Minister of War (Austria-Hungary)

The Imperial and Royal Minister of War (German: Kaiserlicher und königlicher Kriegsminister), until the year 1911 Minister of War of the Empire (Reichskriegsminister), was the head of one of the three common ministries shared by the two states which made up the Dual Monarchy from its creation in 1867 until the empire's collapse in 1918, Imperial Austria and Royal Hungary. Together with the common Ministry of Finance, the Ministery of the Imperial and Royal House and of the Exterior and the Emperor and King himself, the Common Army (Gemeinsames Heer) and the Navy (Kriegsmarine) were institutions shared by both constituent parts of the empire, although both Austria and Hungary possessed their own Defense Ministries charged with the internal administration of the homeland troops (Landwehr and Honvéd), known as the Ministerium für Landesverteidigung and Honvédministerium respectively.

I & R Ministers of War

Until 1911, the ministers were called Ministers of War of the Empire. From 1911, following Hungarian wishes not to be summarized under an empire that did not consist of the Hungarian lands at that time, the ministers were called I & R Ministers of War.

(The flags displayed below instead of pictures of the ministers have not been used by the ministry at all. They had been created in 1915 for the navy, but have not been used in practice until the end of the dual monarchy.)

	Name	Image	Term began	Term ended [1]
1.	Feldmarschalleutnant Franz Freiherr von John		1867	1868
2.	Feldmarschalleutnant Franz Kuhn Freiherr Kuhn von Kuhnenfeld		1868	1874
3.	General der Kavallerie Alexander Freiherr von Koller		1874	1876
4.	Feldzeugmeister Arthur Maximilian Graf Bylandt-Rheydt (der Ältere)		1876	1888
5.	Feldzeugmeister Ferdinand Freiherr Bauer		1888	1893
6.	Feldzeugmeister Rudolf Freiherr Merkl		1893	1893
7.	General der Kavallerie Edmund Freiherr von Krieghammer		1893	1902
8.	Feldzeugmeister Heinrich Ritter von Pitreich		1902	1906
9.	General der Infanterie Franz Freiherr Schönaich		1906	1911
10.	General der Infanterie Moritz Ritter Auffenberg von Komarów		1911	1912
11.	Feldmarschall Alexander Freiherr von Krobatin		1912	1917
12.	Generaloberst Rudolf Stöger-Steiner Edler von Steinstätten		1917	1918

The War Ministry

The historical building of the Court's War Council, later War Ministry of the Empire, was located at the square Am Hof in downtown Vienna until 1912. In 1913, the imposing neoclassical I & R War Ministry Headquarters on Ringstrasse, the department's final home, was dedicated during the reign of Emperor Francis Joseph I and Krobatin's tenure. It can still be seen in Vienna today; it is officially called Government Building (Regierungsgebäude) and is used as seat of the Minister for Economy, the Minister for Social Affairs and the Minister for Agriculture and Environment. In front of the ministry building Am Hof as well as, since 1913, of the existing building: the equestrian monument of field marshal Wenzel Count Radetzky, the most popular soldier in Austrian history, riding towards victory. The Navy Section of the ministry had its own building at Vordere Zollamtsstrasse, corner of Marxergasse, behind the headquarters and is still existing, too. At the outside of this building the coats of arms of several I & R ports on the Adriatic see are displayed.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Sources

1. ^ [""COMMON MINISTERS"". Austria Hungary. [http://www.geocities.com/capitolHill/rotunda/2209/Austria_Hungary.html. ^{[dead link]}

See also

Austro-Hungarian Army
Austria-Hungary
Austrian Empire