Imperial-Royal Mountain Troops

The Imperial-Royal Mountain Troops (German: Kaiserlich-königliche Gebirgstruppe) were founded in 1906 as part of the Austrian Landwehr, the territorial army of the Cisleithanian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a result, the abbreviation "k.k." (for kaiserlich österreichisch, königlich böhmisch or "Imperial Austrian, Royal Bohemian") was used and not "k.u.k." ("Imperial and Royal") which would have implied a connexion with the Hungarian half of the Empire.

Proposed in a memorandum by Conrad von Hötzendorf, in February 1906 the War Ministry in Vienna convened a session on Alpine border security. Field Marshal Tunk, agreed with him and put forward a concept, the fundamentals of which were then carried out.

The existing state rifle regiments were to be trained as mountain troops and, together with the Landsturm border patrol companies and gendarmerie departments were to form the backbone of a territorial defence force with local knowledge on the border of Tyrol.

On 1 May 1906 the two state rifle regiments with their HQs stationed in Bozen and Trient (now Bolzano and Trento, both in Italy) and the 4th Landwehr Infantry (Klagenfurt) were nominated as "high mountain troops" (Hochgebirgstruppe) and, in 1909, a third state rifle regiment, with its HQ stationed in Candido, was added. In 1911, the fifth regiment followed: the 27th Imperial-Royal Landwehr Infantry (Laibach).

The area of the Carnic ridge in Carinthia and the Julian Alps was assigned to the 4th Landwehr Infantry (Klagenfurt) and the 27th Landwehr Infantry (Ljubljana). These two, hitherto standard infantry regiments were given the new uniform of the mountain troops. From 11 April 1917 they bore the names 1st and 2nd Mountain Rifles.

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