Ministers
According to the Delegation Law of 21 December 1867, the Minister of War, together with the Minister of Finance and the Minister of the Imperial and Royal House and of the Exterior formed the Council of Ministers for Common Affairs under the direction of the Foreign Minister. The three Imperial and Royal ministers were appointed and relieved from office by the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary himself.
Until 1911, the ministers were called Reich Ministers of War. Upon the accession of Moritz von Auffenberg, following Hungarian wishes not to be summarized under an Austrian realm that did not consist of the Hungarian lands at that time, the ministers were called Imperial and Royal (k.u.k.) Ministers of War.
| Name | Image | Term began | Term ended | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Field Marshal Lieutenant Franz von John | 21 December 1867 | 18 January 1868 | ||
| 2. | Field Marschal Lieutenant Franz Kuhn von Kuhnenfeld | 18 January 1868 | 14 June 1874 | ||
| 3. | General of the Cavalry Alexander von Koller | 14 June 1874 | 20 June 1876 | ||
| 4. | Feldzeugmeister Artur Maximilian von Bylandt-Rheidt | 20 June 1876 | 16 March 1888 | ||
| 5. | Feldzeugmeister Ferdinand von Bauer | 16 March 1888 | 24 July 1893 | ||
| 6. | Feldzeugmeister Rudolf von Merkl (acting) | 24 July 1893 | 22 September 1893 | ||
| 7. | General of the Cavalry Edmund von Krieghammer | 22 September 1893 | 17 December 1902 | ||
| 8. | Feldzeugmeister Heinrich von Pitreich | 18 December 1902 | 24 October 1906 | ||
| 9. | General of the Infantry Franz Schönaich | 24 October 1906 | 20 September 1911 | ||
| 10. | General of the Infantry Moritz von Auffenberg | 20 September 1911 | 12 December 1912 | ||
| 11. | Field Marshal Alexander von Krobatin | 12 December 1912 | 12 April 1917 | ||
| 12. | Colonel General Rudolf Stöger-Steiner von Steinstätten | 12 April 1917 | 11 November 1918 |
The influence of the Austro-Hungarian War Minister was limited, due to the rivalness with the Austrian Minister-President and the Prime Minister of Hungary. Moreover it was the Emperor who acted as commander-in-chief of the Imperial and Royal Armed Might, served by his personal military chancellery and represented by an Inspector General, since 1869 Field Marshal Archduke Albert of Austria-Teschen. His successor General of the Cavalry and Admiral Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este in 1906 achieved the dismissal of Minister Pitreich and 76-years-old Chief of the General Staff Friedrich von Beck-Rzikowsky, who was replaced by Franz Ferdinand's confidant Field Marshal Lieutenant Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf. Dismissed in 1911 but again appointed together with Minister Alexander von Krobatin during the 1912 Balkan Wars, Conrad acted autonomously, being directly responsible to the emperor. In the 1914 July Crisis upon the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, he and Krobatin declared the Austro-Hungarian armed forces 'prepared for war'.
On 30 October 1918, Emperor Charles I of Austria assigned the Naval command to the newly established Yugoslavian State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. After the Kingdom of Hungary left the real union with Austria the next day, the last Austro-Hungarian minister Stöger-Steiner had to supervise the liquidation of the remaining Cisleithanian troops. Upon the resignation of Emperor Charles on 12 November, he was answerable to an Army state secretary of the republican German Austrian government under Chancellor Karl Renner. The 'War Ministry in Liquidation' was renamed 'Military Liquidation Agency' in 1920, when the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Army was established. It was not dissolved until 1931.
Read more about this topic: Minister Of War (Austria-Hungary)
Famous quotes containing the word ministers:
“One of the ministers of Truro, when I asked what the fishermen did in the winter, answered that they did nothing but go a- visiting, sit about, and tell stories, though they worked hard in summer. Yet it is not a long vacation they get. I am sorry that I have not been there in winter to hear their yarns.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... the black girls didn’t get these pills because their black ministers were up on the pulpit saying that birth control pills were black genocide. What I’m saying is that black men have exploited black women.... They didn’t want them to have any choice about their reproductive health. And if you can’t control your reproduction, you can’t control your life.”
—Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)