Update time! It's a long 'un. Will proofread and add footnotes tomorrow.
Part Fifty-Four: A Swelling Tide
The Modern Papal Schism: As the Italian Army of Naples was stalled in Ferentino, it instead moved north into the heart of the Appenines as a way to get around the Papal force. After passing through Alatri and Fiuggi, the Army of Naples arrived at the town of Subiaco, the source of the Aniene River which flows into the Tiber and thus to Rome. The Army of Naples reached Subiaco in May of 1866. After a month of camping in the town, the Army of Naples began its trek down the course of the Aniene.
The Army of Naples began their slow descent down the Appenines toward Rome without the help of a rail supply line. The nearest Italian rail depot to their position was in L'Aquila, approximately 50 miles away. Following the Aniene, the Army of Naples took a staggering two weeks to get to the opening of the mountains at Tivoli with small groups of Papal soldiers and combatants loyal to the Catholic Church harassing the army the entire way down the river. Even worse for the Army of Naples, when the Italian army finally arrived at Tivoli, the Papal forces were waiting for them. The Battle of Tivoli was a struggle for the Army of Naples as the Papal forces held the beleaguered Italians back for two months until another Italian detachment arrived from the north. The Papal army eventually succumbed to the Italian forces and Rome fell in September of 1866.
During the months that the Papal army held of the Italians in the Battle of Tivoli, the College of Cardinals held a meeting about what to do if the Italians were to succeed in capturing Rome. The main point of contention was Garibaldi's insistence that he would not grant the Pope any temporal authority as Bishop of Rome. Through much debate in the College, it was decided that Pope Pius IX was to go into exile in an accepting Catholic country and wait until Garibaldi or a future Italian leader accepted maintaining the Pope's temporal authority. However, a large number of the cardinals including Pope Pius himself dissented and wanted to remain in Rome at the expense of any secular power the Pope had.
Thus began what would eventually be known as the Modern Papal Schism. As the Italians occpuied Rome, Pope Pius and the College of Cardinals fled to Spain in exile. After a few years, Garibaldi made concessions and let Pope Pius back into Rome if the Papacy agreed to give up its temporal authority, which the Pope and some of the cardinals did. However, the more conservative cardinals refused Garibaldi's demands and elected Archbishop of Toledo Cirilo de Alameda y Brea[1] as their own Pope Alexander IX.
Mountains Above: Throughout 1866, the Alps and Sudeten mountains remained a difficult battleground in the fight between Prussia and Austria over supremacy in the German Confederation. Prussia made many advances in the Sudeten in 1866, but all of them were rather minimal. The remainder of Saxony was occupied by Prussia and that army entered Austria-Hungary and reached as far Lubenec in July. The army was countered by the Austrians there, however, and was forced to retreat back to Karlovy Vary. Steffen Osisek led his Prussian force south from Liberec ten miles south to Turnov before turning southeast in order to catch any Austrian defensive fortifications on the Silesian border from behind. Osisek surrounded an Austrian fortress facing Waldenburg[2] and secured the lower hills there before moving back south to Hradec Karlove.
The Alps remained a much tougher obstacle to the Bavarian advance than the Sudeten Mountains had been to the Prussians. With only narrow passes into the Alps, the Austrians were able to put up a far more effective defense with a smaller number of soldiers than in the Sudeten or the Po Valley. In addition, the Bavarians had to spend much of the year repulsing the Austrian incursion up the Danube as well as completing the occupation of Wurttemberg to the west. Despite these drawbacks, Bavaria did manage a few significant border crossings in 1866. Maximilian II was able to occupy Salzburg after leading the army that captured the city himself, and triumphantly entered the city on August 9th, which is now celebrated in Salzburg as Reclamation Day. Bavaria also occupied the low-lying area surrounding Bergenz on the border with Switzerland.
Valleys Below: While the advances of Prussia and Bavaria in the mountains were going rather slowly, the progression of the fronts in the Po Valley and in northwestern Germany and Denmark were progressing quite well for the Unification powers. Prussia fended off a joint Hanoverian-Danish attack on Hamburg in May of 1866 and moved west and reached Brunsbuttel in late June splitting the two countries off from each other. A Prussian naval squadron took the island of Bornholm and landed an army at Store Heddinge after defeating the Danish navy in the Fakse Bay. The Prussians reached Copenhagen in August and with the help of the navy, took the city in a week. With Copenhagen captured, the remainder of Denmark fell quickly and the Danish government agreed to cede the portions of Denmark within the German Confederation.
The Kingdom of Hanover was equally quick to fall to Prussia. Osnabrück and Göttingen had already fallen the previous year, and after the Prussian army split the Danes off, Prussia could fully focus on Hanover in the north. Emsland was separated from the main portion of Hanover early in the summer and the city of Hanover itself was captured in late June. Prussia made further gains in July with the occupation of the city of Cuxhaven and Emsland, and in August the Prussians reached Bremen. After Bremen was captured, the Hanoverian government surrendered and the Kingdom of Hanover bowed out of the war allowing Prussia to focus all her attention on Austria.
South of the Alps, the Italians were advancing slower than the Germans but they were making steady progress. Starting in April, pro-Italian uprisings began scattered around cities in Lombardy and Venetia. The most significant of these were in Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, and Padua. While the uprisings in Brescia and Padua were put down by the Austrian military, Italian armies were able to support and advance up to Bergamo and Padua by late June and keep the cities in Italian hands. The remainder of the summer and fall was spent shoring up the defenses on both sides according to the new front line. While Austria was showing great resolve in the war thus far, its cracks began to appear. A Croatian nationalist group destroyed two Austrian naval vessels in an attack in Dubrovnik in November of 1866, a sign of the weakening control of Vienna over the country.
[1] A real life archbishop of Toledo and member of the College of Cardinals in OTL. Thank you Wikipedia for having a list of Spanish cardinals.
[2] Now the city of Wałbrzych in southwestern Poland.
