The Imperial-Royal Mountain Troops 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." was used and not "k.u.k." which would have implied a connexion with the Hungarian half of the Empire.

The Imperial-Royal Landwehr, also called the Austrian Landwehr, was the territorial army of the Cisleithanian or Austrian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1869 to 1918. Its counterpart was the Royal Hungarian Landwehr. The two Landwehrs, together with the Common Army and the Imperial and Royal Navy, made up the armed forces of Austria-Hungary. While the name, "Imperial-Royal", might seem to suggest a link between the "Imperial" (Cisleithanian) and "Royal" halves of the Empire, in this context "Royal" actually refers to the Kingdom of Bohemia - not a sovereign kingdom on par with the Kingdom of Hungary, but a crownland of Cisleithanian Austria-Hungary and possession of the Habsburgs, who remained formally entitled to kingship. In this sense, the Kingdom of Bohemia was comparable in status to the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and the Kingdom of Dalmatia.