Von Schenk was born in Laibach now Ljubljana in Slovenia, into a Roman Catholic middle-class family, to Moriz, a retired senior civil servant, and Eulalia Zwierzina.
The young Alfred received his fundamentals in Ljubljana, and moved to Praha in Bohemia to complete his education, where thanks to his German-Austrian sounding last name, was able to join the local and prestigious Gymnasium.
Life in Prague was very good at the time and being a German Austrian he could have lived well enough, even without speaking the local Czech language, but notwithstanding, he became very fluent in Czech, a fluency described next to be a bilingual, showing a great attitude, in learning languages, an ability he was to exploit with success, during the assignment, in the Balkans and in Russia, to the intelligence and counterintelligence unit.
After having successfully completed three of the eight classes, on 11 July 1880, he volunteered into the Common Army and was assigned to the 21st Infantry Regiment “Freiherr von Mondel” then based in Prague.
During this assignment he was to become familiar with the Istria, Kraina, Carinthia and Styria regions, and also improved his knowledge on south-west Hungary and Turkey, while attached to military missions.
The area of responsibility stretched from the southern end of the Carso Mountains, to the east of the port city of Monfalcone and was subsequently renamed as “Group Schenk”.
The 24th Mountain Brigade, assigned to the sector between Nova Vas, and Hill 208, was composed by three territorial battalions, the 2nd, 3rd and the 4th part of the 11th Regiment of Infantry.
Most of its personnel was recruited in the Jičín District of Bohemia, and were of Czech and Sudeten German descent, meanwhile, the 27th Territorial Infantry Regiment of Ljubljana, was composed mainly by Slovenians from the Carniola and Gorizia Counties.
The entire 9th Infantry Division was deployed to cover the left part of the sector, from Hill 208 to Lisert, east of the seaport city of Monfalcone.
The Austrian forces first suffered a heavy bombardment, and then were unable to contain the shock Russian battalions, that had penetrated the broad gap created.
The speedy and dramatic collapse of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy found General von Schenk as the Military Governor of Zagreb.
Von Schenk was considered to be a high level professional soldier, with a deep knowledge in conventional war, intelligence and counterintelligence.
While assigned to the directorate, to the Russian section, he had a role in the exposure and arrest of Colonel Alfred Redl – Russia's leading spy.