Page - 248 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

248 Adjusting to a Longer War had grown to around 130,000 men, while at the same time, the amount of fort and siege artillery was greater, and in some cases of far better quality. Brusilov attempted a bluff and demanded of Kusmanek that he surrender the for- tress. Kusmanek’s response to the Russian parliamentarian consisted of just a few lines, in which he wrote : ‘I find it beneath my dignity to furnish your shameful impertinence with a meritorious answer.’ Then, the bombardment was intensified. The Russian infan- try slowly advanced towards the fortress. Since the Russians had no chance of success with just their artillery, sappers were ordered to detonate the fortifications in order to create a path to penetrate the inner fortress area. While this tactic may have worked for castles and medieval town fortifications, in Przemyśl it had no effect. And now it was the turn of the Central Powers. Once again, around half a million Austro-Hungarian soldiers began to move. Three weeks’ respite from battle had been sufficient to replenish the formations. The fresh supplies of men were relatively easy to integrate. At home, in the garrison areas of the regiments, the organisation of replacements had swung into full operation. ‘March battalions’ and ‘march squadrons’ were put together from the soldiers and replacement reservists who had not yet marched out. Each replacement troop body could allow two march formations to depart for the front relatively quickly. This made it possible to replenish the troop bodies to the full. The only problems arose with the cavalry, not because there were too few replacements available, or because its value had already been justifiably placed in doubt, but because there was a lack of horses. They were needed for the most part for harness work, for transporting the artillery, pulling the baggage supply convoys, taking away the wounded, and for all the other army transportation needs. However, since the cavalry needed not only ordinary horses, but also well-ridden ones  – real cavalry horses, in fact  – its needs could not be met. Despite these difficulties, the overall strength on the Russian front before the start of the autumn offensive was respectable : 477,000 ‘fire guns’, as they were still called at that time, 26,800 riders, 1,578 pieces of artillery, including the 30.5 cm mortars, which were used for the first time on the north-eastern front, and which were the most famous Austro-Hungarian pieces of artillery to be used in the First World War. During this phase, as had already been the case during the summer battle, the Aus- trian wiretapping service proved its worth. Since August, the Austrians had been able to read the Russian commands. The language officer assigned to the Army High Com- mand, Lieutenant Victor Marchesetti, with the help of the only mobile radio station owned by the Imperial and Royal Army, which had been donated by a millionaire, succeeded in intercepting so many Russian radio messages that the Austrians were in- formed about the intentions of the enemy just shortly afterwards.595 And even though the Russians changed their encryption several times, the Austrian cryptographers usu- ally only needed a few days to unscramble the Russian codes once again. At the end of