The first crowds which gathered here yesterday to rejoice over the great news moved with one consent to the Kazan Cathedral, where they sang the national hymn and crossed themselves reverently before the holy, wonder-working picture of Kazan, the Mother of God. In spite of the heaviest snowstorm of the Winter, which made the streets impassable and stopped the tramway cars, the Nevski Prospekt rang all the afternoon and evening with the sound of voices raised in patriotic song.
Przemysl is admitted to be the first spectacular success of the war on the side of the Allies. It is not surprising that the nation is proud and delighted, yet so generous is the Russian mind that there mingle with its triumph admiration and sympathy for the garrison which was compelled to surrender after a long, brave resistance. Popular imagination has been thrilled by the story of the last desperate sortie, which will take a high place in the history of modern war.
When toward the end of the week the hope of relief, which had so long buoyed up the defenders, was with heavy, resolved hearts abandoned, General Kousmanek resolved to try to save at all events some portion of his best troops by sending them to fight a way out. From the ranks, thinned terribly by casualties and also by typhus and other diseases caused through hunger and the unhealthy state of the town, he selected 20,000 men and served out to them five days' reduced rations, which were all he had left. He also supplied them with new boots in order to give them as good a chance as possible to join their comrades in the Carpathians, whose summits could be seen from Przemysl in the shining, warm Spring sunshine.
It was a hopeless enterprise, pitifully futile. It is true that the Austrian armies sent to relieve the city were only a few days' march distant, but even if the 20,000 had cut a way through the investing force they would have found another Russian army between them and their fellow-countrymen. General Kousmanek, before they started, addressed them. In a rousing speech he said:
Soldiers, for nearly half a year, in spite of cold and hunger, you have defended the fortress intrusted to you. The eyes of the world are fixed on you. Millions at home are waiting with painful eagerness to hear the news of your success. The honor of the army and our fatherland requires us to make a superhuman effort. Around us lies the iron ring of the enemy. Burst a way through it and join your comrades who have been fighting so bravely for you and are now so near.
I have given you the last of our supplies of food. I charge you to go forward and sweep the foe aside. After our many gallant and glorious fights we must not fall into the hands of the Russians like sheep; we must and will break through.
In case this appeal to the men's fighting spirit were ineffective threats were also used to the troops, who were warned by their officers that any who returned to the fortress would be treated as cowards and traitors. After the General's speech the men were told to rest for a few hours. At 4 in the morning they paraded and at 5 the battle began. For nine hours the Austrians hurled themselves against the iron ring, until early in the afternoon, when, broken and battered, the remains of the twenty thousand began to straggle back to the town. Exhausted and disheartened, the garrison was incapable of further effort.
In order to prevent useless slaughter General Kousmanek sent officers with a flag of truce to inquire about the terms of surrender. These were arranged very quickly.
In spite of the local value of the victory, and the vastness of the captures of material as well as of men, it must not be thought, as many are inclined to think here, that the Novoe Vremya exaggerates dangerously when it compares the effect likely to be produced with that of the fall of Metz and Port Arthur.
It certainly brings the end of the Austrians' participation in the war more clearly in sight. But the Austrians will fight for some time yet. What it actually does is to free a large Russian force for the operations against Cracow or to assist in the invasion of Hungary.