Background
Oskar Potiorek was born in Bleiberg in Kärnten on November 20, 1853.
Oskar Potiorek was born in Bleiberg in Kärnten on November 20, 1853.
Potiorek attended the Imperial and Royal military institute of technology and the Kriegsschule academy in Vienna.
Potiorek quickly climbed up the ladder of military command, becoming deputy chief of the General Staff in December 1902; as such, he was widely rumored to be in line to succeed Baron Friedrich Beck-Rzikowsky as chief of staff, but the appointment instead went in November 1906 to Franz Baron Conrad von Hötenzendorf. In 1907 Potiorek commanded the III Army Corps at Graz, but in April 1910 was appointed inspector general of the Habsburg armies; in May 1911 he became governor as well as army inspector in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the process becoming, like Conrad, convinced of the need for a preemptive strike against Serbia. "Better a defeat on the battlefield," he trumpeted, than submission to Serbian claims to the two provinces. A dapper, dashing soldier, Potiorek ruled the territories with princely powers. On June 28, 1914, he was in charge of security arrangements for the visit to Sarajevo of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, but despite one unsuccessful assassination attempt on the life of the heir apparent, Potiorek refused to bring additional troops into the city because none could be found in dress uniform! He was never reprimanded for the slovenly security at Sarajevo.
An ambitious man with intimate ties to the court of Emperor Francis Joseph, Potiorek on July 28, 1914, received command of Habsburg forces consisting of nineteen divisions (Fifth and Sixth Armies) for a strike (Plan "B") against Serbia. His nerves badly frayed, his confidence shaken after Sarajevo, and still bitter at having been passed over in favor of Conrad in 1906, Potiorek not only stayed close to his heavily guarded headquarters but refused to send the Second Army to the east, as requested by Conrad. Above all seeking to restore his tarnished reputation by a victory, he decided on August 12, five days after his formal promotion to supreme commander, Balkan forces, to strike at the twelve Serbian divisions opposing him under General Radomir Putnik.
Again using his influence at court, Potiorek managed to retain four divisions from the Second Army and to attack the Serbs through a two-pronged drive in the north and south. His optimism was to be badly shaken. At the battle of Jadar his forces were repulsed with heavy losses and had to withdraw behind the Drina River. This notwithstanding, Potiorek yet again managed to rally the support of the emperor as well as of the foreign minister, Count Leopold Berchtold, and on September 8 launch a second invasion of Serbia. It fared no better than the first, and Potiorek was forced to withdraw behind the Save River into Hungary; at the same time, Serbian units drove on Sarajevo, forcing the Habsburg Sixth Army on the defensive.
Though unable to cope with Putnik's trench warfare, Potiorek managed in October to expel the raiders from Bosnia. For a third time he turned to Schonbrunn, attained the requisite reinforcements, and on November 6 invaded Serbia, also for a third time. Fate seemed at last to favor him: Valjevo fell to the Austrians and the drive to the Kolubara River was crowned with success. Moreover, on December 2 "town and fortress Belgrade" fell to Potiorek, who informed Vienna that he was laying the Serbian capital at "his majesty's feet." This piece of theatrics backfired twenty-four hours later when the enemy, aided by snow in the mountains, rains below, and impassable roads, drove the exhausted and dispirited Habsburg troops out of Belgrade. The Serbs, led by King Peter, divided the Austrian Fifth Army at Belgrade from the Sixth at Shabatz by December 9, and six days later hurled them both back behind the Drina-Danube line with heavy losses. In the process, over 200,000 casualties were lost with further tens of thousands suffering from malaria and typhoid fever; however, the Serbs were equally exhausted and plagued by illness, so that thereafter the front fell quiet.
Potiorek's "most ignominious, rankling and derisory defeat" (Churchill) cost him his command on December 22; Archduke Eugene then assumed command of the Serbian front. Potiorek was retired from the army on January 1, 1915, and died a broken soldier at Klagenfurt on December 17, 1933. At the time of his dismissal he had counseled his deputy: "If ever you have the chance again, go in by Belgrade." Instead, it fell to the German Field Marshal August von Mackensen to follow this advice in October 1915.