Page - 244 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

244 Adjusting to a Longer War were characterised by one feature, then it was tenacity. Not least, it was believed that all that was needed was to hold out for a short time and accept the high losses until the Germans arrived. Yet at just this time, this prospect was thrown into doubt, and had in fact become an impossibility. Five German armies had stormed through Belgium and northern France, and between 18 August and 5 September had thrown back the French and British troops to the Marne. French offensives into Alsace and Lorraine had been repelled, and yet the German Western Army lacked the strength to advance through to Paris and to extend further westwards to encircle the French capital. Furthermore, at the end of August, two corps had been withdrawn in order to be used against the Russians in East Prussia. In light of an extremely critical situation, the German 1st and 2nd Armies broke off the battle on the Marne. The overthrow of France had failed, and the German Western Army was forced to retreat. However, it was of no use to look to the German alliance partner and realise with a sense of sad satisfaction that for them much, or indeed everything, had also turned out differently from what had still been planned at the beginning of August 1914. The consequences could be felt not least in Galicia. In Przemyśl, preparations were made for a siege. The fortress on the San had already ceased to be simply a medium-sized Galician town a long time ago, since the majority of the civilian population had been transported out. Now, it was nothing more than a massive arsenal through which the three Austro-Hungarian armies sought to push their path of retreat. And it was raining. The roads softened to mud, the wagons became stuck, and since the poor road condi- tions made it almost impossible to travel around Przemyśl, the supply convoy of the armies was forced to pass through the fortress. The wounded were left behind. Then, on 16 September, the Army High Command ordered that the field armies be withdrawn. Przemyśl was left to defend itself and, as is the standard wording used in orders of this type, was to be ‘held to the very last’. However, it was not thought likely that the fortress would hold out for long. The prognosis of the Imperial and Royal Inspector of Artillery Archduke Leopold Salvator was just two weeks. The commander of the Przemyśl fortress on the San was Major General Hermann Kusmanek von Burgneutstädten. The facilities at his disposal looked highly impressive at first glance : within an area of 28 square kilometres, seven new intermediate bases of the defensive belt, 24 staging posts, 200 new battery positions, 50 kilometres of covered trenches, depots, storage buildings, stables and much more had been built. 1,000 kilo- metres of barbed wire made the fortress more difficult to approach. It had over 1,000 pieces of artillery, of which almost a third were cannons of a model dating from 1861, however, which the Russians referred to as ‘false batteries’, since it was clearly incon- ceivable to them that 50-year-old cannons could still be used. However, there were also more modern as well as state-of-the-art guns. The communication links, which were designed not only for the needs of the fortress garrison but also for the far greater needs