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.
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.