Austro-Italian ironclad arms race
Seizing upon the decline of the Regia Marina in the years immediately after the Battle of Lissa, Tegetthoff worked to continue the efforts of Archduke Ferdinand Max of expanding the ironclad fleet of the now Austro-Hungarian Navy. Tegetthoff found political allies in the Austro-Hungarian Minister of War Carl von Franck and retired Admiral Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair. Wüllerstorf's and Franck's primary arguments in favor of continuing with the ironclad program Austria had engaged in prior to the Seven Weeks War lay largely along economic grounds. The two believed that constructing new ironclad warships would rejuvenate Austria-Hungary's economy following the defeat at the hands of Prussia and Italy, and that such a fleet would help to open up new commercial opportunities in the Levant and the Middle East. These proposals would be shelved however while Austria continued to reel from the military defeats inflicted by Prussia, and several cabinet reshufflings by Emperor Franz Joseph I resulted in a government more interested in pursuing revenge against Prussia than constructing new ironclads, which would be of little use in a hypothetical second war with Prussia.
Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg
Thus began the Seven Years' War in Europe, which ultimately failed to bring the lost provinces back to Austria. On 29 August 1756, King Frederick's Prussian Army invaded the Electorate of Saxony in a preemptive strike; they rolled over the Saxon forces and occupied Dresden. While the Austrian allies were not able to reach agreement on joint action, the politico-military situation remained inconlusive. Kaunitz urged for the replacement of the hesitant field marshal Count Leopold Joseph von Daun by Ernst Gideon von Laudon, however, a decisive victory was not achieved.