The Fortress: The Siege Of Przemsyl And The Making Of Europe's Bloodlands, Watson - C

     "This book tells the story of one fortress-city that was pitched into the calamity and on which, for a few months early in the First World War, the fate of all Eastern and Central Europe rested. The city was called Przemysl." The city, in central Galicia, was a crossroads between east and west, a place where Jews, Polish Roman Catholics, and Greek and Russian Orthodox believers lived. The people of Przemysl who enjoyed the freedoms and prosperity of the Empire were to see their lives and world destroyed by war.

     The chaotic collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's eastern front in August, 1914 sent thousands of soldiers, stragglers, deserters and refugees into the city. The army's better troops marched past the city and the general staff issued an order: "The Fortress Przemysl will, for the moment, stand on its own and is to hold at all costs." The 35 outdated forts spread in an arc on the city's eastern side were manned by second-tier, older troops. Orthodox churchgoers and Ukrainians were evicted, and many were summarily executed over concerns about their loyalty. On September 23rd, the Russians surrounded the 131,000 soldiers in the city. As ancient as the forts were, the Russian artillery was equally outmoded thus necessitating an infantry attack. The Russians made an all-out effort on October 7th that failed to crack a single fort and the following day a Hapsburg relief army was on its way to Przemsyl. The fortress was holding back the Russian advance.

     Although stalled at Pryzemsyl, the Russians occupied eastern Galicia and began a program of returning it to its "primordial Russian roots." They required use of the Russian language, banned Greek Orthodox services and foisted Russian Orthodox practices on the population. They did all they could to erase the Polish and Ukrainian cultures. They turned a particularly vicious eye on the Jews. Cossack cavalrymen began pogroms that sent half of the 40,000 Jews fleeing to Austria. Soon, the Tsar's army authorized a mass deportation of Jews to the east.

     By November, the fortress was once again surrounded and isolated. This time, the Russians would not attack. A long siege and starvation was now the strategy. As the noose tightened, a running joke was that the difference between Troy and Przemsyl was that at Troy, the heroes were in the belly of the horse and at Pryzemsyl, the horses were in the bellies of the heroes. Three ill-conceived, poorly-led and badly-fought relief attempts over the winter caused the Hapsburg armies over half-a-million casualties. By March, 1915, the defenders were sick from lack of food and barely hanging on. On the 22nd, they surrendered and the Russians marched in. 

     The Russian occupation was short-lived as the Germans recaptured the city on June 1. At war's end, the city became part of the new country of Poland. Two decades later, in 1939, the USSR brutally occupied the city. They in turn were followed by the Nazis in 1941. The Soviets returned in 1945 and when the boundaries between Poland and Ukraine were redrawn, the city wound up again in Poland.