges over the San. On 3 June between 3 and 4 a.m. the first soldiers of Kneußl’s division entered the city from the direction of Zasanie (PL). According to the Austrian official history this was a battalion of a Prussian Guard regiment attached to it; Polish studies speak of Bavarians. They soon met Austro-Hungarian cavalry. From the south-west the divisions of X Corps marched into the fortress. The San was crossed only at around 11, over a makeshift bridge built by the city engineer from abandoned Russian equipment. When General Martiny arrived in the city, a Corpus Christi procession was just coming out of the church. In the afternoon Mackensen appeared in Przemyśl and in a telegram laid the recovered fortress at the feet of Emperor Franz Joseph. A few days later the commander-in-chief of the Austro-Hungarian army, Archduke Friedrich, came here.

Significance

The recapture of Przemyśl was a great propaganda success for the Central Powers and another triumph for Mackensen. For Austria-Hungary the return of the fortress, whose fall in March had been the monarchy’s most painful defeat, was of enormous moral significance. In Vienna and at headquarters in Teschen, however, it was received with bitterness that the Germans, and not Austro-Hungarian soldiers, had been the first to enter the city. For Russia the loss of Przemyśl, whose capture had been celebrated barely two and a half months earlier, was a blow to its prestige and a portent of the loss of all Galicia.

From a military point of view the battle removed the last obstacle on the road to Lviv. The Russians lost the line of the San, and their counter-attacks at Sieniawa and Rudnik only delayed defeat. Immediately after the fall of the fortress Erich von Falkenhayn and Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf decided not to halt on the San and the Dniester, despite the outbreak of war with Italy, but to strike further. Mackensen received new German divisions and advanced on Lviv, which the Central Powers recovered on 22 June 1915.

The fortress itself never regained its military importance. Its forts, destroyed in March by the Austrians and in June by German and Austrian mortars, were not rebuilt. For several years Przemyśl became the rear area of a front that had moved far to the east.