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Now try to expand at Britain, France, and Spain's expense, liberating Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, and the Philippines.
I edited the event to include Lombardy, since I wouldn't have a French-backed Risorgimento war to get Lombardy as Sardinia would. Otherwise I'd have had to have got to the gates of Vienna before they'd even think of handing over Milan alone.
This will come up later as well- I use an event for another 'seizure' of territory because of that area's overinflated warscore cost.
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XI. THE AUDACITY OF POPE 1867-1869
Italy continued to flourish under Gioberti’s free market rule, and focus was shifted towards modernising the army to a point where it could put up a good fight against the French. And while they were gaining back ground in the polls as Italy moderated after the highly-strung months of 1864, this was a sad year for the DP as both Quattrocchi and Ferrero died within months of each other. Marco Minghetti was chosen as the new leader- at 45 it was hoped that he would rejuvenate the party.
But the most important development in 1867 was the separation of Austria and Hungary into a confederated ‘Dual Monarchy’. Austria would be the senior partner, but Hungary would have considerable autonomy. Dalmatia, a land with a large Italian ethnic population, had a key strategic position in the Adriatic and remained an Austrian exclave. This encouraged Gioberti to embark on an audacious plan to seize Dalmatia from the Habsburgs and cement Italian dominance in the Adriatic. And so, on September 30th, 1867, Papal Italy went to war with the Austrians once again. Hungary joined the war on Austria’s side.
This move did not go down well in Europe, who were surprised at how war had broken out between the two nations so quickly.
However, Gioberti pushed on, and quickly gained naval supremacy before conquering Dalmatia. However, the war on the northern front was a stalemate, and after a successful Italian attack on Trentino the Austrians used their better morale to take over Friuliland in the northeast of Venetia. Although he had hoped he wouldn’t have to do so, Gioberti called in the reserves.
This changed everything- the Italians now most definitely had force of numbers on their side and were able to hold steady in Dalmatia against the Hungarians while taking back Friuliland and moving into Slovenia and Istria. In the Alps, the Italian army won a massive, gruelling battle at Bolzano. On Christmas Day 1868, with four months to go before the election and after over a year of fighting, Austria accepted Italian suzerainty over Dalmatia.
The fact that the war, which was by no means becoming a walkover, ended in such a way was a massive surprise in Europe. The Austrians had ceded the key port of Ragusa and the whole of Dalmatia to its new-found arch-enemy without Vienna being anywhere near threatened. However, the Italians had managed in December to take complete control of Austria’s Adriatic coast, leaving the Habsburgs to rely on Hungary for sea access (and what little sea access could do thanks to the Italian blockade). On December 18th the Hungarians made the following demands to Austria:
-Dalmatia will be transferred to Hungary after the war;
-Austria will subsidise economic development in Hungary;
-Hungary will gain all territories acquired in the Balkans;
-Austria will have to pay Hungary for its participation in future wars;
-Hungary’s autonomy will be expanded to levels decided on a later date.
Either that, Budapest said, or Hungary walks out of the Ausgleich and joins Italy. Austria decided instead to give up Dalmatia and avoid having to make further concessions to the Magyars. That was the lesser of the two humiliations- but it was still their third in only five years, having let the Papacy unify the Italian principalities under their noses and lost a crushing defeat to Prussia and the new Italy.
Italy got itself a new territory (officially a colony until a sufficient number of Italians moved there) and supremacy in the Adriatic. But the Dalmatian War revealed that Italy’s army was still dreadfully poor in comparison to its neighbours. Military development would remain at the forefront of the Gioberti government- if it was re-elected.
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1867==
-Military Statistics discovered, Market Structure research begun;
-Relations improved with: Hungary, Ecuador, Spain;
-Literacy up to 56.6%;
-Italy remains 6th most powerful nation (Great Power).
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1868==
-Market Structure discovered, Army Professionalism research begun;
-Relations improved with: Spain;
-Literacy up to 57.4%;
-Italy remains 6th most powerful nation (Great Power).
Italy continued to flourish under Gioberti’s free market rule, and focus was shifted towards modernising the army to a point where it could put up a good fight against the French. And while they were gaining back ground in the polls as Italy moderated after the highly-strung months of 1864, this was a sad year for the DP as both Quattrocchi and Ferrero died within months of each other. Marco Minghetti was chosen as the new leader- at 45 it was hoped that he would rejuvenate the party.
But the most important development in 1867 was the separation of Austria and Hungary into a confederated ‘Dual Monarchy’. Austria would be the senior partner, but Hungary would have considerable autonomy. Dalmatia, a land with a large Italian ethnic population, had a key strategic position in the Adriatic and remained an Austrian exclave. This encouraged Gioberti to embark on an audacious plan to seize Dalmatia from the Habsburgs and cement Italian dominance in the Adriatic. And so, on September 30th, 1867, Papal Italy went to war with the Austrians once again. Hungary joined the war on Austria’s side.
This move did not go down well in Europe, who were surprised at how war had broken out between the two nations so quickly.
However, Gioberti pushed on, and quickly gained naval supremacy before conquering Dalmatia. However, the war on the northern front was a stalemate, and after a successful Italian attack on Trentino the Austrians used their better morale to take over Friuliland in the northeast of Venetia. Although he had hoped he wouldn’t have to do so, Gioberti called in the reserves.
This changed everything- the Italians now most definitely had force of numbers on their side and were able to hold steady in Dalmatia against the Hungarians while taking back Friuliland and moving into Slovenia and Istria. In the Alps, the Italian army won a massive, gruelling battle at Bolzano. On Christmas Day 1868, with four months to go before the election and after over a year of fighting, Austria accepted Italian suzerainty over Dalmatia.
The fact that the war, which was by no means becoming a walkover, ended in such a way was a massive surprise in Europe. The Austrians had ceded the key port of Ragusa and the whole of Dalmatia to its new-found arch-enemy without Vienna being anywhere near threatened. However, the Italians had managed in December to take complete control of Austria’s Adriatic coast, leaving the Habsburgs to rely on Hungary for sea access (and what little sea access could do thanks to the Italian blockade). On December 18th the Hungarians made the following demands to Austria:
-Dalmatia will be transferred to Hungary after the war;
-Austria will subsidise economic development in Hungary;
-Hungary will gain all territories acquired in the Balkans;
-Austria will have to pay Hungary for its participation in future wars;
-Hungary’s autonomy will be expanded to levels decided on a later date.
Either that, Budapest said, or Hungary walks out of the Ausgleich and joins Italy. Austria decided instead to give up Dalmatia and avoid having to make further concessions to the Magyars. That was the lesser of the two humiliations- but it was still their third in only five years, having let the Papacy unify the Italian principalities under their noses and lost a crushing defeat to Prussia and the new Italy.
Italy got itself a new territory (officially a colony until a sufficient number of Italians moved there) and supremacy in the Adriatic. But the Dalmatian War revealed that Italy’s army was still dreadfully poor in comparison to its neighbours. Military development would remain at the forefront of the Gioberti government- if it was re-elected.
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1867==
-Military Statistics discovered, Market Structure research begun;
-Relations improved with: Hungary, Ecuador, Spain;
-Literacy up to 56.6%;
-Italy remains 6th most powerful nation (Great Power).
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1868==
-Market Structure discovered, Army Professionalism research begun;
-Relations improved with: Spain;
-Literacy up to 57.4%;
-Italy remains 6th most powerful nation (Great Power).
Not too many screenshots, I'm afraid. The event chain basically went: If Austria's wiped from the Adriatic coast and is in Ausgleich, Hungary demands independence and money, Austria makes peace with Italy rather than acquiesce or let Hungary defect, and the war ends.
But anyway, it's an update! I'll try and update more regularly from now on.
But anyway, it's an update! I'll try and update more regularly from now on.
Hungary demanded that whatever Austria salvaged from Dalmatia would be transferred to it after the war. Austria was very reluctant to lose Dalmatia, and naturally the Italians would have to be at the gates of Vienna to have a chance of getting it.
The Austrians went behind their backs and gave Dalmatia to Italy instead, so Hungary's bargaining chip was gone and so was the deal.
The Austrians went behind their backs and gave Dalmatia to Italy instead, so Hungary's bargaining chip was gone and so was the deal.
XII. PEACE BE WITH YOU 1869-1873
Gioberti’s Liberals entered the final phase of campaigning pre-election in a good position. They were several percentage points ahead of both Conservative parties, and their liberal competitors, Mazzini’s Partito d’Azione, was dwindling in support and failing to get to grips with the first past the post electoral system.
Despite the religiously-minded Intransigenti Cattolici and Destra Permanente’s decision to form a late electoral pact, Gioberti romped home in the elections with 38% of the vote. The conservatives between them scored 35% and struggled in the constituencies. The far-right monarchists gained 1 seat.
Gioberti’s first action was to bribe as many unemployed Southerners as possible to move to Dalmatia- within months the area was easily Italian enough to be admitted as a province (with protection for the Croat and Dalmatian languages), as Italians formed a majority in the Bay of Cattaro (prev. Kotor).
The next port of call was the military. Italy had 6 divisions stationed around the 3 peripheral territories (Dalmatia, Sicily and Sardinia), and only 14 mainland divisions who were slowly enough building up their morale and organisation. In a move that shocked his conservative opponents and the Pope himself, Gioberti ordered that 16 new divisions be formed at once. They were to be followed by 5 artillery divisions.
Thus by the start of 1870, Italy’s army had more than doubled, going from 20 to 41 divisions. But Gioberti had no inclination of going to war, and felt he had to modernise and expand the army as such to protect Italy’s interests against a sceptical France and a revanchist Austria now expelled from Germany and forced to look elsewhere for its power.
But it was not in Italy where war was to break out. France, annoyed at the prospect of an Hohenzollern king in Spain (a reversal of the European outcry at the prospect of a Bourbon on the Spanish throne over a century prior), declared war on Prussia, and immediately came to regret it. They lost Alsace-Lorraine to the new German Empire, created by Prussia under Bismarck. Days later, the Gioberti-Bismarck Pact of 1871 was signed, protecting Italy from the menaces of France and Austria. The Intransigenti Cattolici opposed this alliance with a Protestant power and sought a Papal concordat to protect the Church in southern Germany, but Gioberti refused.
However, the strains of the new army and the struggles of industrialisation had caused Italy to turn a deficit for the first time during peace since pre-unification times. Action had to be taken, and so Gioberti and the Pope reluctantly agreed to attack the small but wealthy Caribbean republic of Haiti.
After a long, drawn-out campaign complicated by the Haitians’ high morale and the need for an amphibious assault, described by opposition politicians as ‘catastrophic’ and ‘humiliating’, Italy finally took over Haiti in early 1872.
Buoyed by eventual success, Italy went on to attack the militarily weaker Dominican Republic to the east. A much simpler land campaign, this ended very quickly with Italian annexation and the establishment of the Colony of San Domenico (reflecting the previous colonial names, Saint-Domingue and Santo Domingo; Domenico Orsini; and the San Domenico Basilica in Bologna). This, coupled with the partial deindustrialisation of Sicily to revive its lucrative sulphur mines, revived the Italian government’s fortunes. Shipping efficiency was ensured by the produce of a new clipper shipyard in Venice.
Europe entered the 1870s with most of the pressing questions faced in the earlier part of the century solved. Italy and Germany’s nationalist dreams had been achieved by conservative powers, and Austrian and French influence had been ejected from both new nations. France was willing but not able to act on its revanchism; Britain, Germany and Italy were content with the way things were in Europe; but Russia and Austria were vying for power in the incendiary Balkans as the Turkish Empire collapsed. Italy had to play cautiously to keep Papal control over the Adriatic and to expand its power in the Mediterranean.
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1869==
-Army Professionalism discovered, Raider Group Doctrine research begun;
-Relations improved with: Montenegro, France, Prussia;
-Literacy up to 58.2%;
-Italy remains 6th most powerful nation (Great Power).
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1870==
-Raider Group Doctrine discovered, Empiricism research begun;
-Relations improved with: Prussia, Austria;
-Literacy up to 59.0%;
-Italy remains 6th most powerful nation (Great Power).
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1871==
-Empiricism discovered, Medicine research begun;
-Relations improved with: Germany, Ecuador;
-Literacy up to 59.8%;
-Italy up to 5th most powerful nation (Great Power).
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1872==
-Medicine discovered, Business Banks research begun;
-Relations improved with: Germany, Austria, Ottoman Empire;
-Literacy up to 60.5%;
-Italy remains 5th most powerful nation (Great Power).
Gioberti’s Liberals entered the final phase of campaigning pre-election in a good position. They were several percentage points ahead of both Conservative parties, and their liberal competitors, Mazzini’s Partito d’Azione, was dwindling in support and failing to get to grips with the first past the post electoral system.
Despite the religiously-minded Intransigenti Cattolici and Destra Permanente’s decision to form a late electoral pact, Gioberti romped home in the elections with 38% of the vote. The conservatives between them scored 35% and struggled in the constituencies. The far-right monarchists gained 1 seat.
Gioberti’s first action was to bribe as many unemployed Southerners as possible to move to Dalmatia- within months the area was easily Italian enough to be admitted as a province (with protection for the Croat and Dalmatian languages), as Italians formed a majority in the Bay of Cattaro (prev. Kotor).
The next port of call was the military. Italy had 6 divisions stationed around the 3 peripheral territories (Dalmatia, Sicily and Sardinia), and only 14 mainland divisions who were slowly enough building up their morale and organisation. In a move that shocked his conservative opponents and the Pope himself, Gioberti ordered that 16 new divisions be formed at once. They were to be followed by 5 artillery divisions.
Thus by the start of 1870, Italy’s army had more than doubled, going from 20 to 41 divisions. But Gioberti had no inclination of going to war, and felt he had to modernise and expand the army as such to protect Italy’s interests against a sceptical France and a revanchist Austria now expelled from Germany and forced to look elsewhere for its power.
But it was not in Italy where war was to break out. France, annoyed at the prospect of an Hohenzollern king in Spain (a reversal of the European outcry at the prospect of a Bourbon on the Spanish throne over a century prior), declared war on Prussia, and immediately came to regret it. They lost Alsace-Lorraine to the new German Empire, created by Prussia under Bismarck. Days later, the Gioberti-Bismarck Pact of 1871 was signed, protecting Italy from the menaces of France and Austria. The Intransigenti Cattolici opposed this alliance with a Protestant power and sought a Papal concordat to protect the Church in southern Germany, but Gioberti refused.
However, the strains of the new army and the struggles of industrialisation had caused Italy to turn a deficit for the first time during peace since pre-unification times. Action had to be taken, and so Gioberti and the Pope reluctantly agreed to attack the small but wealthy Caribbean republic of Haiti.
After a long, drawn-out campaign complicated by the Haitians’ high morale and the need for an amphibious assault, described by opposition politicians as ‘catastrophic’ and ‘humiliating’, Italy finally took over Haiti in early 1872.
Buoyed by eventual success, Italy went on to attack the militarily weaker Dominican Republic to the east. A much simpler land campaign, this ended very quickly with Italian annexation and the establishment of the Colony of San Domenico (reflecting the previous colonial names, Saint-Domingue and Santo Domingo; Domenico Orsini; and the San Domenico Basilica in Bologna). This, coupled with the partial deindustrialisation of Sicily to revive its lucrative sulphur mines, revived the Italian government’s fortunes. Shipping efficiency was ensured by the produce of a new clipper shipyard in Venice.
Europe entered the 1870s with most of the pressing questions faced in the earlier part of the century solved. Italy and Germany’s nationalist dreams had been achieved by conservative powers, and Austrian and French influence had been ejected from both new nations. France was willing but not able to act on its revanchism; Britain, Germany and Italy were content with the way things were in Europe; but Russia and Austria were vying for power in the incendiary Balkans as the Turkish Empire collapsed. Italy had to play cautiously to keep Papal control over the Adriatic and to expand its power in the Mediterranean.
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1869==
-Army Professionalism discovered, Raider Group Doctrine research begun;
-Relations improved with: Montenegro, France, Prussia;
-Literacy up to 58.2%;
-Italy remains 6th most powerful nation (Great Power).
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1870==
-Raider Group Doctrine discovered, Empiricism research begun;
-Relations improved with: Prussia, Austria;
-Literacy up to 59.0%;
-Italy remains 6th most powerful nation (Great Power).
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1871==
-Empiricism discovered, Medicine research begun;
-Relations improved with: Germany, Ecuador;
-Literacy up to 59.8%;
-Italy up to 5th most powerful nation (Great Power).
==GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS REPORT 1872==
-Medicine discovered, Business Banks research begun;
-Relations improved with: Germany, Austria, Ottoman Empire;
-Literacy up to 60.5%;
-Italy remains 5th most powerful nation (Great Power).
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Well I really have no idea. So let's have a vote!
Everyone put forward your ideas of where Papal Italy should go next, and then we'll have a vote.
Current nominations:
Spain (Philippines)
France (Corsica)
Greece
Ottoman Empire (Libya/Palestine)
African colonisation
Nominations end 3rd October.
Everyone put forward your ideas of where Papal Italy should go next, and then we'll have a vote.
Current nominations:
Spain (Philippines)
France (Corsica)
Greece
Ottoman Empire (Libya/Palestine)
African colonisation
Nominations end 3rd October.
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Papal Italy's direction is Poland and the Baltics, then the Philippines and Ireland.
On to Greece! Also, Corsica would look so much better if it was yellow/green instead of blue...
Added. Please note, everyone, that these all rely on whether their guarantees and alliances make a war suicide (I'm not planning on bringing Bismarck into a war for us in the 1870s, given that historically he'd probably tell the Pope to go stuff himself).
I've also added my own idea.
Yes, I'll get working on one tomorrow. And at 11pm tomorrow nominations shall end and the voting- to last until 11pm Wednesday- begins.
Also, seems there's a more important vote going on. Vote for me if you like, but I'm not holding my breath. I urge you all to vote, as I can learn from the winners and improve my style.
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Voting has begun! You have until 11pm Weds. to vote.
I've counted each of you as having votes for your nomination.
I've counted each of you as having votes for your nomination.
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Right. One vote each. So I'll decide myself, and you'll have to wait to find out which scenario takes place