Stjepan Sarkotić

Stjepan Sarkotić was born in Sinac near the Croatian town of Otočac on 4 October 1858 as one of four siblings. His father was Lieutenant Matija Sarkotić of the Otočac Border Regiment Nr.2. After he attended gymnasium in Senj, he entered in Military School in Sankt Pölten, and later he attended Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt.

In 1884 he got his first military post in the Königgrätz Regiment, and later he was transferred to 16th Infantry Regiment in Trebinje, Herzegovina. In 1886, he was stationed in Mostar in the 1. Mountain Brigade. Until 1887 he was involved in military actions that occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Krivošije in Montenegro. By 1889 he was promoted to the rank of captain and assigned to the General Staff Corps in Vienna. He was hereafter assigned to obtain intelligence on foreign nations. To this end he travelled abroad to Serbia, Bulgaria and Macedonia, Russian city Kazan, where he learned to speak Russian. After his return, he worked in Intelligence Service of General Staff, and after that he worked with troops in the field. As soon as he became major, he was assigned to be commander of staff of the 7th Infantry Division in Osijek, where he remained for four years. After that, he was assigned to Regiment in Prague as lieutenant colonel. Between 1900 and 1903 he was chief of Staff at the port city of Pula during which time he became colonel in 1901. After his service in Pula, he was assigned to be commander of the staff of XII Corps in Sibiu in Transilvania. In 1907 he became commander of the 5th Infantry Brigade in Linz, and in the same year he was promoted to major general. In 1908 he became commander of the 88th Lands Rifle Regiment, and in 1910 he was assigned to be a commander of 44th Home Guard Division. On 2 November 1911 he was promoted to feldmarschalleutnant. Emperor Franz Joseph appointed him to the nobility in 1908.[1] On 10 April 1912 Sarkotić became general of the VI Royal Hungarian Honvéd District, succeeding his countryman Svetozar Boroević in this post. Sarkotić was also commander of the Home Guard of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia with headquarters in Zagreb.

Sarkotić's tomb in Vienna

After his release he returned to Vienna. Here he was involved with Croatian émigré groups. He frequently wrote against the ruling Serb Karađorđević dynasty in the Austrian Reichspost. He also formed and was head of a group known as the Croatian Committee. Even though at the beginning, Croat émigrés were united, they divided later into two groups, one being the legitimists, led by Sarkotić and Stephan Duić, and the republicans, led by Ivo Frank. The legitimists, mostly former Austrian-Hungarian officers, supported re-unification of Austria-Hungary. Sarkotić considered that Croats were endangered in Yugoslavia because of strong Serbian nationalism and huge influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church. However, since there were no sympathies for the old Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy amongst Croats, the Committee had little influence in Croatia.[8]

In 1932, fascist Croat nationalist Ante Pavelić founded the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement in Italy with an important base in Austria.[9] Pavelić's terrorist organization overshadowed Sarkotić's Committee both numerically and with fanaticism, which led to eventual diminishing of Sarkotić's influence amongst the Croatian émigrés. On 9 October 1934, a joint Ustaše-IMRO conspiracy led to the assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.[10] Sarkotić did not return to the land of his birth and died in Vienna in 1939.[11]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stefan Sarkotic von Lovcen.

• Stephan Baron Sarkotić von Lovčen