kk Ministry of National Defense

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Former kk Landwehr Ministry in Vienna 1., Babenbergerstraße 5

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 '10 "  N , 16 ° 21' 45"  E

The Imperial and Royal Ministry for National Defense (colloquially also known as the Landwehr Ministry ) with its seat in Vienna was one of three armed forces ministries of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy that were formally independent of each other during peacetime . The other two ministries were:

The Landwehr Ministry was set up on December 30, 1867 as the Imperial and Royal Ministry of National Defense and Public Security , renamed the Imperial and Royal Ministry of National Defense in 1870 and existed until November 11, 1918. It was responsible for the financing, organization and administration of the cisleithan half of the empire from 1868 onwards The dual monarchy set up military units alongside the joint Austro-Hungarian army , which were designated as the Imperial-Royal Landwehr . The legal basis for this, especially the budget and the defense law, were decided upon by the Reichsrat at the request of the ministry and sanctioned (approved) by the emperor .

Framework

After the lost war with Prussia (which Prussia had started), Emperor Franz Joseph I was forced in 1866/1867 to grant the Kingdom of Hungary , which had remained in passive resistance since the failed secession in 1849, partial sovereignty and equal rights with Austria with the so-called Austro-Hungarian compromise . For this purpose, the Austrian Empire (with Hungary as a part) , which had been uniformly run until then, had to be constitutionally converted into the so-called “dual monarchy”.

One of Hungary's demands was for its own armed forces. The compromise with the crown resulted in the right of both halves of the empire to set up their own territorial forces in addition to the still existing (joint) army from 1867: In Transleithanien the ku Landwehr (Hungarian: Királyi Honvédség , also in German, in contrast to the Austrian Landwehr, often referred to as Honvéd) built up, in Cisleithanien according to her the kk Landwehr.

Although the common army formed the bulk of the total armed power, there was no common defense law for both halves of the empire. These had reserved autonomy in recruiting in 1867.

budget

From 1868 three de jure independent army bodies existed side by side in Austria-Hungary, of which the common army was by far the largest institution. In 1896, for example, 140.2 million guilders were budgeted for the army, 15.7 million for the Landwehr and 14.7 million for the Honvéd (1895). Due to the significantly lower number of recruits in the Landwehr, however, the Landwehr was not automatically worse off from a budgetary point of view. B. also include costs for fortifications; the Landwehr, however, could concentrate on training and equipment. At the beginning of the war, the five regiments of the Imperial and Royal Mountain Troops were the best trained and equipped troops in Austria-Hungary.

location

The Imperial and Royal Ministry for National Defense was located in Vienna , 1st district, at Babenbergerstraße 5 in the immediate vicinity of the Hofburg, where the emperor lived and worked and the parliament .

Commander in chief

Until July 1914, Emperor Franz Joseph I himself held the highest command ; at the beginning of the war he appointed General of the Infantry Archduke Friedrich von Österreich-Teschen as Army Commander in Chief, to whom all land forces in Austria-Hungary were subordinate. On December 2, 1916, Karl I./IV. the ah. Supreme command itself and kept it until the collapse of the common army at the beginning of November 1918. On November 3, 1918, the Kaiser appointed Arthur Arz von Straussenburg to take responsibility for the armistice of November 3 and the demobilization of November 6, and on November 4 in his place Hermann Kövess von Kövesshaza as army commander .

minister

The Minister was appointed and dismissed by the Kaiser in agreement with the Imperial and Royal Prime Minister , who was also appointed by him .

Landwehr ministers ( entitled to speak to the Supreme Command ) were:

Structure of the Ministry

Landwehr Minister von Georgi as Colonel General after 1916
The structure shown below relates to the status in July 1914 immediately before the start of the First World War .

The Ministry consisted of several sections, which were divided into departments (departments) and bureaux (offices). The current structure was published in the schematic of the kk Landwehr and the kk gendarmerie of the kingdoms and states represented in the Reichsrat , which was published annually in the kk Hof- und Staatsdruckerei in Vienna.

Adjutants:

Personnel adjutant : Lieutenant Viktor Hurth
  • For personal service at the minister:
Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Kutschera
Secretary of State Gaston Murad

Section heads and departments

Field Marshal Lieutenant Richard Schreyer
Field Marshal Lieutenant Karl Edler von Langer
Section head Karl Rädlhammer (economic section and Landwehr directorate)
Head of Section Karl Graf Messey de Bielle
Section head Alfred Freiherr Bibra von Gleicherwiesen
Section head Otto Stöger Edler von Marenpach
  • Presidential Office
Colonel of the General Staff Corps Stephan Majewski
Personnel matters of the generals, all staff officers and staff officer aspirants, press matters, ordinance sheet and schemes
  • Presidential Aid Office
Board of Directors: Colonel Eduard Hofer
I. II. III.
  • Department I.
Board of Directors: Lieutenant Colonel Emil Rosmus
Personnel matters for all senior officers and ensigns / cadets, evidence of the qualification lists
  • Department II
Board of Directors: Colonel of the General Staff Corps Richard Jellenchich
Organization, weapons exercises, courses, other general staff matters
  • Department III
Board of Directors: Colonel Artur Nikolits
Guns, ammunition and horses, troop train
  • Department IV
Board of Directors: Chief Auditor Alois Grňa
Marriage bail matters
  • Department V
Board of Directors: General Auditor Robert Ružiczka (head of the kk officer corps for the judiciary)
Landwehr justice system
  • Department VI
Board of Directors: General-Oberstabsarzt Andreas Thurnwald (Head of the Army Medical Officer Corps)
Landwehr medical services, personnel matters for doctors and drug officers
  • Department VII
Board of Directors: Colonel Oskar Preissler
School system of the team
  • Department VIII
Board of Directors: vacant
Repartee, service books
  • Department IX
Board of Directors: Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig Maurer
Landsturm
  • Department X
Board of Directors: Landwehr Chief Executive 1st Class Michael Schmidl
Fees
  • Department X a
Board of Directors: Landwehr Chief Executive 1st Class Karl Purschke
care
  • Department X b
Board of Directors: Landwehr Chief Executive 1st Class Karl Ritter von Künell auf Nedamow
budget
  • Department XI
Board of Directors: General Director Ignaz Halbmayr
Billeting
  • Department XII
Board of Directors: Landwehr Chief Executive 1st Class Josef Hermann
Clothing and equipment
  • Department XIII
Board of Directors: Section Councilor Emil Kralowsky
Foundations, certificates and office management
  • Department XIV
Board of Directors: Ministerialrat Friedrich Freiherr Lehne von Lehnsheim
Defense law matters
  • Department XV a
Board of Directors: Ministerialrat Karl Sweceny
Military law matters of a general nature
  • Department XV b
Board of Directors: Section Councilor Moritz Freiherr von Streit
Military law matters of a special nature
  • Department XVI
Board of Directors: Ministerialrat Ladislaus Ritter von Podczaski
Military billeting
  • Department XVII
Board of Directors: Section Councilor Oskar Graf Ségur-Cabanac
Opening credits and horses
  • Department XVIII
Board of Directors: Ministerialrat Karl Mathis
Affairs of the Austro-Hungarian War Corps
  • Department XIX
Board of Directors: Section Councilor Eugen Ruff
Gendarmerie, political affairs
  • Department XX
Board of Directors: Major General Johann Herold von Stoda
Gendarmerie, military affairs
  • Ministerial Accounting Department
Board of Directors: Ministerialrat Anton Parzer
  • Landwehr specialist accounting department
Board of Directors: Landwehr Ministerialrat Edmund Zboržil
  • Gendarmerie accounting department
Board of Directors: Accounting Director Jakob Drux
  • Aid Office Directorate
Chief Director Franz Svoboda

Post institutions

Landwehr court authorities

  • Supreme Landwehr Court
  • kk military advocate general
  • Landwehr Division Courts
  • Landwehr Brigade Courts

Landwehr High Command

Vienna 1st district Schillerplatz 4 (not installed in peace)

Landwehr Territorial Command

Military command in:

Krakow : ( Western Galicia , Silesia , Northern Moravia )
Vienna: ( Lower Austria and South Moravia)
Graz : ( Styria , Carinthia , Carniola , Trieste , Gorizia , Gradiska )
Prague : Bohemia
Leitmeritz : Bohemia
Przemyśl : Central Galicia
Lviv : Eastern Galicia and Bukovina
Innsbruck : ( Tyrol , Vorarlberg , Upper Austria , Salzburg )
Ragusa : Dalmatia

kk gendarmerie

The kk gendarmerie was founded in 1849 as a military guard for civil security. From 1869 it was replaced in the large cities of Cisleithania, as the gendarmes mostly lacked police training and language barriers often arose, by the non-military security guard , soon under the minister of the interior ; in the rural areas of Austria the later Federal Gendarmerie remained until 2005. Kk Landesgendarmeriekommandos existed in Vienna, Prague , Innsbruck , Brno , Lemberg , Graz , Trieste , Linz , Zara , Troppau , Salzburg , Ljubljana , Chernivtsi and Klagenfurt .

The Austro- Hungarian Gendarmerie was subordinate to the Austro- Hungarian War Ministry until 1876 , which has been illegal since the settlement with Hungary in 1867 , since the War Ministry should only be responsible for joint armed forces, but after the settlement the gendarmerie only worked in Cisleithanien and nothing more with the Kingdom of Hungary had to do. In 1876 this was changed and the gendarmerie was structurally (militarily, economically, administratively) subordinated to the cisleithan Landwehr Ministry. In the public security service, the gendarmerie was subordinate to the political kk district and state authorities.

Utilities

kk horse breeding institutions
Landwehr equipment depot (Vienna)
Landwehr weapons depot (Vienna)
Landwehrzeugsanstalt (Vienna)
Landwehr remontendepots in Zawadka and Wolfpassing
Landwehr hospitals in Krakow, Teschen , Olmütz, Kremsier , Graz, Klagenfurt , Eger , Pilsen , Leitmeritz , Caslau , Hohenmauth , Rzeszów , Jaroslau , Stryj , Chernivtsi , Linz , St. Pölten and Wels

Subordinate troop units

Landwehr foot troops

  • 13th Landwehr Infantry Division in Vienna
  • 21st Landwehr Infantry Division in Prague
  • 22nd Landwehr Infantry Division in Graz
  • 26th Landwehr Infantry Division in Leitmeritz
  • 43rd Landwehr Infantry Division in Chernivtsi
  • 44th Landwehr Infantry Division in Innsbruck
  • 45th Landwehr Infantry Division in Przemyśl
  • 46th Landwehr Infantry Division in Cracow

Landwehr cavalry

  • 1st Landwehr Cavalry Brigade in Wels
  • 2nd Landwehr Cavalry Brigade in Olomouc
  • 3rd Landwehr Cavalry Brigade in Lemberg

Landwehr artillery

  • Eight "Landwehr field cannon divisions" (among other things, in the artillery unit, battalion-strength units were referred to as "divisions") were each assigned to a Landwehr infantry division and given the same number.
  • Eight "Landwehr Field Howitzer Divisions" were each assigned to a Landwehr infantry division and given the same number.

literature

  • kuk war ministry “Dislocation and division of the kuk army, kuk navy, kk landwehr and ku landwehr” in: Seidel's small army scheme - published by Seidel & Sohn Vienna 1914
  • Stefan Rest, M. Christian Ortner , Thomas Ilming: “The emperor's rock in World War I. Uniforms and equipment of the Austro-Hungarian army from 1914 to 1918 ”. Verlag Militaria, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3950164200
  • Walter Wagner: The k. (U.) K. Army - structure and tasks . In: Adam Wandruzska , Peter Urbanitsch (ed.): The Habsburg Monarchy 1848-1918 Volume 5 - The armed power . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1987 ISBN 3 7001 1122 3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter Wagner: The k. (U.) K. Army - structure and tasks p. 417–418
  2. ^ Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Army and Navy in: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon , Volume 13, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna 1896, p. 302 f.
  3. ↑ daily newspaper Wiener Zeitung , no. 246, October 26, 1906 p.1
  4. ↑ Manfried Rauchsteiner: The death of the double eagle . Special edition. Verlag Styria, Graz, Vienna, Cologne 1997. ISBN 3-222-12454-X , p. 580.
  5. ↑ daily newspaper Wiener Zeitung , no. 248, Supplement Viennese Evening Post , October 28, 1918 p.1 .
  6. ^ Schematismus , Vienna 1906, in American Libraries / Internet Archive
  7. ↑ "Section chief" was also a rank used by military officials. He belonged to rank IV and corresponded to the field marshal lieutenant
  8. ↑ with press matters is meant printing work
  9. ↑ operational readiness
  10. ↑ Class VI like Colonel
  11. ↑ Veterans
  12. ↑ Law of February 26, 1876, on the Imperial and Royal Gendarmerie for the kingdoms and countries represented in the Imperial Council