Hermann Kövess von Kövessháza

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Hermann Kövess von Kövesshaza
March 30, 1854(1854-03-30)—September 22, 1924 (aged 70)
Hermann Kövess von Kövesshaza
Place of birth	Timişoara, Austria-Hungary
Place of death	Vienna, Austria
Allegiance	Austro-Hungarian Army
Years of service	1872—1918
Rank	Generalfeldmarschall

Hermann Kövess von Kövessháza (March 30, 1854^[1] – September 22, 1924^[2]) was the final, and completely ceremonial, Commander-in-Chief of Austria-Hungary. He served as a generally competent and unremarkable^[3] commander in the Austro-Hungarian Army and was close to retirement in 1914 when The First World War broke out and he was given a command post.

[edit] Personal Life

Kövess' father was a senior military officer living in Timişoara, Austria-Hungary (Today Romania). His mother and father belonged to a small German-speaking minority named Siebenbürger-Sachsen located in Transylvania. He married the Baroness Eugenie Hye von Glunek in 1892 and they had 3 sons; Adalbert, who was killed-in-action in 1914 and Géza and Jenő who served as artillery officers.

[edit] Military Career

He enrolled into a cadet institute at Hainburg in 1865 and after spending some time there and at the academy in Znaim he moved to a military academy in Vienna. He passed the courses at the academy with fair success and received an accelerated promotion to captain.

He led his first military expedition in 1882 on a mission to suppress a mutiny in Dalmatia and was commended by the Emperor Francis Joseph I of Austria with a Merit Medal and also received a Knights Cross of the Order of the Italian Crown that same year. After the campaign he failed his next examination and was transferred into the infantry. His good performance during his service with the infantry provided him with quick promotions to Major and in 1890 and then to Lieutenant in 1894 and soon-after to Colonel.

He had become one of the youngest Colonels in the Austro-Hungarian Army and one of the most powerful Protestants serving in a generally Roman Catholic officer corps. His Protestantism caused a scandal when he was involved in an event where 400 Roman Catholics converted to Protestantism after a dispute. The scandal was generally ignored by the military, but condemned by the Catholic Church. The condemnation led him to believe he would be prematurely retired, however this turned out to be false due to the onset of World War I.