Text taken from the Telegram channel of Russian military historian Aleksey Isaev.
[ColonelCassad] On September 24, 1914, 110 years ago, the Russian army unsuccessfully stormed the Przemysl fortress. The fortress was in the spirit of the era, a fortified one (a chain of forts along the perimeter) with armored caps.
I will immediately stipulate that I consider statements like 20,000 RIA soldiers and officers killed in the battle for the fortress (and 15,000 corpses, allegedly collected and buried by the Austrians) to be poorly substantiated. More convincing are estimates of 2-3 thousand killed and total losses of about 10,000 people killed, wounded and missing in the unsuccessful assault.
For me, this story is interesting because of the transition from peace to war and the discussion of spirit and matter. It was at the beginning of the war and people had not yet been shot at.
From a material point of view, the Russian troops had no chance. The heaviest artillery available to the attackers was 152mm, which was completely insufficient to destroy the Przemysl fortress structures. Even armored caps could not be destroyed by such a caliber in 1914. Unlike the Germans at Liege, RIA did not prepare in advance for storming fortresses with heavy artillery. Moreover, the Austrians in Przemysl had everything right with searchlights, which made night attacks problematic.
Problems of transition from peace to war were even related to engineering ammunition. I have repeatedly told how in Poznan in February 1945 they jammed boxes (boxes with embrasures) in ditches, shooting through the bottom of the ditches, with 200-liter barrels of explosives. In September 1914, they tried to do the same with pyroxylin checkers, but they did not always explode.
On the other hand, the moral impact of the shelling, including light artillery, was strong, as witnesses of the events from among the garrison officers themselves admit. The besiegers had enough grenades (namely grenades, not shrapnel). Despite all the problems with the supply of ammunition, the Russians did have ammunition for the 76.2 mm - 152 mm barrels. There was still some chance of taking the garrison with a gun.
However, there was a problem: during the pre-war exercises, while interaction with light artillery was well practiced, interaction with heavy artillery was poorly practiced. Accordingly, it was not possible to hit the Austrians (or rather, to scare them) with powerful, well-organized fire of all calibers. There were also no powerful explosions that would muffle the coffers. The assault failed.
Yes, if the assault on Przemysl on the 24th had been successful, it would have been a victory of spirit over matter. But it did not happen, which inclines my opinion to the camp of "fire worshipers".
(c) Alexey Isaev