PRZEMYSL FORTRESS

[bushfighter]

PRZEMYSL FORTRESS
Massive Austro-Hungarian Fortifications in Galicia

“Other Theatre” enthusiasts may be interested in images of forts at Przemysl, Poland that I visited earlier this month.

Przemysl was a communications hub and strategic location in the centre of the former Austro-Hungarian Province of Galicia.

The Austrians started constructing rings of forts around Przemysl in the 1850s.
Initially massive earthworks were constructed with open gun positions, but as artillery technology advanced military architects had to introduce concrete protection for some gun positions.

By August 1914 a large ring fortress had been constructed as shown on the map above.
The Austrians had garrisoned the fortress with around 60,000 men but had not provisioned it to include a similar number of men who withdrew from Eastern Galicia in the early days of the war and entered the fortress.

The defensive artillery was good, but for budgetary reasons not all guns had been provided with concrete emplacements or steel cupolas.

In early October 1914 a Russian army surrounded and attacked the fortress, losing many men in impetuous assaults. The Russians then withdrew in the face of a German-Austrian advance on Warsaw.

But in early November 1914 a Russian siege army besieged Przemysl again and began to successfully starve the garrison into surrender.

On 22 March 1916 the Austrian Fortress Commander, out of rations, ordered the blowing-up of all forts and guns and Przemysl surrendered.

The Russians held the fortress until early June 1916 when German and Austro-Hungarian troops recaptured Przemysl. After that date the fortress did not feature in the war.

Much more historical detail can be obtained from: http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War...Przemysl_00.htm

[bushfighter]

The entrance to Fort I

This Fort was designed by the Swiss engineer Daniel Salis-Soglio.

The gun positions are open.

[bushfighter]

Fort I. An inner yard displaying enemy weapons' effects on the far wall.

Fort I. Latrines.

[bushfighter]

Fort I. East moat.

Ukraine is just to the right of this image, and Polish border guards will suddenly appear to check your identification and reason for visit.

Each Fort had its own complement of infantry who repelled enemy infantry assaults.

Some of the defending infantrymen were positioned in the scarp caponiers (pillboxes built into the walls bordering the moat).

[bushfighter]

A sketch of a typical fort layout.
Note the scarp caponiers.

[irishmen1916]

Hi BF, Where any parts the fortress ever used later, after WW1 and before WW11 ?

Great photo's.

Peter

[bushfighter]

Peter

Yes, in the Polish-Ukrainian war in the 1920s, also the "Molotov Line" included some of the forts.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov_Line and http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/przemysl.html

There was only a very small non-technical guide book in English available in Przemysl, so I'm trying to extract information from German books.

Hopefully more knowledgable Members will contribute information.

I'll post views of another Fort tomorrow.

Harry

[centurion]

The siege was actually more complex with the Russians using it as a strategic trap. I enclose a link to an article I did for Landships on forts in WW1, this includes a short account of the siege.

Forts

[bushfighter]

Fort XI "Dunkowiczki"

Centurion

Thanks for that - it's an interesting and informative article.

How do you distinguish between damage done at Przemysl by heavy artillery and damage done by Austro-Hungarian demolitions?

My thoughts, after walking round a few forts, was that nearly all of the structural damage was done by the demolitions.


The above image is of Fort XI "Dunkowickzi" after it had been re-taken by the Germans and Austrians. Ironically the big craters appear to have been made by German 42 cm mortar rounds during the re-taking.

Although the massive earthworks were obsolete as military architecture by 1914, they were extremely useful in smothering the effects of high-explosive rounds.

I know from personal experience how unpleasant it is to have mortar rounds bursting on your bunker roof, but they do not penetrate a roof built to the correct specification, and Przemsyl roofs were strong.

Harry

[centurion]

From the acounts I have read it was mainly the outlying perimeter forts that were clobbered by the Russian artillery.

Evidence from the Belgian and Italian forts indicate that the big siege howitzers could penetrate an awful lot of steel and/or concrete.

[bob lembke]

Evidence from the Belgian and Italian forts indicate that the big siege howitzers could penetrate an awful lot of steel and/or concrete.

My grand-father was deeply involved in the use of the 30.5 cm mortars (Austrian and German) and the German 42 cm howitzers against the Belgian forts about Antwerp and then later in Russia in 1915. I have letters written by him from the batteries as the guns bombarded the Belgian forts. The 42 cm guns would put a shell up almost vertically (70 degrees) almost 5 miles up, and then the shell (there were a number of models, but there was a special fort-buster, weighed about 2550 lbs., stream-lined, heavy walls, with two explosive charges and fuzes) would come down and on occasion went thru 40 feet of steel, concrete, and earth, before the time fuzes blew. So it really didn't matter where you hid in the fort. A battery would fire a pair of shells every 8 minutes, and it could not have been fun underground watching your watch to anticipate the next pair of shells. At one fort my g-f wrote, paraphrasing: "You really have to hand it to the defenders, standing and taking this pounding!"; what he did not know was that (according to other sources), the Belgian garrison had most sensibly fled the fort out thru the rear entrance two days before.

He described a couple of cases where one of these shells exploded the shell magazine in the fort, with spectacular results.

Bob Lembke

[bushfighter]

Fort XV “Borek”. A rear view of the barracks.
The garrison strength was 90 men and 4 officers.


Fort XV “Borek”

This fort was built between 1897 and 1900. It is now being restored.

The Fort mounted two guns in an open emplacement to provide flanking fire to the north, and two guns in concrete emplacements with overhead protection to fire east. (8 cm Kanone M. 94).

The flanking gun position can be seen left of the barracks.

[bushfighter]

Fort XV “Borek” as it was.

[bushfighter]

Fort XV. The protected battery position today.

[bushfighter]

Fort XV. The north moat.
The reverse caponier was on the outside of the bend – an isolated position to fight from.

[bushfighter]

Fort XV. The Observation Post turret today.

[bushfighter]

Fort XV. A sketch of the flank battery position.

[Greg]

Really fascinating! Was it all easy to visit? Apart from the Ukrainina border that is?

Greg

[bushfighter]

The old Przemysl Fortress Garrison Officers Club, which now houses a Fortress Museum in its cellar.

Greg

Yes - and that motivated me to publicize it for Members (who have the self-discipline to turn the computer off for a few days!)

Get a cheap flight to Cracow (or there's even a bus).

Three to four hours east on the railway, passing through beautiful country at the foot of the Carpathians, to Przemysl - cost ten pounds.

Bed and breakfast in a good hotel in Przemysl is less than twenty five pounds.

Information is available from the Tourist Office (English speakers) in town, and from the Fortress Museum that is very near the Tourist Office.

There are both walking and bicycling trails around the outer ring of forts, but probably hiring a car for two or three days is the best option.

There are local enthusiast groups who can help.

You can phone the Border Guards in advance to advise them off your visit.

There are always members of the younger generation around speaking excellent English if you have language difficulties.

I just came across Przemsyl by chance when looking in a "Poland" guidebook. The visit opened my eyes to what was happening on the Eastern Front and Russia's vast contribution in the early years of The Great War. Perhaps the significance of Germany's deployments eastwards in response to the defeats of its Austro-Hungarian ally is not sufficiently appreciated by Western Front enthusiasts.
On my next trip I'll head to The Great Mazurian Lakes.

Harry

[centurion]

The 42 cm guns would put a shell up almost vertically (70 degrees) almost 5 miles up,

He described a couple of cases where one of these shells exploded the shell magazine in the fort, with spectacular results.

And it would come down with about the same terminal velocity as a WW2 Tallboy bomb and those regularly penetrated the same thickness of reinforced concrete before exploding.

That would be Fort Loncin. The same thing happened to one of the Italian forts. I enclose a link Liege to an article on the Liege forts. It contains a lengthy piece by the Belgian commander - he says that the shells could be heard falling - they made a buzzing noise - which must have added to the tension.

[bushfighter]

Bob

This untitled photograph was in the Przemysl Fortress Museum.

Is it a 42 centimetre mortar (or gun)?

[Greg]

Thanks Bushfighter

It is very tempting- I have always been interested in the Austro Hungarian side of things-and that is really quite cheap-even for a student doing a PhD! Let us know how you get on with the Mazurian Lakes.

Greg

[bob lembke]

Bushfighter;

That is a 30.5 cm mortar. The Austrian ones were very well known, they "advertized" them widely, while the Germans had them, but were very secretive about them (falsely identified them as coastal defense mortars to deceive the enemy), and the 42 cm howitzers, at least as to the details. I assume that that one was Austrian.

The gun in the photo is mounted on a semi-permament concrete pad, but many of the Austrian 30.5 cm guns were mounted on a neat motorized train designed by one Professor Ferdinand Porsche, which could really zip about, and included a mobile crane to assemble and disassemble the gun and remove or mount the components from the motorized carrages. (The rig was called the Moto-Moerser.) They sent two batteries (I believe) to the Western Front in 1914 to help bust up the French and Belgian forts. Later my grand-father's army corps brought at least some of the big German guns to Russian Poland, I have letters describing their use, without much detail, unfortunately.

The first 42 cm howitzer weighed 140 tons, and there was frenzied work to make them lighter and more mobile. They could not zip about like the Moto-Moersern could. They seem to have had a variety of shell designs, and I think that one weighed 3150 lbs! They could bust up and ruin in two days forts that were expected to be able to hold out 3 months or even one year. The 30.5 cm guns were very effective also (the shells were about 1000 lbs) and damage attributed to the 42 cm Dicke Berta (Fat Bertha, for the female owner of Krupp) was actually done by 30.5 cm. mortars. Incidentally, these guns were both called Morser; the Germans called most high-angle guns of 21 cm or larger Morser, while we would probably call them, in English, howitzers or mortars, depending on design. The Germans called the 10.5 cm, the 15 cm, and (supposedly) the 28 cm howitzer-style weapons Haubitzer. The German 76 mm (tubed and spigot models), 17 cm, and 24.5 cm trench mortars were called Minenwerfer; one model of 76 mm trench mortar was called the Priester as it supposedly was designed by a priest. (Anyone know if this was true?) My father's flame regiment made their own model of the spigot 76 mm mortar in their own workshop that only weighed 44 lbs and could be carried on one man's back like a back-pack; another man could carry 12 shells (I think) in a special back-pack.

Bob Lembke

[centurion]

One model of 76 mm trench mortar was called the Priester as it supposedly was designed by a priest. (Anyone know if this was true?)

Designed by an Austrian priest (I have the name somewhere, I'll try and dig it out) and known in the KuK as the Priestwerfer. As for a spigot mortar there was no need to be able to cast a barrel, as a result most were made by a German toy manufacturer. Unless they have some form of spring recoil mechanism (like the WW2 PIAT) spigot mortars tend to have a very heavy base plate which makes them heavy to lug about. I'd be interested to know how the light weight version you mention overcame this problem.

[bob lembke]

Designed by an Austrian priest (I have the name somewhere, I'll try and dig it out) and known in the KuK as the Priestwerfer. As for a spigot mortar there was no need to be able to cast a barrel, as a result most were made by a German toy manufacturer. Unless they have some form of spring recoil mechanism (like the WW2 PIAT) spigot mortars tend to have a very heavy base plate which makes them heavy to lug about. I'd be interested to know how the light weight version you mention overcame this problem.

I have seen a photo of it on a guy's back, and I think that the base "plate" was wood. They were brought along on raids, for, for example, knocking out a MG holding up an attack. So on a given raid the mortar might not be fired at all, or perhaps fired 3 or 6 or 10 times. So it could be risked to have a light base, which would probably crack or start to splinter if failing, not fail catastrophically. They were not designed to put down a barrage of 100 shells in a brief period. With a heavy base the weapon just could not have been taken along at all. The flame troops learned that, if possible, it was better not to have other troops along at all. (The only troops that my father enjoyed "working" with was the Storm Battalion Rohr; he felt that the others were untrustworthy.) They had their own light machine guns when they found that "borrowed" MG men were supposedly not satisfactory. A flame company might have about 32 FW teams, and also perhaps 6 MGs and a couple of light Priesters.

Bob