Summary: The Development of the Armed Forces of the Second Republic
Friedrich Hessel
The development of armed forces depends both on the security-political environment and on the population’s feeling of threat. The resulting tension forces the planners of armed forces to face major challenges.
The beginnings of the armed forces of the Second Republic reach back to mobile units of the constabulary, which were founded as the so-called B-Constabulary in the beginning of the 1950ies and which became the core of the newly created armed forces after the occupying powers had withdrawn and the national sovereignty had been achieved. In July 1956 the Office of Defence became a Ministry of its own. In the "Army Structure 56” the concrete organisation was put down with three groups, each consisting of nine brigades in reality, but the goal of 60.000 men was soon found out to be too ambitious.
In the beginning of the 1960ies a reform became necessary due to the lack of commissioned soldiers and recruits, which aimed at creating smaller and more employable armed forces.
The "Army Structure 62” resulted in the creation of two armoured and five infantry brigades which, on the one hand could be supported territorially by nine newly established regional commands, and on the other hand - with regard to personnel - could be filled by three special training regiments. In 1968 the relationship of tension between the organisation’s size and the personnel revenue led to another change of the organisation, which ended in a reduction of size without reforming the structures. In the end of the 1960ies the armed forces consisted of four infantry brigades, three armoured infantry brigades, and three reserve brigades which could be mobilized. In addition to that there was the newly created territorial organisation in the form of 20 territorial reserve formations, which were attached to the regional commands.
The development of the territorial defence concept, by which the deterring effect of the armed forces was supposed to be seriously enhanced, resulted from the discussion about the shortening of the military training period and from the recollection of the state of defence. In the course of the "Army Structure 72” an army headquarters was created, which was directly subordinated to the ministry at first and rose to become a directorate general of its own in 1978; the group headquarters were given up and were replaced by two corps headquarters. The readiness forces existed next to the territorial reserve which could be mobilised, maintaining the territorial defence concept, and the regional headquarters acted as territorial commands.
After the end of the Cold War and consequently by a change of the threat scenario the total reform of 1991 was anticipated by dissolving the army headquarters and the 1st armoured infantry brigade, and by creating the new third corps headquarters. The "Army Structure 92” involved abandoning the territorial defence concept and accordingly dissolving the territorial reserve formations. The territorial regiments were converted into 12 infantry regiments and four staff regiments which were supposed to grow up to 12 infantry brigades by mobilization.
Further reform steps were taken as soon as the new organisation was put into practice, which developed in a more pronounced form during the "Army Structure 98”. As a result three infantry brigades and two armoured infantry brigades were established, one corps headquarters was dissolved, and the organisations of the military regional headquarters with all in all 20 territorial militia battalions to be mobilized were tightened up. The "internationalisation” of the armed forces, which had been started cautiously already in 1960, was carried on by establishing the Austrian International Operations Command as a logical consequence. The necessary size of the armed forces was reduced from 150.000 to 110.000, after mobilization.
Austria’s joining the European Union together with a completely new orientation of the European security policy caused discussions about the military structures in the armed forces as well, which resulted in creating a Defence Staff in 2002, merging the authorities of planning, command and control, and armament. The two corps headquarters were joined in a Land Force Command. Caused by reduction of military service duration to six months and by suspension of military reserves exercises, quickly deployable forces will gain importance in future.
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