Archduke Friedrich, Duke of Teschen was a member of the House of Habsburg and the Supreme Commander of the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I.
Background
Archduke Friedrich was born Friedrich Maria Albrecht in Gross-Seelowitz, Moravia, on April 4, 1856, to Archduke Karl Ferdinand. His siblings included Queen Maria Cristina of Spain, Archduke Charles Stephen of Austria, a candidate for the Kingdom of Poland, and Archduke Eugen of Austria, and Austrian officer.
Education
Like most of the princes of the ruling house, Friedrich adopted a military career, and served creditably for many years as commandant of the V. (Pressburg) Corps.
Career
Frederick began his military career in 1871 with the Tyrolean Kaiserjägerregiment and quickly rose to the grade of major general (1882); in September 1889 he was given command of the V Army Corps in Pressburg and by 1900 had risen to the post of inspector of the army. Frederick was especially active in upgrading the Austrian Landwehr and in building the alpine troops into first-rate fighting units.
Archduke Frederick, in the grade of general of infantry, was appointed commander of the army (Armee-Oberkommando) at the outbreak of the war, but all major operational decisions were made by the chief of the General Staff, General Conrad von Hötzendorf. Frederick became enraged in April 1915 when the Twenty-eighth Infantry Regiment, home garrison Prague, surrendered almost to a man to the Russians at the battle for Dukla Pass, and he requested and received permission from Emperor Francis Joseph to dissolve the unit on April 17, 1915. This action not only exacerbated the problem of Czech loyalty, but it also prompted the army to assume control over the civilian administration in Bohemia.
The archduke's primary contribution to the war effort appears to have been his patience and steadying influence on his more mercurial military commanders. These traits served Frederick well not only in his dealings with the volatile German Emperor Wilhelm II and with Conrad von Hötzendorf, but also in smoothing numerous petty clashes between his chief of the General Staff and the various German chiefs of the General Staff. Frederick held the grade of field marshal as the only Habsburg soldier from 1895 until November 1916; that same month the new Emperor Charles appointed the archduke his personal deputy at army headquarters in Baden a post which Frederick was relieved of one month later because Charles believed himself capable of strategic planning. Frederick retired from the army in 1917, and apart from a critique of the disastrous campaigns in the summer of 1918, retired from public life. Once among the richest members of his house, Frederick after 1918 lost most of his inheritance to the national states then emerging, and after a short period of exile in Switzerland retired to Hungary, where he died at Altenburg (Magyarovar) on December 30,1936.
Connections
On 8 October 1878 Friedrich married at Château L'Hermitage in Belgium, Princess Isabella of Croÿ (1856–1931), daughter of Rudolf, Duke of Croÿ, and his wife Princess Natalie of Ligne. They had nine children together.