
Arthur Arz von Straussenberg (16 June 1857-1 June 1935) was a Colonel-General of Austria-Hungary and the last Chief of the General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army, leading it from March 1917 to 3 November 1918 during World War I.
Biography[]
Arthur Arz von Straussenberg was born on 16 June 1857 in Hermannstadt, Austrian Empire (present-day Sibiu, Transylvania) to a family of German settlers from Saxony, and he was schooled in law in both Hermannstadt and Dresden before entering the Austro-Hungarian Army. In 1888, he was appointed to the general staff, and he became a colonel in 1902 and a Lieutenant-Field Marshal in 1912. Straussenberg commanded a corps during the war with the Russian Empire in Poland, and he commanded an army during the invasion of Romania. From 1917 to 1918, he served as Chief of the General Staff after King Charles I of Austria sacked Conrad von Hotzendorf, and he was subjected to being a junior partner of the German war effort. His troops were led by German generals, and he had little independence as a commander. When the Piave offensive of June 1918 failed, Straussenburg offered his resignation to King Charles, but Hermann Kovess would replace him as commander of the army in November 1918. In 1935, he died of a heart attack in Budapest.