The "Tegetthoff"-class battleships were authorized when Austria-Hungary was engaged in a naval arms race with its 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; in the late 1880s Italy boasted the third-largest fleet in the world, behind the French Navy and the British Royal Navy. While that disparity had been somewhat equalized with the Imperial Russian Navy and German Imperial Navy surpassing the Italian Navy in 1893 and 1894 respectively, by 1903 the balance began to shift towards Italy's favor with the Italians claiming 18 pre-dreadnoughts in commission or under construction compared to 6 Austro-Hungarian battleships.