

The navy immediately pushed for the construction of the three Habsburg-class battleships. Kriegsmarine began a program of naval expansion at the beginning of the 20th century. The appointment of Admiral Hermann von Spaun to the post of State Secretary of the Navy in 1897 accelerated naval construction and under the command of Franz Joseph I of Austria, the k.u.k.

To defend its Adriatic coast in wartime, Austria-Hungary had previously built a series of smaller ironclad warships, including coastal defense ships, and armored cruisers. Kriegsmarine) built a series of battleships between the early 1900s and 1917. The Austro-Hungarian Navy ( Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine, shortened to k.u.k. Austro-Hungarian fleet maneuvers before World War I
