What exactly was the Austro-Hungarian Landsturm? 

Austro-Hungarian Landsturm

When you would like to find AHL on Wikipedia, you probably can find basic information as : AHL was a reserve force that consisted of men aged 35 to 55. It was intended for replace front line units and provide militia for local defense.Well, it is definitely true, however AHL had a totally different purpose than spending time as a militia. The reason why I began to collect information about AHL is simple, my great-grandfather was a member of 28 landsturm bataillon and 11 landsturm and I would love to bring down a myth that  AHL was  a group of grannies.

Roman Zdebor, my great-grandfather, began his war story on 28/7/1914 and on 10/9/1914 he had his first combat in Opole Lubelskie,  it is deep in enemy territory isn't it? We have a very good source about his unit, you can find a lot of information here: https://kramerius.army.cz/search/i.jsp?pid=uuid:5b7d0d0e-f9ff-11ea-81af-001b63bd97ba&q=landsturm%20pam%C4%9Bti#monograph-page_uuid:5b7a9bd9-f9ff-11ea-81af-001b63bd97ba.

He was first wounded in Russia in combat, after that he was promoted to Gefreiter rank and sent to the Italian front, which was not a fairy tale, he participated in the fifth and sixth Isonzo Battle when He got a second injury, which made him unable to fight.We can sum up that AHL was not only a bunch of old men, but also a group of very tough fighters.In the picture you can see the ordinary AHL member.

The source of picture is : https://www.oldphoto.info/galerie/