II
Galicia is still under martial law, and one cannot even enter the new Russian province without a permit issued by the General Staff. It is of course even more difficult for one to get into the actual theatre of war. A wire, however, from the Staff of the Generalissimo to the powers that be in Petrograd, made the way to Przemysl possible, and a few days after the fortress had fallen the writer reached Lwow. The Russian-gauged railroad has been pushed south of the old frontier line to the town of Krasne, famous as the centre of the battle-line of Austrian defence in the days when the armies of Russky were pushing on toward Lwow.
Cossack patrol entering Przemysl.
Russian occupation of Przemysl. Governor’s bodyguard entering Government House.
It was originally intended to widen the Austrian tracks to take the Russian rolling stock, so that trains might proceed direct to the capital of Galicia; but it was found that the expense of carrying on operations which meant the widening of every bridge and the strengthening of every culvert and elevated way, to take the heavier equipment, would involve time and expense scarcely less than building a new line complete. The result is that one still changes carriages some distance out of Lwow, a handicap that is trifling for passenger traffic, but involving very real inconvenience and delays in the handling of the vast amount of freight and munitions that go to supply the huge armies in the field in Galicia.
Lwow itself is no longer the dismal place that it was in the early autumn when almost every public building was a hospital, and the station a receiving depot for the thousands of fresh wounded that poured in by train-loads from the positions on the San and from the trenches before Przemysl, which was just then undergoing its first investment. Where stretchers and throngs of wounded formerly filled every available foot of ground in the huge terminus a few months ago, all is now orderly and very much as in the days before the war. The hotels which in October were filled to overflowing with officers and Red Cross nurses, are now comparatively quiet, and the city itself, barring troops going through and prisoners coming from Przemysl, is not far from normal. A few hours after arriving the writer was received by Count Brobinsky, who frankly expressed his delight and relief at the capture of the Galician fortress.
There are of course a large number of Austrians in Galicia, and ever since the Russian occupation in September a pro-German-Austrian propaganda has been kept up here. Every reverse to the Dual Alliance has been minimized as much as possible, and every effort was subtly made by the German-Austrian agents of the enemy to prevent the peasants and that portion of the population here which sympathizes with the Russians, from co-operating in the new régime. They were assured that soon the Austrians would be coming back, and fears of reprisals when the day came have no doubt restrained a large number of Little Russians, Poles and others from openly supporting the efforts of the new government to restore Galicia to its normal state. But with each month it has become increasingly difficult for the Austrian sympathizers to make the public believe that the Russian occupation was only a temporary wave that would shortly recede. Austro-German advances in Bukowina, and the really serious aggressive attempts through the Carpathians no doubt helped to render conditions unsettled. Then came the check of the Austrian advance in Bukowina and the gradual reclaiming by the Russians of the ground lost at the first impetus of the enemy’s offensive. This was followed by the failure of the relieving column to make satisfactory headway toward its objective at Przemysl.
In spite of all these very obvious failures to achieve any definite advantage over the Russians, the spirits of the anti-Russian element were kept buoyed up by the spectacle of the great fortress in Galicia still holding out. “As long as Przemysl stands out there is hope,” seems to have been the general opinion of all who wished ill to the Russians. Thus the fortress, which at the outset might have been abandoned with small loss of prestige to the Austrians, gradually came to have a political as well as military significance of the most far reaching importance. In the general crash after the battle of the Grodek line, the loss of a town which until then had never been heard of in the West, outside of military circles, would have escaped anything more than passing comment. Not until the Russian armies had actually swept past its trenches and masked its forts, did the world at large know that such a place was on the map; even then the greatest interest manifested was in the vexed question as to how its name was pronounced, if indeed it could be done at all, an opinion which was held by not a few people. This place which could have been given up earlier in the war without any important sacrifice was held tenaciously and became one of the vital points of strategy in the whole campaign. An army which turned out to be a huge one, was isolated from the field armies of Austria at a time when she needed every able-bodied man that she could get; and Przemysl, which, as we see now, was doomed from the start, was allowed to assume an importance in the campaign which made its fall not only a severe military loss but a blow to the hopes of the Austrians, both at home and in Galicia. The fall of this fortress has gone further towards shattering any hopes of ultimate victory that have been entertained than anything that has occurred since the war started.
Destroyed by the Austrians before leaving Przemysl.
Principal street in Przemysl.
As Count Brobinsky, who for six months now has been straggling to readjust Galicia to the normal, said, his task has now been enormously simplified, and there is scarcely an element left here that now believes there is any chance of Austria winning back her lost province. The Austrian agents have abandoned hope, and the Russian sympathizers are now openly declaring their loyalty to the new régime. There is, however, a class of bureaucrats left here aggregating, I am informed, nearly 40,000 in number. This class is composed of Poles, Austrians and others who for generations have been holding the best offices at the disposal of the Vienna government. These are of course, almost to a man, out of their lucrative posts, and represent the element that has most vigorously, if quietly, attempted to undermine the activities of the government installed here by Russia. But even these see in the collapse of their great fortress the evaporation of their chief hopes.
As Galicia is still under martial law, all the motor cars have been taken over by the military authorities and so, even armed with passes and permits, we found it all but impossible to reach Przemysl. The best horses here are in the army service, and the few skinny horses attached to the cabs find it difficult even to stagger from the station to the hotel, and it was out of the question to go by carriage the 94 kilometres to Przemysl. But when we told Count Brobinsky of our difficulties, he solved them by promptly placing a huge military touring car at our disposal; he further paved the way for a pleasant trip to the scene of the Russian achievement by giving us a personal letter of introduction to General Atrimanov, the new Russian commandant of the captured fortress.