Przemyśl, Poland

John E. Fahey

Description

Przemyśl, Poland: A Multiethnic City During and After a Fortress, 1867–1939 examines the economic, political, demographic, and cultural ramifications of Austro-Hungarian military investment in Przemyśl, Poland, from the inception of the fortress in the 1870s, through four months of siege in World War I, to the decades of social change before World War II. The city of Przemyśl lies a few miles west of the Poland–Ukraine border. In the decades before World War I, the Austro-Hungarian military poured money, troops, and material into this multiethnic city and transformed it into the Empire’s largest fortress complex. Though intended to protect the border with Russia and inspire political loyalty, the resultant garrison instead made the city a target and prompted revulsion among local socialists who opposed the army’s dominant position in town.

The heart of this book is the exploration of the relationship between soldiers and civilians in urban environments. The city’s physical and demographic growth was irreversibly tied to the army, yet much of the population rejected the garrison and fought with its soldiers. By 1907, Przemyśl featured one of the largest social democratic movements in Austrian Galicia. By 1914, the city was besieged by the Russian Army, and by 1918, the city was part of the new Second Polish Republic. Przemyśl, Poland is the story of how a single city transformed radically over a few decades, with lasting lessons about the consequences of the military culture colliding with civilian life.

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

A Note on Names

Introduction

1. Why Here? Strategy and Planning

2. Constructing a Bulwark of Empire, 1870–1902

3. Pushing Back against the Garrison, 1899–1914

4. Dismantling an Imperial City, 1914–1918

5. The Shadow of the Fort, 1918–1939

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Histoire
• Herman Lieberman
• World War I
• Austro-Hungarian Army
• Galicia
• Przemysl
• Second Polish Republic
• History of Europe
• Austria-Hungary
• Poland
• History
• Przemy?l
• Galice
• Première Guerre mondiale
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 15 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612498102
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

PRZEMYSL POLAND
CENTRAL EUROPEAN STUDIES
Charles W. Ingrao, founding editor
Paul Hanebrink, editor
Maureen Healy, editor
Howard Louthan, editor
Dominique Reill, editor
Daniel L. Unowsky, editor
Nancy M. Wingfield, editor
The demise of the Communist Bloc and more recent conflicts in the Balkans and Ukraine have exposed the need for greater understanding of the broad stretch of Europe that lies between Germany and Russia. The Central European Studies series enriches our knowledge of the region by producing scholarly work of the highest quality. Since its founding, this has been one of the only English-language series devoted primarily to the lands and peoples of the Habsburg Empire, its successor states, and those areas lying along its immediate periphery. Salient issues such as democratization, censorship, competing national narratives, and the aspirations and treatment of national minorities bear evidence to the continuity between the region s past and present.
OTHER TITLES IN THIS SERIES
Imagining Slovene Socialist Modernity: The Urban Redesign of Ljubljana s Beloved Trnovo Neighborhood, 1951-1989
Veronica E. Aplenc
Combating the Hydra: Violence and Resistance in the Habsburg Empire, 1500-1900
Stephan Steiner
Transleithanian Paradise: A History of the Budapest Jewish Community, 1738-1938
Howard N. Lupovitch
Finding Order in Diversity: Religious Toleration in the Habsburg Empire, 1792-1848
Scott Berg
Unlikely Allies: Nazi German and Ukrainian Nationalist Collaboration in the General Government During World War II
Pawe Markiewicz
PRZEMYSL POLAND
A Multiethnic City During and After a Fortress, 1867-1939
John E. Fahey
Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright 2023 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress.
978-1-61249-808-9 (hardback)
978-1-61249-809-6 (paperback)
978-1-61249-810-2 (epub)
978-1-61249-811-9 (epdf)
Cover images: Fort I Salis-Soglio today (photo by author); map of Przemy l, 1889 (OStA [Austrian State Archive, Vienna] KM Gih 582-5 T.1-2).
For Freda
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
A Note on Names
Introduction
1. Why Here? Strategy and Planning
2. Constructing a Bulwark of Empire, 1870-1902
3. Pushing Back against the Garrison, 1899-1914
4. Dismantling an Imperial City, 1914-1918
5. The Shadow of the Fort, 1918-1939
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK HAS TAKEN A LONG TIME TO PUT TOGETHER. IT IS A REFINED VER sion of the dissertation I wrote at Purdue University. Like many dissertations, it tries to address questions that I have been thinking about for much of my life. My father served for twenty years in the United States Army, so I was born in Germany, and my family moved around to bases in Washington State, Arizona, and back to Germany. After growing up on and around U.S. Army facilities, I have become fascinated with the question of military basing and, more importantly, the effect of bases on the adjacent civilian population. Military bases are often somewhat self-contained, but they affect the economy, politics, demographic character, and social life of surrounding communities. I saw bases from the inside while I was growing up. Though sometimes intimidating to outsiders, they were home.
I joined the National Guard while in college, and while preparing for my PhD qualifying exams, I was informed that I would deploy to Afghanistan in July 2012. I served as an intelligence officer at Kandahar Airfield, NATO s largest base in the world at the time and home to troops and contractors from over forty nations. This deployment notification put a new urgency into studying for my exams - I would only have one chance-and while studying, I came across references to Przemy l, Galicia (now southeastern Poland). Przemy l was Austria-Hungary s largest fortress complex, home of over 10,000 soldiers who spoke twelve languages and dominated the urban and cultural life of the surrounding area. It served as a logistical hub during World War I and in the preceding decades and seemed a natural historical analogy to Kandahar, likewise a multinational fortified logistical hub in a war zone.
After ten months in Afghanistan, I learned that Kandahar and Przemy l are, in fact, not particularly similar. Still, time abroad gave me the opportunity to see a multilingual military organization firsthand. I am grateful to Major Amerson, Lieutenant Colonel Fedak, and Colonel Mills, among others, for their guidance there. One deployment was more than enough for me, so I got out of the National Guard, and then ended up teaching for two years at West Point, which is ground zero for U.S. civil-military interactions. I am indebted to friends and coworkers, including, but not limited to Eric Smith, Garret Gatzmeyer, Mark Askew, and Clifford J. Rogers at West Point for their assistance with ideas, feedback, and editing.
This book would not have been possible without the financial support of the College of Liberal Arts and History Department at Purdue University. This came in the form of several semesters of teaching assistantships and grants, including the Global Synergy Grant. While there I benefited greatly from Purdue s excellent faculty and graduate students, particularly Tim Olin and Chris Snively. I was also the recipient of a Kosciusko Foundation Graduate Study and Research in Poland Grant, as well as a U.S. Student Fulbright Award to Poland. This work would simply not be possible without these grants. I would like to thank these organizations for their support and confidence.
Once in Poland, I was the beneficiary of a very kind community of scholars, archivists, and neighbors who took good care of me and my family. The archival staff at the National Museum of the Przemy l Land (Muzeum Narodowe Ziemi Przemyskiej) were particularly helpful as was Tomasz Pudlocki. Tomasz Idzikowski has been a valuable source of local knowledge and expertise with an incredible knowledge of the area and an inspiring love of the forts. I ve also appreciated getting to know scholars who worked on similar projects, notably Alexander Watson. I owe a debt of gratitude to the Purdue History Department, particularly my dissertation committee, Charles Ingrao, Rebekah Klein-Pej ov , Michael Smith, and Lawrence Sondhaus (of the University of Indianapolis). I have also benefited from supportive co-workers, librarians, and friends at Georgia Military College, especially Robert Sherwood and Stacy Gooden, as well as excellent peer reviewers who gave invaluable feedback.
Finally, I need to thank my family for their support and help during the long process of writing a monograph. My parents, siblings, and in-laws have all been ceaselessly helpful and supportive. My sons have been a wonderful spur to action, mostly since they have asked me if my book is done several times a week for the last four years. My wife, Freda, is particularly deserving of thanks. During this project, she has stayed by me and taken care of me and our four boys in nine different homes (in five U.S. states as well as Austria and Poland), not to mention thousands of miles by plane, train, bus, and car. This work would not be possible without her. Any mistakes are, of course, my own.
ABBREVIATIONS
APP: Archiwum Pa stwowe w Przemy lu (State Archive in Przemy l)
CAW: Centralne Archiwum Wojskowe (Central Military Archives, Warsaw)
OStA: sterreichisches Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archive, Vienna)
AVA: Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv
Inneres MdI: Ministerium des Innern
KA: Kriegsarchiv
AhOB: Allerh chster Oberbefehl
FA: Feldakten
GPA: Genie- und Planarchiv
GSt: Chef des General(quartiermeister)stabs
KM: Kriegsministerium
KM Pr s: Kriegsministerium Pr sidalb ro
KPS: Karten- und Plansammlung
NFA: Neue Feldakten
NL: Milit r Nachl sse
Terr: Territorialkommanden (General-, Korps- und Milit rkommanden Befehle)
ZSt: Zentralstellen
TsDIAUL: Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv
A NOTE ON NAMES
ANY BOOK SET IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, ITS SUCCESSOR STATES, OR CENTRAL EU rope more broadly, has to deal with difficult and conflicting place names. Several cities and villages mentioned here have multiple names, varying through time and language. Warszawa, Krak w, and Wien all have commonly used English-language names. As I am writing for an English-speaking audience, I will use Warsaw, Cracow, and Vienna. L viv is a particularly complicated naming problem. Its name changes are significant and mirror important political changes in the region. Under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the city was called Lemberg, which changed to the Polish Lw w in 1918, and to the Ukrainian L viv in 1945. Of course, Polish, Ukrainian, and German speakers still used their language s name for the city as well. As L viv s name changes often, I will use the English-language Lviv for simplicity and to avoid showing preference for regional claims on the city. Most other towns and cities mentioned in this work don t have commonly used English terms, so I generally use the Polish or Ukrainian name used today. Przemy l itself goes by Peremyshl in Ukrainian, Pshemishl in Yiddish, and Premissel in German. However, Austro-Hungarian military documents usually refer to Festung Przemy l (or Przemy l), and since Poles generally ruled the local government and are demographically the largest group throughout this study, I will stick with Przemy l throughout. I should also acknowledge that non-native Polish speakers do not find it easy to pronounce.
Names for groups of people present an even bigger challenge within Austria-Hungary. Austro-Hungarian officials tracked language use and religious affiliation rather than nationality. Referring to Poles, Jews, or Ruthenians should therefore be assumed to mean linguistic usage or religious community rather than any inherent ethn