Arthur Arz von Straußenburg
Chief of the General Staff | |
---|---|
In office 1 March 1917 – 3 November 1918 | |
Monarch | Charles I |
Preceded by | Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf |
Succeeded by | office abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | Hermannstadt, 1st Army | 16 June 1857
Battles/wars | First World War
|
Early life
Born into a
Early career
Having successfully completed a year's military service, Arz sat and passed the reserve officers examination and went on to apply for and successfully obtain a commission as a regular officer. In 1878, he was commissioned with the rank
Attaining the rank of
Promoted next to the rank of
In 1908, Arz was again promoted, this time to the rank of
First World War
The opening
At the outbreak of war in the
The Romanian Campaign
With the threatened entry of Romania into the war on the Allied side, Arz was reassigned from the 6th Corps and appointed to command the newly reorganised 1st Army on 16 August 1916. Arriving at Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania), where forces were being marshalled to repel an expected Romanian advance into Transylvania, he stated "I am an Army Commander without an Army". Indeed, on the Romanian declaration of war on 27 August, the 1st 'Army' comprised a mere 10,000 men (half a division)[citation needed]. A slow Romanian advance combined with hysterical outcry from Budapest led to the 1st Army being considerably and rapidly strengthened to drive back the challenge from the south.
Romanian forces crossed the frontier on 28 August 1916 with six separate forces pushing through the six
In cooperation with the
Arz was to remain in charge of the 1st Army until February 1917, after major operations in Romania ended, with help from Falkenhayn's 9th German Army and from the German Army of the Danube under Mackensen.
Chief of General Staff
Once appointed in March 1917, Arz made every effort to comply with the Emperor's wishes, but unlike his predecessor he acted as a personal advisor to the Emperor on army matters, rather than as a driver of his own strategy, which had been Conrad's hallmark. His tenure at the head of the army saw increasing
Promoted to the rank of
Arz took full responsibility for the failure of the massive invasion of Italy and tendered his resignation, but the Emperor refused to accept it, even after Generaloberst Schönburg-Hartenstein had said to the Emperor's face that the army had lost all confidence in Arz. By late October 1918, Arz could see that ultimate defeat for the Imperial forces was inevitable. He had drawn up plans for an orderly troop withdrawal in the event of an armistice, so as to prevent unnecessary further bloodshed. An armistice with Italy was concluded on 3 November 1918 and was to come into effect 36 hours later, during which time thousands of Imperial troops were captured while believing themselves to be at peace, due to poor communication from Army High Command.
End of the war
During the night of 2–3 November 1918, the Emperor relinquished command of the armed forces. In a handwritten note which can still be found in the Vienna war archives, he wrote:
Dear Generaloberst Baron Arz, I appoint you to be my supreme commander. Karl
Not wanting responsibility for handling the armistice, Arz declined the appointment, and Kövess took up appointment as commander-in-chief instead. Arz however undertook the position de facto until Field Marshal Kövess could take up his office.
After the war
After the collapse, Arz moved to in Vienna. He was granted a civil list pension of 20 000 Krone, but because of the growing inflation and anyway being not wealthy he had soon a very bad financial situation. Moreover, he became a scapegoat by the public opinion since next to the resigned King the Chief of the General Staff was made responsible for the consequences of the armistice and the defeat of the Battle of Piave. The newly established First Austrian Republic in spite of a new law accepted on 19 December 1918 conducted an infringement procedure against him regarding the Battle of Piave, however it ended without any result.[6]
With Transylvania and the Bukovina awarded to Romania after the war, he became a Romanian citizen but he refused to return to his home in a country in the defeat of which he had played a significant role only a few years earlier, having expected of possible retaliation. Despite, since January 1921 the Romanian state granted his pension until 1923 when because of the intervention of Ion I. C. Brătianu the Romanian legislation voted a new law which denied the pension to those former Imperial and Royal military personnel officially resident in Transylvania, Banat and Bukovina who were not living in Romania.[7][6]
As living in poverty, he applied - as well in the name of 72 fellow officer - to the Hungarian Prime István Bethlen, who denied his submission. He survived on stipends from a support fund organized by former Imperial and Royal comrades to help officers in such situations. In 1924 he was publishing his memoirs. In 1926, the Hungarian Government granted him a pension - ex post facto from 1 November 1925 -, after this the former support fund was transformed to the "Funds of the former General Staff".[8] Since 1931, the Hungarian Parliament put a condition to all pensioner to be habitually residing in Budapest, in 1932, he moved officially to the city, however he did not check out from Vienna and continued to stay there recurrently.[6]
He applied and was granted Hungarian citizenship in 1933. In 1935, Arz wrote of his experiences during the war. His work, unlike those of many of his contemporaries, contained no element of self-justification or political statement.[6]
On 1 July 1935, during a visit to Budapest to collect his pension, he suffered a
Service record
- May 1902 – Promoted to Oberst
- May 1903 – Chairman of the Management Bureau until November 1908
- November 1908 – Promoted to Generalmajor
- November 1908 – Commands 61st Infantry Brigade until April 1912
- April 1912 – Commands 15th Infantry Division until April 1913
- May 1912 – Promoted to Feldmarschalleutnant
- April 1913 – Section chief of all military Departments in the War Ministry until September 1914
- September 1914 – Commands 15th Infantry Division until end of the month
- September 1914 – Commands VI Corps until August 1916
- September 1915 – Promoted to General der Infanterie
- August 1916 – Commands 1st Army until February 1917
- March 1917 – Chief of the General Staff until November 1918
- February 1918 – Promoted to Generaloberst
Awards
- Arz received a number of awards from the Habsburg monarchy, including, most importantly, appointment to the grade of Commander of the Military Order of Maria Theresa. He also received the Pour le Mérite from the German Empire
Works
- Arz von Straussenburg, A., The History of the Great War 1914–1918 (Vienna, 1924)
- Arz von Straussenburg, A., Fight and Fall of the Empires (Vienna and Leipzig, 1935)
Notes
- ^ Regarding personal names: Freiherr is a former title (translated as Baron). In Germany since 1919, it forms part of family names. The feminine forms are Freifrau and Freiin.
- Freiin.
- ^ Indeed, his grandfather Martin Samuel Arz had been postmaster of Hermannstadt (today Sibiu) and was raised to the nobility in 1835 with the title "von Straussenburg"
- ^ from FML von Schenk on September 2nd.
- ^ According to historian Martin Gilbert
- ^ a b c d Ligeti Dávid Ádám (2013). A Monarchia utolsó vezérkari főnöke, Arthur Arz von Straussenburg élete és pályafutása. Doktori disszertáció (PDF). Budapest: Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, Bölcsészettudományi Kar (doktori.btk.elte.hu). Retrieved 2018-05-11.
- ^ a b austro-hungarian-army.co.uk. "Arthur Freiherr Arz von Straussenburg". Retrieved 2017-04-02.
- ^ weltkriege.at. "Artur Arz von Straussenburg". Retrieved 2018-05-11.
Sources
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (December 2015) |
- Pope, S. & Wheal, E., The Macmillan Dictionary of the First World War (London: Macmillan, 1997)
- Austro-Hungarian Army - Generaloberst Arthur Freiherr Arz von Straussenburg at www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk
External links
- First World War.com – Who's Who – Arz von Straußenberg at www.firstworldwar.com