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".
Austro-Italian ironclad arms race
Tegetthoff's successor to the office of "Marinekommandant" was his old political rival, Friedrich von Pöck. While he commanded the ship-of-the-line "Kaiser" in the Second Schleswig War, Pöck had been given shore assignments throughout the Seven Weeks War, denying him the same sort of fame and public admiration that Tegetthoff had enjoyed after the Battle of Lissa. Almost immediately after taking office, Pöck faced chronic budgetary problems, owing in large part due to obstructionism from Hungarians and liberal Germans within the Austro-Hungarian government, the former viewing naval matters as an Austrian concern, and the latter opposed to naval expansion in light of the continued deterioration of the Regia Marina following the Battle of Lissa. Additionally, since he was not involved in Tegetthoff's victory at the Battle of Lissa, he lacked the personal prestige to command the respect of the government, which Tegetthoff had successfully used to secure the construction of four ironclads in the four years since the Seven Weeks War. As a result, Pöck had great difficulty securing the funding for new ironclad warships during his tenure.