Eduard Freiherr von Böhm-Ermolli
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Eduard Freiherr (Baron) von Böhm-Ermolli (February 12, 1856 - December 9, 1941) was an Austrian general officer during World War I who rose to the rank of field marshal in the Austro-Hungarian Army.
Eduard Böhm was born in the Italian city of Ancona where his father served with a small representative detachment of the Austro-Hungarian army. His father, Georg Böhm (1813–1893), had as a sergeant won a battlefield commission for bravery after the battle of Novara in 1849, been promoted to the rank of major upon his retirement in 1877, and been elevated to heritary nobility in September 1885. In June 1885 he had received permission to attach his wife's (Maria Josepha Ermolli) maiden name to his family name, and hence the family was known as "von Böhm-Ermolli".
Böhm-Ermolli was trained at the cadet academy in St. Pölten and the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt and entered the service on 1 September 1875 as a lieutenant in the dragoons. He served in a variety of line and staff positions, steadily rose through the ranks, being promoted to General of the Cavalry on 1 May 1912 and appointed commanding general of the 1st Army Corps in Krakow.
At the start of World War I, Böhm-Ermolli was given command of the Austrian 2nd Army, which was intended for action on the Serbian front. After Russia mobilised, the 2nd Army was diverted to the Russian front, where it reinforced the armies of Austria's German ally.
Böhm-Ermolli was promoted to Generaloberst in May 1916 and to Feldmarschall in January 1918. In March 1918, his forces occupied the Ukraine. His Army Group was dissolved at Odessa at the war's end.
He settled in his home town of Troppau in Austrian Silesia, which was annexed to Czechoslovakia in 1919, and the government of Czechoslovakia paid him his pension and honored him as a General 1st Class in the reserve. In 1928 he became an "Army General" of Czechoslovakia, even though he never served in the Czechoslovak army.
When the Sudetenland, the predominantly German settled regions along the fringes of Czechoslovakia, was annexed to Germany in 1938, he became a German subject and, being the last surviving Fieldmarshall of the erstwhile Austro-Hungarian Army, received an honorary promotion to Generalfeldmarschall of the German army. In addition he was appointed honorary colonel-in-chief of Infantry Regiment 28 in his hometown of Troppau (Opava). When he died in December of 1941, he was afforded a state funeral with full military honors in Vienna.
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Werner von Blomberg | Fedor von Bock | Walther von Brauchitsch | Ernst Busch | Hermann Göring | Robert Ritter von Greim | Wilhelm Keitel | Albert Kesselring | Ewald von Kleist | Günther von Kluge | Georg von Küchler | Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb | Wilhelm List | Erich von Manstein |Erhard Milch | Walter Model | Friedrich Paulus | Walther von Reichenau | Wolfram von Richthofen | Erwin Rommel | Gerd von Rundstedt | Ferdinand Schörner | Hugo Sperrle | Maximilian von Weichs | Erwin von Witzleben |
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Honorary: Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli |
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