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.
1757 raid on Berlin
After the War of the Austrian Succession, traditional European alliances fell apart and were replaced by an Anglo-Prussian pact and a Franco-Austrian alliance. Known as the Diplomatic Revolution, these events caused the Seven Years' War. Frederick II, King of Prussia and bitter rival of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, invaded Silesia in 1756 but suffered his first defeat at Kolin on June 18. In the aftermath of the battle, however, Frederick neglected to protect the approach to his capital, Berlin.