Svetozar Boroević

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Svetozar Boroević (or Borojević) von Bojna (December 13, 1856 – May 23, 1920) was Austro-Hungarian Field Marshal ^{[1] [2] [3][4] [5]}.

Boroević was born into a Serbian Orthodox ^[6] family in the village of Umetić near Kostajnica, Croatia. The area was then part of the Military Frontier of the Habsburg Monarchy (finally being reincorporated in Croatia on July 15, 1881). After finishing grade school he moved to Kemenitz and later Graz where he studied in military academies. He advanced quickly through the ranks (corporal in 1872, lieutenant in 1875) and became a commander in the Croatian Home Defense. He distinguished himself in the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 and was promoted to the rank of Oberleutnant in 1880.

Between 1887 and 1891 he underwent additional military training and worked as an instructor after that, becoming a major in 1892. In 1897 he was promoted to the rank of Oberst (colonel), and appointed chief of staff of the Seventh Corps of the Imperial & Royal Army in June 1898, where he remained until February 1904. In 1903 he was released from the Home Defense.

In the meantime, in 1889 he got married to Leontina von Rosner a daughter of a late Austrian colonel Friedrich Ritter von Rosner. Svetozar and Leontina Borojević von Bojna had one son, named after mothers father Friedrich Borojević von Bojna, who died in 1918.

In 1905 he was nobilitated with the attribute von Bojna. He became the commander of the Sixth Corps in April 1912.

When the First World War started in 1914 he was in command of the Sixth Corps on the Eastern Front. In early September 1914 he became commander of the Third Army, and in early October he liberated Fort Przemysl, providing a temporary relief in the siege of Przemysl. His troops then pulled back to hold positions around Limanova, at the Dukla mountain pass, and elsewhere on the Carpathians, stopping the Russians from breaking out on the Danube. The Russian counter-offensive in February and March 1915 almost managed to push Boroević's Third Army back towards Hungary, but they managed to hold just enough for the German reinforcements to arrive and save the already endangered Budapest and the Pressburg bridgehead. They then proceeded to join the general Austro-Hungarian/German offensive (with the Austro-Hungarian Fourth Army under Joseph Ferdinand and the German Eleventh Army under Mackensen) that pushed back the Russians and would eventually retake Przemysl.

However, Boroević did not remain on the Eastern Front long enough to see Przemysl liberated in June, because on May 25, 1915 he was sent to the new Italian front, taking part of the Third Army with him and leaving the rest to Army Group Mackensen. There Boroević became the Commander of the Fifth Army, with which he organized a defense against the Italians and broke countless offensives. The other distinguished Austro-Hungarian general, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, recommended that they fall back and avoid trying to defend the better part of today's Slovenia, claiming it was undefendable. However, Boroević persisted with thirty of his detachments, maintaining that the Slovenes would stand their ground when faced with the defense of their own country. This appealed to emperor Francis Joseph and he was given command on the Soča (Isonzo) front.

Boroević's troops prevented a total of eleven Italian attacks and he was hailed as the Knight of Isonzo in Austria-Hungary, while his soldiers adored him and called him Naš Sveto! ("Our Sveto!"). For valor in combat he was promoted to the rank of Generaloberst on May 1, 1916. On August 23, 1917 he rose to the position of commander of the Southwestern Front, which was later renamed Army Group Boroević. He became field marshal on February 1, 1918, and was also awarded with numerous medals, including the highest order for Austro-Hungarian soldiers, the Military Order of Maria Theresia.

The front was maintained until November 1918, when the Hungarian troops left the positions for returning to Hungary on the order of the new Hungarian war minister (Hungary had canceled the real union with Austria on October 31). After that Boroević regrouped at Tagliamento, then fell back to Velden, where he sent a telegram to the Emperor offering to march on Vienna to fight the anti-Habsburg revolution in the imperial capital. It is not sure whether the Emperor has been handed out this message (Boroević doubted it); the offer was refused on behalf of the Emperor. Boroević stepped off duty in December, 1918, after the Imperial & Royal Army had been demobilized on November 6.

After the war, Boroević, decided to become a citizen of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He was not welcome, although he even had offered his services to the new country of South Slavs. So he stayed in Carinthia, Austria's southernmost state; his personal belongings, which were on transport in Slovenia, were confiscated there. Boroević could not understand the mean treatment he had to experience, − the only field marshal the Southern Slavs had ever produced, as he wrote in his memoirs. He died in a Klagenfurt hospital. His body was transferred to Vienna where he was buried at the Central Cemetery in a grave paid for by the former emperor Charles.

[edit] See also

• Imperial Croatian Home Guard
• Kemenitz (Sremska Kamenica)

[edit] References