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The arms race between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy that began in the last decade of the nineteenth century culminated in the Mediterranean and Adriatic Campaigns of the World War I. The bilateral relationship between Austria-Hungary and Italy had long been contentious, with the predecessors of both nations - the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia - fighting three wars between 1848 and 1866. Even after Italy and Austria-Hungary became allies under the Triple Alliance of 1882 with the German Empire, mutual suspicions and areas of conflict remained between both nations.

Italy's improving relations with France after 1902, continuing nationalism among Italians within Austria-Hungary, and Italian irredentist claims of key Austrian territories such as Trentino and Trieste, concerned Austria-Hungary. Likewise, Italy was concerned about a potential Austro-Hungarian invasion, as well as the naval expansion Austria-Hungary began at the onset of the 20th century, particularly under Admiral Hermann von Spaun and later under Admiral Rudolf Montecuccoli.

Within both Austria-Hungary and Italy, the likelihood of one nation adhering to the Triple Alliance in defense of the other should a war break out was doubted. From 1903 onward, plans for a possible war between Italy and Austria-Hungary were again maintained by both the Italian and Austro-Hungarian general staffs. Mutual suspicions led to reinforcement of the frontier and speculation in the Italian and Austro-Hungarian press about a potential war between the two countries during the first decade of the 20th century. As late as 1911, Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, chief of the Austrian general staff, was advocating a military strike against Italy while the kingdom was pre-occupied with the Italo-Turkish War. This, despite the fact that both nations were still formally allied.

These tensions led to the initiation of a naval arms race. Fueled by the construction of ever-larger battleships such as the Austro-Hungarian Tegetthoff-class and the Italian dreadnought Dante Alighieri, both nations engaged in a massive naval build up in the years preceding World War I. This naval arms race helped to nearly bring both nations to war with one another, first during the Bosnian Crisis, and again during the Italo-Turkish War.

Background
The naval arms race largely centered around the "Adriatic Question" between Italy and Austria-Hungary. Additional geographic areas played a role in the development of the arms race, primarily the Mediterranean Sea and the Balkans. Following the Austrian Empire's defeat in the Austro-Prussian War and the simultaneous unification of Italy in the Third War of Italian Independence, both nations became aligned with Germany

The Italian dreadnought battleship Dante Alighieri was laid down at the naval shipyard in Castellammare di Stabia on 6 June 1909. Her construction only served to mark the beginning of the most tense period of the arms race. An immediate response from Austria-Hungary was frustrated by political upheaval in Hungary.

The Dreadnought Era
With the establishment of the Austrian Naval League in September 1904 and the appointment of Vice-Admiral Rudolf Montecuccoli to the post of Chief of the Naval Section of the War Ministry in October that same year, the Austro-Hungarian Navy began a program of naval expansion befitting a Great Power. Montecuccoli immediately pursued the efforts championed by his predecessor, Admiral Hermann von Spaun, and pushed for a greatly expanded and modernized navy.

Additional motivations existed which led to the development of the Tegetthoff-class beyond Montecuccoli's own plans for the Navy. New railroads had recently been constructed through Austria's Alpine passes between 1906 and 1908, linking Trieste and the Dalmatian coastline to the rest of the Empire. Lower tariffs on the port of Trieste also led to the expansion of the city and a similar growth in Austria-Hungary's merchant marine. These changes necessitated the development of a new line of battleships capable of more than just defending the coastline of Austria-Hungary. Prior to the turn of the century, sea power was not a priority in Austrian foreign policy making and the Navy was relatively little known and supported by the Austro-Hungarian public. However, the appointment of Archduke Franz Ferdinand - heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and a prominent and influential supporter of expanding the navy - to the position of Admiral in September 1902 greatly increased the importance of the Navy in the eyes of both the general public and the Austrian and Hungarian Parliaments. This shift in thinking from the governments of Vienna and Budapest could not come at a more important time for the Navy.

The Tegetthoff-class battleships were authorized at a time when Austro-Hungarian naval spending was rapidly increasing in order to match the naval arms race Austria-Hungary was engaged in with her nominal ally, Italy. Italy's Regia Marina was considered the most important naval power in the region which Austria-Hungary measured itself against, often unfavorably. The disparity between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian navies had existed for decades, with Italy boasting the third largest fleet in the world in the late 1880s behind the French Republic's Navy and the British Royal Navy. While that disparity had been somewhat equalized with the Russian Imperial Navy and the German Kaiserliche Marine surpassing the Italian Navy in 1893 and in 1894 respectively, by 1903 the balance began to shift towards Italy's favor once more with the Italians claiming 18 pre-dreadnoughts in commission or under construction compared to just six Austro-Hungarian battleships.

Following the construction of the final two Regina Elena-class battleships in 1903 however, the Italian Navy elected to construct a series of large cruisers rather than additional battleships. Furthermore, a major scandal involving the Terni steel works' armour contracts led to a major government investigation that postponed several naval construction programs for three years. These delays meant the Italian Navy would not initiate construction on another battleship until 1909, providing the Austro-Hungarian Navy an attempt to level the field.

Events changed rapidly in the ensuing years. As late as 1903, the Italian advantage in the naval arms race with Austria-Hungary appeared so large that the prospect of catching up to the Italian Navy, much less surpassing it, appeared insurmountable. However, the revolution in naval technology created with the launch of the British HMS Dreadnought in 1906 and the subsequent Anglo-German naval arms race that followed meant that the value of older pre-dreadnought battleships declined rapidly. Numerous ships in foreign navies across Europe were rapidly being rendered obsolete, giving Austria-Hungary an opportunity to make up for past neglect in naval affairs. With a financial situation and budget which had improved since the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, and with Archduke Ferdinand and Admiral Montecuccoli both supportive of constructing a new class of modern battleships, the stage was set for the development of what would become Austria-Hungary's first and only class of dreadnought battleships.

Shortly after assuming command as Chief of the Navy, Montecuccoli drafted his first proposal in the spring of 1905 for a modern Austrian fleet which was to consist of 12 battleships, four armoured cruisers, eight scout cruisers, 18 destroyers, 36 high seas torpedo craft, and six submarines. While these plans were ambitious for Austria-Hungary at the time, they lacked any ships near the size of the future Tegetthoff-class. Additional proposals sprung up from outside the Naval Section of the War Ministry. The Slovenian politician and prominent Trialist Ivan Šusteršič presented a proposal to the Reichsrat in 1905 calling for the construction of nine additional battleships.

Following the construction of Austria-Hungary's last class of pre-dreadnought battleships, the Redetzky-class, Montecuccoli submitted his first proposal for a true class dreadnought battleships for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Taking advantage of the dawning of the dreadnought era, political support he had obtained in both Austria and Hungary over the course of several years for naval expansion, and Austrian fears of a war with Italy over the recent Bosnian Crisis during the prior year, Montecuccoli drafted a new memorandum to Emperor Franz Joseph I in January 1909 proposing an enlarged Austro-Hungarian Navy consisting of 16 battleships, 12 cruisers, 24 destroyers, 72 seagoing torpedo boats, and 12 submarines. While this was a modified version of his earlier plan for the navy drafted four years earlier, one notable change was the inclusion of four additional dreadnought battleships with a displacement of 20000 t at load. These four ships would eventually become the Tegetthoff-class.

Following the Emperor's approval of the plan, Montecuccoli circulated the plan among the governments in Vienna and Budapest. However, the memorandum found its way into Italian newspapers just three months later, sparking hysteria among the Italian people and politicians. The Italian Navy immediately used Montecuccoli's proposal - which had not yet gone beyond the planning stage - as justification for initiating a new dreadnought program. In June 1909, the Dante Alighieri was laid down at the naval shipyard in Castellammare di Stabia.

The development of the Dante Alighieri left the Austro-Hungarian navy in a precarious position. The Italian battleship was laid down largely due to the leaking of Montecuccoli's memorandum, yet proposal it outlined for constructing four new battleships still remained in the planning stages. Complicating the matter further was the collapse of Sándor Wekerle's government in Budapest, which left the Hungarian Diet without a Prime Minister for nearly a year. With no government in Budapest to pass a budget, efforts to secure the funding necessary to begin construction on the new ships were stalled. The budget crisis likewise effected industries with close ties to the Navy, particularly the Witkowitz Ironworks and the Škoda Works. With the Radetzky nearing completion and the Zrínyi the only remaining Austro-Hungarian battleship still under construction in the shipyards of Trieste, the major shipbuilding enterprises in Austria offered to begin construction on three dreadnoughts "at their own risk", in exchange for promises from the Austro-Hungarian government that the battleships would be purchased as soon as the budget impasse had been resolved. After negotiations involving the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, War, and Finance, the Navy agreed to the the offer but lowered the number of dreadnoughts that would be constructed before a budget was passed from three to two. In his memoirs, former Austrian Field Marshal and Chief of the General Staff Conrad von Hötzendorf wrote that due to his belief in a future war with Italy, construction on the battleships should begin as soon as possible. The former Chief of Staff also worked to secure agreements to sell the dreadnoughts to a "reliable ally" (which only Germany could claim to be) should the budget crisis fail to be resolved in short order.

Although smaller than the contemporary dreadnought and super-dreadnought battleships of the German Kaiserliche Marine and the British Royal Navy, the Tegetthoff-class was the first of its type in the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas. The Tegetthoffs were described by former Austro-Hungarian naval officer Anthony Sokol in his book The Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy as "excellent ships", and were celebrated as some of the most powerful of their type in the region. The design for the class also signaled a change in Austro-Hungarian naval policy, as the ships were capable of far more than just coastal defense or patrolling the Adriatic Sea. The Tegetthoffs were so well received that when the time came to plan for the replacement of Austria-Hungary's old Monarch-class coastal defense ships, the navy elected to simply take the layout of the class and enlarge them to have a slightly greater tonnage and larger main guns.

The cost in constructing the Tegetthoff-class battleships were enormous by the standards of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. While the Habsburg-class, Erzherzog Karl-class, and the Radetzky-class battleships each cost the Navy roughly 18 million, 26 million, and 40 million Krone per-ship respectively, each ship of the Tegetthoff-class was projected by the navy to cost over 60 million Krone. Under the previous budgets for 1907 and 1908, the Navy had been allocated some 63.4 and 73.4 million Krone, which at the time was considered an inflated budget due to the construction of two Radetzkys. The price tag for each ship was so high that Montecuccoli worried the general public and the legislatures in Vienna and Budapest would reject the need for such an expensive set of ships, especially so soon after the political crisis in Budapest which ground budget negotiations over funding for the ships to a halt. The dramatic increase in spending over the previous years meant that in 1909 alone the Navy spent some 100.4 million Krone, a huge sum at the time. This was done in order to rush the completion of the Radetzky-class battleships, though the looming construction of four dreadnoughts meant the Austro-Hungarian Navy would likely have to ask the government for a yearly budget much higher than 100 million Krone.