The Imperial and Royal Technical Military Academy was a military training facility founded in 1717 for certain officer groups of the Habsburg monarchy. The location of the academy changed several times in the course of its existence: originally located in Vienna, it was located in Klosterbruck near Znaim from 1851 to 1869, in the Stiftskaserne in Vienna from 1869 to 1904 and finally in Mödling from 1904 to 1918. The Higher Technical Education Institute Mödling emerged from the academy in 1919.

Hermann Albin Josef Freiherr Kövess von Kövessháza was the final, and completely ceremonial, Commander-in-Chief of the Austro-Hungarian Army. He served as a generally competent and unremarkable commander in the Austro-Hungarian Army and was close to retirement in 1914 when the First World War broke out and he was given a command post.