Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces

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Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces
Bewaffnete Macht
Standard of the Supreme Commander in Chief, the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary
Founded	5 March 1867
Disbanded	3 December 1918
Service branches	Austro-Hungarian Army Austro-Hungarian Navy Austro-Hungarian Aviation Troops
Headquarters	Vienna
Leadership
Supreme Commander	Hermann Kövess von Kövessháza (last)
Minister of War	Rudolf Stöger-Steiner von Steinstätten (last)
Chief of the General Staff	Arthur Arz von Straußenburg (last)
Personnel
Military age	17 years of age
Available for military service	13,402,788, age 15–49 (1914 est.)
Fit for military service	9,031,046, age 15–49 (1914 est.)
Reaching military age annually	423,809 (1914 est.)
Active personnel	2,500,000 (1914)
Deployed personnel	7,800,000 (1914–1918)
Industry
Domestic suppliers	Skoda Steyr Mannlicher
Related articles
History	Austrian Empire Austrian Army Military history of Austria Imperial and Royal Army during the Napoleonic Wars
Ranks	Army ranks Navy ranks

The Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces (German: Bewaffnete Macht or Wehrmacht; Hungarian: Fegyveres Erő) or Imperial and Royal Armed Forces were the military forces of Austria-Hungary. It comprised two main branches: The Army (Landstreitkräfte) and the Navy (Kriegsmarine). Both of them organised their own aviation branches – the Army's Aviation Troops (K.u.K. Luftfahrtruppen) and the Navy's Naval Aviation (K.u.K. Seefliegerkorps). The Army in turn consisted of its own three branches: The Common Army (Gemeinsame Armee), the Imperial-Royal Landwehr (kaiserlich-königliche Landwehr) and the Royal Hungarian Honvéd (königlich ungarische Landwehr).

Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces was the Emperor-King, the professional leader was the Chief of the General Staff and the head of the joint Ministry for military affairs was the Minister of War.

The Armed Forces served as one of the Empire's core unifying institutions and the principal instrument for the national defense as well as external power projection. The history of the Austro-Hungarian military begins when the Habsburgs established hereditary rule over Austrian lands in the 13th century and stretches until the fall of the Habsburgs, at the end of World War I, during which time their armies were among the largest and most significant in Europe. Though not as powerful as some of its contemporaries, the military of Austria-Hungary's scale, resources, organization, technology and training were one of the central factors determining conferral of 'great power' status on the empire for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries.