Update's done! Map will be up this weekend.
Part One Hundred Twenty-Five: The Final Approach
Breaking Into Italy:
The entry of Illyria into the Great War was the beginning of the end phase of the war. While the size of the Illyrian armed force was small, the widening of the fronts in Italy and Hungary thinned out the New Coalition forces and allowed the German and French armies to advance quicker. As the German army built up a forward base in Conegliano and held off an Italian counterattack, the Illyrians continued to engage Italy along the Isonzo line. The difficult and costly push by the Germans through the last range of the Alps stopped that offensive for a while, and gave the Italian forces the chance to regroup and refocus toward the newly opened front. The Second Battle of Gorizia saw Italy recapture the border town on July 25.
Further south, Illyria was more successful. The Isonzo line held during the Battle of Aquileia. The battle, named after the nearby ancient Roman city, actually occurred as a back and forth series of skirmishes between the Isonzo River and the city of Sokolgora[1] between July and September. The hottest months of the year took a heavy toll on the combatants with temperaturs reaching over 100 degrees for days on end. The battle also swung back and forth, even though the contested width was barely five miles apart. Numerous Italian offensives nearly reached Sokolgora and the town itself was captured for almost a week. However, with the French launching further landings, the strip of land was conceded and the Italians fell back to beyond the Isonzo River. With Trieste now securely isolated, Illyria laid siege to the port city. After several weeks and severe damage from artillery, Illyrian forces entered Trieste on September 29, 1910. Three weeks later on October 17th, Rijeka also fell to the Alliance Carolingien.
On the western section of the Italian front, the French forces continued to pour into the upper Po valley. After Cuneo and Saluzzo fell, the Italians attempted to build up a defensive line to stop the French advance. However, the Italian command slowly became disorganized over fighting a two front war across all of northern Italy. As Illyria advanced in the east, France did so in the west. The main target was Turin, and that center of industry fell in July of 1910. The town of Ivrea on the southern edge of the Alps fell to French forces at the end of the month. The capture of Ivrea left over 20,000 Italian soldiers trapped and surrounded in the Aosta Valley. Meanwhile, the last of the Italian navy in the Tyrrhenian Sea was sunk as the small fleet tried to slip out of La Spezia harbor at night. Three Italian cruisers were sunk near the city's harbor, and the other ships were captured, with the crew taken to Corsica as prisoners of war. With the Italian front collapsing, the Liga del Mediterraneo members heavily considered overtures of peace. The Italian ambassador to London, Guglielmo Imperiali[2], sent fervent letters to the British foreign office calling for an armistice, but for a time they fell on deaf ears. As the months went on, the Alliance Carolingien continued to occupy more of the Po Valley. Alessandria fell in August of 1910, and another beachhead was soon established in Tuscany as further north France kept moving on Milan. The Tuscan front connected with the fort at Piombino, quickly capturing Livorno and Pisa and advancing as far inland as Siena and only ten miles out from Florence. Were it not for the Apennine Mountains, the peninsula would soon be split in half by the French forces.
The Thrashing Bull:
In Spain, the New Coalition military line may have been holding at the Ebro River, but within Spain the government was growing weaker as opposition to the war grew. The Cortes in Madrid, then held by the Conservative Party, refused any debate on seeking an armistice with the French despite the continued occupation of the northeast of the country. The Conservatives had seen the cessions Spain had given to France in the 1870s after the Second Napoleonic War as a great humiliation to Spain. Because of this and the continued British refusal to consider peace, the Conservative government vowed to fight on and not surrender to the French again.
The French dealt another blow to the New Coalition armies in early 1910. As the Germans pierced the Po Valley, France launched another offensive beyond the Ebro. With the Sistema Iberico now providing the backbone of the Spanish defensive line, the French concentrated the offensive on either ends of the broad front. The offensive was meant to reach Burgos and Valencia by the summer. The first goal succeeded as the Spanish defenses in the north were still largely disorganized after the loss of the Basque Country. However, British ships again prevented naval support from reaching the Valencian coast, and the French were rebuked from Sagunt in March. With Burgos captured, the French had reached the furthest into the Ibreian Peninsula of any French campaign since Emperor Napoleon. For much of the rest of 1910, the French refocused their attention on the Italian front and drawing out the New Coalition navies. However, they did advance the overall Spanish front to the other side of the Sistema Iberia. Soria and Calatayud fell to France in August. After another weeks long pitched battle at Medinaceli in October, the French marched into Sigüenza, bringing them within a hundred miles of Madrid.
As the French advanced, Spain scrambled to bring troops up from Andalusia to the front lines. However, this meant fewer garrisons in the southern towns where the largest sentiment to the cantonalist movement was. In July 1910 a heat wave sparked rioting in Cordoba and other cities as the government struggled to ration water in the city. Seeing an opportunity, the cantonalists of the city proclaimed a need for more decentralized government and the rejection of the authority of Madrid. Cordoba soon went into open rebellion. Other cities in Andalucia quickly followed. Most notably were in the industrial cities in the province of Valencia, one of the few industrial areas of the country outside of Catalunya. The workers of Alcoy and Alicante[3] rose up in support of Cordoba, as did numerous other cities in the next months across southern Spain. The city of Valencia itself hesitated due to the naval presence in the city, but the unhappy population soon rose up as the French encroached on the city. In November 1910, in order to avoid French occupation, Valencia proclaimed itself an independent republic, seeking a truce with the French forces. In a meeting between French general Hubert Lyautey and the interim mayor of Valencia, Faustí Barberà i Martí[4], the French agreed to not enter the proclaimed borders of the Valencian Republic, which included much of the area surrounding the city. The rebellion in Andalucia grew as more cities with entrenched cantonalist and syndicalist movements joined, including Cadiz, Jerez, and Seville. By 1911 it was evident that Madrid's authority over much of the south and east of the country was falling apart, and the Spanish government finally sent emissaries along with Italy to Paris for peace discussions.
[1] Monfalcone, Italy. Sokolgora is the Slovenian translation of the Italian name, meaning Mount Falcon.
[2] Guglielmo Imperiali in OTL was the Italian ambassador to London during WWI.
[3] Alcoy was the site of the
Petroleum Revolution], that helped lead to the First Spanish Republic in OTL. Here its syndicalism is still there and leads to a support of the cantonalists.
[4] Barberà i Martí was an early proponent of a separate Valencian national identity.