Review article
Ivan Merz, participant in the First World War from 1916 to 1918
Zdravko Matić
; Hrvatsko vojno učilište "Petar Zrinski", Zagreb, Republika Hrvatska
Slavko Babić
; Osnovna škola "Miroslav Krleža", Čepin, Republika Hrvatska
Abstract
Blessed Ivan Merz, from Croatia, was an active participant in the First World
War. After a short stay at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt from
September to December 1914, he went on to study law and literature in Vienna.
In December 1915 he was called to Banja Luka to take the recruitment medical
examination. Based on the Defense law, he was drafted in the summer 1915, and had
to stop the studies he had begun in Vienna, and at the beginning of February 1916
he was sent to Lebring near Graz as a member of the 2nd Bosnia and Herzegovina
Regiment from Banja Luka. He spent two years on the Italian front. In his extensive
diary he described the horrors of war. Participating in the war, Ivan Merz experienced
a profound conversion to God. After the war he started the deep religious life that led
him towards holiness.
Keywords
Ivan Merz; First World War; Italian battlefield; 2nd Bosnia and Herzegovina Regiment; war diary.
Hrčak ID:
266259
URI
Publication date:
2.2.2014.
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