The Austrian army never recovered from these blows. Przemsyl was the last Austrian stronghold, only falling the following March, with the surrender of a further 117,000 men. There were 324,000 Austrian casualties, including much of the professional officer corps, and 130,000 prisoners, with many Austrian soldiers of Slav origin happy to surrender. But by September there were 35 Russian divisions facing 20 Austrian Russian victory was assured when the eastern Galician city of Lemberg (or Lvov, Lviv or Lwow) fell on September 10th. The first Russian thrusts there were thrown back amid widespread confusion and incompetence on both sides. The Austrians made a fundamental strategic error in 1914 by committing 19 divisions to an attack on Serbia, when they should have been concentrating on the threat from Russia in Galicia. The Polish intelligentsia and landowners were in the ascendant and the Jews were aligned with them, not the Ukrainians, at least until 1900 when Polish antisemitism began to grow, while the Ukrainians got less Russophile. By 1914 one fifth of large Galician estates were Jewish-owned. Jews were emancipated in 1867, so gaining the right to own land and the lifting of restrictions on what occupations they could follow. Unsurprisingly, there was mass emigration to Vienna, the US, Canada and Brazil from the 1880s surprisingly, the Austrians allowed Galicia a good measure of autonomy, not enforcing the speaking of German, allowing a local assembly and administration, though not encouraging investment or industry. It was the most populous and the poorest province of Austria, probably also in Europe as a whole. There seem to have been larger numbers of Poles than of Ruthenes – Catholic Ukrainians, as distinct from the Orthodox Ukrainians of the Russian empire – and about 12 per cent of the population were Jews. After the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary was established in 1867, Galicia came under the part administered by Austria, though bordering on Hungary to the south. Until 1772 it was in southern Poland, but when Prussia, Russia and Austria set about partitioning that country, it fell to Austria, becoming the northernmost province of its empire. Today, many would be hard put to say where Galicia was – find Krakow and let your finger run eastwards across the map to Tarnopol (Ternopil).
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