WI: Italy sides with Prussia during the Franco-Prussian war?

Italy joined Prussia during the Austro-Prussian war and took Veneto from Austria. What if Italy also seized the opportunity during the Franco-Prussian war and took Savoy, Nice and Corsica from France?
 
I’m not too sure about this. There was a longstanding alliance between Italian nationalists and republican/imperial France, and a longstanding hatred of Austria by Italian nationalists. This would be a radical shift in alliance.

To get this to happen, I dunno, have Bourbon or Orleanist France be the country to go to war with Prussia?
 
I’m not too sure about this. There was a longstanding alliance between Italian nationalists and republican/imperial France, and a longstanding hatred of Austria by Italian nationalists. This would be a radical shift in alliance.

To get this to happen, I dunno, have Bourbon or Orleanist France be the country to go to war with Prussia?
If France is Bourbon or Orléanist, I doubt there would be a Franco-Prussian war even resembling the one IOTL. Other ideas?
 
If France is Bourbon or Orléanist, I doubt there would be a Franco-Prussian war even resembling the one IOTL. Other ideas?

Perhaps alter Italy? Presumably an Italy unified under the papacy, or at least with a stronger papal influence. Before the 1848 revolutions, Pius IX was viewed positively by Italian nationalists, with Garibaldi himself saying, “If these hands, used to fighting, would be acceptable to His Holiness, we most thankfully dedicate them to the service of him who deserves so well of the Church and of the fatherland. Joyful indeed shall we and our companions in whose name we speak be, if we may be allowed to shed our blood in defence of Pio Nono's work of redemption”.

If he hadn’t snubbed Italian nationalists in 1848, he’d still be popular under Italian nationalists. If by the time Piedmont becomes Italy he is able to retain support, he may be able to achieve an annexation of the Papal States that is acceptable to him and the Papacy would then retain large amounts of respect in the subsequent Kingdom of Italy. Such an Italy would be more conservative than OTL, of course, and so more anti-France.

Of course, this would also alter the circumstances beyond the Franco-Prussian War. It strikes me as difficult to make Italy anti-France while still preserving the Franco-Prussian War.
 
One other route is a different run up to the Austro-Prussian war, if you have a stronger Italo-Prussian alliance for that war that is affirmed after the war it could last into the Franco-Prussian War. Of course such a firm alliance might deter Napoleon III and avert the war.
 
I don't think that a Papal Italy would join the side of a Protestant and Anti-Catholic Prussia against a Catholic France unless France is led by an extremist anti-clerical faction.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Italy joined Prussia during the Austro-Prussian war and took Veneto from Austria. What if Italy also seized the opportunity during the Franco-Prussian war and took Savoy, Nice and Corsica from France?
Jolly good idea!
However, France will probably hate Italy forever. It is OK for France to annex bits of neighbours but to have somebody take something back? Outrageous and unforgivable.
Mind you, Nice and Savoy might not breed such strong sentiment. But I imagine that Corsica could or would.
Whatever Italy territories regains this might sauer relations. Still, French elites may focus on Lothringen and Elsass and try to get chummy with the treacherous bastards :)
 
Jolly good idea!
However, France will probably hate Italy forever. It is OK for France to annex bits of neighbours but to have somebody take something back? Outrageous and unforgivable.
Mind you, Nice and Savoy might not breed such strong sentiment. But I imagine that Corsica could or would.
Whatever Italy territories regains this might sauer relations. Still, French elites may focus on Lothringen and Elsass and try to get chummy with the treacherous bastards :)
Would the Central Powers win WW1 ITTL?
 
I don't think that a Papal Italy would join the side of a Protestant and Anti-Catholic Prussia against a Catholic France unless France is led by an extremist anti-clerical faction.

It’s not the hardest thing in the world to preserve the Second Republic, or else have the Second Empire collapse earlier. And a Papal Italy wouldn’t like a French Republic for clear reasons.
 
It’s not the hardest thing in the world to preserve the Second Republic, or else have the Second Empire collapse earlier. And a Papal Italy wouldn’t like a French Republic for clear reasons.

You don't even need a Papal Italy; if you have a radical enough government seize control of France (Paris Commune anyone?) from the Empire, Italy could seize the regions by fiat/force even without allying with Prussia. Say, either Nappy III gets away and "sells" the provinces for a fortune he can use to fund his exile (maybe he buys Elba and builds a nice vacation/retirement palace. Or one of France's tropical Carribean possesions), or with a tact Russian and British nod they go in to "protect" the locals from the radical socialists
 
Jolly good idea!
However, France will probably hate Italy forever. It is OK for France to annex bits of neighbours but to have somebody take something back? Outrageous and unforgivable.

Well in this case, France purchased Corsica from Genoa, and acquired Savoy/Nice from Piedmont as compensation for its help against Austria, so it would be kind of a jerk move for Italy to take them through aggression.
 
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Well in this case, France purchased Corsica from Genoa, and acquired Savoy/Nice from Piedmont as compensation for its help against Austria, so it would be kind of a jerk move for Italy to take them through aggression.

Depend, more than Nice and Savoy at the time the real reason of strained relations between Italy and France was Rome; Nappy III was the defender of the papal state and retreated the troops just before the war only because Italy agreed at not invade (promise reneged once the defeat of France was evident and unavoidable), this was the reason of the transfer of the capital from Turin to Florence as a symbolic move to demonstrate that the new Kingdom renouced at Rome.
Make Napoleon III more intransigent and butterfly away the agreement and things between Italy and France will be much much worse and this mean that an Italian-Prussian alliance against France become a possibility (not something of certain, just a possibility)
 
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