to satisfy the lust of the gentlemen officers and, rather shamefully, of a number of doctors, too [-] New officers are coming in almost daily with cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and soft chancre. The poor girls and women feel so flattered when they get chatted up by one of these pestilent pigs in their spotless uniforms, with their shiny boots and buttons." Other accounts reveal the pervasive presence of starvation and disease, including cholera, and the diary of Helena Jablonska, a middle-aged, quite wealthy Polish woman, reveals class and anti-semitic and racial tensions in the town; " The Jewish women in basements rip you off the worst", and on March 18, 1915 – "The Jews are taking their shop signs down in a hurry, so that no one can tell who owns what. [-] They've all got so rich off the backs of those poor soldiers, and now of course they all want to run away!" When the Imperial Russian Army finally took the city in March, the Tsarist soldiers unleashed a violent pogrom against the Jewish population of the city. Jablonska noted: "The Cossacks waited until the Jews set off to the synagogue for their prayers before setting upon them with whips. There is such lamenting and despair. Some Jews are hiding in cellars, but they'll get to them there too." Mail communications Airmail flights from Przemyśl during both sieges when airmail postcards, mostly military mail, were flown from the besieged city on twenty-seven flights. Following a forced landing, mail from one flight was confiscated by the Russians and sent to Saint Petersburg for postal censorship and onward transmission. Balloon mail, on some manned but mainly unmanned paper balloons, was also carried out of the city. Pigeon mail was also used to send messages out of the city. Results The fall of Przemyśl led many to believe that Russia would now launch a major offensive into Hungary. This anticipated offensive never came, but the loss of Przemyśl was a serious blow to Austro-Hungarian morale. A further blow to Austria-Hungary was the fact that Przemyśl was only supposed to be garrisoned by 50,000, yet over 110,000 Austro-Hungarians surrendered with the fortress, a much more significant loss. The Russians held Przemyśl until the summer of 1915 when the Gorlice–Tarnów offensive pushed back the Russian front in Galicia. Przemyśl stayed in Austro-Hungarian hands until October 1918, at which point Eastern Galicia left