Alois Schönburg-Hartenstein was a military officer in the Austro-Hungarian army and as a Prince of Schönburg-Hartenstein, a member of the Austrian nobility. He briefly served from March to July 1934 as the minister of defense in the First Austrian Republic.
Background
Alois Schönburg-Hartenstein was born in Karlsruhe, Baden, on November 21, 1858. He belonged to the Catholic line of the "Schonburge" family, registered in Saxony since the fourteenth century; a branch of the clan had migrated to Austria early in the nine-teenth century.
Education
Schonburg-Hartenstein attended cadet school in Dresden, but in May 1878 elected to receive a commission in the Austro-Hungarian army, just in time to see action during the occupation of Bosnia that year.
Career
Next came the War Academy, followed by duty with the General Staff from 1886 to 1889; in September 1895, Captain Schonburg-Hartenstein was sent to Berlin as military attache. Two years later he retired in the grade of major of the reserves in order to manage the family estates in Saxony, Bohemia, and Moravia. That same year he was appointed to the Austrian Upper House and from 1898 until 1918 served as its vice-president.
At the outbreak of war, Schonburg-Hartenstein returned to active duty in the grade of major general and saw action in Galicia. At Christmas 1914, he was given command of the Sixth Infantry Division, which he led first on the Russian and later on the Italian front. In July 1916, the prince succeeded Archduke Charles as commander of the prestigious XX (Edelweiss) Corps in the grade of general of cavalry; in August of the following year he led a mixed corps composed of six divisions. In bloody fighting his IV Corps defended Mount Gabriele at the Isonzo front against eleven Italian divisions, helping thereby to prepare the way for the victorious Twelfth Isonzo battle (Caporetto).
Schönburg-Hartenstein was considered by General Arz von Straussenburg as a possible successor to War Minister Baron Alexander Krobatin in April 1917, but in the end the job went to General Rudolf Stöger-Steiner. The prince instead was appointed commander of the IV Corps, but a wave of strikes radiating out from Vienna to the industrial parts of the empire in January 1918 brought repression by the army (Operations Mogul and Revolver), and Schönburg-Hartenstein's appointment as commander of troops at home. In July 1918, he received command of the Sixth Army along the line of the Piave and was severely wounded in the leg in action. He knew that the war had been lost and wrote his family: "My remaining duty is to preserve discipline and to protect the new Austria."
After the war Schönburg-Hartenstein served the Austrian republic, accepting the post of state secretary of the army in September 1933. The following year he was promoted to war minister and, after suppressing Socialist uprisings that originated in Linz, retired from service under Chancellor Dollfuss in July 1934. The prince died on September 20, 1944, at Hartenstein, Lower Austria, an estate that his family had held since 1406.