WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.220 Welcome to today's Deep Dive. I am so glad you 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:06.419 are here with us. We have a really fascinating 00:00:06.419 --> 00:00:09.320 mission today. We are taking a hefty stack of 00:00:09.320 --> 00:00:12.460 primary source notes, historical accounts, and 00:00:12.460 --> 00:00:16.160 deep dive analyses to try and distill a massive 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:20.179 yet honestly entirely overlooked historical event. 00:00:20.339 --> 00:00:22.679 It really is. We're looking at a battle that 00:00:22.679 --> 00:00:25.859 historians have dubbed Austria -Hungary's Stalingrad. 00:00:26.019 --> 00:00:29.980 It is a phenomenal topic to dig into. It is one 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:32.380 of those moments in history where the sheer scale 00:00:32.380 --> 00:00:35.500 of the event almost defies comprehension. When 00:00:35.500 --> 00:00:37.200 we talk about the Eastern Front of the First 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:39.119 World War, the narrative usually gets swallowed 00:00:39.119 --> 00:00:41.960 up by the Western Front's trench warfare, you 00:00:41.960 --> 00:00:43.899 know? Right, exactly. But the scale of what happened 00:00:43.899 --> 00:00:46.600 here was just unprecedented. It was. And our 00:00:46.600 --> 00:00:48.799 hook for you today is the Siege of Presigniel. 00:00:48.969 --> 00:00:50.729 For those studying the Eastern Front, you already 00:00:50.729 --> 00:00:53.130 know this fortress town on the River San was 00:00:53.130 --> 00:00:55.649 the linchpin of the region. This was the longest 00:00:55.649 --> 00:00:57.609 siege in Europe during the entirety of the First 00:00:57.609 --> 00:00:59.969 World War. The longest one. Yeah. And in fact, 00:00:59.969 --> 00:01:02.390 it was the second largest siege in the entire 00:01:02.390 --> 00:01:04.969 global conflict, sitting only behind the siege 00:01:04.969 --> 00:01:10.250 of Medina. So set the scene for us. Where exactly 00:01:10.250 --> 00:01:14.109 are we in the strategic timeline of 1914? Let's 00:01:14.109 --> 00:01:17.040 wind the clock back to August of 1914. The guns 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:19.299 of August have just fired. The war has kicked 00:01:19.299 --> 00:01:21.879 off and the Russian armies are advancing. They 00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:24.340 launched these massive offenses against both 00:01:24.340 --> 00:01:27.340 Germany, East Prussia and Galicia. OK. Now the 00:01:27.340 --> 00:01:29.560 Russian advance into Germany gets famously halted 00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:32.739 at Tannenberg, but their Galician campaign. The 00:01:32.739 --> 00:01:35.719 Russian general Nikolai Ivanov completely overwhelms 00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:38.620 the Austro -Hungarian forces. This forces the 00:01:38.620 --> 00:01:40.920 entire Habsburg front to collapse and fall back, 00:01:40.939 --> 00:01:43.799 over 160 kilometers, retreating all the way back 00:01:43.799 --> 00:01:45.700 to the Carpathian Mountains. So the entire line 00:01:45.700 --> 00:01:47.719 just buckles. Exactly, the whole thing. But there 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:50.219 was one massive fortified exception left behind. 00:01:50.439 --> 00:01:53.879 By September 28th, 1914, the fortress at Kvalkenal 00:01:53.879 --> 00:01:56.620 is the solitary Austro -Hungarian post still 00:01:56.620 --> 00:01:58.840 holding out. It is completely surrounded, stranded 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:00.840 deep behind Russian lines. Which brings us to 00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:02.469 the strategic... stakes for you the listener. 00:02:02.689 --> 00:02:04.810 Why does this specific fortress matter so much 00:02:04.810 --> 00:02:07.939 to both empires? Because Presimil was geographically 00:02:07.939 --> 00:02:10.759 the shield protecting the vital German industrial 00:02:10.759 --> 00:02:14.219 region of Silesia. The industry. Right. If the 00:02:14.219 --> 00:02:16.759 Russians bypass or capture Presimil, they are 00:02:16.759 --> 00:02:19.400 in a prime position to pour through the gap and 00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:21.759 directly threaten the industrial heart of the 00:02:21.759 --> 00:02:25.159 German war machine. That made holding this fortress 00:02:25.159 --> 00:02:28.000 an absolute top priority for the Austro -Hungarians, 00:02:28.039 --> 00:02:31.379 and by extension, their German allies. OK, let's 00:02:31.379 --> 00:02:33.659 unpack this. Because the Russians couldn't just 00:02:33.659 --> 00:02:35.590 bypass it and they couldn't just walk in. And 00:02:35.590 --> 00:02:38.250 when looking through our sources on the engineering 00:02:38.250 --> 00:02:41.250 here, the numbers are almost surreal. They really 00:02:41.250 --> 00:02:43.270 are. The Austro -Hungarians had spent decades 00:02:43.270 --> 00:02:46.069 turning the city into a modern military behemoth. 00:02:46.629 --> 00:02:49.009 We are looking at 50 kilometers of reinforced 00:02:49.009 --> 00:02:51.490 trenches dug into the earth, fortified by heavy 00:02:51.490 --> 00:02:54.129 artillery and concrete readouts. In the barbed 00:02:54.129 --> 00:02:56.610 wire, our notes mention 1 ,000 kilometers of 00:02:56.610 --> 00:03:00.080 barbed wire? Yes. 1 ,000 kilometers, they used 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:03.039 that wire to construct seven distinct massive 00:03:03.039 --> 00:03:05.840 lines of defense, completely circling the perimeter 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:08.800 of the town. The logistics of just manning that 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:11.219 perimeter required a staggering amount of manpower. 00:03:11.300 --> 00:03:14.370 Just to stand on the line. Exactly. Inside this 00:03:14.370 --> 00:03:18.270 ring, you had a military garrison of 127 ,000 00:03:18.270 --> 00:03:21.969 troops alongside 18 ,000 civilians. And sitting 00:03:21.969 --> 00:03:24.449 right outside those seven defense lines, six 00:03:24.449 --> 00:03:27.009 entire Russian divisions waiting for the order 00:03:27.009 --> 00:03:29.310 to move. But the garrison itself wasn't just 00:03:29.310 --> 00:03:32.129 a unified block of soldiers, was it? The internal 00:03:32.129 --> 00:03:35.090 makeup of the fortress seems like a complete 00:03:35.090 --> 00:03:37.479 logistical nightmare. What's fascinating here 00:03:37.479 --> 00:03:40.900 is how the fortress of Presimio perfectly reflected 00:03:40.900 --> 00:03:43.460 the incredibly fractured nature of the Austro 00:03:43.460 --> 00:03:46.120 -Hungarian Empire itself. It was an absolute 00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:48.219 tower of Babel. A tower of Babel. Because the 00:03:48.219 --> 00:03:50.879 Habsburg Empire was so vast and multiethnic, 00:03:51.259 --> 00:03:53.479 the daily military orders in the fortress had 00:03:53.479 --> 00:03:55.860 to be issued in 15 different languages just to 00:03:55.860 --> 00:03:57.939 be understood by the rank and file. 15 languages 00:03:57.939 --> 00:04:00.439 just to issue basic daily orders. That level 00:04:00.439 --> 00:04:02.419 of friction in the chain of command must have 00:04:02.419 --> 00:04:05.569 been paralyzing. paralyzing and highly combustible. 00:04:05.949 --> 00:04:08.590 You had Austrians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews and 00:04:08.590 --> 00:04:11.330 Ruthenians all crammed together. Under normal 00:04:11.330 --> 00:04:13.590 peacetime conditions, the empire struggled to 00:04:13.590 --> 00:04:16.529 manage these ethnic tensions. Now imagine putting 00:04:16.529 --> 00:04:18.290 all of those different language groups carrying 00:04:18.290 --> 00:04:20.949 all their historical grievances into a besieged 00:04:20.949 --> 00:04:23.790 cage while artillery shells rained down on them. 00:04:23.930 --> 00:04:27.230 Which brings us to September 24th, 1914 and the 00:04:27.230 --> 00:04:29.790 start of the first siege. The Russian Third Army 00:04:29.790 --> 00:04:32.420 has the city surrounded. But their commander, 00:04:32.639 --> 00:04:34.959 General Radko Dimitriev, decides he doesn't want 00:04:34.959 --> 00:04:37.480 to wait around for a protracted siege. Dimitriev 00:04:37.480 --> 00:04:40.180 makes a remarkably arrogant and ultimately fatal 00:04:40.180 --> 00:04:42.879 tactical decision. Despite lacking sufficient 00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:45.610 heavy siege artillery, he orders a brief largely 00:04:45.610 --> 00:04:48.649 ineffective bombardment, and then sends his infantry 00:04:48.649 --> 00:04:51.050 in for a full -scale brute -force frontal assault. 00:04:51.470 --> 00:04:53.569 He attacks the fortress commander, Hermann Kuzminik 00:04:53.569 --> 00:04:55.750 von Brüngestätten, head -on. But wait, if he 00:04:55.750 --> 00:04:57.889 doesn't have the heavy artillery to cut the wire 00:04:57.889 --> 00:05:00.810 or smash the concrete readouts, he's just sending 00:05:00.810 --> 00:05:03.250 infantry into a lot thousand kilometers of unbroken 00:05:03.250 --> 00:05:05.329 barbed wire. That seems incredibly reckless, 00:05:05.350 --> 00:05:08.420 even by the standards of 1914. It was reckless, 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:11.300 but it was symptomatic of early World War I military 00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:14.120 doctrine. Many commanders were still trying to 00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:17.139 fight a 19th century war of movement and Elon 00:05:17.139 --> 00:05:19.939 against 20th century industrialized defenses. 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:23.199 Dmitriyev throws his men at those seven lines 00:05:23.199 --> 00:05:26.060 of defense for three consecutive days. Just wave 00:05:26.060 --> 00:05:28.420 after wave. The result is absolute slaughter. 00:05:28.620 --> 00:05:31.480 The Russians accomplish absolutely nothing strategically, 00:05:31.660 --> 00:05:35.980 but the cost is staggering. 40 ,000 Russian casualties 00:05:35.980 --> 00:05:39.379 in just those three days. 40 ,000 casualties 00:05:39.379 --> 00:05:42.360 just to hit a brick wall. But while Dimitri is 00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:44.980 bleeding his army dry against the wire, the Austro 00:05:44.980 --> 00:05:46.819 -Hungarians aren't just sitting idle in the mountains, 00:05:46.939 --> 00:05:49.579 are they? No, the Austro -Hungarian High Command 00:05:49.579 --> 00:05:52.759 recognizes the urgency. A relief force led by 00:05:52.759 --> 00:05:55.800 Svetozar Borovich von Bojna launches a counteroffensive 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:58.600 and advances toward the fortress. With this relief 00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:00.720 force bearing down on their rear, the Russians 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:02.720 are forced to call off the assaults by early 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:05.579 October. They actually retreat. They do. Between 00:06:05.579 --> 00:06:08.199 October 9th and 12th, Borovich's forces actually 00:06:08.199 --> 00:06:10.040 break through the Russian lines and enter the 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:12.220 besieged fortress. I have to imagine that was 00:06:12.220 --> 00:06:15.480 a massive morale boost for the garrison. They 00:06:15.480 --> 00:06:17.360 probably thought the worst was behind them. The 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:19.540 Russian army had been repelled and the siege 00:06:19.540 --> 00:06:22.439 was totally over. Time to go home. It was celebrated 00:06:22.439 --> 00:06:25.720 as a monumental triumph. But the reality was 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:27.899 that the strategic situation across the broader 00:06:27.899 --> 00:06:30.459 eastern front was deteriorating rapidly for the 00:06:30.459 --> 00:06:33.360 central powers. The relief was incredibly short 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:36.439 lived. By the end of October, Paul von Hindenburg's 00:06:36.439 --> 00:06:38.959 German forces suffer reversals at the Battle 00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:41.699 of the Vistula River, forcing the Austro -Hungarian 00:06:41.699 --> 00:06:44.199 armies to retreat westward again to maintain 00:06:44.199 --> 00:06:47.220 the line. Leaving Prisial exposed all over again. 00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:50.079 Exactly. On November 4th, the military command 00:06:50.079 --> 00:06:52.639 orders civilians to leave Prisial if they can, 00:06:52.980 --> 00:06:55.339 recognizing what is about to happen. And just 00:06:55.339 --> 00:06:57.620 a few days later on November 10th, the Russian 00:06:57.620 --> 00:07:00.779 army returns. The trap snaps shut once more and 00:07:00.779 --> 00:07:03.500 the second siege begins. But Dimitri's failure 00:07:03.500 --> 00:07:05.160 totally shifts the Russian playbook, doesn't 00:07:05.160 --> 00:07:08.399 it? Here's where it gets really interesting because 00:07:08.399 --> 00:07:10.500 the Russians bring in a new commander for the 00:07:10.500 --> 00:07:13.360 11th Army General Andrei Solovanov, and he has 00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:15.199 a completely different philosophy on how to take 00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:18.279 this city. Solovanov looks at the 40 ,000 Russian 00:07:18.279 --> 00:07:20.420 bodies left on the wire from the first siege 00:07:20.420 --> 00:07:23.600 and immediately bans any further frontal assaults. 00:07:23.790 --> 00:07:26.529 His strategy is chillingly modern and pragmatic. 00:07:26.949 --> 00:07:29.490 He's going to starve the garrison into submission. 00:07:29.670 --> 00:07:32.529 Just wait them out. He establishes a tight blockade, 00:07:32.750 --> 00:07:35.110 sits his army out of range of the fortress guns 00:07:35.110 --> 00:07:38.009 and waits. By mid -December, as winter sets in, 00:07:38.149 --> 00:07:41.089 he brings up his heavy artillery and starts pounding 00:07:41.089 --> 00:07:43.389 the fortress, continuously letting hunger and 00:07:43.389 --> 00:07:45.569 high explosives do the work that his infantry 00:07:45.569 --> 00:07:48.019 couldn't. It's a terrifying waiting game. But 00:07:48.019 --> 00:07:50.560 while Solovanov is starving the city, the real 00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:52.540 horror of this campaign wasn't just happening 00:07:52.540 --> 00:07:55.000 inside the fortress walls. The sources point 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:57.680 to an absolute catastrophe happening in the mountains 00:07:57.680 --> 00:08:00.079 to the south. You are referring to the Carpathian 00:08:00.079 --> 00:08:03.279 Winter War. While the garrisons slowly starved, 00:08:03.560 --> 00:08:06.000 the Austro -Hungarian Chief of Staff Conrad von 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:08.500 Herzendorf became obsessed with relieving Prismule. 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:12.800 During the brutal winter of 1914 to 1915, he 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:14.540 ordered his armies to fight their way through 00:08:14.540 --> 00:08:16.660 the frozen passes of the Carpathian Mountains. 00:08:17.040 --> 00:08:19.579 But launching a mountain offensive in the dead 00:08:19.579 --> 00:08:22.899 of winter, the logistical requirements for that 00:08:22.899 --> 00:08:24.899 must have been impossible for the Austro -Hungarian 00:08:24.899 --> 00:08:27.879 military at that stage. It was a logistical nightmare 00:08:27.879 --> 00:08:30.019 that bordered on criminal negligence. We are 00:08:30.019 --> 00:08:32.700 talking about poorly supplied, outgunned imperial 00:08:32.700 --> 00:08:36.080 forces, many in summer uniforms, ordered to launch 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:38.940 offensive after offensive into freezing mountain 00:08:38.940 --> 00:08:42.080 passes covered in meters of snow. Train lines 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:45.159 froze, supply lines broke down entirely, and 00:08:45.159 --> 00:08:47.100 men were freezing to death in their sleep. That 00:08:47.100 --> 00:08:50.039 is just bleak. The official casualties reported 00:08:50.039 --> 00:08:52.200 for these relief efforts between January and 00:08:52.200 --> 00:08:56.500 April 1915 were a mind -boggling 800 ,000 men. 00:08:56.840 --> 00:08:59.360 800 ,000 casualties. And most of those weren't 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:01.480 even from Russian bullets, were they? No. The 00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:03.539 vast majority of those losses were from frostbite 00:09:03.539 --> 00:09:06.000 avalanches, exposure and disease. Nature was 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:08.000 a far deadlier enemy than the Russian army in 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:10.279 those mountains. Entire regiments were swallowed 00:09:10.279 --> 00:09:13.519 by the snow. And despite that unimaginable sacrifice, 00:09:13.679 --> 00:09:15.779 the Habsburg forces completely failed to break 00:09:15.779 --> 00:09:17.960 through to the garrison. To really grasp the 00:09:17.960 --> 00:09:20.279 gravity of this deep dive, I think we have to 00:09:20.279 --> 00:09:23.419 zoom back into the fortress itself. While 800 00:09:23.419 --> 00:09:26.019 ,000 men are freezing in the mountains, what 00:09:26.019 --> 00:09:29.080 is the day -to -day reality for the 145 ,000 00:09:29.080 --> 00:09:32.179 people trapped inside the wire? The primary sources 00:09:32.179 --> 00:09:34.960 are invaluable here. The surviving diaries and 00:09:34.960 --> 00:09:37.279 new books give us an unvarnished look at a society 00:09:37.279 --> 00:09:40.159 collapsing under pressure. One of the most striking 00:09:40.159 --> 00:09:42.379 accounts comes from the diary of Joseph Tolman, 00:09:42.620 --> 00:09:45.220 an Austrian who was conscripted as a junior military 00:09:45.220 --> 00:09:48.639 doctor. Tolman's diary is incredibly dark. We 00:09:48.639 --> 00:09:51.360 often have this romanticized noble view of the 00:09:51.360 --> 00:09:53.820 imperial officer class in early World War I, 00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:56.460 but Tolman's account completely shatters that. 00:09:56.539 --> 00:09:59.759 It does. Tolman documented the horrific behavior 00:09:59.759 --> 00:10:02.399 of the Garrison officers as the situation deteriorated. 00:10:02.740 --> 00:10:05.100 He wrote extensively about how the military hospitals 00:10:05.100 --> 00:10:07.279 were recruiting local teenage girls to work as 00:10:07.279 --> 00:10:10.179 nurses. The incentive was 120 crowns a month 00:10:10.179 --> 00:10:13.059 and crucially free daily meals. In a starving 00:10:13.059 --> 00:10:15.620 city, that was an offer families couldn't refuse. 00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:17.899 But Tolman noted they weren't primarily being 00:10:17.899 --> 00:10:20.370 used as nurses at all. He documented that they 00:10:20.370 --> 00:10:22.509 were being exploited to satisfy the officers 00:10:22.509 --> 00:10:25.649 and even the senior medical staff. Correct. Toman's 00:10:25.649 --> 00:10:28.309 diary is filled with disgust. He noted how these 00:10:28.309 --> 00:10:30.289 senior officers were coming into his clinics 00:10:30.289 --> 00:10:32.730 almost daily with horrific venereal diseases 00:10:32.730 --> 00:10:36.519 like syphilis, gonorrhea, soft chonker. He wrote 00:10:36.519 --> 00:10:39.120 with visceral anger about how these young girls 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:41.360 were being manipulated by these pestilent pigs 00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:44.179 in their spotless uniforms. It paints a picture 00:10:44.179 --> 00:10:46.460 of intense moral decay at the top of the command 00:10:46.460 --> 00:10:48.179 structure while the rank -and -file were eating 00:10:48.179 --> 00:10:51.159 their horses to survive. And that moral decay 00:10:51.159 --> 00:10:53.159 wasn't just limited to the military command. 00:10:53.620 --> 00:10:55.940 The societal cracks among the civilians were 00:10:55.940 --> 00:10:59.039 widening rapidly too. We see this clearly in 00:10:59.039 --> 00:11:01.940 the diary of Helena Jablonska, a wealthy Polish 00:11:01.940 --> 00:11:04.720 civilian living in the town. Shabloska's diary 00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:07.259 is a direct window into the extreme class and 00:11:07.259 --> 00:11:09.940 ethnic resentments of the era. As food became 00:11:09.940 --> 00:11:12.559 scarce and inflation skyrocketed, she wrote with 00:11:12.559 --> 00:11:15.299 intense bitterness. Now, as we look at her primary 00:11:15.299 --> 00:11:17.659 source text, we must be objective and note that 00:11:17.659 --> 00:11:19.960 her entries are heavily steeped in the anti -Semitism 00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:22.740 of the time, documenting how the Jewish population 00:11:22.740 --> 00:11:24.820 became the primary scapegoat for the starvation. 00:11:25.240 --> 00:11:27.440 She writes about Jewish women in the basements, 00:11:27.860 --> 00:11:30.539 supposedly ripping people off, and notes that 00:11:30.539 --> 00:11:33.039 as the siege neared its end in March 19... in 00:11:33.039 --> 00:11:36.360 1915, Jewish shop owners were desperately hurrying 00:11:36.360 --> 00:11:38.580 to take their signs down so the invading army 00:11:38.580 --> 00:11:41.159 couldn't tell who owned what. Exactly. It shows 00:11:41.159 --> 00:11:43.759 how starvation accelerates existing societal 00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:46.259 fractures. The civilian population was turning 00:11:46.259 --> 00:11:48.679 on itself. And Jablonska's observation about 00:11:48.679 --> 00:11:50.940 the shop signs was incredibly prescient because 00:11:50.940 --> 00:11:53.600 it sets the stage for a horrific climax. When 00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:55.580 the Imperial Russian Army finally does capture 00:11:55.580 --> 00:11:57.559 the city, the Tsarist soldiers, specifically 00:11:57.559 --> 00:12:00.299 the Cossack units, unleash a violent pogrom against 00:12:00.299 --> 00:12:04.149 the Jewish population. are brutal. Just plain 00:12:04.149 --> 00:12:06.409 brutal. Jablonska recorded that the Cossacks 00:12:06.409 --> 00:12:08.610 intentionally waited until the Jewish population 00:12:08.610 --> 00:12:11.250 set off to the synagogue for their prayers. Once 00:12:11.250 --> 00:12:13.129 they were gathered, the soldiers attacked them 00:12:13.129 --> 00:12:15.549 with whips in the streets. She described the 00:12:15.549 --> 00:12:17.690 lamenting and despair, noting that people tried 00:12:17.690 --> 00:12:19.870 to hide in cellars, but she knew the soldiers 00:12:19.870 --> 00:12:22.690 would hunt them down there too. It's a stark 00:12:22.690 --> 00:12:25.190 reminder that in these grand military sieges, 00:12:25.610 --> 00:12:28.330 the civilian populations, particularly marginalized 00:12:28.330 --> 00:12:31.009 communities, absorb the most catastrophic consequences. 00:12:31.169 --> 00:12:34.279 It is incredibly heavy. But looking through the 00:12:34.279 --> 00:12:36.559 source material, there is a logistical detail 00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:39.220 that stands out as a bizarre contrast to all 00:12:39.220 --> 00:12:41.159 this suffering on the ground. When you have an 00:12:41.159 --> 00:12:43.440 entire city cut off from the world for months, 00:12:43.919 --> 00:12:45.759 how did they communicate with the high command 00:12:45.759 --> 00:12:48.539 in Vienna? The answer involves some of the earliest, 00:12:48.539 --> 00:12:51.360 most ingenious methods of military aviation. 00:12:51.679 --> 00:12:53.519 They used airmail. Think about the primitive 00:12:53.519 --> 00:12:56.600 state of aviation in 1914 and 1915. You have 00:12:56.600 --> 00:12:58.899 these flimsy biplanes flying out of a besieged, 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:01.080 starving city right over the Russian artillery 00:13:01.080 --> 00:13:04.340 lines. Our sources note there were 27 separate 00:13:04.340 --> 00:13:06.740 airmail flights out of Preziul during the sieges. 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:09.690 It was incredibly dangerous work. And it wasn't 00:13:09.690 --> 00:13:12.429 always successful. The records detail one specific 00:13:12.429 --> 00:13:14.649 flight that suffered engine trouble and was forced 00:13:14.649 --> 00:13:17.590 to land behind Russian lines. The Russians captured 00:13:17.590 --> 00:13:20.210 the pilots, confiscated the bags of mail, and 00:13:20.210 --> 00:13:22.889 incredibly, instead of just destroying it, they 00:13:22.889 --> 00:13:25.970 shipped the entire haul all the way to St. Petersburg, 00:13:26.350 --> 00:13:28.649 just so it could be officially processed by Tsarist 00:13:28.649 --> 00:13:31.549 postal sensors before onward transmission. The 00:13:31.549 --> 00:13:33.909 sheer bureaucracy of sending starving soldiers' 00:13:33.929 --> 00:13:36.450 mail to St. Petersburg to be censored is mind 00:13:36.450 --> 00:13:38.860 -boggling. And when the planes couldn't fly, 00:13:39.139 --> 00:13:42.159 they resorted to even older methods. Manned paper 00:13:42.159 --> 00:13:44.519 balloons, unmanned balloons carrying bundles 00:13:44.519 --> 00:13:47.159 of letters and even pigeon mail. It creates this 00:13:47.159 --> 00:13:49.779 surreal, almost cinematic image of paper balloons 00:13:49.779 --> 00:13:52.700 floating up from this freezing, bombarded hellscape, 00:13:52.919 --> 00:13:54.639 hoping the wind carries them over the Russian 00:13:54.639 --> 00:13:57.139 lines. It highlights the desperation of the garrison. 00:13:57.500 --> 00:14:00.039 But by early spring, no amount of ingenuity or 00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:02.159 communication could change the reality on the 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:04.200 ground. Right. Let's narrate the end of the line. 00:14:05.399 --> 00:14:07.940 By late February of 1915, it becomes crystal 00:14:07.940 --> 00:14:10.659 clear that Conrad von Hutzendorf's massive relief 00:14:10.659 --> 00:14:13.019 efforts in the Carpathians have entirely failed. 00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:15.860 The Austro -Hungarian High Command essentially 00:14:15.860 --> 00:14:17.779 radios Commander Kuzmanek and tells him, you 00:14:17.779 --> 00:14:20.340 are on your own. Meanwhile, General Sullivan 00:14:20.340 --> 00:14:22.679 finally gets his shipment of heavy siege artillery, 00:14:23.080 --> 00:14:25.460 and the Russians just start systematically dismantling 00:14:25.460 --> 00:14:28.240 the concrete defenses. By March 13th, the Russians 00:14:28.240 --> 00:14:31.379 finally breach the northern defense lines. Kuzmennik 00:14:31.379 --> 00:14:33.840 knows the situation is completely untenable. 00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:36.460 He orders his men to hold an improvised inner 00:14:36.460 --> 00:14:38.580 line just long enough to destroy anything in 00:14:38.580 --> 00:14:40.220 the city that could be useful to the Russian 00:14:40.220 --> 00:14:42.940 war machine. They blow up the bridges, the remaining 00:14:42.940 --> 00:14:45.940 artillery, and the munitions dumps. And then 00:14:45.940 --> 00:14:48.500 he attempts one final breakout on March 19th. 00:14:48.539 --> 00:14:50.879 He does. He attempts a desperate sally to break 00:14:50.879 --> 00:14:52.600 through the Russian encirclement, but his troops 00:14:52.600 --> 00:14:55.460 are severely malnourished, exhausted, and outgunned. 00:14:55.559 --> 00:14:57.840 They are easily repulsed and forced back into 00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:00.299 the rubble of the fortress. With literally no 00:15:00.299 --> 00:15:02.940 options left, the white flag goes up. On March 00:15:02.940 --> 00:15:06.299 22nd, 1915, the surrender takes place. And the 00:15:06.299 --> 00:15:08.279 sheer number of prisoners the Russians take is 00:15:08.279 --> 00:15:11.919 astounding. We were talking about 117 ,000 Austro 00:15:11.919 --> 00:15:14.460 -Hungarian troops marching into captivity. The 00:15:14.460 --> 00:15:16.840 officer count alone was staggering. The Russians 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:20.340 captured nine generals, 93 senior staff officers, 00:15:20.419 --> 00:15:24.259 and over 2 ,500 junior officers. Notably among 00:15:24.259 --> 00:15:26.980 the captured was the famous Hungarian war poet 00:15:26.980 --> 00:15:29.580 Gézé Gyony, who ultimately died in a Russian 00:15:29.580 --> 00:15:32.299 prisoner of war camp. If we connect this massive 00:15:32.299 --> 00:15:35.340 surrender to the bigger picture. What does this 00:15:35.340 --> 00:15:37.659 do to the Austro -Hungarian Empire? If we connect 00:15:37.659 --> 00:15:39.840 this to the bigger picture, the macro results 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:42.539 were absolutely devastating. Remember, this fortress 00:15:42.539 --> 00:15:44.559 was originally designed to hold a garrison of 00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:47.600 maybe 50 ,000 men, yet when it fell over, 110 00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:49.500 ,000 surrendered. When you combine that capture 00:15:49.500 --> 00:15:51.779 with the 800 ,000 men lost in the Carpathian 00:15:51.779 --> 00:15:54.440 relief efforts, the Habsburg military apparatus 00:15:54.440 --> 00:15:57.019 suffered over a million casualties just for this 00:15:57.019 --> 00:16:00.080 one city. One million casualties. That is a structural 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:02.179 blow you don't recover from. And they didn't. 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:04.980 The Hadsburg Army was effectively hollowed out. 00:16:05.220 --> 00:16:08.059 From that moment forward in 1915, Austria -Hungary 00:16:08.059 --> 00:16:11.159 ceased to be an independent military power. They 00:16:11.159 --> 00:16:13.600 were forced to rely entirely on German assistance, 00:16:14.179 --> 00:16:16.940 German troops, German commanders, German logistics 00:16:16.940 --> 00:16:19.240 to prop up their lines for the rest of the war. 00:16:20.059 --> 00:16:22.539 Pridgen broke their independence. So what does 00:16:22.539 --> 00:16:24.879 this all mean? We started with a single fortress 00:16:24.879 --> 00:16:27.710 in Galicia. that managed to tie down massive 00:16:27.710 --> 00:16:30.809 Russian armies for months. It triggered a catastrophic 00:16:30.809 --> 00:16:33.289 winter relief effort that resulted in a million 00:16:33.289 --> 00:16:35.549 casualties largely to frostbite and disease. 00:16:36.309 --> 00:16:39.009 And ultimately its fall shackled the Austro -Hungarian 00:16:39.009 --> 00:16:41.309 military to Germany for the duration of the war. 00:16:41.529 --> 00:16:44.490 It was a profound strategic pivot point, but 00:16:44.490 --> 00:16:46.350 I want to leave you with a different angle to 00:16:46.350 --> 00:16:48.669 mull over looking at the very nature of the fortress 00:16:48.669 --> 00:16:51.070 itself. We have talked extensively about how 00:16:51.070 --> 00:16:53.230 this siege broke the Austro -Hungarian army, 00:16:53.429 --> 00:16:55.990 but consider the internal dynamics. The fortress 00:16:55.990 --> 00:16:58.889 of Praegion required daily military orders to 00:16:58.889 --> 00:17:01.889 be translated into 15 different languages just 00:17:01.889 --> 00:17:04.640 to function. Just to get by day to day. Exactly. 00:17:04.819 --> 00:17:07.180 When we look at the mutual distrust, the ethnic 00:17:07.180 --> 00:17:10.000 tensions, the sheer logistical impossibility 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:12.019 of keeping that garrison united under pressure, 00:17:12.279 --> 00:17:14.940 we have to ask a broader question. Was the fall 00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:17.440 of Preshchil truly a military defeat caused by 00:17:17.440 --> 00:17:20.200 Russian starvation tactics, or was this fortress 00:17:20.200 --> 00:17:22.900 simply a microcosm of the Austro -Hungarian Empire 00:17:22.900 --> 00:17:26.119 itself, a fractured entity that was always destined 00:17:26.119 --> 00:17:28.299 to collapse from the inside out the moment it 00:17:28.299 --> 00:17:31.160 was put under severe siege? That is a phenomenal 00:17:31.160 --> 00:17:33.740 point to end on. a fortress that mirrors the 00:17:33.740 --> 00:17:35.980 fatal flaws of the empire that built it. Thank 00:17:35.980 --> 00:17:37.680 you so much for joining us on this deep dive 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:39.759 into the source material. We hope it gave you 00:17:39.759 --> 00:17:41.779 a new lens through which to view a monumental 00:17:41.779 --> 00:17:44.519 piece of history. Keep questioning the Exincensus, 00:17:44.839 --> 00:17:46.880 keep digging into the primary sources, and above 00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:49.400 all, stay insanely curious. We will catch you 00:17:49.400 --> 00:17:50.099 in the next deep dive.