The Siege of Fortress Przemyśl, 1914: Decisive Battle of the Eastern Front

This presentation, which was delivered 'live' to an online audience by Alexander Watson is about how, in the autumn of 1914, just a month into the First World War, the Russian Army laid siege to the multi-ethnic fortress-city of Przemyśl, the Habsburg Empire’s main stronghold in the east.

The Habsburg Field Army had been bloodied and routed in immense clashes on the borders, and Przemyśl, with its obsolete defences and garrison of 130,000 terrified middle-aged reservists, was in those critical weeks all that stood in the path of a Russian invasion of Central Europe. 

This webinar tells the story of the fortress-city’s desperate resistance and explains why, had it not held that autumn, the Habsburg Empire would have collapsed, drastically foreshortening the First World War.