Background
Njegovan was born in 1858 in Agram (now Zagreb).
Njegovan was born in 1858 in Agram (now Zagreb).
Upon graduation from the Imperial and Royal Naval Academy in Fiume (now Rijeka), he joined the fleet in Pola (Pula) in 1877 as a Seekadett. In 1893, after receiving a short instructional course as torpedo officer of Alpha, he received his first command, the torpedo boat Condor.
After 1893 he commanded various units of the fleet, including the armored vessel Budapest in 1906/1907. Njegovan was promoted captain in 1907, and for the next two years served as squadron commander. In 1909/1910 he was appointed a commanding naval adjutant and chief of the operations chancellery in the Naval Section of the War Ministry. In the summer of 1913 in the grade of rear admiral, Njegovan commanded units of the Austro-Hungarian navy during the international blockade of Montenegro; he then served as royal representative in the admiralty council in Skutari.
At the outbreak of the war Njegovan commanded the First Squadron of the battle fleet at Pola, and in this capacity undertook the naval bombardment of Ancona in May 1915. Following the death of Admiral Anton von Haus on February 8, 1917, Vice Admiral Njegovan was entrusted with com¬mand of the fleet. Later that year he was promoted full admiral, given complete command of the navy, and made chief of the Naval Section. His brother Viktor served the Habsburg army in the grade of general during the First World War.
Njegovan's tenure as head of the navy was not a particularly successful one. He inherited a service that was exhausted after two and one-half years of fighting, that was desperately short on almost all supplies, and that was racked by political and nationalist propaganda. Moreover, it was a service that had surrendered the belief in victory.
Njegovan made great strides in expanding the port facilities at Cattaro (today called Boka Kotorska) for use by submarines. After serious mutinies had rocked the navy in October 1917 and February 1918, especially in Cattaro, Njegovan was replaced on March 1, 1918, as fleet commander by Rear Admiral Miklos Horthy and as chief of the Naval Section by Vice Admiral Franz von Holub. Vice Admiral Franz von Keil at the same time was made naval adviser to the new Emperor Charles, whose permission was then required before major naval operations could be undertaken. Thus Njegovan's period as head of the navy ended with the fragmentation of command. Njegovan died in Agram on July 1, 1930.