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Written in Blood
The Battles for Fortress Przemyśl in WWI
Published by: Indiana University Press
408 Pages, 11 b&w illus., 9 maps
- eBook
- 9780253022073
- Published: August 2016
$9.99
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Bloodier than Verdun, the battles for Fortress Przemyśl were pivotal to victory on the Eastern Front during the early years of World War I. Control of the fortress changed hands three times during the fall of 1914. In 1915, the Austro-Hungarian armies launched three major offensives to penetrate the Russian encirclement and relieve the 120,000 trapped in the besieged fortress. Drawing on myriad sources, historian Graydon A. Tunstall tells of the impossible conditions facing the garrison: starvation, "horse-meat" diets, deplorable medical care, prostitution, alcoholism, dismal morale, and a failed breakout attempt. By the time the fortress finally fell to the Russians on March 22, 1915, the Hapsburg Army had sustained 800,000 casualties; the Russians, over a million. The fortress, however, had served its purpose. Tunstall argues that the besieged garrison kept the Russian army from advancing farther and obliterating the already weakening Austro-Hungarian forces at the outset of the War to End All Wars.
List of Maps
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Fortress Przemyśl
2. The Opening Battles, August-September 1914
3. Siege and Liberation, October 1914
4. The Second Siege, November 1914
5. Limanova-Lapanov and Defeat, December 1914
6. The First Two Carpathian Mountain Offensives, January to Mid-March 1915
7. The Third Carpathian Mountain Offensive, Early March 1915
8. Breakout Attempt and Surrender of the Fortress, March 1915
9. Gorlice-Tarnov and After
10. Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Graydon A. Tunstall is Senior Research Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of South Florida and author of Blood in the Snow: The Carpathian Winter War of 1915.
"Written in Blood is a must-have reference to an often neglected Great War front and to the inner workings of the Austro-Hungarian Army. It is rich with well-researched information arising from primary archival documents about siege conditions, military units in the fighting, and conditions endured by soldiers and civilians who shared their hardships. "
~Roads to the Great War
"A valuable and unique contribution to the history of both WWI and European fortress war. This work will be cited long after ones on more glamorous subjects have been relegated to library shelves, and in my professional judgment, Tunstall is the only scholar who could have done it."
~Dennis Showalter, author of Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk