By daylight the task seems to have been completed and negotiations for surrender were opened by the Austrians. Our guide, Captain Stubatitch, was the first Russian to enter the town as a negotiator, and through him the meeting of ranking officers was arranged—a meeting that resulted in the unconditional surrender of the fortress. The original terms agreed on between Kusmanek and General Silivanov, the commander of the Russian forces, did not permit the Austrian officers to carry their side arms; but a telegram from the Grand Duke spared them the humiliation of giving up their swords, a delicate courtesy, which it seems to the writer was quite wasted on the supercilious Austrian officers. In the first place there has been no formal entrance of Russian troops, Silivanov himself not yet having inspected his prize. The first Russians to enter came in six military touring cars absolutely without any escort, and went quietly and unostentatiously to the head-quarters of the Austrian commander where the affairs of the town were transferred with as little friction as the changing of the administration of one defeated political party into the hands of its successor. Following the officials, small driblets of troops came in to take over sentry and other military duties, and then came the long lines of Russian transport bringing in supplies for the half-famished garrison. All told, probably there have not been above a few thousand Russian soldiers in Przemysl since its capitulation, and these were greeted warmly by both prisoners and civilians. There has been no friction whatever and everybody seems well satisfied with the end of the siege. The greatest task at first was the relief of the population, both soldiers and civilians. Countess Schouvalov, whom I have mentioned before, came the second day and immediately began feeding the population from the depôt where she organized a kitchen and service of distribution which alone takes care of 3,000 people a day. The Army authorities arranged for the care of the soldiers and much of the civil population as well, and in three days the situation was well in hand and practically all the suffering eliminated.
Feeding Austrian prisoners en route to Lwow.
I have talked with many people in Przemysl, and civilians and prisoners alike speak of the great kindness of the Russians from the ranking officers down to the privates, all of whom have shown every desire to ameliorate the distress. The difficulty of feeding so vast a throng necessitated the immediate evacuation of the prisoners, and an evacuation office was at once organized. Batches of prisoners started toward Lwow at the rate of about ten thousand a day, which is about all the stations along the route can handle conveniently with supplies. The officers are sent out in small blocks by rail once a day, and are, I believe for the most part taken directly to Kiev, where they will remain until the end of the war.
General Kusmanek himself departed the first day in a motor car to the head-quarters of Silivanov and thence with the bulk of his staff to Kiev. Those who have seen him describe him as a youngish man looking not over forty, but in reality fifty-four. A man who saw him the day of the surrender told me that he had accepted the situation very casually, and had seemed neither depressed nor mortified at the turn events had taken. The ranking officer left in Przemysl is General Hubert, formerly Chief of Staff, who is staying on to facilitate the transfer of administrations; the head-quarters is filled with a mixture of officers and orderlies of both armies working together in apparent harmony.
The fall of Przemysl strikes one as being the rarest thing possible in war—namely a defeat, which seems to please all parties interested. The Russians rejoice in a fortress captured, the Austrians at a chance to eat and rest, and the civilians, long since sick of the quarrel, at their city once more being restored to the normal.
General Hubert, Chief of Austrian Staff in Przemysl.
WARSAW IN APRIL, 1915