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Show POOR LEADERS IN AUSTRIAN ARMY Bj STAMjEW WASHBURN Przemysl. April 2, Przeniysl is the story of an Impregnable fortress two or three turns over-garrisoned, with tatieii haggard jotdiere starving In the trendies and sleek faultlessly dressed officers living otl the fat oil the land in fashionable hotels and! restaurants The captured airisonl consisted on the present count of 131.000 men and riearlj -iiimi officers ' The civil population, normally 60,000, was probably reduced to about (0,000 It Is estimated thai fully 20,000 1 Vtert IbSl through casualties, sickness, and missing Thus the siege started! with a total population within the lint a of investment of approximaleh 200,000 Greatly Overcjarrisoned. BxpertS estimate that the fortress I COUld have been held with 50,000 or. 80,000 men against any forces the' Russians could have brought against It The city lies In a valley encircled by hills. The nearest r,l the outer I forts to the town is more than five I miles away, thus preventing the pos- sibllity of any shells ever falling within the city. The result Is that the line of outer forts which has been held until the last. Is probably aboii' twenty-five miles in circumference. circum-ference. I i . :. omes perfectly obvious men. that through gross im-ompetency the plethora of troops shut up here was trebling the mouths to feed and adding add-ing nothing to the strength of the position. It is probable that such supplies as were available were not economically expended, with the result re-sult that when the pinch came the situation was at once acute and the suffering of all classes, save the officers, of-ficers, became general. Dogs. Five Dollars. FiUSt the .cavalry and transport horses were consumed and then everything ev-erything available Cats were sold at $2 each. Fair-sized dogs brought $3 While the garrison became thin and half starved, the mode of life of the officers in town remained unchanged. un-changed. The cafe Sieber was con stantly well filled with dilettante officers, of-ficers, who gossiped, played cards and billiurds and led the life to which' they were accustomed in Vienna. Apparently Ap-parently very few among them shared any of the hardships of their men or made any effort to relieve their condition In the Hotel Royal, until the last, the officers had their three meals a day, with fresh meat, cigars, cigarettes, ciga-rettes, wines, and every luxury, w hile, as a witness informed me, their own orderlies and servants begged tor a slice of bread. Thfre can be no question that the ultimate surrender was due to the fact that the garrison was on the verge of starvation, while the officers offi-cers diet was merely threatened with i urtailment. Witnesses state that private soldiers were seen to fall in the streets from lack of nourishment. Devour Raw Meat The officers are reported to have retained their private thoroughbred horses until the day before the surrender, sur-render, w hen 200U of them were killed to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Russians. A Russian officer of high rank has informed me that when he entered the town hundreds of bodies of beautiful thoroughbred thor-oughbred hovses were seen. with half-crazed Austrian and Hungarian soldiers tearing into the bodies, with their faces and hands smeared with red blood as they devoured the raw flesh. The officer stated that even hi8 Cossack orderly wept when he beheld the horrid spectacle of half-Famlshed half-Famlshed mn gorging themselves on taw meat When it became utterly impossible to hold out longer, the Austrlans be gan destroying the three bridges over the San two passenger bridge's and one railway bridge, which were blown up with enormous charges of dynamite. dyna-mite. The explosions broke all the windows in that part of the town A small military railway which had been built from the magazine to the rivers brink and the munitions and other military stores were dumped into the river, while in the forts the guns were demolished ami even the ilfles were rendered useless by bending bend-ing their stocks. The Austrian commander, denerai Kusmauek, then ordered the destruction destruc-tion of the railway over the Wyrwa river, just outside the town to the cast. It is reported that his own engineers en-gineers advised against this action, as the destruction of this bridge would prevent the Russians from bringing supplies from Lemberg by rail. As the destruction of the bridges west of the town had cut communications communi-cations on the other side of the San. nc military whatever attached to the Wyrwa bridge. It was however, destroyed, witn the result that all rood supplies were delayed for hours in reaching the famished garrison. Unconditional Surrender. When the destruction was com-i com-i eted the Austrlans asked or parle mentares. Three were sent, but Captain Cap-tain Subatititich entered the town alone. He proceeded to the headquarters headquar-ters of General Kusmane.k who sent several officers of high rank to dis enss and finally accept the terms of capitulation, which amounted to un-1 conditional surrender. The Russians showed great delicacy Ol feeling and up to the present there has been no formal entry of Przemvsl. Even General Selivanoy, commander I of the victorious army, has not yet 1 entered the fortress |
