Ok, so Austria got off much lighter than I expected.
I wonder how Italy is going to integrate its new lands.
I wonder how Italy is going to integrate its new lands.
Italico Valore - A more successful 1848 revolution in Italy - a TL
Probably making them new states of the Confederation. Which could be a step towards full regionalization of Italy (which couldn't be bad for House Savoy long term if would make Italy an effective Kingdom, albeit confederated.
With South Germany still not bending on Berlin, switching allegiances from Vienna to Paris, and Trieste still in Austrian hands, there are plently of reason for the four Central-Western European main continental powers to still have attrition between each others.
But the ATL balance of power is not currently favorable for Berlin - because it lost respect to OTL 17 years to unify Germany, and the gap is widely going to increase while Bismarck is already into an advanced age. The balance is instead favorable to Italy which instead got the advantage of an early unification - of the North albeit the South did follow not too later - and of a true colonial Empire - Tunisia itself is a great boon, Eritrea and Somalia are way more useful for the route to the surprising Far Eastern Asian Empire - Aceh is the normal step for any 19th century Italian wank, the slice of Malaya by British concession is surely surprising, but Cochinchina was the unexpected jackpot, and Xiamen the cherry on the top.
Sudan is expected to come soon because of the tensions between such country and Ethiopia, and therefore it could lead to what would be the jewel of the crown of the Italian Empire... And I am not talking of Libya.
PeterTheSmall
Banned
Honestly, I don't see these lands as that much valuable (due to hindsight). What's the point of colonizing Egypt if they are not going to be able to keep the Egyptian colony indefinitely?
Corsiga, Istria, Dalmatia and Albania are, in my opinion, worth more than Egypt, in the long run. Italy could keep them forever and turn the Adriatic into an Italian lake.
Why bother with Egypt if they are going to lose the land of pharaohs eventually? If they are lucky the situation would go like India, but if they are unlucky they got a much bigger Algeria.
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and Austrian silesia and sum parts of saxony or even full integration
Deleted member 147289
Austria is not up for the grabs: TTL's failure of the Frankfurt parliement effectively killed the idea of a united Germany for the forseeable future. Bismarck wanted to consolidate his power in Germany and show some strenght as Prussia kept out of major European wars for a while.
Bismarck just wants the Austrians gone from northern Germany, but strong enough to not collapse under their weight as that would make Italians and Russians salivate.
Oh and the Prussians managed to form the NGC, thus uniting North Germany. I'd say that's quite enough to satisfy them for now.
Italians will definitely see Trieste cheated out and would give death stares to both NGC and France but at least the French have shown willingness in compensating their neighbour with some African lands.
The Italian colonial empire is nothing to joke at: Tunisia is the perfect springboard for a takeover of North Africa as are Eritrea and Somalia in the horn. Aceh is in a good position and thanks to earlier unification and good administration, along with British support the Italians are able to take parts of SE Asia.
The bit between Malaya and Siam might be up for revision though as it feels a bit too much
Bismarck just wants the Austrians gone from northern Germany, but strong enough to not collapse under their weight as that would make Italians and Russians salivate.
Oh and the Prussians managed to form the NGC, thus uniting North Germany. I'd say that's quite enough to satisfy them for now.
Italians will definitely see Trieste cheated out and would give death stares to both NGC and France but at least the French have shown willingness in compensating their neighbour with some African lands.
The Italian colonial empire is nothing to joke at: Tunisia is the perfect springboard for a takeover of North Africa as are Eritrea and Somalia in the horn. Aceh is in a good position and thanks to earlier unification and good administration, along with British support the Italians are able to take parts of SE Asia.
The bit between Malaya and Siam might be up for revision though as it feels a bit too much
First of all, for effective control of the Suez. Each year of Italian soldiers in the canals would mean safe profits, prestige, and a hold on the Middle East and the Indian Ocean route. Even Britain didn't keep Egypt under direct control for long, but until it did, surely it squeezed the best. Also, more Egyptian artifacts will take the path of Italy rather than Britain, and is not a bad "cultural bonus". Third, control of Egyptian cotton would be very valuable for Italian textile industry. Fourth, control of all of Africa "From Tunis to Mogadishu" and therefore of an African colonial empire from sea to sea, without interruption of border and land routes, had its own economic advantages. Holding all those territories, whatever being protectorates or colonies, would make harder for other Great powers to break them in case of war. Such an Italian Africa could eventually hold the ground against France or Britain if it has to be - as long there would be ensued loyalty from part of the locals of course. But TTL Italy has an earlier experience in colonial affairs, so could make its place in the sun work well.
And last with Egypt Italy would see its imperialistic appetites satisfied - without need to search further expansion in the future. Also if in the early 20th century there would be an economic depression, such colonial range will help assuage Italian difficulties like France and Britain, lowering the risks of political derangement.
As to Egypt, given how many powers have interest there ITTL, I don't see any one country colonising it.
Either it stays "independent", or it becomes an official Anglo-Franco-Italian three-way condominium. Maybe Alexandria gets the Shanghai treatment, and becomes an international city with multiple concessions.
Besides, it's not as if Italy doesn't have plenty of other avenues for colonisation elsewhere.
Either it stays "independent", or it becomes an official Anglo-Franco-Italian three-way condominium. Maybe Alexandria gets the Shanghai treatment, and becomes an international city with multiple concessions.
Besides, it's not as if Italy doesn't have plenty of other avenues for colonisation elsewhere.
Suez and cotton are certainly important points (as well as solidifying even more Italian trading position in Egypt), but the satisfaction of colonial appetites (which can be also seen as "finding a place in the sun") is the most important bonus in a long-term perspective.
After Suez, there are little chances that Egypt can keep an effective independence (also because I can see Egypt caught in a kind of development trap, with the foreign debt raising). However a co-dominium of some sort (Anglo-Italian or Anglo-Franco-Italian) is the most likely solution.
Alexandria turned into an international city would be a nice touch.
Deleted member 147289
Anyone has other colonial ideas for Italy? Because I was thinking that Chad and Kenya could be the last territories claimed by the Confederation (not for long) in the Dark Continent, which is still a sizeable chunk of it.
About Egypt, someone has guessed it right but we'll get there eventually. Also, I remind you that at the moment Abyssinia is still "independent" but falls under the Italian sphere. It's only in 1894 that they become an official protectorate
About Egypt, someone has guessed it right but we'll get there eventually. Also, I remind you that at the moment Abyssinia is still "independent" but falls under the Italian sphere. It's only in 1894 that they become an official protectorate
Italy would be very interested in Chad and Kenya, as being areas peripheral to existing holdings/interests.
What Italy could reasonably gain in East Africa definitely depends on who else has interests in the area, though. Somalia would have a similar levels of interest to Italy, being next to Abyssinia and all.
Chad, on the other hand, is in the interior. That's more a matter for who gets there first, and why they want to get there so badly.
Part of the reason France grabbed Chad IOTL was to try and link up with French Somaliland via Sudan and Ethiopia. If Ethiopia is recognised as being at least notionally an Italian sphere of influence, France might have less of an impetus to beeline eastwards. On the other hand, if France doesn't grab Chad, then whoever controls Nigeria and Cameroon have more of an opportunity to head northeast to grab it.
47. AUTOCRACY AND MODERNITY
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The mediocre result obtained in the Balkan War had led the Russian Empire to enter a period of isolation and internal reflection led by the energetic Tsar Alexander II who was intent on pursuing his ambitions to modernize the empire.
The losses and waste of materials had ruined the image of the generals and burned their political capital, paving the way for a serious and complete reform of the armed forces: the 25-year conscription was abolished in favor of a national conscription for every male older than 21, lasting 2 years plus permanence in the reserve. The enormous influx of young men into the army allowed for the introduction of literacy programs during the detention but also to initiate the first emancipation of Russian women with the creation of the corps of nurses in the military health system, which gave jobs to hundreds of thousands of girls. The Russian military industry benefited from this influx of recruits as they now had to mass produce more equipment which lead to the opening of more factories.
The money to carry out the Tsar's reform program was obtained thanks to the sale of Alaska to the United Kingdom in 1888 for several tens of millions of Pounds, injecting a large amount of money into the Russian economy that allowed the import of industrial machinery. the opening of new schools and the creation of the first imperial hospitals in large Russian cities.
St. Petersburg boomed during the reign of Alexander II surpassing 1 million inhabitants in the late 1880s. In it's quest to compete with London, the Tsar encouraged the development of the city
The infrastructure reform went hand in hand with the continuous industrial expansion financed by the massive exports of agricultural and mining products: the need to connect the whole empire from the Baltic to the Pacific became ever stronger with the continuous migration of serfs in Siberia in search of better living conditions, encouraged by the tsarist authorities. Before the works began in earnest, however, more attention was given to European Russia with the intention of creating a robust logistics network that would connect Ukrainian and Uralic production centers to large industrial cities in full expansion such as Moscow and St. Petersburg which, together with dozens from cities across the empire, had seen an influx of former peasants looking for work, often found in fledgling private and state-owned industrial enterprises.
The crowding of cities and the slow but gradual improvement in the living conditions of the population soon gave rise to an intellectual movement with a certain popular support, devoted to the reform of imperial institutions and a restriction of the powers of the tsar and autocracy, as well as humanitarian and trade union demands for factory workers, influenced by the works of Marx. The abolition of restrictions on the press in 1887 gave new life to this movement allowing its intellectuals to have a wider dissemination of their thought thanks to the proliferation of the press.
The rise of this movement worried the Tsar and the aristocracy because of its hyper-democratic and anti-autocratic tendencies, leading Alexander II to consider opening a popular representative body to appease the grievances of the population. These instruments of representation already existed locally under the name of Zemtsvo, one of the first reforms carried out by the Tsar. Thus in 1892 there was the birth of the imperial Duma in St. Petersburg, elected according to the criteria of wealth and literacy thus limiting the electorate to a mere 10% of the Russian population, and in this 10% the votes of the Russians counted more than those of the not Russians.
The losses and waste of materials had ruined the image of the generals and burned their political capital, paving the way for a serious and complete reform of the armed forces: the 25-year conscription was abolished in favor of a national conscription for every male older than 21, lasting 2 years plus permanence in the reserve. The enormous influx of young men into the army allowed for the introduction of literacy programs during the detention but also to initiate the first emancipation of Russian women with the creation of the corps of nurses in the military health system, which gave jobs to hundreds of thousands of girls. The Russian military industry benefited from this influx of recruits as they now had to mass produce more equipment which lead to the opening of more factories.
The money to carry out the Tsar's reform program was obtained thanks to the sale of Alaska to the United Kingdom in 1888 for several tens of millions of Pounds, injecting a large amount of money into the Russian economy that allowed the import of industrial machinery. the opening of new schools and the creation of the first imperial hospitals in large Russian cities.
St. Petersburg boomed during the reign of Alexander II surpassing 1 million inhabitants in the late 1880s. In it's quest to compete with London, the Tsar encouraged the development of the city
The infrastructure reform went hand in hand with the continuous industrial expansion financed by the massive exports of agricultural and mining products: the need to connect the whole empire from the Baltic to the Pacific became ever stronger with the continuous migration of serfs in Siberia in search of better living conditions, encouraged by the tsarist authorities. Before the works began in earnest, however, more attention was given to European Russia with the intention of creating a robust logistics network that would connect Ukrainian and Uralic production centers to large industrial cities in full expansion such as Moscow and St. Petersburg which, together with dozens from cities across the empire, had seen an influx of former peasants looking for work, often found in fledgling private and state-owned industrial enterprises.
The crowding of cities and the slow but gradual improvement in the living conditions of the population soon gave rise to an intellectual movement with a certain popular support, devoted to the reform of imperial institutions and a restriction of the powers of the tsar and autocracy, as well as humanitarian and trade union demands for factory workers, influenced by the works of Marx. The abolition of restrictions on the press in 1887 gave new life to this movement allowing its intellectuals to have a wider dissemination of their thought thanks to the proliferation of the press.
The rise of this movement worried the Tsar and the aristocracy because of its hyper-democratic and anti-autocratic tendencies, leading Alexander II to consider opening a popular representative body to appease the grievances of the population. These instruments of representation already existed locally under the name of Zemtsvo, one of the first reforms carried out by the Tsar. Thus in 1892 there was the birth of the imperial Duma in St. Petersburg, elected according to the criteria of wealth and literacy thus limiting the electorate to a mere 10% of the Russian population, and in this 10% the votes of the Russians counted more than those of the not Russians.
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Tsar alexander should watch his back or he might be at the mercy of some very unhappy nobles
Deleted member 147289
ITTL Alexander will go out in a much better way than OTL, but you're right: under the industrialization and modernity that are sweeping Russia, malcontent on both sides is brewing and someone might have a nasty surprise down the line
48. THE UMBERTINE AGE I
Deleted member 147289
48. THE UMBERTINE AGE I
The victory in the war with Austria infused the Italian people with a newfound patriotism reminiscent of the one which had crossed the peninsula during 1848-1849. With the signing of the peace of Venice, cities from north to south exploded in a spontaneous celebration of victory, decorating their cities with tricolor cockades and covering the soldiers who paraded through the streets of the main cities with flowers and kisses to celebrate their military success. Many consider 1882 as the true beginning of the Umbertine age, a period of great change and consolidation in Italy
Despite the Prussian apathy that caused a few breakdowns in diplomatic relations between the two countries, Italy had seen most of its claims satisfied in the peace negotiations with the annexation of Friuli, Trentino and southern Istria. Trieste, the main port on the Adriatic of the Austrian empire, as well as a city largely inhabited by Italians, had been missed by little. Friuli was added to the Italian Confederation as the Julian Republic in 1883 with claims on the rest of the Austrian Julian March; Istria was added to the territory of the Republic of Venice on a historical basis and Trentino was added to the Savoy dominions of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
The king and parliament had an explosion in popularity among the Italian population who handed the Liberal government a large majority during the 1886 elections, giving Depretis the political capital to carry out his free market reforms aimed at making the Italy and above all the north fertile ground for the proliferation of capitalist enterprises, supported by the state and by the widespread prosperity in the region after forty years of continuous industrialization. One of the major achievements of the Depretis government was the abolition of child labor in factories, meaning that children had to go to school to educate themselves rather than sacrifice their education to work.
In 1888 Italy made a real economic transition as about 60% of national income came from industrial production which benefited from the growing decrease in importance of agriculture and the start of a massive infrastructure renewal plan wanted by the government led to the proliferation of hydroelectric plants especially in the south and along the Alps, which allowed industrial development in areas far from waterways. Thanks to giant leaps in the chemical and steel sectors, the 1880s and 1890s saw the proliferation of large Italian industries which prepared the ground for the future Italian economy dominated by large corporations.
Northern Italy in general and Milan in particular became the main hubs for Italian industry
Among the largest we can remember the Colombo heavy industries that developed in Milan, specialized in metallurgy and steel making becoming the main producer of locomotives and railway parts of the confederation, the Beretta military industries saw an intense flow of state funds that allowed the company to expand its industrial facilities to the point of becoming the main supplier of small arms to the armed forces, as well as an arms exporter; Martinelli chemical companies developed in Tuscany and became an exporter of chemical products for agriculture and industrial processing. In naval production the Odero (in Liguria) and Palermo shipyards were distinguished, which launched civil and military ships on a daily basis. Credit for these companies was provided by the Bank of Italy, founded in 1887 to guarantee liquidity to companies and make them competitive on the international market. Italian companies turned out to be very virtuous as they were used to operating in a free market regime and Depretis' pro-business reforms facilitated this entry into the European and American markets with South America becoming one of the major markets for Italian products. .
The development of large industry in the north was offset by a proliferation of small and medium-sized businesses in the south that generally operated as subsidiaries of the Nordic conglomerates, shipping their products thanks to the dense railway network that had developed along the coasts. State economic intervention was strong but not pervasive in the south, preventing local industries from falling into welfare. The development of the south stopped the immigration of many people who now had a future in their homeland but this did not prevent an estimated number of 6 million people from emigrating to the Americas and Oceania from the second half of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. The high birth rate, especially in the Northwest, mitigated the consequences of this mass exodus.
One aspect the government failed to regulate was the treatment of workers and people, men and women, employed in productive activities. Apart from some moral reforms such as the abolition of child labor, the labor laws of the Confederation remained those promulgated by Cavour during his first term with few changes: the minimum wage was derisory, there was no social security for those who could no longer work, working hours were not regulated and factory security was obsolete. To deal with this government inertia, the Italian workers, inspired by their European colleagues, began to join unions aimed at claiming and protecting their rights with strikes and demonstrations during which they often clashed with the carabinieri or the henchmen of the bosses as they saw. in the exploitation of workers the key to their success. Determined to make the struggle for workers' rights a national question, in 1892 the Party of Italian Workers was founded in Genoa, which in the elections of 1896 managed to win 25% of the seats in the lower chamber along with a modest number of senators, usually the most notable members of the party.
The victory in the war with Austria infused the Italian people with a newfound patriotism reminiscent of the one which had crossed the peninsula during 1848-1849. With the signing of the peace of Venice, cities from north to south exploded in a spontaneous celebration of victory, decorating their cities with tricolor cockades and covering the soldiers who paraded through the streets of the main cities with flowers and kisses to celebrate their military success. Many consider 1882 as the true beginning of the Umbertine age, a period of great change and consolidation in Italy
Despite the Prussian apathy that caused a few breakdowns in diplomatic relations between the two countries, Italy had seen most of its claims satisfied in the peace negotiations with the annexation of Friuli, Trentino and southern Istria. Trieste, the main port on the Adriatic of the Austrian empire, as well as a city largely inhabited by Italians, had been missed by little. Friuli was added to the Italian Confederation as the Julian Republic in 1883 with claims on the rest of the Austrian Julian March; Istria was added to the territory of the Republic of Venice on a historical basis and Trentino was added to the Savoy dominions of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
The king and parliament had an explosion in popularity among the Italian population who handed the Liberal government a large majority during the 1886 elections, giving Depretis the political capital to carry out his free market reforms aimed at making the Italy and above all the north fertile ground for the proliferation of capitalist enterprises, supported by the state and by the widespread prosperity in the region after forty years of continuous industrialization. One of the major achievements of the Depretis government was the abolition of child labor in factories, meaning that children had to go to school to educate themselves rather than sacrifice their education to work.
In 1888 Italy made a real economic transition as about 60% of national income came from industrial production which benefited from the growing decrease in importance of agriculture and the start of a massive infrastructure renewal plan wanted by the government led to the proliferation of hydroelectric plants especially in the south and along the Alps, which allowed industrial development in areas far from waterways. Thanks to giant leaps in the chemical and steel sectors, the 1880s and 1890s saw the proliferation of large Italian industries which prepared the ground for the future Italian economy dominated by large corporations.
Northern Italy in general and Milan in particular became the main hubs for Italian industry
Among the largest we can remember the Colombo heavy industries that developed in Milan, specialized in metallurgy and steel making becoming the main producer of locomotives and railway parts of the confederation, the Beretta military industries saw an intense flow of state funds that allowed the company to expand its industrial facilities to the point of becoming the main supplier of small arms to the armed forces, as well as an arms exporter; Martinelli chemical companies developed in Tuscany and became an exporter of chemical products for agriculture and industrial processing. In naval production the Odero (in Liguria) and Palermo shipyards were distinguished, which launched civil and military ships on a daily basis. Credit for these companies was provided by the Bank of Italy, founded in 1887 to guarantee liquidity to companies and make them competitive on the international market. Italian companies turned out to be very virtuous as they were used to operating in a free market regime and Depretis' pro-business reforms facilitated this entry into the European and American markets with South America becoming one of the major markets for Italian products. .
The development of large industry in the north was offset by a proliferation of small and medium-sized businesses in the south that generally operated as subsidiaries of the Nordic conglomerates, shipping their products thanks to the dense railway network that had developed along the coasts. State economic intervention was strong but not pervasive in the south, preventing local industries from falling into welfare. The development of the south stopped the immigration of many people who now had a future in their homeland but this did not prevent an estimated number of 6 million people from emigrating to the Americas and Oceania from the second half of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. The high birth rate, especially in the Northwest, mitigated the consequences of this mass exodus.
One aspect the government failed to regulate was the treatment of workers and people, men and women, employed in productive activities. Apart from some moral reforms such as the abolition of child labor, the labor laws of the Confederation remained those promulgated by Cavour during his first term with few changes: the minimum wage was derisory, there was no social security for those who could no longer work, working hours were not regulated and factory security was obsolete. To deal with this government inertia, the Italian workers, inspired by their European colleagues, began to join unions aimed at claiming and protecting their rights with strikes and demonstrations during which they often clashed with the carabinieri or the henchmen of the bosses as they saw. in the exploitation of workers the key to their success. Determined to make the struggle for workers' rights a national question, in 1892 the Party of Italian Workers was founded in Genoa, which in the elections of 1896 managed to win 25% of the seats in the lower chamber along with a modest number of senators, usually the most notable members of the party.