From Hero to Outcast: The Extraordinary Life of Bosnian Serb Gojkomir von Glogovac

Gojkomir Glogovac was born on 25 November 1883 in Bileća into a Bosnian Orthodox family. Although his father worked in a government position, he passed away early in Gojkomir’s life and so his military career began. In the pre-war period Gojkomir is assigned to the second Bosnian-Herzegovinian Infantry Regiment from Banja Luka, stationed in Graz Austria. He gets promoted to a junior Officer and is commended for his leading in the greatest junior Officer academy up until that point (16 April 1914). He fluently spoke Bosnian , German and Russian. He was noted as an excellent gymnast, swordsman, swimmer and marksman.

Once the war began, his regiment was transferred to the Serbian front. Gojkomir commanded the III MG Battalion, III battalion. The first of his many war accolades happened when he singlehandedly mowed down 400+ Serbian infantrymen of the Morava Division. His unit once again was credited for impressive military feats on the Italian front where he takes part in the conquest of Monte San Michael. He continues his impressive war path and on 17 August 1917 is called up to the Wartholz Villa for the 180th commemoration of the knights Cross of Maria Theresia, Austria’s highest military award (you can see him wearing the Fez on the occasion). He now became Hauptmann, his excellency Baron Gojkomir von Glogovac. He was supposed to lead and teach the Austro-Hungarian detachment in the middle East, but that never happened. Instead, the rest of the war he spent on the Italian and later Albanian front, where he trained Albanian volunteers alongside his men. He gets commended a number of times, humbly thanking only his brave Bosniaks for the awards. The collapse of the monarchy prevented the Hauptmann from receiving the knights Cross of Leopold.

He returns to his homeland once the war ended, but receives harsh criticism from the leading (ex-Serb) officials on his war service. For this and general lack of discipline, he resigns from the army of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, apparently after rejecting to give an oath to the Serbian King Peter I. His last years are marked with very poor military pension and struggles and attempts to find work in Hungary and Austria. Gojkomir’s health deteriorates as he contracts tuberculosis in the summer of 1921. Hauptmann Glogovac passed away on 1 March 1922 in Budapest. 😃