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.
Battle of Strehla
The Battle of Strehla was a military engagement fought during the Seven Years' War between the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria. The battle was fought near the town of Strehla in Saxony, Germany.
In August 1760, Fredrick the Great of Prussia and his army made ready to repel further Austrian incursions into Prussian territory. When the Austrian offensive did come, it came in Prussian-occupied Silesia. However, a second Austrian army of 25,000 men also began advancing upon Frederick's holdings in Eastern Saxony, putting the Prussians in danger of being caught in a large pincer movement. To counter this threat, Frederick dispatched Lt. General Johann Dietrich von Hülsen and 12,000 men to hold the west bank of the Elbe river at the town of Strehla while Frederick dealt with the Austrians in Silesia. Five days before the engagement at Strehla, Frederick and his army defeated the Austrian forces in Silesia at the Battle of Liegnitz, effectively rendering the Austrian plan to pincer the Prussian forces defunct.