Forza Italia!

[DensleyBlair]

I'd missed this, Jape. Which I guess will teach me just to rely on my notifications all the time…

Mind you, my late entry does give the advantage of being able to read a bunch of chapters at once. Fascinating stuff so far—but then that's par for the course, isn't it? Here's looking forward to Mussolini!

 

[loup99]

Two excellent updates!

The situation in Hungary could easily take a more explosive turn, depending on how France ends up siding. Maybe it is here that the Italian loyalties and the diplomatic policy of Ricasoli will be put to test?

 

[Jape]

Chapter VI
Hungary and Rome

Kálmán Tisza​

By the beginning of 1866 the Hungarian National Convention inaugurated by the Treaty of Schönbrunn had been ongoing for over two years without any clear resolution. Ferenc Deák, hailed as father of the nation after his appearance at the Treaty signing, was now a battered and exhausted figure. Championing home rule within the Austrian Empire on a dualist model, Deák was wedged between Habsburg loyalists and increasingly vocal nationalists led by the young liberal Kálmán Tisza. The latter had struggled to make headway due to their inability to decide on a candidate for the Hungarian throne.

A variety of German and Italian minor nobility had been courted and found wanting, while Prince Louis d’Orleans had garnered some popular support but the idea of a liberal French monarch in Central Europe appealed to none of Hungary’s neighbors. Both Deák and the loyalists hoped this situation would lead to a climb down by the nationalists. However Chancellor Bismarck as architect of the Convention had other ideas. In January, acting through Prussian diplomatic staff in Budapest, Bismarck presented Tisza with his candidate.

Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha had many positive qualities. He was of age, Catholic and as a Saxon did not offend any of the major parties. Indeed he had many influential ties across the continent, being brother of the King of Portugal, nephew of the King of Belgium and cousin to Queen Victoria. He had ties to Hungary through his mother, Countess Maria Antonia of the noted Koháry family, and was partially fluent in the language. Attractive to all but the most reactionary of the Convention and with Bismarck’s covert approval, Leopold was voted King-Elect by the Convention on 22 January.

Bismarck's candidate: Prince Leopold Saxe-Coburg und Gotha-Koháry​

The decision and with it the de facto declaration of Hungarian independence, caused anxiety across Europe. Emperor Napoleon in particular was mortified by what he saw as Prussian expansionism and attempted to cobble together a coalition. However his initial efforts proved fruitless. Due to pre-emptive diplomatic efforts the-now Prime Minister Tisza had contacted Tsar Alexander II assuring him of Hungary’s independence and pacific intentions. Distrusting of the Bonapartes and still bearing a grudge against Vienna for their belligerent neutrality during the Crimean War, St. Petersburg recognised the new government.

In Vienna, attitudes swung from bellicose to depressive. Bound by Schönbrunn to accept the Convention’s decision, Emperor Franz Josef nonetheless considered military action. Entreaties from Paris for an alliance were shot down however, the Austrians unconvinced of French intentions and holding their own grudge over the 1859 War. Italy, or rather her king, intervened recognising Leopold over the heads of the indecisive Ricasoli government in February. As North German forces massed on the Bohemian border and with fears of Italian and even Russian invasion, Franz Josef contacted Berlin and Budapest to discuss a compromise.

Bismarck, keen to avoid another major war, assented in spite of protests from Tisza, for the Dalmatian coastline to remain within the Habsburg orbit, becoming a client kingdom under the Emperor’s younger brother Karl Ludwig. On 1 March 1866, the Saxon prince was crowned at Matthias Church in Budapest by the Archbishop of Esztergom in a hurried ceremony, becoming Leopold III, Apostolic King of Hungary. The coronation met with jubilation from the Hungarian emigres of London to Turin, seen by liberals and anti-Austrian circles as the death knell of the ancient Habsburg threat.

Coronation of King Leopold III of Hungary​

This view also gained currency among alarmed reactionaries. The peaceful secession of Hungary and granting of ‘home rule’ to Dalmatia emboldened other suppressed nationalists in Eastern Europe. Word soon arrived in St. Petersburg of insurrectionist leaflets spreading from Austrian Galicia to Congress Poland. Fearful of a new Warsaw Uprising, the Tsar suddenly came to regret his actions towards Hungary.

Tisza was true to his word in not enacting a military alliance with Berlin however requests for munitions and contracts for the Royal Hungarian Navy to North German shipyards in May quickly raised concern. The Russian court was soon aflutter with rumours of Prussian plans to amass of patchwork of puppet states in Eastern Europe. Paranoid and fearful of Berlin, the Tsar finally agreed to an alliance with Paris. On 7 June, France and Russia hurriedly declared war on the North German Federation.

The outbreak of war came as a shock to much of Europe. Notably for a war ostensibly triggered by the Hungarian Crisis, neither Vienna nor Budapest took part. Hungary was not bound by treaty to Berlin and lacked all but territorial militia in terms of an army. The Austrians meanwhile found themselves weak and isolated. Her Southern German allies had answered Berlin’s call to defend the fatherland from another Napoleon, the territorial integrity of the rump Empire was still in question and Italy remained a threat-in-being. In truth Turin was paralyzed by the sudden escalation of events.

French and Prussian troops fight in the streets of Strasbourg, July 1866​

The Palazzo Reale and Parliament had been supportive of Hungarian independence for obvious reasons but the intersecting interests of Berlin and Paris had split both the court and the government over what action, if any, was to be taken. Opportunistic hawks led by General di Bonzo called for an immediate invasion north to seize Trentino and Pola from Vienna. The Left opposition in the Chamber led by Rattazzi called for an alliance with Prussia and the seizure of Rome. King Vittorio Emanuele had no interest in going to war with France but his growing impatience with Ricasoli’s dovish foreign policy following the Tunis affair was becoming something of an open secret at court.

As Prussian troops repulsed invasions from both the east and west in July, popular demand for action finally reached boiling point. News arrived in Turin of Redshirt cadres forming with the intent to march on Rome. Prime Minister Ricasoli, ignoring the views of his cabinet proposed a plan of action on 10 July to the King to guard the Papal borders from attack and the immediate arrest of Garibaldi, Mazzini and other noted anti-Papists. The proposal highlighted just how out of touch with events the Iron Baron had become.

The same day Vittorio Emanuele II requested his premier’s resignation. Despite calls for Minghetti or even Rattazzi to lead a pro-Berlin ministry, the King installed the Conte Menabrea. The royal aide-de-camp, Menabrea had held a succession of minor ministerial roles since the 1850s, acting as the King’s voice in cabinet but had never been expected to lead the government. A clear puppet of the crown, Menabrea silenced the Prussophiles in cabinet while the King took command. As ambivalent towards the Redshirts as always, Vittorio Emanuele barred Garibaldi from leaving Sardinia but did not arrest him or any other revolutionaries. Instead he had decided to take the initiative.

The Conte Menabrea
​

On 10 August the 4th Army under the command of General Nino Bixio, an ardent royalist and acolyte of Menabrea, crossed the border into the Papal States. Despite a request for assistance from Pius IX, France, reeling from a crushing defeat at Metz several days earlier, abandoned Rome to the Italians. On 11 August an Italian envoy offered the Pope a peaceful settlement, granting him sovereign rights within Vatican City if he would give up his lands. He responded with fury, proclaiming "I am no prophet, nor son of a prophet but I tell you, you will never enter Rome!".

The next day Bixio’s 36,000 troops began their siege of the Eternal City. Despite the zeal of the Papal Army under General Torlonia, they were outnumbered and heavily outgunned. On 22 August the Italian artillery breached the ancient Aurelian Walls, allowing a Bersaglieri assault to break through the defences. Having provided enough resistance to show the world that the city had not been given freely, Pius IX promptly ordered Torlonia to surrender. Rome was finally Italian.

While the King and his government moved south to their new capital and the Pope threatened to enter exile, the continent was focused on Germany. By November, while holding the Russians to a standstill in the swamps of East Prussia, the combined German forces led by von Moltke had annihilated the French field army and surrounded Paris. Thoroughly beaten and fearful of revolution, Napoleon surrendered Alsace-Lorraine in return for peace. The Tsar in turn happily accepted status quo antebellum from Berlin.

Battle of Rome, 12-22 August 1866
​

His enemies defeated, Bismarck had in the space of a year radically altered the make-up of Europe and 1 January 1867 would see the official founding of the German Empire. The year had also seen a rapid change in Italy’s geopolitical position, the King declaring the risorgimento complete from the balcony of his new residence the Palazzo del Quirinale. Once the main organs of state where established in Rome in the new year, Vittorio Emanuele dismissed the placeholder Menabrea and called a new general election. The 1867 contest was a muted affair as the various parties and factions adapted to the new situation.

Overnight the Francophilic foreign policy advocated by the likes of Cavour and Ricasoli had become obsolete with France weakened as a power and possible ally and Austria no longer the existential threat of a decade prior. Similarly the impetus for Redshirt populism had disappeared with the fall of Rome, much to the delight of the conservative Vittorio Emanuele. While Garibaldi happily announced his retirement, agitators within the Radicale and cartisti movement merely shifted their focus. For anti-clericalists in both the Extreme Left and Left parties, the annexation of the Papal States was deemed only the start of the dismantlement of Church power in Italy.

Urbano Rattazzi and the Sinistra Liberale campaigned on an openly secular platform, calling for the official separation of church and state and the establishment of a secular national school system. Rattazzi also restated the case for a formal alliance with Berlin, a matter on which he could claim prescience. The incumbent Destra Liberale struggled for such clarity. Having lost Ricasoli and his replacement Menabrea unwilling to lead, there was debate over who the Right would even put forward as prime minister in a new government.

Finance Minister Marco Minghetti was the popular choice among Right deputies, while Interior Minister Giovanni Lanza held more clout in the Senate and at court. On the matter of the Church however the party was united, opposing anti-clericalism and calling for a negotiated resolution to the matter of the “Prisoner in the Vatican”. The Right also fell back on its reputation as the King’s party, with numerous provincial candidates claiming some connection to the fall of Rome despite the fact the Right’s prime minister had to be forced out to realise that particular goal. Whoever took power would be leading Italy into an unexpected new era.

Europe, 1 January 1867​

 

[Jape]

go Italy!

Forza!

Isten mentes Magyarorszag!

Will Bismarck do?

Italy still requires more land, Corsica for one. Istria and Dalmatia are nice too I suppose.

Anyway, thought I had subbed to this but apparently not. This is now rectified.

Thanks for coming on board. Don't worry they'll be more land though Italy will have to be careful how and when it takes it.

Mmm, the Ottomans can have powerful friends as well.

In face of this humiliation one thinks it will be hard to keep hold of power.

Indeed. Its also worth noting that the Ottomans have a habit of getting cosy with Berlin in late-game, so I'll have to be careful how I tread.

I have to admit it is hard not to sympatize with the Ottomans, even if it has caused you difficulty here. They get beat up so frequently in Victoria 2 I sort of automatically see them as underdogs.

Very insightful update on the political situation at home and abroad. I'm anxious to see what happens in Hungary.

I totally agree, even if they're upsetting my plans, its nice to see the Ottomans and other underdogs (like the unfortunate Qing!) coming out well. However sentiment aside, they are in my way.

If Hungary secedes, that may lead to a Grossdeutschland under Prussian leadership...

Indeed as this chapter shows a lot can change very quickly.

I'd missed this, Jape. Which I guess will teach me just to rely on my notifications all the time…

Mind you, my late entry does give the advantage of being able to read a bunch of chapters at once. Fascinating stuff so far—but then that's par for the course, isn't it? Here's looking forward to Mussolini!

Glad to have you along DB. I plan on dropping one or two big names from OTL history to mix things up a bit. Not decided but Benny might be off to America to make it big...

Two excellent updates!

The situation in Hungary could easily take a more explosive turn, depending on how France ends up siding. Maybe it is here that the Italian loyalties and the diplomatic policy of Ricasoli will be put to test?

Very astute guesswork there loup!

 

[volksmarschall]

Jape is alive! It's a miracle!

Things are looking up and up for you. Time to make Europe fear Italy once more!

 

[AvatarOfKhaine]

4 years early!

Still missing Austria, Tyrol, Switzerland and Bohemia though.

Sein Vaterland muss grosser sein!

 

[stnylan]

A great opportunity snatched and taken advantage of.

 

[loup99]

The German Empire is growing hegemonic, having humiliated both France and Austria. Depending on the shifting attitudes they could both be a might foe and a powerful ally.

That said, with Rome in Italian hands and the Pope marginalised, this might be the best occasion for Sinistra Liberale to pursue their secular policies, so I presume they have an advantage in the electoral campaign.

 

[Nikolai]

It lives! With the recent events in the north, perhaps an alliance with Germany to gain colonies or other territory from France would be a wise choice?

 

[guillec87]

so, Germany is now the right choice as an ally... maybe a partition of Austria could take place...

 

[Jape]

Chapter VII
The Triple Alliance

Breach of the Aventine Walls​

The capture of Rome was bitter sweet for the House of Savoy. King Vittorio Emanuele II though lauded by the public for decisive action showed immense guilt in private at having seized the city from the Pope -a once close friend- by force of arms. Entreaties to mend relations between the Italian state and the Church were rebuffed with Pius IX even refusing to supply a chaplain to the royal court. There were rumours the deeply Catholic monarch offered to abdicate if it would satisfy the Holy Father but he received no reply. It would be years before the two men communicated again and then only by letter despite residing within a mile of each other.

Unwilling to begin an official dialogue with the Italian government, the Pope was more than capable of undermining it with public decrees. In February, the electorate only days from casting their ballots for the Chamber of Deputies, the Holy Penitentiary issued an edict dubbed “Non Expedit” calling on all good Christians to abstain from voting and public office in Italy [1].

The piece outraged many secularists while causing great distress to the clerical faction of the Destra Liberale, led by Cesare Cantù. A small but influential grouping on the far right of Parliament pushing for conciliation with the Vatican, the clericals collapsed with some like Cantù retiring from public life in despair while others like Augusto Conti criticised the Pope for interfering in politics and refused to follow the decree.

General Election to the Chamber of Deputies
February 1867

Majority 254
(Note: Additional 15 seats since previous election)

Destra Liberale 286 (-43)
Sinistra Liberale 190 (+44)
Radicale 32 (+14)​

Whether angering voters to support anti-clerical candidates or lowering turnout among the faithful, Non Expedit did seemingly impact the election though Destra Liberale retained a reduced majority. Both the Radicale and Sinistra made substantial gains, including taking all of the fifteen new seats created from the former Papal States between them. The results returned a broadly pro-secular legislature but at a time when the King was at his most dour regarding the issue.

Marco Minghetti, the most popular member of the former cabinet and an outspoken supporter of Germany and the annexation of Rome, was shocked as were much of the Chamber when Vittorio Emanuele refused to have him made prime minister, instead choosing Giovanni Lanza. A protege of Cavour with ties to Cantù’s clerical group, Lanza was more agreeable to the court’s current mood, the King still hoping a moderate, apologetic face could win over the Pope. How realistic this was is difficult to know but it seems Lanza and his cabinet made little effort to force the issue in the coming years.

The foreign minister Emilio Visconti-Venosta, a young and brilliant diplomat a world away from his doddering predecessor the Conte Pasolini, ignored the Vatican and set himself on a grand tour of Europe in an effort to present Italy as a new and truly continental power. Charming and erudite, Visconti-Venosta made a deep impression on Prime Minister Gladstone in London in May, gaining his sympathy with regards to Italian interests in Tunisia versus those of France and the Ottoman Empire.

Foriegn Minister Emilio Visconti-Venosta​

In Lisbon he met with King Luís. Married to Vittorio Emanuele’s daughter Maria, the Portuguese monarch was staunchly pro-Italian and during Visconti-Venosta’s visit suggested a military alliance between the two nations. The foreign minister was disinclined towards such a pact but the offer was sent via telegraph to Rome where it was readily accepted by the King more on sentimental grounds than geopolitical.

Visconti-Venosta met with the newly crowned Alfonso XII in Madrid, a republican coup having overthrown his mother Isabella the previous year only to offer him the throne in return for certain constitutional guarantees [2]. Though no alliance was signed, the meeting was cordial and helped reassure Vittorio Emanuele that he had not become a pariah among him fellow Catholic monarchs. In August, the foreign minister’s most important visit took place, being joined by his king as he traveled to Berlin.

Meeting with both Chancellor Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm, they were also joined by King Leopold III of Hungary and his foreign minister, Count Gyula Andrássy. Officially only a conference of diplomatic niceties, on 19 August the six men secretly signed into being the Triple Alliance. Seemingly designed to isolate the rump Austrian Empire, for the various signatories it had more far reaching implications.

After the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, the Second French Empire had fallen to a military coup led by General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot. A légitimiste, Ducrot had launched the undertaking to place the Bourbon pretender Henri, Comte de Chambord on the throne. However the would-be Henri V refused to take the crown unless all vestiges of the French Revolution were destroyed, included the beloved tricolour.

Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot, France's reluctant dictator​

Unwilling and unable to take these drastic steps the ‘Regent-President’ had been left in limbo, maintaining a dictatorship based on revanchist rhetoric and anti-secularism. These tenets alarmed Berlin and Rome in equal measure. While Italy had little interest in Alsace-Lorraine, Visconti-Venosta and Prime Minister Lanza knew the value of German support if Ducrot attempted to take Tunisia or initiate a far-fetched Papal restoration.

The Hungarians meanwhile were eager for support against Russian adventures into the Balkans due to their large and increasingly truculent Slavic minorities. In this Hungary shared sympathy with the Ottomans and in Berlin Andrássy even raised the possibility of Turkish inclusion in the alliance [3]. The proposal alarmed the Italian delegation due to their own interests in the Balkans as well as Tunisia. To Visconti-Venosta’s relief Bismarck had little interest in dedicating Germany to the preservation of the ‘sick man of Europe’ and the matter was put aside.

Visconti-Venosta had failed to get a direct endorsement from Berlin for Italy’s machinations towards Tunis but the rejection of Turkish inclusion in the Triple Alliance was seized on by the hawks in cabinet back home. Well aware his position bared uncomfortable similarities to his predecessor Ricasoli, Lanza attempted to siphon off popular support for Minghetti (who remained a power unto himself in the Finance Ministry) by pushing for naval expansion.

Despite the long held goal of a North African colony, the poor state of the Italian fleet meant dreams of Tunis remained just that. By 1867 the Ottoman Navy though based almost exclusively on traditional sail ships upgraded to steam engines was the fourth largest in the world. The Regia Marina was ninth sharing middling company with the navies of Brazil and Sweden, its only true capital ship the twenty-year old man-o-war Re Galantuomo.

Commissioned as Monarca into the Royal Sicilian Navy in 1846, the re-christened Re Galantuomo became
the flagship of the new Italian fleet in 1861. Outdated, inherited and the nation's only capital ship, it
exemplified the perilous state of the Regia Marina in the late 1860s.​

A combination of the land-based goals of the risorgimento and the strict fiscal discipline of Minghetti had led the navy to become very much the secondary service, having seen no new ships since 1861 and little reform. This stagnation had retained the pre-Unification divisions with ships and their crews almost exclusively of Sardinian or Sicilian stock, with officers still trained in separate academies in Genoa and Naples. This situation had been openly lamented by the naval minister Admiral Carlo di Persano for years and it was much to his surprise when the Prime Minister endorsed major investment in the 1868 budget.

Lanza called for a single new naval academy, the upgrading of the Genoa and Venice shipyards, and from them the construction of a modern ironclad fleet capable of challenging the Ottomans in quality if not quantity. Minghetti protested, the treasury having only recently come into surplus but he was outvoted in cabinet. Supported by all parties in the Chamber, the government naval bill was quickly endorsed and soon, much to Minghetti’s concern, the national coffers had been stripped to meet the needs of the shipyard programme.

The economy continued to grow into the 1870s, primarily focused around the booming textile industry. However Italy remained a relative minnow, struggling to remain in the ranks of the top ten industrialised nations against the likes of Russia and Spain.

Small artisans remained the bedrock of the urban economy and by the new decade the ideas of friendly societies and credit unions had spread to Italy. Spearheaded by the young economist Luigi Luzzatti, institutions like his Banca Popolare di Milano were established [4]. Luzzatti, a Right deputy from a wealthy Jewish family helped to soften establishment fears of socialist subversion within the credit union movement and soon found support from Minghetti who saw the 'people's banks’ as a prudent alternative to state welfare.

Thanks to respectable figureheads like Luigi Luzzatti the banca popolare movement received government approval.​

The embryonic trade union movement received no such endorsement with lockouts against striking Florentine munitions workers in 1869 and Venetian glass workers in 1871 being supported by the government.

Labour interests became increasingly vocal following the lockouts with numerous protests by the cartisti and the ten-hour workday campaign rising to over 100,000 supporters. The conservative government had little interest in such calls for reform and Parliament and the voting public soon turned its attention to Urbano Rattazzi as political scandal struck the Sinistra Liberale in September 1871.

Allegations of fraud and intimidation in the party’s Lazio heartlands dominated the press for weeks. Though little evidence of involvement could be found, the level of gossip proved too much with Rattazzi forced to step down as leader of the Left the following month. As the opposition fought among themselves, Lanza took advantage of the situation calling for a general election in the new year. By February with the campaign underway and the Right confident of victory, word arrived from Berlin.

________________________​

[1] The Papacy maintained such a policy in Italy until 1918, leading to notably low turnout at elections for the time period. Once it was lifted Christian democracy quickly developed in Italy, although it was cut short by Fascism.

[2] I wasn’t paying much attention to Spain during this period but a republic was briefly installed in 1866 and when I went back in 1867 it was constitutional monarchy again.

[3] Hungary was very pro-Ottoman during the Dual Monarchy due to their mutual opposition to Slavic nationalism. The occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina was not popular in Budapest.

[4] Luzzatti is an interesting figure who became prime minister in the early 1900s. We’ll be hearing more from him later in our tale.

 

[Jape]

Jape is alive! It's a miracle!

Things are looking up and up for you. Time to make Europe fear Italy once more!

Some good luck certainly, though as the above chapter I think shows it is more handling of events than objective strength.

4 years early!

Still missing Austria, Tyrol, Switzerland and Bohemia though.

Sein Vaterland muss grosser sein!

You may get your wish yet though I'm afraid I've called dibs on the Tyrol.

A great opportunity snatched and taken advantage of.

Indeed hopefully I remain on my toes!

The German Empire is growing hegemonic, having humiliated both France and Austria. Depending on the shifting attitudes they could both be a might foe and a powerful ally.

That said, with Rome in Italian hands and the Pope marginalised, this might be the best occasion for Sinistra Liberale to pursue their secular policies, so I presume they have an advantage in the electoral campaign.

The Left are secularist but Italy is still a very Catholic country. And the King a very Catholic monarch. Meanwhile Germany is very popular in Rome at the minute but as you say their power might quickly mean Italy is being dragged around by the giant.

It lives! With the recent events in the north, perhaps an alliance with Germany to gain colonies or other territory from France would be a wise choice?

Its certainly all being considered but events are getting in the way of plans.

so, Germany is now the right choice as an ally... maybe a partition of Austria could take place...

Maybe indeed...

 

[RossN]

Wonderful to see this work springing back to life Jape. It's surreal for me to see dictatorial France, strong Italy, powerful Germany and crumbling Austria; amazing how different these games can go!

 

[Nikolai]

Well, a war against rump Austria works too, I guess.

 

[stnylan]

Definitely a good opportunity to take.

 

[guillec87]

yeah! Grossdeutschland and Italia Irredenta! let's just hope they do not clash over a small part of the Alps called South Tyrol

 

[AvatarOfKhaine]

Sein Vaterland Muss Grosser Sein!

 

[Jape]

Apologies for the small number of in-game pictures in this update, I was quite lazy in screenshoting during the war. Its a habit I'm trying to break and for a war that takes place mainly in obscure parts of greater Hungary I know its a bit of a pain.

Wonderful to see this work springing back to life Jape. It's surreal for me to see dictatorial France, strong Italy, powerful Germany and crumbling Austria; amazing how different these games can go!

Thank you very much RossN. I am impressed how divergent different games can go although to be fair I started in 1861 where German unification is much more likely than when playing from 1836.

Well, a war against rump Austria works too, I guess.

Its what Berlin wants and the Lanza government is at pains to keep the alliance going. Also its Austria, hardly a tough sell for Italy in 1872.

Definitely a good opportunity to take.

I had too! Hardly expecting a tough fight, worth it to keep in with zee Germans. There are opportunities however and problems I hadn't counted as you'll see.

yeah! Grossdeutschland and Italia Irredenta! let's just hope they do not clash over a small part of the Alps called South Tyrol

Let's hope indeed!

Sein Vaterland Muss Grosser Sein!

Well we'll see...

 

[Jape]

Chapter VIII
The War of 1872

Winter in Rome by L.D. Johnson​

On 16 January 1872, traveling through the rain-soaked streets of the capital to the King’s residence at the Palazza del Quirinale to request the dissolution of Parliament, Giovanni Lanza must have been a contented man. The prime minister had overseen five years of peace and modest but sustained economic growth for Italy. Through support of the navy and the Triple Alliance he had built a hawkish parliamentary base, leaving his would-be successor Marco Minghetti isolated at the treasury.

Christmas too had brought him and the whole Right government the greatest of presents; the shame-faced resignation of the Left’s demagogic captain Urbano Rattazzi. Leader of the opposition for over a decade, Rattazzi’s fall had seen a half dozen candidates rise up to fight through backroom deals and newspaper columns for his position. Secure in cabinet, a healthy economy and a disunited opposition, Lanza and his party waltzed into the general election, confident of a dull affair.

Unfortunately for Lanza the Triple Alliance was to be activated much sooner than anyone in Rome had anticipated. The new year had seen the already cool relations between Germany and Austria plunge to icy depths. Due to the bloodshed of the Austro-Prussian War and the strength of Hungarian nationalism, Chancellor Bismarck had weakened the Habsburg Empire beyond his initial intentions, leaving a bitter, isolated rump stretched across Central and Eastern Europe, dividing his new alliance.

In the east, Romania, supported by the Tsar, was calling for the secession of Austrian Bukovina while uprisings by Polish nationalists had to be brutally suppressed in Galicia. There was word too of French diplomatic missions in Vienna seeking an alliance. In Germany the religious divisions of the Kulturkampf were worrying many Prussian leaders, including the Kaiser [1], fearful that Vienna might offer an alternative axis for Catholic Germans, particularly in the southern states like Bavaria threatening the stability and even the unity of the new Reich.

Prime Minister Giovanni Lanza​

These twin (if contradictory) fears of Austria as a weak ‘failed state’ liable to crumble under Russian or revolutionary pressure, and as an interminable enemy at the heart of the Triple Alliance, convinced Bismarck of the need to completely submit Vienna to his will.

Word of the Chancellor’s intentions came suddenly in Rome. The ongoing election had been orderly and uneventful, the press far more interested in the plight of the famed botanist and explorer Odoardo Beccari, recently shipwrecked in Borneo [2]. On 7 February, the same day Lanza announced government funds to rescue “our hero of science”, he received the German ambassador Joseph von Radowitz to discuss Bismarck’s plans.

The Prime Minister was worried by the prospect of war, not with Austria but with France. While Vienna was surrounded by the Alliance, General Ducrot had been rapidly rebuilding the French military and challenging Italian diplomatic influence in Tunis and Athens with increasing boldness. Von Radowitz assured Lanza that adequate German forces would remain on the western frontier in the unlikely event of French intervention.

Italy had entered her alliance with Berlin primarily to gain protection from France and perhaps only now the parochial Lanza realised the price would be a supporting role in Bismarck’s geopolitical schemes. The Foreign Minister reacted to the German proposal poorly. Despite being one of its signatories, Visconti-Venosta had been ambivalent about the Triple Alliance from the start for this very reason, fearing it would make Italy only an extension of Berlin’s will. Were Germany to subjugate Austria, perhaps even to the point of annexation, she would be in a position of continental dominance not seen since the days of Napoleon.

Such power would greatly unnerve Paris, St. Petersburg and most importantly to Visconti-Venosta, London. The British had quietly become Italy’s strongest supporter in it’s dreams of an African colony. If Rome was seen as party to the Chancellor’s drastic Austrian scheme it could easily dampen Anglo-Italian relations. As much as it led to eye-rolling in many a European foreign ministry, Britain prided itself as the continent’s leveler. If the Triple Alliance, seen as singular bloc, held sway might not London look to support France?

By 1872 Chancellor Bismarck was increasingly being seen abroad as a warmonger
​

In cabinet Visconti-Venosta found himself in a minority of one. The youngest member of the government, the Foreign Minister perhaps lacked the almost Pavlovian stance of his colleagues towards war with Vienna, the great enemy. War Minister Govone was heavily in favour, while Interior Minister Quintino Sella felt quite simply it was Italy’s obligation to her ally. Minghetti advocated not only involvement but a major effort on land and sea to earn the country the right to annex the Tyrol, the last majority-Italian region within the Habsburg empire. Visconti-Venosta conceded to the hawkish majority though privately advocated temperance in the peace to Lanza.

Hostilities began on 15 February, Berlin declaring the official purpose of the war was to stabilise the crumbling Habsburg domains. To the relief of Rome France refused to retaliate beyond barbed missives while Russia, having so recently backed Romania’s territorial ambitions against Austria, was at a loss. London remained quiet. Having feared invasion, the Austrian army had focused itself in Bohemia in a repeat of 1861 desperately banking on a knockout blow against the Germans.

This allowed the Italians’ three corps led by Bagliani, Mezzacapo and di Bonzo to march virtually unmolested into Istria and the Tyrol. Had the term existed in 1872, the Italian government might have declared to the public they were engaging in a ‘police action’; mass mobilisation had been avoided and due to the decrepit state of the Austrian navy the Regia Marina (and crucially her newly-built ironclads) were scattered in various ports, Admiral di Persano lazily preparing for a possible sally by his opposite von Tegethoff.

Then came support for Vienna from an unexpected source. Sultan Abdülaziz announced the Ottoman Empire’s entry into the war, having signed a defensive pact with Austria the previous year. Clearly an alliance aimed against Russian machinations, the Turks nonetheless nobly acknowledged their commitment to their (almost certainly doomed) ally. In Berlin the announcement was met with puzzlement and little else. For the other two members of the Triple Alliance it caused a sudden panic.

Turkish entry into the war suprised the Triple Alliance​

For Hungary it now meant a two front war across almost the entirety of her frontier with a military woefully unprepared for the task. In Italy Admiral di Persano’s louche attitude to organising the fleet now had grave consequences. By 1872 the Regia Marina had three modern ironclad battleships in service, with another three under construction as well as two monitors intended for littoral defence [3]. Though formidable in isolation, the arrival of the Ottoman Navy into the conflict with over thirty modernised men-o-war meant the Italian fleet, strung out across half a dozen harbours, was weary to move out into open waters.

As feared the Ottoman fleet promptly settled itself near the Gulf of Taranto in late March, cutting off di Persano’s fifteen strong fleet in Brindisi, consisting of wooden frigates, several commerce raiders and his flagship the Re Galantuomo from the ironclads in Genoa and Naples. Even with these new ships the Regia Marina was unlikely to prevail against the sheers numbers arrayed against them. Despite near apoplexy in the jingoistic press, the Admiral remained inactive.

On land, with the Austrians being driven south towards Vienna with relative ease by the Germans, save a bold offensive into Transylvania in April (hoping to ferment dissent in the minority-Magyar region) all focus of Allied efforts was on repulsing the Ottoman advance into Hungary. As predicted even in Budapest, the poorly trained Honvéd proved no match for the Turks, the Hungarians in full retreat by the end of April. The invading army had launched a two-pronged attack from Bosnia. The primary advance led by General Yusuf Bey was aimed for Budapest in the hope of quickly knocking the Triple Alliance’s weakest member out of the war. The second led by General Abdülhamid Bey was advancing through Croatia in an effort to link up with Austrian forces to the north.

In May di Bonzo, supported by Bagliani while Mezzacapo completed the occupation of Istria, marched south where Abdülhamid Bey was laying siege to Zagreb. A German corps under the command of General von Hartmann joined the Italians. Of equal rank the two commanders supposedly argued over who was to take command, di Bonzo eventually winning out due to pure stubbornness. Regardless of poor relations between the two allied armies, on 31 May the Ottomans found themselves heavily outnumbered at Zagreb, their forces spread out across the region.

Battle of Zagreb, 31 May 1872​

In his typically blunt style di Bonzo launched a broad frontal assault, quickly forcing Abdülhamid Bey from the field before he retreated back across the border. Von Hartmann, perhaps unwilling to remain under di Bonzo’s command, advanced south alone towards the Austrian dominion of Dalmatia, where at Zadar on 17 June he was repulsed by an inferior army led by King Karl Ludwig. Unwilling to risk further humiliation the Germans declined to launch another concerted effort against the strategically unimportant kingdom for the remainder of the war [4].

At the same time di Bonzo and Bagliani were heading east. At Požega near the Croatian-Hungarian border, the Italian army met another numerically inferior Ottoman force on 20 June. Utilising his cavalry who had remained inactive at Zagreb, di Bonzo outflanked his enemy in text book encirclement, capturing and killing half of their number. The Ottoman advance into Croatia now effectively crushed, the Italians marched into Hungary proper to join the Alliance counter-offensive.

Though Yusuf Bey’s attack on Budapest had been halted, his armies had caused widespread destruction to the Hungarian countryside. Attrition in terms of food and disease saw the numbers of fit soldiers in di Bonzo’s army take a serious fit as they made their way through the country, the Italians lacking the logistical and medical support of their German allies.

By July the two corps now numbering 40,000 strong had linked up with the German 1st Army and several Hungarian brigades led by Field Marshal von Manteuffel (the chain of command in no doubt on this occasion). The combined force numbered nearly 120,000 men and began lumbering into Transylvania where the battered remains of Yusuf Bey’s invading army were attempting to rendezvous with Austrian forces in the theatre. Before he could manage this von Manteuffel caught him on 27 July near Deva on the banks of the River Mureș.

Battle of Deva, 27 July 1872​

A huge Alliance advantage particularly in artillery saw the Turks crushed once again. His forces shattered, the nearby Austrian corps defeated at Cluj on the same day and the line of retreat into Ottoman territory blocked, Yusuf Bey maintained a spirited fighting withdrawal through the region before finally surrendering at Gyulafehérvár on 10 August.

Hungary secure and Vienna occupied, the war was effectively over. Then late August brought news of a Romanian invasion of Bukovina supported by the Tsar. The action outraged public opinion in Berlin and fear spread through the capitals of Europe of a possible Russo-German war. Both sides however were unenthusiastic of the prospect with Rome and Budapest quick to articulate their disdain.

Instead German forces in Hungary quickly headed north to occupy Austrian Galicia in order to cut off the Romanian advance. With new Ottoman forces mustering in Bosnia and the war against Austria a continuing fiction in order to spite St. Petersburg, parliamentary hawks and an impatient press would see Admiral di Persano in September forced to lead the Regia Marina out of port and into battle.

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[1] While Bismarck was hardly in love with the Catholic Church, Kaiser Wilhelm I was deeply paranoid of its power to undermine German (read: Protestant Prussian) culture and unity.
[2] As you might guess this is the “Orderly Election” and “Botanical Expedition Stranded” events which happened together in-game, however I thought I’d take the opportunity to name drop Beccari who in real life is famous for cataloging the Titan Arum, the world’s largest flowering plant known for its phallic shape and “rotting corpse” aroma. He was a big Italian name in Victorian globetrotting and was loosely connected to Italian colonialism. He might pop up again.
[3] My low-level harbours and late invention of Ironclads in the tech tree severely hindered by ability to build a modern fleet. At this point in the game I wouldn’t be surprised if I was the most tech poor of the great powers.
[4] This did happen and perhaps for sentimental reasons I decided not to attack the plucky Dalmatians myself

 

[guillec87]

so... maybe Italy could get Lybia?