[3] In March 1917, Charles I dismissed him as Chief of Staff after Emperor Franz Joseph died and Conrad's Trentino Offensive had failed to achieve its objective; he then commanded an army group on the Italian Front until he retired in the summer of 1918.

His great-grandfather Franz Anton Conrad (1738–1827) had been ennobled and added to his name the nobiliary particle von Hötzendorf as a predicate in 1815, referring to the surname of his first wife who descended from the Bavarian Upper Palatinate region.

His father Franz Xaver Conrad (1793–1878) was a retired colonel of Hussars, originally from southern Moravia, who had fought in the Battle of Leipzig and took part in the suppression of the Vienna Uprising of 1848, wherein he was severely wounded.

In 1907, while attending a dinner party in Vienna, Conrad met and quickly became enamoured of Virginia von Reininghaus, an Italian aristocrat.

[7] In 1878–1879, upon the Treaty of Berlin, these duties brought him to the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sanjak of Novi Pazar, when those Ottoman provinces were assigned to the military administration of Austria-Hungary.

In the fall of 1888, Conrad was promoted to major and appointed professor of military tactics in the Kriegsschule in Vienna,[6] a position he prepared for by touring the battlefields of the Franco-Prussian War.

[7] By the time of his appointment as Chief of Staff for the Austro-Hungarian military forces at the suggestion of the heir to the throne (Thronfolger), Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in November 1906, Conrad had established a reputation as a teacher and writer.

After Aehrenthal resigned and died the next year, Archduke Franz Ferdinand urged Conrad's re-appointment, which took place during the Balkan Wars in December 1912.

Although Conrad's ideas had considerable impact in the decision making process of the government, especially in the lead-up to the First World War, historian John Leslie describes him as a "loner" who did not easily win friends or influence people and was politically inept.

To cancel those leaves would disrupt the harvest and the nation's food supply, scramble complex railroad schedules, alert Europe to Vienna's plans, and give the opposition time to mobilize.

In addition, relations with the German Supreme Army Command (OHL) worsened due to the uneasy relationship between Conrad and General Erich von Falkenhayn.

[17] While still the heir-apparent, Charles had reported to Emperor Franz Josef that the "mismanagement" in the army's high command could not be cleared out until Conrad was replaced, but admitted that finding someone to take his role would not be easy.

Charles took operational control of all combat units in the army and navy and on 1 March 1917 officially dismissed Conrad, who then requested retirement.

The emperor personally asked him to remain on active duty, and when Conrad accepted, he was placed in command of the South Tyrolean Army Group.

[18] In the late spring of 1918, the failure of the Austro-Hungarian offensives against the Italians, with costly and bloody assaults led by both Conrad and Boroević, brought condemnation upon the imperial leadership.

[22] Conrad refused to take responsibility for the start of the war, or for Austria-Hungary's defeat, arguing that he had "been 'just a military expert' with no voice in the key decisions".

The first Austro-Hungarian offensives against Russia were remarkable for their lack of effect, culminating in the lost Battle of Galicia and the disastrous Siege of Przemyśl combined with massive human cost.

Conrad was fully responsible for this disaster, for he had committed too many troops in Serbia, leaving severely outnumbered units to resist the Russian advance.

Conrad blamed the German allies, who had driven out the Russian Army from East Prussia in the Battle of Tannenberg, for the lack of military support.

Conrad was a Social Darwinist, and believed life consisted of "an unremitting struggle for existence" in which the offensive was the only effective form of defence.

His greatest ambition was for a pre-emptive war against Serbia in order to neutralize the threat that he believed they posed, and at the same time change the political balance within the Dual Monarchy against the Magyars by incorporating more Slavs in a third Yugoslavian component under Austrian control, denying the principle of self-determination.

[27] For decades, the reputation of the Austro-Hungarian Army and Conrad as one of the greatest military commanders in modern history was a matter of national pride among patriotic circles in post-war Austria—though his policies and tactics had already been criticized by contemporaries like Karl Kraus, who in his satirical drama The Last Days of Mankind portrayed him as a vain poser (I 2).

In 1938 the Wehrmacht barracks of the 1st Mountain Division in Oberammergau, Bavaria were named Conrad-von-Hötzendorf-Kaserne; it is today operated by the Bundeswehr and site of the NATO School.