The heroic fortress of Osovets is inextricably linked with the figure of its commandant - General Nikolai Aleksandrovich Brzhozovsky - a Russian military leader, lieutenant general, a participant in almost all the wars that Russia waged in the late 19th - early 20th centuries.
At the beginning of 1915, under the white flag of the envoy, a German officer appeared in the fortress and said to General Brzhozovsky:
“We give you half a million imperial marks for the surrender of the forts. Believe me, this is not a bribe or bribery - this is a simple calculation. During the assault on Osovets, we will spend half a million marks worth of shells. It is more profitable for us to spend the cost of the shells, but not the shells themselves. Do not surrender the fortress - I promise you, in forty-eight hours Osovets as such will cease to exist! General Brzhozovsky, a man of extraordinary self-control, grinned and politely replied to the parliamentarian:
- I suggest you stay here. If in forty-eight hours Osovets will stand, I will - excuse me! - I'll hang it. If Osovets is surrendered, please, be so kind, hang me. And we won't take money!
The fortress not only withstood the German assault, but also held out for several more months.
A terrible but unparalleled episode called "Attack of the Dead" left a special place in world military history.
The soldiers' loyalty to General Brzhozovsky was limitless. At that time, in his relation to the rank and file, in his honest devotion to the emperor, the general was often compared to Suvorov.
On this day, Brzhozovsky's soldiers performed a feat that defies description. This happened 9 days before the Russians were ordered to leave the Osovets fortress.
… They were hammered for a long time, first with conventional artillery, then with Big Berts, whose shells weighed 800 kilograms, bombed from the air, and on August 6, 1915, at 4 a.m., a dark green mist of a mixture of chlorine and bromine flowed at the Russian positions. The gas wave, 15 meters high and 8 kilometers wide, covered 20 square kilometers …
And then 7 thousand German soldiers leisurely headed for the defenseless Russian trenches. It seemed that the fortress was already in the hands of the Germans. And suddenly they met in a bayonet counterattack with a shout, or rather, with a wheeze "Hurray!" the surviving defenders rose - the remnants of the 8th and 13th companies, just over 100 people Ahead of his decisive half-dead, General Brzhozovsky went on the attack. Barely keeping on their feet, the soldiers stood behind their commander. They looked terrible. With traces of chemical burns on their faces, wrapped in rags, they cough up blood, literally spitting out pieces of their lungs onto their bloody tunics.
The sight of the Russians was so terrible that the German infantrymen, not accepting the battle, rushed back, trampling each other and hanging on their own barbed wire. The fortress withstood again.
The miracle heroes of General Brzhozovsky did not disgrace the glory of their ancestors - the miracle heroes of Suvorov.
General Nikolai Brzhozovsky, after leaving Osovets, still fought on the fronts of the First Mirva, took part in the Civil War, and after the victory of the Bolsheviks emigrated to Yugoslavia, where he became a prominent and respected member of the White movement. In the 1920s, the trail of the gallant general is lost.
