The reign of Franz Joseph I (1848-1916) comprised a relatively uniform period in the history of the functioning of the Austrian army in Galicia. The armed forces were capable of exerting a direct and indirect impact on accelerating the civilisational progress of Galicia and its population. The influence in question came down to: • Expanding the intellectual horizons of the recruits due to military service • An intentional educational campaign conducted by the military, intent on raising the civilisational level of the officers and soldiers • Changing the civilians' perception of the world owing to the presence of a military garrison • The realisation of concrete military investments, affecting also the civilian economy • The instalment of modern technologies in the backward provinces of the state. The actual impact of the army upon the Galician recruits remained limited. To the end of the nineteenth century the armed forces proved incapable of improving the intellectual level represented by the recruits. Some of the Galician commands did not join the campaign of combating illiteracy until 1901, and the obtained results were relatively modest. A great influence, however, was exerted on the Galician economy, revealed predominantly in the construction of the Cracow (1850-1914) and Przemysl (1878-1907) fortresses and the expansion of the barracks-storehouse base. The conducted initiatives involved engaging the local labour force and the products offered by the Galician enterprises. Moreover, the army contributed to the expansion of the railway network (1871-1904) and, to a much lesser degree, to the improvement of the road infrastructure. Military commissions for the Galician garrisons were only partly realised by local suppliers. The technologically more advanced products were brought over from other parts of the Hapsburg monarchy. This situation was the outcome of the backwardness of the Galician industry and crafts. The Commercial-Industrial Chambers and the Galician deputies to the Austrian Council of State made efforts to win larger military commissions. Their ventures, however, were belated (initiated in the 1890s) and not overwhelmingly successful. With the exception of certain garrison towns, the society of Galicia did not benefit from the economic potential created by the presence of numerous soldiers.