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.
João Carlos de Bragança (Duke de Lafões)
To get to Vienna, already with the Seven Year's War running, he enlisted in the Austrian army, where D. Manuel, Count of Ourém, his uncle, as well as of the king John V of Portugal, had been general. He was a superior officer of an Infantry Regiment of the Prince of Ligne, his relative, having participated in the last campaigns of the Seven Years ' War. After the end of the war, in February 1763, he decided to travel and has visited Switzerland, Italy, France, and the East, Greece and Egypt. He later visited Prussia and Poland. In 1766, it was proposed to integrate the Austrian army, with the rank of major-general, but the authorization of the Portuguese crown was never given. In 1770 Paride ed Elena by Gluck was dedicated to the Duke of Braganza, a specialist on mythology and music.