ObWI (obligatory what-if):
WI Bismarck sells German colonies to Italy? His remark to this effect must have been in the later 1880s, after Germany had acquired 4 African colonies (Togoland, Kamerun, SW Afrika & East Africa), plus northeast New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, Nauru (I think), & had a claim on the Marshalls.
So, sometime between 1885 and his 1890 dismissal, Bismarck moves to sell. Can Italy afford to buy? What political groupings will support, oppose or be indifferent to this liquidation?
If Italy does purchase the lot, Italy will have South Pacific colonies in addition to African colonies. Would this sate Italy's appetite for African colonies, with the knock-on effect of having Rome avoid war with Abyssinia and later the Ottoman Empire over Tripoli?
In East Asian waters, Italy was always a weak enough power that the Chinese felt secure in refusing them treaty ports until the Boxer protocol. Would that still be the case?
Grand strategically, will the enlarged Italian empire tilt Italy more in a Triple Alliance direction or Triple Entente direction? On the one hand, it keeps Italy busy and needing to cooperate with Germany during the transition. On the other hand, the desire for Austrian-held Italia Irredenta will never go away, and Italy will have even more territories, that they sunk more money into, highly vulnerable to British and French action, making fighting on Germany's side even riskier.
Meanwhile, in Germany, is there any German colonial enterprise after Bismarck's dismissal? In OTL, post-Bismarck, the only German acquisitions were Qingdao and the the purchase of Micronesia from Spain. Would these happen anyway, or be skipped? Would Germany have been more insistent on a share of Morrocco? If post-Bismarck governments want to get back into colonial ventures, there are many fewer places to go in the 1890s compared with the 1880s. If not seeking re-entry into the colonial field, how would Germany explain its choice?