Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 224, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1916 — Lembertg and Brody [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Lembertg and Brody

W HEN the fortifications of the inner city of Lemberg were dismantled in 1811 and the space which they occupied was converted into promenades for the prosperous citizens of this modern Galician capital of 200,000 inhabitants, it was doubtless assumed by many that, having suffered “the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune” for the five centuries of its municipal existence, ffite would allot it a surcease from siege and capture, says the bulletin of the National Geographic society. Lying 60 spiles almost due east of Przemysl, and more than 450 miles northeast of Vienna, Lemberg is sltuated on the banks of the Peltew river, an affluent of the Bug. It nestles in a small valley which opens to the north, and is surrounded by hills, the most picturesque being the well-wood-ed Franz-Josef Berg to the northeast. To the east, a distance of 7 miles, is Tarnopol, near the Russian border, one of the first points of attack when the Muscovites pushed beyond the Galician frontier. * A description of the modern city of Lemberg as it existed in August, 1914, requires many modifications today, for the scars of war are to be found in its .many handsome homes; Its broad, wellpaved streets; its Roman Catholic cathedral, a handsome gothic structure completed in 1480; its Greek cathedral, completed in 1779; its Armenian cathedral in the Byzantine style, dating back to 1437, and its magnificent monuments to such Polish patriots as King John 111 Sobieski who, utter having saved Lemberg from the Turks a few years previously, in 1683 saved all Europe from Mohammedan invasion by routing an army of ~800,000 Turks encamped about Vienna, his own force numbering only 70,000, Nearly 700 Years Old. Called Lwow In the Polish tongue and Leopolis in Latin, Lemberg was founded by a Rutjienian prince in 1259. Nearly a hundred years later it was added to the domain of Casimir the Great, who bestowed upon the city the charter and privileges widely known during the middle ages as the Magdeburg Right. Following the fall of Constantinople, Lemberg enjoyed a revival of trade . with the East, but it was caught in the maelstrom of rebellion and pillage which swept over the Ukraine and a part of Poland during the last half of the seventeenth century, when the Cossack hetman, Chmlelnlcka, was directing the Infamies of the “serfs’ fury.” Lemberg was one of the Polish cities to fall before the arms of Charles XII of Sweden when the ill-advised Augustus II was drawn Into the Great Northern war, which devastated central Europe for the first 20 years of the eighteenth century. In 1772, upon the first partition of Poland, Lemberg became an Austrian possession, and 12 years after this event Joseph II established the University of Lemberg which, at the time of the outbreak of the present war, had more than 2,000 One of the most attractive parks of Lemberg, and a favorite promenade, bears the name of the Polish Jan Killnskl, a humble little shoemaker, who fought bravely in 1796, was captured and taken to St. Petersburg. After his release he returned to his shoemaker’s bench and In his leisure hours wrote his recollections, a valuable record of this period of his country’s history. Since the establishment of the Galician diet in 1861 Lemberg has enjoyed increasing prosperity. Its manufactures include machinery and ironware, matches, candles, liqueurs, chocolate, leather, bricks and tiles, while Its commerce is largely in linen, flax, hemp, wool and oil. In 1907 two Interesting finds were made in the vicinity of this city by laborers boring for oil. The bodies of an elephant and a rhinoceros were unearthed in a remarkable state of preservation, even the hides being Intact, due, probably, to the preservative qualities of the oily soil in which they were buried. -• Brody a Commercial Center. Only about two miles beyond the Russian border, the Galician town of Brody is a point of great strategic importance on the eastern war front because it controls an important railway line leading from Dubno, 35 miles to the northeast, to Lemberg, which is •njj 62 miles to the southwest.

A# the beginning of the world war Brody was a thriving commercial center with a population approaching 20,000, more than two-thirds of whom, were Jews. Its prosperity was checked to some extent about 40 years ago, when, after having enjoyed the privileges of a free commercial city for exactly 100 years, its charter was withdrawn.

Less than half a century before Brody was created a town In the seventeenth century it was the scene of an Important battle in which the Poles, commanded by their famous grand hetman, Stanislaus Ponleckpolski, defeated a Tartar army. This was the last battle of Ponieckpolskl’s distinguished career. For a quarter of a century he was at war with Turks and Swedes, his initiation in military science being somewhat disastrous, for he was captured by the Turks in his first important engagement and was held in close confinement for three years at Constantinople. Upon his release in 1662 he was placed in command of the Polish republic’s forces and with a force of 25,000 defeated 60,000 Tartars at Martynow. His achievements against the army of Gustavus Adolphus were no less noteworthy than his long series of victories whereby ho succeeded in keeping the Ukraine under Polish rule. Brody twice suffered from disastrous conflagrations during the nineteenth century. The first, occurring in 1801, destroyed 1,500 houses, while the fire of 1859 reduced 1,000 homes and business establishments to ashes. The upper waters of the Styr river form an Irregular arc extending from the southwest to the north Of Brody, being ten miles distant at its nearest point, toward the northwest Five miles from the city, just beyond the border on the Dubno-Lemberg railway, is the Russian town of Radzlwilow, with a population of about 8,000.