Posted on 12/06/2019 10:29:04 AM PST by C19fan
By the first week of March 1915, food supplies inside the besieged fortress of Przemyśl were almost exhausted. Most of the horses that could be spared had been eaten. Bran, sawdust and bone meal were used to eke out the dwindling stock of flour. Cats were nowhere to be seen – they too had been eaten. A middle-sized dog fetched 20 crowns, if its owner could be persuaded to part with it. Even mice were being traded. The hospital was filled to overflowing with collapsing people. As one of the doctors tending them observed, the most shocking thing about the starving was their indifference to their fate. “They silently and without complaint accept a cold place in the hospital, drink the slop which passes here for tea; the next day, they are moved to the morgue.”
One of the marvels of Alexander Watson’s study of the bitter struggle for the fortress in 1914-1915 is his juxtaposition of magisterial technical analysis with scenes of timeless misery. The concrete and steel gun emplacements with their turrets, the fast-firing field artillery and the little wooden aeroplanes that flew in and out of the tiny fortress airstrip were all new, but the stench, the terror, the darkness, hunger and isolation were as old as the art of siege itself.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
I remember an author was on the John Batchelor show and he talked about this siege. He mentioned the plight of the young women in Przemyśl caught between the deprivations of the siege and the sexual appetites of the soldiers.
I saw a special a LONG time ago called “Chained to a Corpse) about Germany basically carrying them.
As for sexual assault, it seems the only time I don’t recall this being rampant in a war is with American troops in WWII.
I could have just missed it in reading or am being naive.
But it would make senses that rescuers wouldn’t be prone to rape nearly as much as invaders.
Although I guess GIs could have gone to town with Germany’s women if they wanted to.
But what do I know?
Don’t know enough about WWI to comment about the allies
Most people are quite ignorant as to the history of WW1. (Not meant as an insult) WW2 is of course much more recent, much more dramatic, and the US had a much larger role. Yet arguably, WWI was much more influential in shaping the world of today and if you also believe that WWI laid the groundwork for WW2 (It pretty much did) then of course it was more influential.
For those interested, At https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/ Dan Carlin has a magnificent narrative history of WWI. It’s long, like 6 qty 1.5 hours episodes. Free. It’s called Blueprint for Armageddon. It’s superb.
“much more dramatic”
I’m not quite sure about that. In WWI the leaders were just ignorant about modern warfare. They would just send thousands of men across no man’s land to face guaranteed death in the face of machine guns.
That seems pretty dramatic to me.
The city would endure a second seige in the Polish-Ukrainian war that broke out after the disintegration of the Hapsburg monarchy.
The city had a large Jewish community and endured more horrors during WWII.
The pictures from today reflect a pretty, peaceful town.
It’s plenty dramatic, but this was not much different than Gettysburg; in terms of military technique.
In WWI, the world had not seen wars all that differently equipped than they might have been in 1875. The amount of sheer industrial-grade slaughter was upped by an order of magnitude as a result.
The Franco-Prussian war; 1870-1871 France fielded 2 MM men and Prussia 1.5 MM in a war that lasted about 6 months.
The French suffered 140K dead and the Prussians about 45K
There were a dozen or more DAYS in WW1 where one or the other side lost 20-25K men killed.
My Grandfather moved to the US after he went through the Russian Revolution. His first job was being a soldier in WW1.
Thanks for posting this. Don’t know that much about WW1 but would like too.
WWI set in motion an arc of events that ended with the fall of the Soviet Union - since then we are in an arc of the rise of Islamic conflict
America faces an epic choice… in the coming year, and the results will define the country for a generation. Democracy is under attack, as is civility, truth and normal forms of political behaviour. The White House harbours white nationalists, incites fear and prejudice, undermines intelligence agencies, courts foreign influence in US elections and undermines the judiciary.
Lordy. Pravda is alive and well.
That’s from this opinion piece: Speaker Pelosi Declares a Coup Against President Trump, Frank Miele, RCP
Pence to follow shortly ...
or Speaker Pelosi Announces Step Two in Her Quest For the WH.
“Forward” he cried from the rear
And the front rank died
And the general sat and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side
No army in the history of Europe exceeded Russian depravity.
Allies, neutrals, opponents; doesn’t matter; the Russian Army rapes the women.
I would argue that this arc of events did not end with the fall of the USSR and is not ended today...when you consider that the Mideast was arbitrarily carved up into the nations we know today after the collapse of the Ottoman empire post WW1, and including the Balfour declaration 1917, laying the foundation for the creation of Israel.
Hey, nice, longer topic titles are available. Previously the limit was 100 characters. Thanks C19fan, interesting topic.
I do think the "fettered to a corpse" criticism has always been mistaken; the Austria-Hungary siege mortar reduced the greatest fortifications in Europe more quickly than anyone had thought was possible. The geography of Europe in the east, the steppes, had always provided the invasion/migration route, and was more vulnerable, so the Central Powers devoted more of their resources there.
Here are the other really long titles that have appeared in the past 24 hours or so.
Sorry for the late reply.
I will again heartily recommend that podcast series I posted below. Search for “hardcore history”. By Dan Carlin. He has a six-part narrative that gives a very rich flavor to World War 1 history. Its pretty long, but you can listen in bites. I wish I could speed up the narrative to 1.25, but you can’t. The series is called blueprint for Armageddon.
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