The class consisted of Kaiser Max, the lead ship, Prinz Eugen, and Don Juan d'Austria.

But because parliament refused to budget funds to build replacements, the commander of the Navy, Friedrich von Pöck requested permission to "rebuild" the three Kaiser Maxes, which was granted.

[1][2] The first two ships, the Drache class, were ordered rather hastily in response to the construction of two similar vessels for the Royal Sardinian Navy in 1860, sparking the Austro-Italian ironclad arms race.

The Kingdom of Sardinia soon unified most of Italy early the following year, and the expanded Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) became Austria's principal naval threat.

In it, he argued that the advent of ironclad warships, which had rendered wooden ships obsolescent, had cleared the slate for the world's naval powers.

It would be more than capable of defeating the Regia Marina (under its known construction plans), and it would make Austria an attractive ally to Britain, France's traditional rival.

The Reichsrat rejected funding the proposal later in 1861, but in October, Franz Joseph intervened and authorized the navy to place orders for the new ships, which became the Kaiser Max class.

[6][7] During the Second Schleswig War of 1864, Don Juan d'Austria was deployed with the ship of the line Kaiser and two other vessels to the North Sea, but arrived too late to take part in any fighting, then-Commodore Wilhelm von Tegetthoff having already inflicted a strategic defeat on the Danish squadron at the Battle of Heligoland.

The war at sea culminated at the Battle of Lissa in July 1866, where all three ships were heavily engaged, though they were not seriously damaged and inflicted little on their Italian opponents.

Some parts of the ships were reused, to include the engines but not the boilers, armor plate, and other miscellaneous equipment to save construction costs.