The Common Army (, ), as it was officially designated by the Imperial and Royal Military Administration, was the largest part of the Austro-Hungarian land forces from 1867 to 1914, the other two elements being the Imperial-Royal Landwehr (of Austria) and the Royal Hungarian Honvéd. However, it was simply known as the Army (Heer) by the Emperor and in peacetime laws,For example: and, after 1918, colloquially called the k.u.k. Armee (short for Imperial and Royal Army).
Established on 15 March 1867 and effectively disbanded on 31 October 1918 when its Hungarian troops left, the Common Army formed the main element of the "armed power" (Bewaffneten Macht or Wehrmacht) of the new dual monarchy, to which the Imperial and Royal Navy (k.u.k. Kriegsmarine) also belonged. In the First World War all land and sea forces of the monarchy were subordinated to the Armeeoberkommando set up in 1914.
History Origin of the name Until 1889 the armed forces bore the title "k.k." (kaiserlich-königlich i.e. "Imperial-Royal", which was technically incorrect after 1867 for a common institution of both Austrian and Hungarian halves of the Empire), as they had done before 1867. Only on the express wish of the Kingdom of Hungary was the designation "k.u.k." and "cs. és kir." (German: "kaiserlich und königlich", Hungarian: "császári és királyi", i.e. "Imperial and Royal") introduced in order to make the distinction clearer between the new Austrian army, the k.k. Landwehr, and the new Hungarian force, the m. kir. Honvédség. The navy did not use "k.u.k." as often, because there were few other naval forces apart from the main navy.
Common institution After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 15 March 1867 the army and navy were no longer institutions of a single state, but of the new double monarchy, which was composed of two countries on an equal footing: the Empire of Austria (Cisleithania) and the no longer subordinate Kingdom of Hungary (Transleithania); the two being joined together in a real union.
From that point on, Emperor Franz Joseph—hitherto the "Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Galicia, etc."—bore the title Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, etc. Overall command still lay with the monarch who communicated with the army through the newly established Military Chancellery of His Majesty the Emperor and King. The Imperial and Royal War Ministry (k.u.k. Kriegsministerium - called the Reichskriegsministerium until 1911) was responsible for the administration and maintenance of the Army (and Navy) structure; its associated General Staff being responsible for strategy. Its Chief of the General Staff had the right to address the monarch directly.
Main element of the armed forces The Austrian act of 11 April 1889 (a law with identical content was passed in Hungary), which superseded the defence act of 1868, amended in 1882, stated clearly in section 2 that:
The armed forces are divided into the Army, the Navy, the Landwehr and the Landsturm.
In section 14 the annual recruiting quota for the Army and Navy was set at 103,000; of which 60,389 had to come from the "kingdoms and lands represented in the Reichsrat". The recruiting target for Austrian Landwehr army raised for territorial defence was 10,000 men. The quotas were to be adjusted to meet requirements every ten years by political agreement between Austria and Hungary and by associated laws. The Austrian Landwehr and the Hungarian Royal Hungarian Honvéd were not subordinate to the Minister of War, but to the Imperial and Royal Minister for Defence (Landwehrminister) and his Royal Hungarian counterpart, unofficially called the Honvéd Minister.
Funding In all matters of joint concern, including the Common Army, there was a fixed cost-sharing between the two parts of the Empire. From 1867 onwards, Hungary bore 30% of the total cost. This figure was increased in the Compromise negotiations in 1888 to 31.4% and in 1907 to 36.4%. The total cost of the Army, Landwehr and Navy in 1912 was around 670 million krones. That was less than 3.5% of the entire national income, in 1906 it was only 2.5%. In Russia, Italy and Germany the cost in 1912 was about 5% of the net national product. Austria-Hungary remained the great power with the lowest expenditure on its armed forces.
Neglect and factional interests In the long period of peace during the final decades of the 19th century, the army and navy were increasingly neglected. Military expenditure was not popular in either the Austrian Reichsrat or Hungarian Diet, at least for their common forces. The much-needed modernization of the army was delayed again and again. This was to cause problems with mobilization in 1914. (The Mountain Troops of the Imperial-Royal Landwehr were, however, an exception and very well equipped.)
Hungarian politicians repeatedly demanded a separate Hungarian army. The monarch agreed a compromise in the 1867 accord: the two halves of the empire should be allowed their own territorial forces in addition to the common army. Hungary immediately began to establish the Royal Hungarian Landwehr, usually called the Honvéd, even in German.
But Emperor and King Franz Joseph I mainly focused on the unity of the Army and Navy enshrined in the Compromise, and reinforced this in 1903 after further attempts by Hungary in his army order of Chlopy (a training area in Galicia):See Note 1
True to their oath, all My armed forces are progressing down the path of serious fulfillment of their duty, imbued with that spirit of unity and harmony, which each national character respects and before which all opposition melts, by exploiting the individual attributes of each people for the sake of the greater whole . [...]. Jointly and united, as it is, must My army remain.Peter Urbanitsch/Helmut Rumpler (ed.): Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918 / Verfassung und Parlamentarismus: Verfassungsrecht, Verfassungswirklichkeit, zentrale Repräsentativkörperschaften (The Habsburg Monarchy 1848–1918 / Constitution and Parliamentary System: Constitutional Law, Constitutional Reality, Central Representative Bodies). Volume VII, Part 1, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 2000, p. 527.
Franz Ferdinand's reforms In 1898, when Archduke and heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, was entrusted by the Emperor with an analysis of the armed forces of the monarchy, the overdue need to rejuvenate its rather elderly General Staff quickly became apparent to him. The 76-year-old Emperor agreed in 1906 to Franz Ferdinand's proposal to replace the chief of staff, Friedrich von Beck-Rzikowsky, also 76 years old, by 54-year-old Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, and the heir immediately tasked Conrad with modernizing structures and processes.
The 65-year-old minister of war, Heinrich von Pitreich, was also replaced in 1906 at Franz Ferdinand's request. in The investment proposals of the heir were implemented for political reasons but only to a small extent; in World War I, the Austro-Hungarian army was far less well-equipped than the armed forces of the confederated German Empire.
Wartime From 1867 to 1914, Austria-Hungary's land forces only had to deal with one emergency: the occupation campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Congress of Berlin approved its military occupation in 1878. The deployment was needed in order to overcome armed resistance. In 1908, part of the common army mobilized to deter Serbia in the Bosnian Crisis.
After the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, in the summer of 1914 the 84-year-old Emperor appointed Archduke Friedrich as the Army's Commander-in-Chief, as he himself had no longer wanted to hold this role in wartime since 1859. By agreement, Friedrich left all operational decisions to his Chief of the General Staff, Conrad. After his accession in November 1916, Charles I took over personal command of the armed forces again.
Organisation
Besides the Common Army there were also the: Imperial and Royal Navy Royal Hungarian Landwehr (Magyar Király Honvédség) or Honvéd Imperial-Royal Landwehr (in Cisleithania)
The Common Army and the Navy were run by the Imperial Minister of War (Reichskriegsminister), later, from 20 September 1911, the Imperial and Royal Minister of War, in Vienna, who was immediately subordinated to the Emperor and King. The two Landwehrs were run by the State Defence Minister of the Imperial-Royal Government in Vienna and his counterpart in the Royal Hungarian government in Budapest.
In 1915 all the supplementary and honorific names in regimental titles were officially dropped and they were henceforth only to be referred to by their numbers. In practice this did not happen; firstly, because no-one bothered to do so and, secondly, because the very frugal Imperial and Royal military administration had ordered that all existing stamps and headed letters had to be exhausted first.
Recruiting and garrisoning Unlike the k.k. Landwehr and k.u. Landwehr, the Common Army and the Navy (the majority of the Navy's crews admittedly came from the region around Trieste and the rest of the littoral - and most of the Navy spoke Italian) recruited their soldiers from across the dual monarchy, i.e. from both the Cisleithanian and the Transleithanian halves of the Empire. All military elements that did not come from the Kingdom of Hungary (including Upper Hungary, Transylvania and Banat) or from Croatia and Slavonia (that were part of the Lands of the Hungarian Crown) were designated as "German regiments", regardless of whether they were made up of Poles, Croats or Italian-speaking Tyrolese. All the rest were designated as "Hungarian regiments". German and Hungarian regiments differed from one another in their dress, but their designation as "German" or "Hungarian" was no indication of the languages used within those units (see section on languages).
57 infantry regiments were called "German" regiments 45 infantry regiments were called "Hungarian" regiments. 4 infantry regiments (of Bosnian-Herzegovinian Infantry) had a special status both in terms of uniform and language. The rifle (Jäger) battalions belonging to infantry regiments were organized according to the same system Artillery, sappers, logistic train and cavalry were also mostly organized along national lines, but lacked any descriptive additions to their unit names. But it was known that all Hussars came from the lands of the Hungarian crown (with Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian and German as their native language), the Uhlans from Galicia (speaking Polish and Ukrainian) and the Dragoons from the German-Austrian crown lands, Bohemia and Moravia (speaking Czech and German).
The "armed power" (Army, Navy, Landwehr, Honvéd) was under the command of the Emperor and King in his capacity as "the supreme warlord" (allerhöchster Kriegsherr). This title was primarily of formal significance because, after the hapless campaign led by Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1859 in Italy, the monarch had retired from active military command and the actual command from then on in peacetime, was exercised by the War Ministry in Vienna and, in the First World War, by Commander-in-Chief Archduke Friedrich - only appointed for the war - and his Chief of General Staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf. On 2 December 1916 Emperor Charles I again took personal command. Franz Joseph I had never made special visits to the troops, but had made contact with local regiments on his journeys around the Monarchy and had participated in the annual "imperial exercises" (Kaisermanövern) until he was very old. In addition, he always turned out in his field marshal's uniform, when not abroad, in order to testify to the link with his soldiers. The 30-year-old Emperor Charles I, who succeeded to the throne in the middle of the war, took the term commander very seriously and tirelessly visited the front and his troops.