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.
War of the Austrian Succession
Prussia in 1740 was an emerging power, a small but well-organized state whose new king, Frederick II, wanted to unify the disparate and scattered holdings of his crown by gathering intervening lands into a unified, contiguous state. Prince Frederick was 28 years old when he ascended to the throne on 31 May 1740 upon the death of his father, Frederick William I. Although Prussia and Austria had been allies in the War of the Polish Succession (1733–1738), concluded only two years before, the interests of the two countries diverged when the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, died on 20 October 1740. Neither Frederick nor his father had ever been fond of Austria and its various snubs against Prussia (such as offering them the duchies of Julich and Berg in return for an alliance, only to renege later).