Following the construction of Austria-Hungary's last class of pre-dreadnought battleships, the , Montecuccoli submitted his first proposal for true dreadnought battleships for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Taking advantage of political support for naval expansion he had obtained in both Austria and Hungary over the course of several years, and Austrian fears of a war with Italy over the Bosnian Crisis during the previous 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 1905 plan, one notable change was the inclusion of four additional dreadnought battleships with a displacement of at load. These ships would become the "Tegetthoff" class.