DBWI: Italy goes republican in 1946?

Bit of an obvious one – the ’46 referendum was won by only a few thousand votes [1] – but what if Italy had voted to drop the monarchy? What would their presidencies be like? Would it actually be that different to the constitutional monarchy? And where would tabloids be without whacky Prince Vittorio[2] to follow around?


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[1] A narrow victory for the crown seems more plausible as a POD – and also could be more fun to play with

[2] Idea is the line of succession is changed to eldest instead of eldest-male to make the monarchy look more modern. Bit of a fudge but handy for narrative!
 
While I don't want to imagine a world without Queen Maria, here it goes. I can imagine a big change would be that the Communists might actually get into power after the complete collapse of the Euro without the queen to veto them. Then again, an Italian monarchy might butterfly away the ICP actually being powerful.
 
after the complete collapse of the Euro without the queen to veto them.

I remember there being a lot of discontent about that in Italy (and other parts of Europe) back then, and for years after. "If only we were in the eurozone, the economy would do so much better!"

Now you can talk to a thousand Italians and isn't it amazing, they all thought Queen Maria was right at the time! Even the Communist Party seem to have always agreed and never accused her of a shocking abuse of influence and power (which, to be fair, it was).
 
As a republic, I think that Italy would have been extremely unstable. There wouldn't have been a strong enough President to unite the country behind them. When the Communists attempted their coup in 1956, it only failed because King Umberto II managed to keep the people strong behind him.

Without Queen Maria, Italy would have been taken with the fall of the Euro. She may have abused her position, but she did so with a vision for Italy's future. Of course she did escalate tensions with Yugoslavia, but that was to be understood. Tito and his posturing over Trieste really did warrant a response from Rome.

And of course, we have to remember that period of turmoil after Queen Maria's assassination in 2003. Her son, King Victor Emmanuel IV really didn't do much good for the Italian people by marrying Alexandra of Yugoslavia - that only further alienated Yugoslavia. Alexandra is hated in Italy for being Serbian. I think that the current protests calling for Victor Emmanuel IV to abdicate gain traction, then the monarchy could just collapse under itself. Unless of course Victor Charles can recover their position if his father abdicates (as he should).
 
Anglo-Italian Relations

's All very good, but with a Republic, the diplomatic disaster of England's Prince Charles marrying Princess Emmanuelle Philomena* and then dumping her for that Camillia creature wouldn't have been so traumatic. Neither the Queen nor King Vittorio Emanuele IV were amused.


* I assume a girl instead of a boy being born to the Savoyard.
 
's All very good, but with a Republic, the diplomatic disaster of England's Prince Charles marrying Princess Emmanuelle Philomena* and then dumping her for that Camillia creature wouldn't have been so traumatic. Neither the Queen nor King Vittorio Emanuele IV were amused.


* I assume a girl instead of a boy being born to the Savoyard.

But it may have ended up shifting the crisis to somewhere like Denmark or France....
 
Charles should have manned up and married Camilla like he clearly wanted to; that divorce stunk up diplomatic relations for the entire 90s. Every time it looked like it was going to die down, some git would bang on about it again to sell something or score political points from nationalist dunces. The Six Nations got insufferable.

Could be worse, Italian-Serbian relationships are in the toilet. Tito, Alexandra, and then being involved in military/peacekeeping action during the breakup and Kosovo?[1] It’s a triple-threat.

Unless of course Victor Charles can recover their position if his father abdicates (as he should).

VicEm the Fourth is a bit stuffed here: it’s unclear how much of the population genuinely want him out and VC in, and how many are using that as an excuse to have at the monarchy as an institution. VicEm the Third abdictating was necessary but set a precedent that the crown’s fragile. Another one makes it more likely that Italians will go “do we actually need a monarch then?”.


If he doesn’t, it’s more likely they’ll go “do we actually want a monarch then?”. Koyabushi Maru!

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[1] Italy doesn’t do much more in the Kosovo intervention than they did in OTL – but the bad blood means everyone cares a lot more about it
 
's All very good, but with a Republic, the diplomatic disaster of England's Prince Charles marrying Princess Emmanuelle Philomena* and then dumping her for that Camillia creature wouldn't have been so traumatic. Neither the Queen nor King Vittorio Emanuele IV were amused.


* I assume a girl instead of a boy being born to the Savoyard.

Occ: Did the princess convert to Anglicanism?
 
If there had been a republic then perhaps the Italians would have kept a hold onto Trieste or the southern portion of Tyrol. Though it may have only caused further flash points with German/Austrian and Slovene/Yugoslav nationalists.
 

yourworstnightmare

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Wasn't the Crown Italy's shield against Communism during the early years of the Cold War. With no monarchy there could Italy have ended up in the Soviet block?
 
If there had been a republic then perhaps the Italians would have kept a hold onto Trieste or the southern portion of Tyrol. Though it may have only caused further flash points with German/Austrian and Slovene/Yugoslav nationalists.

Oh no, the Kingdom did keep a hold of Trieste. It did lead to tensions, it very nearly did lead to war had it not been for Prime Minister de Gaulle of France getting involved.
 
Oh no, the Kingdom did keep a hold of Trieste. It did lead to tensions, it very nearly did lead to war had it not been for Prime Minister de Gaulle of France getting involved.

It is really a matter of opinion on Trieste, considering the communities on both side of the border are basically the bilingual versions of the places right over the border. Still, it had the upside that the Slovenes managed to be assigned the parts of the Istrian peninsula that had been depopulated of Italians after the war rather than being given to the Croatians. Anyone know what happened to the stuff over Carinthia? I read a lot about the scuffles between the Austrians and Italians and Yugoslavs and Italians, but never managed to check out the books on the tension or neutrality inspired friendship of Austria and Yugoslavia. Didn't they arrange something where at least a fifth of Austrian exports and a fourth of imports went through that old Hungarian-Broatian port? Fiume I think?
 
Wasn't the Crown Italy's shield against Communism during the early years of the Cold War. With no monarchy there could Italy have ended up in the Soviet block?

That's a question with a thousand answers! The Communist Party did get a large chunk of the 40s and 50s votes in our timeline, so while I don't see them taking control (we overstate the monarchy's role and some of the Communist's rhetoric came from poking the monarchy) they could easily have been a power player in a coalition. That could have led to all sorts of nastiness and a whole spectrum of coups.

Also note that in OTL, the CIA turned out to have dumped a load of cash into right-wing Italian politics post-war. [1] Without Umberto II as a 'clean' focus point, that wouldn't have been as big a thing and the right would be weaker.

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[1]Actually happened.
 
never managed to check out the books on the tension or neutrality inspired friendship of Austria and Yugoslavia. Didn't they arrange something where at least a fifth of Austrian exports and a fourth of imports went through that old Hungarian-Broatian port?

Yeah, neither nation was too happy when Umberto was able to wrangle some concessions at the Treaty of Paris. Having a fresh-faced monarch with Allied monarchical contacts had some perks!

Though everyone focuses on how he was able to wrangle getting Eritrea back. I'm pretty sure that was because King George knew it was a lemon.
 
Yeah, neither nation was too happy when Umberto was able to wrangle some concessions at the Treaty of Paris. Having a fresh-faced monarch with Allied monarchical contacts had some perks!

Though everyone focuses on how he was able to wrangle getting Eritrea back. I'm pretty sure that was because King George knew it was a lemon.

Yes, the Ethiopians have never forgiven them. After all, it is mainly made up of two groups who make up the main portions of Ethiopia. Still, ending up with French, British, and Italian Somaliland was something. Given all the trouble over religion and language though, I think the Emperor would have far prefered getting Eritrea. No Indian Ocean coastline sure, but there would have been peace and prosperity.

And to be honest, I don't see people as having actually liked that King, let alone the Americans, British, and French. He just got lucky that the ministers were good, or they would have ended up with mainland Italy alone. Or just just like his great-great-grandad as King of Sardinia. Not as if he would enjoy being in French Piedmont.
 
It is really a matter of opinion on Trieste, considering the communities on both side of the border are basically the bilingual versions of the places right over the border. Still, it had the upside that the Slovenes managed to be assigned the parts of the Istrian peninsula that had been depopulated of Italians after the war rather than being given to the Croatians. Anyone know what happened to the stuff over Carinthia? I read a lot about the scuffles between the Austrians and Italians and Yugoslavs and Italians, but never managed to check out the books on the tension or neutrality inspired friendship of Austria and Yugoslavia. Didn't they arrange something where at least a fifth of Austrian exports and a fourth of imports went through that old Hungarian-Broatian port? Fiume I think?

De Gaulle tried to paint himself as the peace maker and in the end, Carinthia was roughly split between Austria and Yugoslavia (Slovenia). Tito began to build up a military presence around Trieste, to which the Italians responded by shelling their positions. Queen Maria informed Tito that if he tried to send planes to retaliate they would be shot down. Yugoslavia began a full mobilisation and Austria got scared as well. De Gaulle called on the UN to deploy a peacekeeping force to Istria. At the Treaty of Paris, Istria was to become a demilitarised zone, as was most of Veneto in order to de-escalate tensions. Yugoslavia violated this in 1993 during the Croatian Revolution - which was violently supressed, and is the reason that Yugoslavia is banned from joining the EU.
 
Everyone keeps assuming in AUs that if this hadn't happened, Trieste would have been given to Yugoslavia - and I've seen a few that say it's temporarily under UN administration (makes sense) and given back to Italy in its entirety (and Belgrade's fine with that?). Probably it'd have been partitioned.
 
Is there a chance that a Republican Italy actually fared better than the Italian Kingdom?

Sure the kingdom gave stability in the post-war but most of the bureaucracy was filled with the same IMHO incompetent lackeys. OTL that has been changed with the 1990s corruption scandals including the ones allegedly involving Vittorio Emanuele and the subsequent the fresh start of Emanuele Filiberto reign and the new left leaning liberal Berlusconi Goverment.

The republic could have a fresh start, in the resistance wasn't all communist many promising Christian Democrats, liberals and republicans were present only to be put aside after the "restoration".
 
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