Vol. XXXII · 2001 · pp. 69-104 (36)

Ulrike Harmat

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Abstract

In October 1915, in the middle of World War I, the chief of staff of the Royal and Imperial Army, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, consulted the authorities on a private matter.1 While "the fatherland was fighting a bloody battle for its very existence, and the army and people were turning to their generals full of alarm,"2 the general was contemplating marriage. However, Austrian marriage laws stood in the way of his plans. Virginia (Gina) Agujari, Conrad's "chosen one," had since 1896 been in a Catholic marriage with the industrialist Hans von Reininghaus. According to the provisions of the General Civil Code 1811 (Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch [ABGB]),however, Catholic marriages were indissoluble; the only possibility was a "divorce from bed and board," which nullified their "life partnership" without affecting their "marriage bonds," thus ruling out remarriage. What Conrad was trying to achieve was the remarriage of a woman whose first marriage was indissoluble, a problem that he shared with many others and that caused some strange detours, also in the literal sense of the word.