What if Italy joins the war on the Central Powers side during the July crisis? Promises of French territory and colonies overpower their desire for Austrian territory, which grants its Italian subjects greater privileges to appease the Italian nation.
What happens next? I doubt the Italians would get transported to Germany to hold the left wing, as suggested by Schlieffen, rather they would probably be used in Nice and Savoy as intended by their general staff. But would this make a difference in August 1914? Sure the French would be forced to leave their troops in the area that were used elsewhere, but the Germans will still have the fundamental weakness in their logistics which ultimately caused their invasion to fail. I don't know if the French military would give up so easy despite the heavy odds. What does the AH community think?