Requiescat

At Mergentheim in Wurttemburg, Germany, a man of 73, busily at work writing the fifth volume of his memories sank beneath the pale hand of anaemia and last week he died. So passed Count Franz Konrad von Hoetzendorf.

In 1852 little Konrad was born in Penzing, one of the suburbs of Vienna, son of a Colonel in the army. Little Konrad, too, embarked upon a military career. At 19 he was graduated from the War Academy. At 36 he became a teacher in the War School. After that his rise was rapid. In 1906 he became chief of the Austrian General Staff and a leader of the pre-War military party. He was especially strong in anti-Italian sentiment. Whenever he commanded in the border provinces near Italy he distinguished himself by his severity in dealing with any manifestation of Italian nationalism. According to his own account he urged Emperor Franz Josef to make war on Serbia in 1906, again in 1909, again in 1912, again in 1913. In 1914 he succeeded. Twice he was removed from his post because he went too far, but his good friend Archduke Francis Ferdinand succeeded in having him reinstated.

Then one day at Sarajevo a bomb blew Francis Ferdinand to bits, and von Hoetzendorf went forth to war. He promptly lost Galicia to the Russians and his prestige waned. But he planned the campaign which resulted in its recapture, and was given the Order of Merit by the Kaiser when Lemberg fell to his advance.

When Italy entered the War von Hoetzendorf was made Field Marshal and given command of the Italian front. He served there without much success until 1918 when Field Marshal von Koevess replaced him.

Then surely if ever he admitted his defeat. He (who had always hated the Italians) married a second time and took to wife (1916) Lina Aguiari, "one of the most avowed Italian nationalists in the Austrian Provinces."

After the War he settled in Innsbruck and began to write his memoirs. He blamed the Germans for most of Austria's wartime trouble. He declared they failed to keep him informed, that he was not even told the outcome of the battle of the Marne. He said that if the Germans had not dominated Austria by 1917, Austria would have retired from the War when the U. S. entered and her territory and empire would today be virtually intact.