Relief of Przemyśl

On 9 October 1914, according to a British chronology of the war, relief reached the besieged fortress of Przemyśl. That day the first patrol of Austro-Hungarian cavalry from the Third Army of General Svetozar Boroević reached the western edge of the fortifications, while the Russian troops were pulling back from the forts. The end of the siege was, however, spread over several days. Polish accounts usually give 10 October, when the Russians withdrew along the whole line, and some English-language ones 11 October. The main relief forces entered Przemyśl on 11–12 October.

The Russians withdraw

The Russian Third Army of General Radko Dimitriev had still been storming the fortress on 5–8 October and had suffered heavy losses. By then the Austro-Hungarian armies, which at the beginning of the month had launched a counter-offensive in Galicia, were already approaching from the west. General Aleksei Brusilov, who was then directing a group of Russian armies in Galicia, later recalled that another five or six days were needed to take the forts, while the approaching enemy was four days’ march away. That was why he broke off the assault.

The Russians did not accept battle in front of the fortress. North of Przemyśl Dimitriev’s troops withdrew to the east bank of the San and destroyed the bridges behind them. Some of them still held on to the west bank at Jarosław, which the Austrians recovered on 11–12 October. South of the fortress Brusilov’s Eighth Army occupied prepared positions on the hills stretching as far as Stary Sambor. The siege was over, but the right wing of Brusilov’s army stood almost under the forts themselves.

Joy in the city

The garrison of General Hermann Kusmanek came out of the siege with small losses, according to various figures from about a thousand to just under two thousand killed, wounded and missing. The inhabitants celebrated the end of the siege. On 12 October a solemn procession passed through the city to the quarters of the fortress commandant, and services of thanksgiving were held in the cathedral, the Orthodox church and the synagogue. The defence of Przemyśl became famous throughout the monarchy and was one of the few reasons for pride after the defeats of the first weeks of the war.

A short breather

The relief gave the fortress only a few weeks’ respite. Masses of field troops again passed through Przemyśl, an important railway and road junction, using up part of its stores. To meet the needs of the wounded from the fighting on the San, the number of beds in the city’s hospitals was increased from 8,000 to 12,000. Part of the garrison also went out into the field, among them the Hungarian 23rd Honvéd Infantry Division, which in the second half of October suffered heavy losses in the fighting for Magiera hill, a dozen or so kilometres south-east of the city.

The counter-offensive brought no decision. At the same time the Germans advanced on Warsaw but failed to take it, and on the San Conrad’s armies stalled in front of the Russian positions. At the beginning of November the Austro-Hungarian troops withdrew again. On 4 November the authorities ordered civilians to leave the city, and a few days later the Russians closed the ring around the fortress once more. The second siege lasted until March 1915.