AHC: A good old fashioned Italy Wank

The challenge is to make Italy as powerful as modern day Germany with a POD no earlier than the unification of Italy. This is an Italy -wank not a Gemany-screw so you must boost Italy to real life Germany 2013's level not drop the Germans to Italy's level. Germany can be screwed over however.
 
I think something can maybe be done through screwing over AH or the Balkan countries or possibly even parts of Southern Germany.
 
The only plausible Italy-wanks I can think of are quite modest, not enough to make them as powerful as France, given that timeframe. You could get an Italian Tunisia, as well as Libya. And Albania and Dalmatia are plausible. Maybe even more of the Greek islands, and part of Turkey after WWI. But much more than that is really pushing it.
 
Hmm. Well for some plausible ideas:

1. Larger Italian gains against Austria-Hungary: the whole of the Austrian Kurstenland (which includes Istria), Dalmatia and Kotor for starters, Fiume from Hungarian Croatia might be required (though can be sacrificed in return for an alliance with Hungary against Austria and the Croats), Carinola might also be an idea.

2. Keep Libya- there were plans to flood the colony with settlers a la French Algeria, and with the much smaller native population it might be possible to push Italian settlement to the point of having at least a plurality of Italians living there.

3. Italian puppets in Albania and Montenegro- these might be anything from fully integrated to just being very closely dependent on Italy. Might be larger than OTL at the expense of Serbia/Kosovo.

Of course, you could also go with some sort of PoD that makes Italy much more industrialisied and economically more powerful, but I don't really know enough to make suggestions there.
 
Making Italy successful will depend more on internal state-building rather than wasteful attempts to grab territory abroad. The crucial element will be enforcing state authority in the South and Sicily, which needs to be done early, before the proto-Mafia develops.
 
The show-stopper for Italy is a quite geological one; there just isn't a whole lot of coal in the Italian peninsula, which is a crucial element for industry, and indirectly also economy and military. The main source of coal in Italy, the Sulcis mines, but couldn't produce much more than 10% of Italy's consumption in the inter-war era - which stayed relatively flat, since peak British coal in the 20's meant less available coal for Italy. With such a late PoD, there really isn't much that can be done.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
The Republic of Rome in 1849 survives by defeating the French army. A stable republic is established and built up, and an effective army is trained by Garibaldi.

Over the next few years, The Republic's army will conquer the smaller states in north central Italy, and unite with Lombardi in Milan.

In the south, they attack and conquer the Two Sicilies, defeating a Spanish Army in the process.

When Prussia attacks Austria, the Republic joins on Prussia's side and attacks and takes Venice. Napoleon III joins Austria's side and attacks the Romans along with Piedmont. After Austria is defeated at Koniggratz, Prussia attacks and defeats France, who abruptly pull out of Italy to defend Paris. The Piedmontese are defeated by the Romans under the direct command of Garibaldi, and Savoy is incorporated into the Republic.

France is defeated by the Prussians and Napoleon is deposed. Prussia unifies Germany but does not annex Alsace-Lorraine.

With Italy unified under the Republic of the Romans, the state centralizes itself and asserts its authority. With an effective, well-trained, and well-led army, a centralized, democratic, and secular state, and the beginnings of an industrial base, Italy becomes a world power, able to effectively participate in Europe's conflicts to its benefit.
 
Well for something of not really used or trite like a better perfomance in the third war of independence or a neutrality in WWI (even a CP Italy if we dare).

The Italy decide to help France in the war against Prussia (the King and the rest of the piedmontese intelligentia were pro-France and there were serious though about that).
This help permit a better overall performance of France...but not to beat the Germans, even because Italy entering the war bring later A-H to mobilize at the Italian border and Russia to move troops and issue warning, British diplomacy mobilize and the war end.
Germany unify as OTL but France get more lenient term.

Italy now try a reapprochment with Nappy III over the issue of Rome and to sign an alliance. It's hard but with a little (ok a lot of arm wrestling and pressure) the Emperor convince the Pope to sign a treaty with the Kingdom of Italy and a little later an alliance forged between Italy and France.

Butterflied away are economic war promoted by Crispi against France who gave a terrible blow to the italian economy and forced many italians to emigrate.
Tunisia can become a co-dominium between Paris and Rome (butterfling away other economic problems).
Italy will probably support France during the war with CHina and Siam so she can have help in his attempt to get Chinese concession.
 
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