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 Austro-Hungarian air force remained embryonic in 1914 with a few German built planes having been added to the Army balloon service in 1913, but was to see marked expansion during the early years of the war.

Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, commanding troops in the city, broke the siege in 1683 with the aid of German and Polish forces under the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski, and pushed the besieging Ottoman armies toward the Balkans, ending its further engagements in Central Europe.

Prince Eugene of Savoy, after a brief raid into Ottoman-held Bosnia, culminating in the sack of Sarajevo in 1697, returned to Vienna in November to a triumphal reception.

The monarchy's military potential during the eighteenth century was limited by the emperor's dependence on provincial Diets for recruits and tax receipts while the nobles of the imperial lands who controlled the enserfed peasantry had no fixed obligation to provide soldiers to the Habsburg.

Only the army, foreign affairs, and related budgetary matters remained with the emperor, who held supreme command of all forces in time of war.

In an empire of ten nationalities and five religions, marked by ethnic conflict and sharp political and economic divisions, the army formed the only real bond among the emperor's subjects and the sole instrument through which loyalty to him could find expression.

According to British historian Edward Crankshaw who noted that not only the emperor but most males in high society never wore civilian clothes except when hunting.

Select regiments of the army were splendidly outfitted, but, with a few dedicated exceptions, the officers, so magnificent on the parade ground, "shrank ... from the arbitrament of arms as from an unholy abyss".

During the late 19th and early 20th century leading up to World War One, the Austro-Hungarian Military underwent a process of modernisation in all service branches in terms of training, equipment and doctrine, although many traditions and old practices remained in force.

As a result of the efforts chief-of-staff Montecuccoli and heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand the navy underwent considerable modernisation with the commission of a number of new units, and specifically three up-to-date battleships delivered by 1914.

The army too underwent gradual and constant modernisation but maintained an unhealthy commitment to fortress-warfare as evidenced by concentration on giant artillery pieces and fortification building along the empire's eastern frontier.

Although sometimes dismissed as fanciful and lacking touch with the realities confronting the forces at his disposal, as a chief of General Staff Conrad had ensured the army had remained vigilant and planning for war was at an advanced stage by 1914, although it has been argued that reorganisation and redeployment should have been sweeping in the aftermath of the Redl affair.

Although the empire exhibited no colonial aspirations, forays abroad including the military occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Novi Pazar, the expedition to Crete and involvement in the Boxer Rebellion.

The bloody fighting on the Italian front would last for the next three and a half years, ending with a decisive defeat of the Habsburg forces and leading to the collapse of the empire.

Overall during the Military's greatest deployment – World War I – and despite persistent fears of disloyalty and division among the Empire's many nationalities, the forces of Austria-Hungary must be seen as having performing largely competently until political demise in late 1918.