Austria-Hungary (Croatia)
Svetozar Boroević von Bojna
1856–1920 Commander on the Isonzo and Piave fronts, 1915–1918; field marshal, 1918
Born into a Serbian Orthodox border-guard family in the Croatian Military Frontier, Boroević stated that he was a Croat. Trained at the Liebenau cadet school, he led VI Corps and then the Third Army in Galicia and the Carpathians in 1914. When Italy entered the war he took command on the Isonzo front in late May 1915, and his Fifth Army won 11 defensive battles there. In August 1917 he took command of an army group, later named for him, that took part in the Caporetto offensive. He became a field marshal in February 1918, but his forces dissolved after the armistice. The National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs did not accept his offer of service, and he died in Klagenfurt in 1920.