Viktor Stepinac was born in Brezarić, a village in the parish of Krašić in the Austro-Hungarian Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia on 8 May 1898, to a wealthy viticulturalist, Josip Stepinac, and his second wife Barbara (). He was the fifth of nine children, and he had three more siblings from his father's first marriage. His mother, a devout Roman Catholic, prayed constantly that he would enter the priesthood. The family moved to Krašić in 1906, and Stepinac attended primary school there, then attended high school in Zagreb from 1909 to 1915, boarding at the Archdiocese of Zagreb orphanage. This was followed by study at the lycée of the archdiocese, as he was seriously considering taking holy orders, having sent in his application to the seminary at the age of 16. He was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army for service in World War I, and had to accelerate his studies and graduate ahead of schedule. Sent to a reserve officers school in Rijeka, after six months training he was sent to serve on the Italian Front in 1917 where he commanded Bosnian soldiers. In July 1918, he was captured by Italian forces who held him as a prisoner of war. His family was initially told that he had been killed, and a memorial service held in Krašić. A week after the service, his parents received a telegram from their son telling them he had been captured. He was held in various Italian prisoner-of-war camps until 6 December 1918. After the formation of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs on 1 December 1918, he was no longer treated as an enemy soldier, and he volunteered for the Yugoslav Legion that had been engaged on the Salonika front. As the war had already ended, he was demobilized with the rank of second lieutenant and returned home in the spring of 1919. After the war he enrolled at the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Zagreb, but left it after only one semester and returned home to help his father in his vineyards. His father wanted him to marry, and in 1923 he was briefly engaged to a teacher, Marija Horvat, but the engagement was broken off. In 1922, Stepinac was part of the politically conservative Catholic Hrvatski orlovi (Croatian Eagles) youth sport organisation, and traveled to the mass games in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He was at the front of the group's ceremonial procession,