In the halls of power in Rome unlike in Constantinople and Bucharest the Entente was getting a lot more face time with the Italians than the Central Powers. This was partly because the meetings between Rome and the Central Powers following Italy reneging on its treaty obligations at the start of the war had when poorly. This was because of a mix of Italian trying to claim irredentism lands from Austria-Hungary along with ruffled feathers on the side of the Central Powers about Italy breaking its treaties and was now viewed as trying to extortion land from one of the two great powers within the Central Powers alliance. Because of this the Entente had far more time with their Rome counterparts than the Central Powers did.
As winter was setting in across Europe the Entente were looking for a nation to join with them to help break up the pressure they were feeling. They were getting the feeling that Bucharest was in a wait and see mode after rebuffing their offers and with the Ottomans slowly mobilizing their forces with the fact they were still meeting with them and a deal was nowhere close to being stuck between the Entente, all eyes turned to Rome to get them on their side and into the war. Yet this proved to be a harder task than what the Entente had first believed it to be.
To put it simply, Rome had taken to a Rome is first, second, and third on their point of view. They hadn’t suffer any setbacks to their plans since 1866 during the Third Italian War of Independence where their butts were pull out of the fire by their Prussian allies. Since then they had joined the world stage as a great power with colonies in Africa, a colony in China, and forcing the Ottomans out of Africa. And with Brazil emergent as great power in the past 15 years, Italy was no longer the weakest Great Power in the game. That said Italy had irredentism on both France and Austria-Hungary. They also wanted further growth in the colonies even through they were having some issues controlling what they already had. To put it plainly, the Italian leaders in Rome didn’t fully understand their own limits.
Even through the Italians believed themselves far stronger than they really were, they weren’t a push over either. They were hunting for the best possible deal they could get for their services in this war. One that would see colonial and European gains. The Central Powers led by Berlin as the relations between Vienna and Rome were toxic were only offering minor gains in Europe, namely in the form of Nice, Savoy, and Corsica. In the colonies, their gains would be limited to French Tunisia. The Germans stated they were willing to talk about possible gains in French Alegria along with both French and British Somaliland based on the performance of the Italian Army in the war but they would only guarantee the first four areas.
The Italians felt like they were being given the cold shoulder by Berlin by such an offer. There was something there was the Germans felt betrayed by the Italians. Had the Italians honored the treaty, some in Berlin believed that the war in the west would already be over as Italian neutrality had freed up a French corp which would play a part at the Battle of Marne which start the German drive to capture France. Then the fact the Italian Army promised to help Germany wasn’t there. Without that French corp at the Marne and the Italian Army that was promised in pre-war agreements between the two nations, it was believed that France could had already been forced out the war. Together with the Italians trying to gain colonies at the cost of Germany rubbing the Germans the wrong way the Germans had little reason to better their offer as they believe it was clear they were winning the war and with that Italy wouldn’t join the Entente.
For the Entente as December gave way to the new year the pressure was building to do something. Everyone knew that come the spring new offensives would be launched. And they knew they need a second front opened up somewhere and the Italian Alps seemed as good as place as any. They kept increasing the offer they were making the Italians to get them to join them in the war. Then they finally put forward an offer that for the Italians was impossible to walk away from. In Europe they offered them massive gains at the cost of the Austro Hungarian Empire[1], Albania[1], and Greece[2]. On top of the European gains the Entente promised territorial gains in the colonies as well. They weren’t totally spelled out in the Treaty of Rome which was signed in late January but were promised to be massive. Most of these colonial gains however would come from the British in East Africa and both the French and British in North Africa. For the Italians, it was an offer that was too good to refuse and they decided to sign the treaty which slated them to attack the Austro-Hungarians in the Spring.
[1] Basically the terms of the OTL Treaty of London (1915) here.
[2] The Ionian Islands and Crete.
