TY - JOUR AB - Austria had a gendarmerie for 156 years, from 8 June 1849 to 30 June 2005. The roots of that law enforcement agency lay in the French model, which became a global model for the maintenance of law and order. This paper looks at the first main period of the history of the Austrian gendarmerie, when the imperial-royal gendarmerie was still part of the army and therefore chiefly subject to military regulations. It can be seen that the gendarmerie, which was introduced following the serf emancipation of the revolutionary year of 1848, initially filled a law enforcement vacuum in the provinces, but soon become an instrument of the absolutist empire. The progressive democratisation of the Habsburg Empire and its transformation into the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy gave rise to major changes in the 1860s. From that time, the gendarmerie was only responsible for the Austrian half of the empire, and endured massive cuts. Moreover, many politicians called for its military influence to be largely abolished and for the gendarmerie to be turned into a civil law enforcement agency. Finally that did not gain a parliamentary majority. Nevertheless, the gendarmerie's military character was reduced. However, a partial reversal occurred around the turn of the century, enabling the gendarmerie to be also deployed in the event of war, which proved to be of great importance during the First World War. Shortly after the establishment of the Republic in 1918, Austrian politicians decided to separate the gendarmerie from the army, marking a departure from the international gendarmerie model. AU - Gebhardt, Helmut DO - 10.7396/IE_2015_H ET - 7/2015 KW - gendarmerie Austria gendarmerie history LA - eng M1 - International Edition PY - 2015 SN - 1813-3495 SP - 85-95 ST - The Military Organisation of the Habsburg Gendarmerie from 1849 to 1918 T2 - SIAK-Journal − Journal for Police Science and Practice TI - The Military Organisation of the Habsburg Gendarmerie from 1849 to 1918 UR - http://www.bmi.gv.at/cms/BMI_SIAK/4/2/1/ie2015/files/Gebhardt_IE_2015.pdf VL - 5 ID - 514 ER -