PRZEMYSL FORTRESS

[bushfighter]

Shirley

Thank you. The Cemeteries and Memorial are side by side in Przemysl on Zniesienie Hill (itself part of the inner ring of defences).

As I stood looking at each of them I felt as though I was visualising some aspects of the varying characteristics of each nation appearing out of the vast forests of Eastern Europe, where so many men died, often in the snow.

Harry

[4thGordons]

Thank you for posting these pictures and descriptions, very interesting indeed.

There are 30 pages of diary accounts of the Siege of Przemsyl in Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis, 2003. "A War in Words" Simon and Schuster ISBN 0-7432-4831-7

(this was also published in the US as "Intimate Voices from the First World War")

Some of the accounts are from a Hungarian doctor (with a dark sense of humour) with the garrison, and some from a relatively weathly Polish woman resident.

Regarding one of the pictures posted above:

The Drs diary entry for 15th January 1915:

What is the difference between the heroes of Troy and those of Przemsyl? The Trojans were in the belly of a horse while we have horse in out bellies.

[bushfighter]

For those Members who wish to follow up Bob's interesting comments above, Barbara Tuchman's book "The Guns of August" contains good details in Chapter 11 of the German development of their 42 cm Krupps mortar and of their use of loaned Austrian Skoda 30.5 cm mortars against the Liege Forts.