Bet won - I wagerd with myself that you would be among the first to answer this thread
Always glad to help
When I read about the Treaty of Vienna (1866), I was surprised about the thing that Austria surrendered Venetia not to Italy but to France and that France immediately gave it to Italy (to save Austrias face - as they had won 2 out of 3 major engangements in the war against Italy)
At the time face saving was even more important that now...and frankly Nappy always desired/considered North Italy
his zone of influence and acted according to this, notwhistanding the opinion of the locals and his effective capacity
And the anecdote about Nappy III havíng said (not sure about exact words): Another lost battle and they (Italy) will demand the surrender of Paris from me....
Frightenely possible
Back to business, well Lissa was more or less a consequence of the defeat of Custoza so without that the battle can be butteflyed away, i just choose one.
The problem of the Regia Marina was the same of the army, unity was too recent and the problem of making the various officer (coming from the different pre-unitary states) work together was not cleary solved...and better add the fact that (as usual) the decision of enter the war was done basically at the last minute so the various chain of command was even more divided and hapzard.
All in all a victory at Lissa mean that the Austrian army has great problems on supply the troops at the front and the italians are already conquered Trentino and half of Venetia at the time, not counting the possibility of landing on Dalmatia as diversive action, basically not a immediate winning move but clearly put a lot more pression on the Austro-Hungarian.
Regarding Trieste, well i agree that a diplomatic agreement is not a given or even the most probable of the event; just that with the Regia Marina in control of the Adriatic and Trieste more menaced by Italy there are more possibilities of some sharing of power/agreement.
Well an Austrian-France alliance (Nappy can be upset if his diplomatic move are utterly refused, plus even a 'perceived' closeness between Berlin and Rome will be considered dangerous) will be faced by a Prussia-Italian one almost by instinct, especially if Bismarck is more prone to not dismiss Italy as a drag.
Italy request on an hypotetical war against France will be (in order of importance)
- Nice (plus some border adjustment for military reason on Savoy)
- Free Hand on Tunisia
- Corsica
- Savoy (just for historical reason but can be simply used as request to be discarted for diplomatically reason so to seem counciliatory)