Austro-Italian ironclad arms race
In the years after Ferdinand Max's departure from Austria, the Imperial Austrian Navy suffered under further political and budgetary constraints. In April 1864, it was proposed that the naval ministry, which the former Archduke had helped to establish, be disbanded. In January 1865, Emperor Franz Joseph I dissolved the ministry and the Imperial Austrian Navy was again placed under the jurisdiction of the Austrian Ministry of War. Under the 1865 budget, just 7,100,000 Florins were allocated towards naval expenses, but once more, none of the funds were designated for warship construction. In 1866, the naval budget grew slightly to 7,800,000 Florins, but for the third consecutive year there would be no funds for additional ironclads, or other warships. Thus, when the Seven Weeks War began in June 1866, the Imperial Austrian Navy would possess only ships which had been constructed during Ferdinand Max's tenure as "Oberkommandant der Marine".
Austria–Prussia rivalry
The rivalry is largely held to have begun when upon the death of the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI in 1740, King Frederick the Great of Prussia launched an invasion of Austrian-controlled Silesia, starting the First Silesian War (of three Silesian Wars to come) against Maria Theresa. Frederick had broken his promise to acknowledge the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 and the indivisibility of the Habsburg territories, whereby he sparked off the pan–European War of the Austrian Succession. He decisively defeated the Austrian troops at the 1742 Battle of Chotusitz, whereafter Maria Theresa, by the Treaties of Breslau and Berlin, had to cede the bulk of the Silesian lands to Prussia.
At the time, Austria still claimed the mantle of the Empire and was the chief force of the disunited German states. Until 1745, Maria Theresa was able to regain the Imperial crown from her Wittelsbach rival Charles VII by occupying his Bavarian lands, but, despite her Quadruple Alliance with Great Britain, the Dutch Republic and Saxony failed to recapture Silesia: The Second Silesian War started with Frederick's invasion into Bohemia in 1744 and after the Prussian victory at the 1745 Battle of Kesselsdorf, by the Treaty of Dresden the "status quo ante bellum" was confirmed: Frederick kept Silesia but finally acknowledged the accession of Maria Theresa's husband, Emperor Francis I. The terms were again confirmed by the final Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.