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.
Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff
Following the death of Charles VII, Seckendorff negotiated a reconciliation between Austria and Bavaria in the Treaty of Füssen on 22 April 1745. Emperor Francis I reaffirmed all of Seckendorff's honors, and the diplomat retired to his estate at Meuselwitz in Thuringia. In 1757 the death of his wife, for whom, harsh and unamiable as he was, he had a deep and abiding affection, broke down his already failing health. Frederick the Great directed Prussian hussars to abduct Seckendorff from Meuselwitz in December 1758 during the Seven Years' War. After spending half a year in detention in Magdeburg, he was exchanged for Moritz of Anhalt-Dessau, who had been captured by Austrians at Hochkirch. Returning to Meuselwitz, Seckendorff died at his estate in 1763.