However, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June halted work just days before the keel of the first ship in the class was scheduled to be laid down.

The Hungarian government attempted to cancel the ships in October, but it was agreed in February 1915 that any work on the battleships would be indefinitely suspended until the end of the war.

On 22 February 1913, Rudolf Montecuccoli retired as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy (Marinekommandant) and Chief of the Naval Section of the War Ministry (Chef der Marinesektion).

[3] At the time of Haus' promotion, it was approaching its goal of 16 battleships,[4] which Montecuccoli had outlined in a memorandum to Emperor Franz Joseph I in January 1909.

In March 1913, Carl von Bardolff, Chief-of-Staff to Archduke Franz Ferdinand, suggested to Haus that he explore the option of constructing a "second dreadnought division".

[8] The construction of the Tegetthoff-class battleships had already begun in 1910 when Škoda made the first of many attempts to obtain approval for a new generation of superdreadnoughts to replace the aging Monarch-class ships.

The suggestion that construction begin before the Austro-Hungarian government had an opportunity to approve any new budget led to Hungarian Prime Minister László Lukács threatening to resign.

[4] In October 1913 however, Haus did obtain support from the Austro-Hungarian Ministerial Council to construct four dreadnoughts to replace the three Monarch-class ships, as well as Habsburg, Austria-Hungary's oldest pre-dreadnought battleship.

Lukács was succeeded as prime minister by István Tisza,[11] who had previously secured passage of the 1910 and 1911 naval budgets to authorize construction of the Tegetthoff class.

[11][17] When the Austrian and Hungarian delegations to the Ministerial Council met in Vienna at the end of 1913 to pass a budget for the first six months of 1914, proponents of the project used the occasion to rally support for the battleships.

[17] Albert von Mühlwerth, a German member of the Reichsrat from Bohemia, made the justification that expanding and modernizing the Austro-Hungarian Navy was necessary in order to replace the obsolete Monarch class; stating, "If my coat is old and threadbare, I buy myself a new one...it is the same with warships.

[18] The Hungarians, led by Tisza, supported the proposal after Haus had promised that six destroyers, two river monitors, and two of the four dreadnoughts in the expansion program would be constructed in Fiume, much like the battleship Szent István.

[18] Many German nationalists from Austria had voiced their support for the battleships' construction on the grounds that their existence made Austria-Hungary's alliance with Germany more powerful.

Heinrich von Lützow, a member of the Austrian House of Lords and former Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Italy, went so far as to argue that "every supporter of the Triple Alliance...must vote for the strengthening of our navy.

"[18] Unlike previous battleships, the Ersatz Monarch class were ordered at a time when relations between Austria-Hungary and Italy appeared to be improving.

[20][21] Thus when the time came for the Austro-Hungarian government to debate the funding and approval for a new class of battleships, the role Italy played in these discussions was not one of being a potential enemy, but rather it was expected that Italy would remain an ally of Austria-Hungary in any naval operations in the Mediterranean Sea against France and Russia, and that a new class of battleships was necessary to help maintain Austria-Hungary's relationship with its Italian allies.

[22][23] Russia now took the place of Austria-Hungary's main naval opponent in the event of a war, and the Ersatz Monarch class were thus intended to counter any potential Russian fleets operating south of the Dardanelles.

[14] The Budapest session overwhelmingly supported Haus' naval expansion program,[24] the objections of the Social Democrats and Young Czechs notwithstanding.

[17][d] With the passage of the budget, discussions then shifted to the allocation of the funds contained within it, the Hungarians being focused on ensuring that many industrial components for the battleships would be purchased within Hungary.

[17] Despite opposing the project, the Young Czech Party worked to ensure that as large a sum as possible out of the appropriated funds would be spent in Bohemia and Moravia.

His party's efforts failed as the bulk of both the Austrian and Hungarian delegations refused to spend more naval money in a region of the Empire which would already be slated to construct much of the armor and weaponry of the battleships.

[31][32] Designed for operations on the open ocean, the Ersatz Monarch class were intended to have substantially greater reserve stability and a smaller angle of list in heavy seas and poor weather compared to previous Austro-Hungarian battleships.

The Navy ultimately chose to equip each ship with ten 35 cm Marinekanone L/45 M. 16 main guns, to be constructed at the Škoda Works in Plzeň, Bohemia.

[9][31][32] In February 1914, it was announced that anti-aircraft guns and "strong screens for protection against aerial attack" would be included on the Ersatz Monarch class ships.

[9][30] In August, with Austria-Hungary embroiled in a world war with Serbia, Russia, Montenegro, Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom, the Austro-Hungarian government suspended all contracts which had been awarded as part of Haus' naval program, including the four ships of the Ersatz Monarch class.