By "Italy" do you mean Sardinia at its pre-unification maximum or does like Parma and Tuscany also exist?
How would a surviving Papal States effect the Catholic Church?
This could just be me, but I could half imagine "less" of a "siege" mentality by the church no? If the pope is ruling a state he'd be more in contact with the world around him than sitting in an ivory tower that is thr Vatican?
WW 1 and WW2 look very different.
You have the political situation totally wrong...I could see the papal states being only Latium. The rest of it's territory split between two Sicilies and the northern Italian kingdom. I could see northern Italy being backed by the central powers for unification and the return of Nice and Savoy.(Maybe Corsica as the house of Savoy could have a claim) I could see the pope try to use his position to try and get the Catholic countries to help or at least send volunteers to help who ever wanted to keep the status quo.(arguing to protect the church and property)
I'm curious if Germany would try to strike from Italy while trying to keep the bulk of the French army up North? Would Germany week to unify Italy first to try and make a stronger blow from the Italian front? Without having to guard against Italy then Austria could send more troops into Serbia. Should that cause Serbia to fall would that cause Bulgaria to join the war quicker? Assuming that the Austrians, Bulgarian and ottoman forces are headed east would Romania fight on the side of Russia?
Would the Germans want a third front with the Italian fighting? If Germany backs the North Italy getting Corsica, Nice and Savoy back the CP could promise Libya to the 2 Sicilies. Maybe offer northern Italy Latium could appease northern Italy.
In fairness to the Pope, the Italian government was known to literally station troops right outside the Vatican when relations got tense. I think most people would develop a siege mentality in such circumstances.
Well, we have a papal state right now in the form of Vatican City....
Or they can be seen as good compromise solutions and get fair slices of Africa as Belgium did.As far as the Two Sicilies go, both it and Italy/Sardinia could be minor colonial powers.
Or they fight each other over such opportunistic gains.Or they can be seen as good compromise solutions and get fair slices of Africa as Belgium did.
It would probably be a patchwork of city governments and farmland governed by officials answering to the Pope and governed under canon law.How would the government work in a modern papal states would it be a christian version of Iran with less revolutionary talk?