The Fortress
The Siege of Przemysl and the Making of Europe's Bloodlands
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- ¥3,000
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A prizewinning historian tells the dramatic story of the siege that changed the course of the First World War
In September 1914, just a month into World War I, the Russian army laid siege to the fortress city of Przemysl, the Hapsburg Empire's most important bulwark against invasion. For six months, against storm and starvation, the ragtag garrison bitterly resisted, denying the Russians a quick victory. Only in March 1915 did the city fall, bringing occupation, persecution, and brutal ethnic cleansing.
In The Fortress, historian Alexander Watson tells the story of the battle for Przemysl, showing how it marked the dawn of total war in Europe and how it laid the roots of the bloody century that followed. Vividly told, with close attention to the unfolding of combat in the forts and trenches and to the experiences of civilians trapped in the city, The Fortress offers an unprecedentedly intimate perspective on the eastern front's horror and human tragedy.
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In this well-researched chronicle, Watson (Ring of Steel), a history professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, contends that the September 1914 March 1915 siege of Przemysl, a "fortress city" in the Habsburg Empire province of Galicia (now Poland), altered the course of WWI. By holding out against the Russian imperial army for six months, Watson writes, the garrison's 130,000 ethnically diverse and mainly middle-aged defenders allowed the Habsburg army to regroup after a series of early defeats, preventing a swift conclusion to the war. But Przemysl's eventual capitulation, after some 800,000 soldiers had been lost in efforts to relieve the besieged city, "inflicted a hammer blow to the prestige of the Habsburg Empire" and "embolden neutral powers to join its enemies." Watson blames Habsburg army general staff chief Franz Conrad von H tzendorf for failing to modernize Przemysl's defenses to withstand advances in ordnance technology, and for leaving the Galician frontier "frighteningly exposed to Russian attack." Once the siege begins, Watson renders Russian and Austro-Hungarian military maneuvers in rich detail, and draws on firsthand accounts to document the terror and suffering of Przemysl's civilians and soldiers. Military history enthusiasts will relish this detailed retelling of the WWI battle.
