On 22 May 1915, Eugen was promoted to Generaloberst. Two days later on the 24th of May he was entrusted with the command of the southwestern front against Italy. He moved his headquarters to Marburg (Maribor) and now commanded a theatre stretching from the Swiss border to the Adriatic. His main objective here was a pure and simple defence against the many times numerically superior Italian forces. Only at the beginning was the designation "Southwest Front Command" clear. From March 1916, it functioned as "Heeresgruppen-Kommando Erzherzog Eugen" in Tyrol to the exclusion of the remaining parts of the front and at the beginning of the execution of the 12th battle of the Isonzo as "Heeresfront Erzherzog Eugen" with the allied German 14th Army and "Heeresgruppe von Boroević" under command but Heeresgruppe von Conrad was not immediately subordinate.