Austro-Prussian War
The pretext for the conflict was found in the dispute between Prussia and Austria over the administration of Schleswig-Holstein, which the two of them had conquered from Denmark and agreed to jointly occupy at the end of the Second Schleswig War in 1864. When Austria brought the dispute before the German Diet and also decided to convene the Diet of Holstein, Prussia declared that the Gastein Convention had thereby been nullified and invaded Holstein. When the German Diet responded by voting for a partial mobilization against Prussia, Bismarck claimed that the German Confederation was ended. Crown Prince Frederick "was the only member of the Prussian Crown Council to uphold the rights of the Duke of Augustenburg and oppose the idea of a war with Austria which he described as "fratricide"". Although he supported unification and the restoration of the medieval empire, "Fritz could not accept that war was the right way to unite Germany."
Austro-Italian ironclad arms race
Meanwhile, Austria reformed itself into the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867 after losing the Seven Weeks War to Prussia. In the years following the Battle of Lissa, Wilhelm von Tegetthoff would oversee the construction of three additional ironclads and the rebuilding of a fourth. After Tegetthoff's death in 1871, the Austro-Hungarian Navy entered its own period of neglect, with just five additional ironclads being constructed in the ensuing thirteen years. Both navies engaged in further construction projects throughout the 1870s and early 1880s, but the arms race ended in the 1880s due the signing of the Triple Alliance between Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany in 1882 and the introduction of new technologies that led to the development of pre-dreadnought battleships. Despite their alliance, however, Italy and Austria-Hungary would engage in a second naval arms race centered around the construction of battleships at the turn of the century. This arms race would continue until the beginning of World War I.