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A carregar... The Fortress: The Great Siege of Przemyslpor Alexander Watson
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Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. I've always been fascinated by the often-ignored efforts of the failing Austro-Hungarian empire in the First World War, and this is a great addition. In 1914-15, the ramshackle Habsburg armies were in full retreat on the Eastern Front. Standing alone in the face of the advancing Russians was a single fortified city with a name virtually unpronounceable to English speakers and largely manned by Landsturm reservists, middle-aged grocers, accountants and clerks. Given the Habsburg army was being run by a general who hated going to the front and was far more interested in the mistress he desperately wanted to marry anyway, the garrison seemed to have little chance. Incredibly they hung on for months in the face of massive Russian numbers and artillery, while their dithering superiors made blundering attempts to relieve them. Eventually though, starvation forced them to yield, after defiantly blowing up all the fortress works, and went into the brutality of Russian captivity. A fascinating book of a campaign little known in the English-speaking world. ( ) This is not my first trip to this particular rodeo, having previously read Graydon Tunstall's "Written in Blood," never mind other examinations of the terminal stages of the Habsburg Empire. Watson's particular genius, though, is to place the "fortress" of the title in its social, geographical and military context. From there, Watson then places the battle in the wider context of how the eastern front of the "Great War" was the conflict that did not end in November of 1918 and, in some ways, has still not ended. Witness the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian struggle. Besides telling a gripping story well Watson has distilled down a wide, and often inaccessible, literature for a more general audience. Highly recommended. Excellent study of a part of World War I that is largely forgotten in the West. Alexander Watson mercilessly shows the incompetence and weaknesses of the Austro-Hungarian army, which led to disaster. War is shown in all its depressing cruelty, whether it is the brutality of the invading Russians or the pettiness and arrogance of the Austo Hungarians. Particularly significant is the role of racism and nationalistic prejudice in fueling the atrocities committed on both sides, which prefigures the Eastern Front of World War 2. The author also reserves his particular scorn for Conrad, who doesn't come out very well. sem críticas | adicionar uma crítica
In the autumn of 1914 Europe was at war. The battling powers had already suffered casualties on a scale previously unimaginable. On both the Western and Eastern fronts elaborate war plans lay in ruins and had been discarded in favour of desperate improvisation. In the West this resulted in the remorseless world of the trenches; in the East all eyes were focused on the old, beleaguered Austro-Hungarian fortress of Przemysl. The great siege that unfolded at Przemysl was the longest of the whole war. In the defence of the fortress and the struggle to relieve it Austria-Hungary suffered some 800,000 casualties. Almost unknown in the West, this was one of the great turning points of the conflict. If the Russians had broken through they could have invaded Central Europe, but by the time the fortress fell their strength was so sapped they could go no further. Alexander Watson, prize-winning author of Ring of Steel, has written one of the great epics of the First World War. Comparable to Stalingrad in 1942-3, Przemysl shaped the course of Europe's future. Neither Russians nor Austro-Hungarians ever recovered from their disasters. Using a huge range of sources, Watson brilliantly recreates a world of long-gone empires, broken armies and a cut-off community sliding into chaos. The siege was central to the war itself, but also a chilling harbinger of what would engulf the entire region in the coming decades, as nationalism, anti-semitism and an exterminatory fury took hold. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)940.4147History and Geography Europe Europe Military History Of World War I Operations And Units EuropeClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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