Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces in the context of "Austro-Hungarian Army"

The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army, was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918, one of the two branches of the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army (German: Gemeinsame Armee, recruited from all parts of Austria-Hungary), the Imperial-Royal Landwehr (recruited from Cisleithania) and the Royal Hungarian Honvéd (recruited from Transleithania).

In the wake of fighting between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary and the subsequent two decades of uneasy co-existence, Hungarian troops served either in ethnically mixed units or were stationed away from Hungarian regions. With the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the Austro-Hungarian Army was brought into being. It existed until the disestablishment of Austria-Hungary in 1918 following the end of World War I. Common Army units were generally poorly trained and had very limited access to new equipment, because the governments of the Austrian and Hungarian parts of the empire often preferred to generously fund their own units instead of outfitting all three army branches equally. All Landwehr and Honvéd regiments were composed of three battalions, while Common Army regiments had four.