Work on the first battleship was scheduled to begin a few months later, with the final ship was expected to be launched in mid-1919. 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. With the start of World War I a month later, construction on the ships was postponed until September, when the war with Serbia was expected to be over. 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. The ships were eventually canceled in 1917 as the war entered its third year, although some of the guns ordered for them were completed and saw service.