The adjective kaiserlich means "imperial" and was used in the German-speaking countries to refer to those institutions and establishments over which the Kaiser ("emperor") had immediate personal power of control.
The term was used particularly in connexion with the Roman-German Emperor as sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire and with the subsequent Empire of Austria. In the Early Modern Period the term is linked with the universal precedence of the Kaiser over the other princes of the realm. Holders of an imperial or kaiserliche office were recruited from the whole empire, and had wide-ranging privileges in the territories.
Examples of military, political and cultural institutions with kaiserliche players in the Holy Roman Empire are the:
kaiserliche Residenz ("imperial residence") of Schönbrunn at Vienna;
kaiserliche Hofmusikkapelle (Imperial Court Band)
The traditions continued in the Holy Roman Empire's successors, the Empire of Austria and in Austria-Hungary (with the suffix königlich or "royal"). The kaiserliche soldiers had an especially romanticised calling and loyalty, and occasionally similar names continue to the present day, e.g. in several musical pieces and the Kaiserjäger band.
In Switzerland the term has negative connotations that go back to the protracted struggle for independence of the Swiss Confederation.
The term was not used in the German Empire of the 19th century, with the exception of the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine).
Frederick III was Holy Roman Emperor from 1452 until his death in 1493. He was the penultimate emperor to be crowned by the pope, and the last to be crowned in Rome. He was the first emperor from the House of Habsburg, which was to retain the title until it disappeared centuries later.
Francis II and I was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II from 1792 to 1806, and the first Emperor of Austria as Francis I from 1804 to 1835. He was also King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.
Kaiser is the German title for emperor. In general, the German title in principle applies to rulers anywhere in the world above the rank of king (König). In English, the word kaiser is mainly applied to the emperors of the unified German Empire (1871–1918) and the emperors of the Austrian Empire (1804–1918). During the First World War, anti-German sentiment was at its zenith; the term kaiser—especially as applied to Wilhelm II, German Emperor—thus gained considerable negative connotations in English-speaking countries.
The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a multinational European great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, it was the third most populous monarchy in Europe after the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom, while geographically, it was the third-largest empire in Europe after the Russian Empire and the First French Empire.
The emperor of Austria was the ruler of the Austrian Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The hereditary imperial title and office was proclaimed in 1804 by Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, and continually held by him and his heirs until Charles I relinquished power in 1918.
The Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, a hoop crown (Bügelkrone) with a characteristic octagonal shape, was the coronation crown of the Holy Roman Emperor, probably from the late 10th century until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. The crown was used in the coronation of the King of the Romans, the title assumed by the Emperor-elect immediately after his election. It is now kept in the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg in Vienna, Austria.
The phrase Imperial and Royal refers to the court/government of the Habsburgs in a broader historical perspective. Some modern authors restrict its use to the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918.
The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army, was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army, the Imperial-Royal Landwehr and the Royal Hungarian Honvéd.
The Hofburg is the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty in Austria. Located in the centre of Vienna, it was built in the 13th century and expanded several times afterwards. It also served as the imperial winter residence, as Schönbrunn Palace was the summer residence. Since 1946, it has been the official residence and workplace of the president of Austria.
A king-emperor or queen-empress is a sovereign ruler who is simultaneously a king or queen of one territory and emperor or empress of another. This title usually results from a merger of a royal and imperial crown, but recognises the two territories as different politically and culturally as well as in status. It also denotes a king's imperial status through the acquisition of an empire or vice versa.
The Imperial Crown of Austria is a crown formerly in use by the monarchs of the Habsburg monarchy. The crown was originally made in 1602 in Prague by Jan Vermeyen as the personal crown of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, and therefore is also known as the Crown of Emperor Rudolf II. The crown was used as a private crown of the Holy Roman Emperors and Kings of Hungary and Bohemia from the House of Habsburg. In 1804 it became the official crown of the newly constituted Austrian Empire. After 1867 it remained the imperial crown of the Cisleithanian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918.
The Imperial-Royal or Imperial Austrian Army was the armed force of the Habsburg monarchy under its last monarch, the Habsburg Emperor Francis II, composed of the Emperor's army. When the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806, it assumed its title of the troops of the Austrian Empire under the same monarch, now known as Emperor Francis I of Austria.
Marie Anne of Austria was an Archduchess of Austria as the daughter of Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily. She never married or had any children due to her being intellectually disabled with a severe facial deformity and having to spend the rest of her life in Hetzendorf Palace.
The Imperial Carriage Museum is a museum of carriages and vehicles used by the imperial household of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary. It is housed in the grounds of the Schloss Schönbrunn in the Hietzing district of Vienna and is a department of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.
The Imperial and Royal Foreign Ministry was the ministry responsible for the foreign relations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from the formation of the Dual Monarchy in 1867 until it was dissolved in 1918.
The Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria contains a valuable collection of secular and ecclesiastical treasures covering over a thousand years of European history. The entrance to the treasury is at the Schweizerhof, the oldest part of the palace, which was rebuilt in the sixteenth century in the Renaissance style under Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I. The Imperial Treasury is affiliated with the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and houses in 21 rooms a collection of rare treasures that were compiled by the Imperial House of Habsburg over the course of centuries, including the Imperial Crown, Orb, and Sceptre of Austria, and the Imperial Regalia of the Emperors and Kings of the Holy Roman Empire, including the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Army of the Holy Roman Empire was created in 1422 and came to an end when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.
Imperial Army or Imperial troops was a name used for several centuries, especially to describe soldiers recruited for the Holy Roman Emperor during the early modern period. The Imperial Army of the Emperor should not be confused with the Army of the Holy Roman Empire, which could only be deployed with the consent of the Imperial Diet. The Imperialists effectively became a standing army of troops under the Habsburg Emperors from the House of Austria, which is why they were also increasingly described in the 18th century as "Austrians", although its troops were recruited not just from the Archduchy of Austria but from all over the Holy Roman Empire.
The adjective kaiserlich-königlich, German for imperial–royal, was applied to the authorities and state institutions of the Austrian Empire until the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which established the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Thereafter the abbreviation k. k. only applied to institutions of the so-called Cisleithania. Common institutions of both halves of the empire were described from 1867 to 1918 as kaiserlich und königlich/k. u. k.. Contrary to the regulations, the Common Army continued to use the abbreviation k. k. to describe itself until 1889.
The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire occurred on 6 August 1806, when the last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, abdicated his title and released all Imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire. Since the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire had been recognized by Western Europeans as the legitimate continuation of the ancient Roman Empire due to its emperors having been proclaimed as Roman emperors by the papacy. Through this Roman legacy, the Holy Roman Emperors claimed to be universal monarchs whose jurisdiction extended beyond their empire's formal borders to all of Christian Europe and beyond. The decline of the Holy Roman Empire was a long and drawn-out process lasting centuries. The formation of the first modern sovereign territorial states in the 16th and 17th centuries, which brought with it the idea that jurisdiction corresponded to actual territory governed, threatened the universal nature of the Holy Roman Empire.
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