Chapter 15 : The Struggle for Occitania
Caricature published in La Republicca, the Communardi newspaper. On the left various Italian figures ; on the right the Anglois gendarme protecting Philippe XI et l'archevêque réactionnaire de Marseilles
The war in Provence was seen by the Consul and the Senate as a small operation which would end soon and allow Italy to extend its influence in the Western Mediterranean. But soon, Paris issued protests. The Plantagenets were hardly supportive of Provence ; after all Philippe claimed to be the true King of France and styled himself as Philippe XI, King
in France. But Paris did not want to see this territory escape from its influence, to the profit of the Italians, especially since they had numerous problems with ruling Occitania in general, at the notable exception of the Anglois stronghold of Guyenne. Numerous members of the
Félibrige, a literary association promoting the use of Provençal as the standard
langue d’oc and which had grown to become an opposition movement to the Anglois monarchy, were in exile in Italy sponsoring the Republic to liberate their “
Latin brothers”. Thus on the 15th of September, Paris entered war on the Provencal side ; Rome refused their ultimatum and decided to continue the war nonetheless. Cavour was petitioned to Munich to make the Danubians join the war but he was unsuccessful, mainly because the popular opinion was reluctant to join another Italian war in which the
Volk had nothing to gain ; the Italians did not push the issue harder in fear of losing the alliance for good.
Many troops were still in Lorraine and Wallonia by that time and numerous Anglois armies were able to cross the border and begin occupying Savoy. The Italian legions defended the access to Piedmont and Lombardy and the Anglois armies did not advance further. In that mountainous region, the Italians decided to wait to see the Anglois armies divide instead of attacking the bulk of their forces with a great disadvantage.
Pierre-Henri Dufour, former Burgundian general and then Président de Genève
It was at this time that a small incident occurred in Geneva. The creation of the Genevan republic had been very much artificial : the bishop of Geneva has supported the duke of Burgundy against the Swiss cantons and after the Rhine War had seen the Burgundian state emerge on the European scene, Neuchatel and Geneva had been integrated in the new Kingdom, with the King proclaimed Duke of Geneva. The periphery of the kingdom had never posed problems : as long as the local customs were protected and the weight of the monarchy not felt then the locals did not care much. Sure the Arpitanian dialect was quite different from the standardized Burgundian language but most of the population had become bilingual or adopted it by 1850. Thus the creation of the free city of Geneva, under the control of the general Guillaume Dufour, which had betrayed Antwerp after the Italians had announced their plans on the area, was far from being a natural development. The general Dufour soon established a dictatorship and began to distance himself from Rome, trying to take advantage of the central location of the Free City in Europe to play the different Great Powers to keep their new independence. Such designs were not accepted by the Italians. The armies coming back from Lorraine stationed in Geneva and with the general consent of the population, Pacoret de St-Bon overthrew Dufour and gave a Constitution akin to Italy to the Genevans. The tight on Geneva was also reinforced, with the Consul needing the approval of the Italian Senate to access the charge. Geneva was the first “sister-republic” created by Italy, but not the last.
After the Genevan incident the Italian armies successfully won against the Anglois armies and reclaimed Savoy from the enemy. The advance of the troops in Provence saw the Provencal fleet completely destroyed. Meanwhile further north in Bourgogne the troops of Menabrea scored an impressive victory while completely isolated from the rest of the armed forces.
Meanwhile at home, the Senate finally passed the project of law proposed by the Consul over education. The Taparelli law was important for the development of schooling in Italy : all cities over 4000 inhabitants had to fund a school, both for male and female children. It also provided a better framing of teachers : now national diplomas would be issued to determine who could become a teacher instead of allowing everyone to start his own school. Numerous provisions were given to the Church, with preferential treatment of the congregations whose primary goal was promoting education. Education was not compulsory and situations varied greatly from a city to another but the number of children schooled after the law tripled.
The flag of the new Occitanian republic, which relocated its capital to Marseille instead of Tolon
The educational debate while quite heated, was shadowed by the foreign policy of Italy. The war had escalated quickly but the first fights had proven that the Italian armies were once again up to the task. Instead of ending the war with only humiliating the Valois monarchy, Taparelli decided to use the war as a mean of spreading Italian influence in the West. There would be no annexation of territory, the Republic had enough problems with Sardinia and Corsica or Istria, but the Italians would create another sister-republic in Occitania, with the same tight that over Geneva, only on a much larger scale. On Christams, Philip V/XI was captured while attempting to flee to Paris. He was forced to abdicate and renounce all claims to Provence or Tuscany. The next day, Provencal collaborators rose the cross of Occitania over the streets of Marseille, proclaiming the Occitan Republic.
The 26th, despite the fact that Philippe after having an epiphany during the night and had repudiated any documents he had signed the day before, was let go instead of facing a trial. Taparelli didn’t want to have royal blood on his hands, and he was quite sympathetic to the old man descended from the Capetians and the Medicis. But the public opinion, both in the new Republic of Marseilles, and in Italy would not have let him survive ; Taparelli thus took the least problematic solution : let him flee.
The war changed of nature with the entering of the Republic of Occitania entering the war. Now the Italians did not fought for a matter of prestige but to “free the oppressed Occitan people” from the Anglois domination. The Casus Belli had changed and all officials knew that to extract such concessions from the Plantagenets meant that the Italian Armies would have to occupy large swathes of land, even going near Paris to threaten the Monarchy.
The first months of the year saw restless fights in Dauphiné. Once again Italian troops knocked down the Anglois troops but in this war of attrition Paris had the upper hand.
Thus in June, Taparelli issued a decree of mobilization to increase the size of the Army engaged in Occitania. Italian had hoped to see Occitan volunteers flock to Provence and fight for their freedom but the war had not seen vast Occitan uprisings or mobilization. It was mostly due to the fact that the Occitan idea was far more diluted than the Italian one : there had never been an independent country ruling from Gascony to Provence and encompassing the Midi ; Occitan, in its Provençal standard was far from being widespread with impressive differences in dialects, some being non-mutually intelligible. The population was not hostile to the idea of being freed from the Parisian domination but it did stir their hearts either.
The battlle of Valencia, the most important defeat of Italian forces during the war, soon avenged in Orange
In May, Anglois armies were able to push through Valencia and threaten Marseille after much of the great legions were occupied in Auvergne. The advance had to be stopped to reinforce the Occitan troops. The Anglois army led by Adjani soon faced greater numbers and completely circled and forced to surrender near Orange.
After that, the war progressed well for the Italians but occupying all Occitania was proving to be an exhaustive task, especially with Anglois armies reinforcing far more easily than the Italians Legions. In October, the Burgundians in Dijon and Auxerre rose against both the Italians and Anglois, wanting to rejoin with Anvers. The rebellion proved to be a real problem for Paris, who would have to divert several divisions to deal with it, divisions that would have tremendously helped against the Italians.
By December the Italians were on their way to successfully control the Rhone and advance West, while the Burgundian rebels progressed in the Duchy.
The day after Christmas saw a national event happen in Savoy. To deal with the growing unionist movement, capitalists in Chambery had closed their factory, only allowing workers who did not subscribe to unions to come back to work. The Communardi newspaper soon covered the issue, and Buonaparte called for the government to intervene against this unconstitutional action. Taparelli refused to do anything, considering that the war was more important and such matters were to be left alone. Savoy was to become one of the Socialists strongholds in Italian politics in the years to come.
1859 saw the Italians eventually taking much of the Occitan territories, keeping their occupation under the Rochelle-Lyon line until all Occitania had been freed. The last organized army which was holding onto Toulouse was crushed in June, leaving the Italians free of taking over the remaining provinces.
Elections began in September 1859 and saw three great candidates bidding the highest office. The Socialists had grouped again under the leadership of Buonaparte ; the Liberals decided to follow the Count of Cavour who had decided to try his chance ; Conservatives regrouped behind the marquis of Marmora, the minister of War designated by Taparelli as his successor. Both Liberals and Socialists called for an end of the war who was depleting Italy from its wealth and killing many of its youth. Conservatives were building their narrative on victory and it soon was sure that they needed the war to end with Occitania free to not lose their electorate.
Thus after Italian Armies had crossed the Loire and were threatening to march onto Paris, the duke of Richelieu, Prime Minister of the Dual-Monarchy, accepted peace. The Republic of Occitania was recognized by Paris, and gained all Southern France, ruling over Aquitaine, Midi, Pyrénées and Dauphiné. Elections were organized in the Republic and the collaborator Mistral, who had been made honorary
dictador for the duration of the war was elected. Occitania, and in peculiar the hated Italian domination would cause problems to Rome for many years, even though they had closed Mediterranean from the Dual-Monarchy and secured new markets for their industries.
With the war ending in victory, the Conservatives soon used it at their advantage in the campaign. They denounced both Liberals and Conservatives as hindrances that had severely damaged the war effort, while them, the Conservatives had secured the Glory of Italy. La Marmora won the majority of suffrages, with even more votes than his predecessor. The Italians Liberals were losing ground to both Jingoist and Nationalist Royalists and the popular classes were leaving for the Socialists. La Marmora would continue the policies of his predecessors, continuing the policy of making the Mediterranean an Italian Lake once more.
) but I guess that if you played a bit more and saw that the cakewalk is strong with this AAR, then I feel strongly obliged to vote
