Maximilian Njegovan
Maximilian Njegovan (born October 31, 1858 in Agram , Croatia , Austria-Hungary ; † July 1, 1930 ibid) was 1917/18 kuk admiral and fleet commander of the kuk Kriegsmarine of the dual monarchy.
Life
After graduating from the Naval Academy in Rijeka , he was retired as a midshipman 2nd class. After a brief activity as an instruction officer for the torpedo officer course on SMS Alpha , Njegovan received his first independent command in 1893, via the torpedo boat Condor . From 1898 to 1905 he was a class officer and teacher of seamanship at the Naval Academy. Subsequently, until 1907 he was in command of SMS Nautilus , SMS Schwarzenberg and SMS Budapest .
From 1907 to 1909 he was Chief of Staff of the Eskadre under Naval Commander Rudolf Graf Montecuccoli , Naval Command Adjutant and Head of the Operations Chancellery in the naval section of the Austro-Hungarian War Ministry in Vienna. In 1911 he was promoted to rear admiral, in 1913 to vice admiral. In 1913 he commanded the international intervention off the Montenegrin coast.
In 1914, Emperor Franz Joseph I gave Njegovan command of the 1st Squadron and the 1st Division in the fleet. He carried his admiral flag on SMS Tegetthoff . On 23/24 In May 1915, immediately after Italy entered the war, on the side of the opponents of Austria-Hungary , he commanded the shelling of the Italian port city of Ancona .
After the death of Grand Admiral Anton Haus on February 8, 1917, Vice-Admiral Njegovan was appointed naval and fleet commander by Emperor Karl I on the same day. From April 28, 1917, he was the successor of the short-term leader Karl Kailer von Kaltenfels and chief of the naval section. Later that year he was promoted from Steinstätten to admiral by the Kaiser at the suggestion of the Austro-Hungarian War Minister Rudolf Stöger-Steiner . He was now the last Austro-Hungarian admiral to be the fleet commander and chief of the naval section of the War Ministry in one person. In May 1917 he was awarded the Order of the Iron Crown, First Class, by the Emperor after the battle in the Strait of Otranto , with which the Austro-Hungarian Navy tried to break the sea blockade of the Triple Entente .
After the mutiny in the Bay of Kotor in February 1918, Njegovan was awarded the Grand Cross of the Leopold Order with the war decoration for "long-term, excellent service" by the emperor on March 1, 1918 . The Wiener Zeitung of March 2, 1918, in addition to this announcement, also contained the appointment of his successors in the Fleet Command ( Miklós Horthy ) and the Marine Section (Franz von Holub), but explicitly nothing about Njegovan's retirement. The emperor Viceadmiral Horthy transferred the naval or naval command; This was the responsibility of fulfilling the bitter imperial mandate to hand over the kuk war fleet to the new South Slav state on October 31, 1918 , since Austria no longer had a share in the Adriatic coast after its foundation.
After the war, the last months of which Njegovan had spent as a pensioner in the main war port of Pula , he lived temporarily in Venice .
literature
- Peter Broucek : Njegovan Maximilian. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 7, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1978, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 137 f. (Direct links on p. 137 , p. 138 ).
- Holger H. Herwig (ed.): Biographical Dictionary of World War I . Greenwood Press, Westport 1982, ISBN 0-313-21356-9 .
Individual evidence
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Anton von Haus |
Navy commander 1917–1918 |
Miklós Horthy |
| Karl Kailer von Kaltenfels |
Chief of the Marine Section 1917–1918 |
Franz von Holub |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Njegovan, Maximilian |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austro-Hungarian admiral |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 31, 1858 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Zagreb |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 1, 1930 |
| Place of death | Zagreb |