alternatehistory.com

I have just finished to read Valerio Lavezzi's Savoia, a novel that deals with an alternate reality in which the April Revolution of 1919 never happened. The story itself is really well made, the characters are well developed, and the setting is very detailed and realistic, but the same can't be said for the history: Lavezzi seems to think that having Gramsci killed in the (only) Italian-Papal War is enough to prevent the Workers' Socialist Union from taking power. And somehow this Kingdom of Italy is even allied with the Papal States against the Two Sicilies... the House of Savoy might have been reactionary scum most of the time, but they disliked the Papacy almost as much as your ordinary WSU member, albeit for the wrong reasons (their aggression of the Papacy was driven by plain imperialism, while the Second Italian-Papal War of OTL was triggered by the Legation Cities' rebellion and request for help). There would have been another war even with the Savoy in charge. I don't know if you have read the book or not, but probably such an interesting scenario deserves a better POD and development: how would the Savoy retain power by 1949, year in which the novel is set and centenary of the birth of the Kingdom, and how would their foreign policy be? Butterflies?
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