The fortress - Alexander Watson

WINNER OF THE SOCIETY FOR MILITARY HISTORY'S DISTINGUISHED BOOK AWARD 2021

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GILDER LEHRMAN PRIZE FOR MILITARY HISTORY AND THE BRITISH ARMY MILITARY BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

A BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019, AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020

'A masterpiece. It deserves to become a classic of military history' Lawrence James, The Times

From the prize-winning author of Ring of Steel, a gripping history of the First World War's longest and most terrible siege

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 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 militarily 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.

'If you read one military history book this year, make it Alexander Watson's The Fortress' Tony Barber, Financial Times