The Siege of Przemyśl was the longest siege in Europe during the First World War, and the second-longest in the entire conflict, after the Siege of Medina. The siege was a crushing defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Army by the Russian Army. Przemyśl was a fortress-town and stronghold on the River San in what is now southeastern Poland. The investment of Przemyśl began on 16 September 1914 and was briefly suspended on 11 October, due to an Austro-Hungarian offensive. The siege resumed on 9 November and the Austro-Hungarian garrison surrendered on 22 March 1915, after holding out for a total of 133 days. The siege has been referred to as "Austria-Hungary's Stalingrad".
Background
In August 1914, Russian armies moved against both German East Prussia and one of Austria-Hungary's largest provinces, Galicia, straddling the present-day border between Poland and Ukraine. Its advance into Germany was soon repelled but its Galician campaign was more successful. General Nikolai Ivanov overwhelmed the Austro-Hungarian forces under Conrad von Hötzendorf during the Battle of Galicia, and the whole Austrian front fell back over to the Carpathian Mountains. The fortress at Przemyśl was the only Austrian post that held out and by 28 September, was completely behind Russian lines. The Russians were now in a position to threaten the German industrial region of Silesia, making the defence of Przemyśl of importance to the Germans as well as the Austro-Hungarians.
of new trenches were dug and of barbed wire were used to make seven new lines of defence around the perimeter of the town. Inside the fortress, a military garrison of 127,000, as well as 18,000 civilians, were surrounded by six Russian divisions. Przemyśl reflected the nature of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – orders of the day had to be issued in fifteen languages. Austrians, Poles, Jews and Ruthenians (Ukrainians) were together in the besieged town, that was hit constantly with artillery fire, and as the toll of the dead, sick and wounded rose, and starvation threatened, so did mutual distrust and ethnic tension.
First siege
thumb|Map of Przemysl and surrounding forts
On 24 September, General Radko Dimitriev, commander of the Russian Third Army began the siege of the fortress with six divisions. Dimitriev, after a brief artillery bombardment, ordered a full-scale assault on the fortress. The fortress was defended by 120,000 soldiers, under the command of Hermann Kusmanek von Burgneustädten. For three days the Russians attacked and accomplished nothing at the cost of 40,000 casualties.
During the Battle of the Vistula River, Svetozar Boroevic von Bojna's Third Army advanced towards Przemyśl. On 5 October, Russian assaults continued, under the command of General Scherbakov, including a major one on 7 October. Yet, with Austro-Hungarian forces advancing, the Russian assault was discontinued. On 9 October, a cavalry unit from the Third Army entered the besieged fortress, and the main body on 12 Oct. and the Hungarian war poet Geza Gyoni.
Life in Przemyśl under siege
Diaries and notebooks kept by various people in the town have survived. The diary of Josef Tomann, an Austrian recruited into military service as a junior doctor, reveals the extent of solicitation of prostitution among garrison officers in January of 1915:
"The hospitals have been recruiting teenage girls as nurses. They get 120 crowns a month and free meals ... Their main job is to satisfy the lust of the gentlemen officers and, rather shamefully, of a number of doctors, too … New officers are coming in almost daily with cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and soft chancre ... The poor girls feel so flattered when they get chatted up by these pestilent pigs..." Additionally, he records the starvation amongst the town's population: "Starvation is kicking in. Sunken, pale figures wander like corpses through the streets, their stony faces a picture of utter despair." Pigeon mail was also used to send messages out of the city.
Results
thumb|Captured Austro-Hungarian cannons after the siege
thumb|Statue commemorating the siege of Przemyśl in [[Budapest, Hungary]]
Austro-Hungarian attempts to relieve the fortress ended catastrophically as the poorly supplied and outnumbered imperial forces attempted offensive after offensive through the Carpathian Mountains. Casualties for January to April 1915, in the Carpathians, were officially reported as 800,000, mostly due to weather and disease rather than combat. Russian casualties were nearly as high, but easier to replace, and balanced out more by the surrender of 117,000 Austro-Hungarian troops at the end of the siege. All told, the siege and the attempts to relieve it cost the Austro-Hungarian army over a million casualties and inflicted on it significant damage from which it would never recover.
On March 9, 1915, Russian troops captured 9 Austrian generals in the Przemysl fortress: Infantry General Hermann Kusmanek von Burgneustädten Field Marshal-Lieutenants Karl Weizendorfer, Arpad Tamasha von Fogaras, Wilhelm Nickl and Major Generals Rudolf Zeide, Alfred Weber, George Komm, Arthur Kaltnecker and Friedrich Kloiber. The commandant of the fortress, G. Kusmanek, became the highest-ranking general of the German bloc among those who were captured by the Russians.
The fall of Przemyśl led many to believe that Russia would now launch a major offensive into Hungary. This anticipated offensive never came, but the loss of Przemyśl was a serious blow to Austro-Hungarian morale. A further blow to Austria-Hungary was the fact that Przemyśl was only supposed to be garrisoned by 50,000, yet over 110,000 Austro-Hungarians surrendered with the fortress, a much more significant loss. The Russians held Przemyśl until the summer of 1915 when the Gorlice–Tarnów offensive pushed back the Russian front in Galicia.
Przemyśl stayed in Austro-Hungarian hands until October 1918, at which point Eastern Galicia left the Austro-Hungarian Empire and became part of the newly created independent state of Poland. The Austro-Hungarian army never recovered from its losses in the winter of 1914–1915 and the Habsburgs would rely henceforth on German assistance both in their sector of the Eastern Front and in the Balkans.