Arthur Arz von Straußenburg

Arthur Freiherr Arz von Straußenburg (; 16 June 1857 – 1 July 1935) was an Austro-Hungarian colonel general and last Chief of the General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army. At the outbreak of the First World War, he commanded the 15th Infantry Division. Soon, he was promoted to the head of the 6th Corps and the First Army. He participated on the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive in 1915 and the countryside of Romania in 1916. In March 1917, he became Chief of the General Staff until his resignation on 3 November 1918.

Early life Born into a Protestant family that was among the medieval Saxon settlers of east Transylvania, Arz was the product of a noble "Siebenbürger" family. His grandfather Martin Samuel Arz had been postmaster of Hermannstadt (today Sibiu) and was raised to the nobility in 1835 with the title "von Straussenburg".

With Transylvania and the Bukovina awarded to Romania after the war, he became a Romanian citizen but - expecting possible retaliation - he refused to return to his home in a country whose defeat he had played a significant role in only a few years earlier. Although from January 1921 the Romanian state had granted his pension, in 1923, due to the intervention of Ion I. C. Brătianu, the Romanian legislature passed a new law which denied a pension to those former Imperial and Royal military personnel officially resident in Transylvania, Banat and Bukovina who were not living in Romania. From 1931 on, the Hungarian Parliament required all pensioners to be habitually residing in Budapest; so in 1932, he officially moved to the city, but he did not entirely vacate Vienna and continued to stay there recurrently.

He applied for and was granted Hungarian citizenship in 1933. In 1935, Arz wrote of his experiences during the war. His work, unlike those of many of his contemporaries, contained no element of self-justification or political statement.

On 1 July 1935, during a visit to Budapest to collect his pension, he suffered a heart attack and died. He was buried with the highest military honours at the Kerepesi cemetery in Budapest.

Service record May 1902 – Promoted to Oberst May 1903 – Chairman of the Management Bureau until November 1908 November 1908 – Promoted to Generalmajor November 1908 – Commands 61st Infantry Brigade until April 1912 April 1912 – Commands 15th Infantry Division until April 1913 May 1912 – Promoted to Feldmarschalleutnant April 1913 – Section chief of all military Departments in the War Ministry until September 1914 September 1914 – Commands 15th Infantry Division until end of the month September 1914 – Commands VI Corps until August 1916 September 1915 – Promoted to General der Infanterie August 1916 – Commands 1st Army until February 1917 March 1917 – Chief of the General Staff until November 1918 February 1918 – Promoted to Generaloberst

Awards Arz received a number of awards from the Habsburg monarchy, including, most importantly, appointment to the grade of Commander of the Military Order of Maria Theresa. He also received the Pour le Mérite from the German Empire

Works Arz von Straussenburg, A., The History of the Great War 1914–1918 (Vienna, 1924) Arz von Straussenburg, A., Fight and Fall of the Empires (Vienna and Leipzig, 1935)