Quite to the point. Italy had a basic problem: it was an industrial nation (to a point) without any significant internal source of coal (or any other fossil fuel for that matter). It was also extremely vulnerable from the sea. Jumping on the CP bandwagon would have meant losing its major suppliers of fuel and coal, and having to fight two of the largest navies in the world combined. Even if the RN could not give her full attention to Italy, the French Navy was more or less in the position to do exactly that (with the help of the British Med squadron).More of a high maintenance second-rate power IMO.
A CP Italy might have been the difference in the ultimate outcome of the war, but can't see where the CP powers get the additional fuel and food to prop up the Italian war effort. Italy was in no shape to enter the war in 1915 and in 1914 things were far worse.
Rome would risk that only if they can be sure that the Germans and Austrians win the war for them real quick.
Others said (correctly I believe) that Britain cannot be forced to give anything in most scenarios, clearly not in a quick CP victory one. So, the things Italy might have wanted from Britain (Malta, Somaliland, Kassala, Jubaland, Sollum Bay, maaaybe Aden; all small fry in the end, except the strategic value of Malta and Aden... but Aden is far-fetched even as demand) are not quite on the table.
So Italy gets to gain stuff from France, namely: Nice, Corsica, Tunisia, Djibouti, Tibesti-Bourkou, a stretch of desert in Western Libya between Ghadames and Ghat, and possibly Savoy. Marginally juicier, but mostly colonial stuff, and much of it burning desert. The things in Europe amount to an underdeveloped and underpopulated island and a relatively small border area that is not even actually much Italian-speaking, though historically tied to Italy and quite productive. Tempting, yes. Overall the value of these gains is comparable to what Italy got IOTL (which is pretty little to justify the immense loss of life and treasure Italy put in WWI, really), and may compare favorably at least in strategic terms... but, the risk is considerably larger. The French and the British could cripple the Italian ability to sustain a modern war in a way Austria and Germany could not.
Of course, there were also ideological reasons why ultimately Italy chose to declare war to Austria; nationalism obsessed on Austrian-held land with Italian populations while French-held areas equally inhabited by "ethnic Italians" (Corsica) were regarded as a lower priority, partly because of the interethnic internal dynamic of a multinational empire like Austria where the "Italianness" of places like Trieste was "open to challenge" so to speak, a thus politically "hot" within Austria itself, while as far as France was concerned, Corsicans were French citizens, period. And Austria was the old enemy and the National Oppressor(tm).
My point is that there were very concrete and sound strategic reasons why Italy did not join the CP (and quickly gave up even considering it). Too little gain (tangible and intangible) and too great a risk; even if the Italian leadership of the time was mediocre, as shown by the extremely ill-advised subsequent choice to join the war with the other side while already knowing by witness the butchery it entailed, they could grasp this basic risk-benefit-balance and acted accordingly.
Would an Italian gamble on the CP side in 1914 shifted the balance enough to deliver a quick CP victory? If so, clearly for Italy such course would have been preferable to the OTL alternative. But the relevant decision-makers did not regard the potential rewards as worthy the (indeed major) risks.
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