Savoys don't co-opt Italian nationalism - who unites Italy and how?

SavoyTruffle

SavoyTruffle

IOTL Italy was a collection of fragmented states under Habsburg and Bourbon influence after the Congress of Vienna, and after the events of 1848 the dream of a united Italy came to fruition.

The House of Savoy, which ruled the island of Sardinia and the northwestern Italian region of Piedmont, managed to harness the nationalistic energies of the time to unite Italy into a kingdom under their rule, using the Savoy's opportunism combined with Cavour's political savvy and Garibaldi's determination to do so. The other major players in Italy were left behind, so to speak; the Bourbons of the Two Sicilies were seen as too reactionary and weren't as keen on unification; likewise Pope Pius IX didn't find it in his best interests to do so.

So assuming for some reason the Kingdom of Sardinia doesn't unify Italy. Who does then?
 
SealTheRealDeal

SealTheRealDeal

Garibaldi can still take out Two Sicilies on his own, and then maybe he can lend it's army to the cause, though I doubt he'd make much headway against Austria without the armies of France and the Savoyards*.

*who probably are counted as his enemies TTL
 
wcv215

wcv215

Er, Sardinia Piedmont didn’t just coopt it. To unify Italy meant fighting Austria, and no one had an doubt that meant they needed the Piedmont army. No one else in Italy would do.

If they don’t go for it they’ll have to be overthrown.
 
kasumigenx

kasumigenx

wcv215 said:
Er, Sardinia Piedmont didn’t just coopt it. To unify Italy meant fighting Austria, and no one had an doubt that meant they needed the Piedmont army. No one else in Italy would do.

If they don’t go for it they’ll have to be overthrown.
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Actually, the Habsburg-Lorraines have the Angevin claims to Naples already.
 
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Shiva

Arcavius said:
Yep. A non Habsburg Italy is a rival for Venetia and the Balkans, a Habsburg Italy is begging to cheese off the Magyars.
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What if the Habsburgs united Italy but not tie it into the Austro-Hungarian Empire but give it to a relative to rule independently instead?
 

Socrates

Shiva said:
What if the Habsburgs united Italy but not tie it into the Austro-Hungarian Empire but give it to a relative to rule independently instead?
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This is hard to do without a much earlier POD. The Habsburgs were the foreign bogeyman that Italian nationalists depicted as the common enemy trampling on Italian liberty.
 

Arcavia

Shiva said:
What if the Habsburgs united Italy but not tie it into the Austro-Hungarian Empire but give it to a relative to rule independently instead?
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I feel like France would take issue with that a la Hohenzollern Spain, and barring the Habsburgs getting a Bismarck of their own or Bismarck offering them Italy in exchange for a Prussian Germany the French can probably get British and possibly Russian support for the Savoyards as a 'neutral' candidate. The Habsburgs trying to unify Italy even with a Habsburg king loosens the corks on too many genies.

Edit: also what @Socrates said

As for possible other candidates, I can think of 1) a Carbonari style Republicanism 2) a more Italian focused House of Bonaparte (probably a pre Napoleonic if not pre Revolutionary POD, if the latter Napoleon himself could be a central figure) or 3) maybe the House of Grimaldi?
 

Wendell

Are we limiting ourselves to the OTL time frame of Italian unification, or could we start earlier?

That earlier start gives us Lorraines, Bourbons, Valois, Barcelona, Trastamara, Borgia, Medici, Gonzaga, Sforza, Acciaoli, and Este personages and houses to play with.
 
kasumigenx

kasumigenx

Wendell said:
Are we limiting ourselves to the OTL time frame of Italian unification, or could we start earlier?

That earlier start gives us Lorraines, Bourbons, Valois, Barcelona, Trastamara, Borgia, Medici, Gonzaga, Sforza, Acciaoli, and Este personages and houses to play with.
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Palaialogos are also interesting.
 

Falecius

Assuming no changes before 1815, without Piedmont-Sardinia leading the process, Italian unification will require a protracted, long conflict. The butterflies quickly grow very big, making difficult to predict anything, but you may see something more akin in timing (and bloodiness) to the formation of Yugoslavia.
 
ramones1986

ramones1986

Gli Medici, but we need an earlier PoD (or in short, they need to be more Macchiavellican than what Macchavelli wrote in The Prince)
 
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