The Smallest Possible Difference

[wolf_brother]

Originally Posted by Eurofed

I did not mean that. Rather, I would have expected Budapest to be uninterested in keeping the Poles (in order to not overload Hungary with national minorities) and Galicia to merge with Posen and Krakow one way or another.

Wait. You expected anyone in either Budapest or Vienna to be willing to hand over Galicia to the Poles only two years after the Galician Slaughter/Kraków Uprising?

As well consider how Galicia was handled both IOTL and ITTL during the 1848 Revolutions. The Hapsburg authorities, both Hungarian and German, stayed in power by playing the Ruthenian peasants off against the Polish landowners.

[Eurofed]

Originally Posted by wolf_brother

Wait. You expected anyone in either Budapest or Vienna to be willing to hand over Galicia to the Poles only two years after the Galician Slaughter/Kraków Uprising?

Perhaps not, and admittedly I was looking more to what may happen in the medium-term (i.e. if the Eastern War undoes Russian ownership of Congress Poland). But an Hungarian Galicia may still be more trouble than it is worth for Budapest, given that they shall have their hands full holding on the lands of St. Stephen, as long as they remain focused on their Magyarization anyway. OTOH admittedly TTL Hungary lost Croatia, which lightens their national minorities burden considerably.

As well consider how Galicia was handled both IOTL and ITTL during the 1848 Revolutions. The Hapsburg authorities, both Hungarian and German, stayed in power by playing the Ruthenian peasants off against the Polish landowners.

True. OTOH, there was a important difference in the ethnic makeup of the western and eastern portions of Galicia.

[wolf_brother]

Originally Posted by Eurofed

Perhaps not, and admittedly I was looking more to what may happen in the medium-term (i.e. if the Eastern War undoes Russian ownership of Congress Poland). But an Hungarian Galicia may still be more trouble than it is worth for Budapest, given that they shall have their hands full holding on the lands of St. Stephen, as long as they remain focused on their Magyarization anyway. OTOH admittedly TTL Hungary lost Croatia, which lightens their national minorities burden considerably.

On the flip side of that same coin though having the Banship as an independent entity with the nominal backing of Vienna and plenty of ethnic hatred and peoples flowing across the porous southern border doesn't help the Hungarians either. Galicia is seen as a much lower priority for Budapest than the Voivodina, or the Banship itself.

True. OTOH, there was a important difference in the ethnic makeup of the western and eastern portions of Galicia.

Which is something I plan to explore/exploit in later chapters.

[Scipio Africanus]

Interesting Hungary update. I'm a bit curious about the structure of the Banship. In the earlier chapters it was said to be basically an autonomous extension of the Habsurg realm, at least de jure. How does it act effectively independently despite its constitution?
Great update though. I can't wait for the next one, my favorites are the Germany and US ones, although of course all of your stuff is awesome.
Scipio

[wolf_brother]

Originally Posted by Scipio Africanus

Interesting Hungary update. I'm a bit curious about the structure of the Banship. In the earlier chapters it was said to be basically an autonomous extension of the Habsurg realm, at least de jure. How does it act effectively independently despite its constitution?
Great update though. I can't wait for the next one, my favorites are the Germany and US ones, although of course all of your stuff is awesome.
Scipio

The Banship has rather... fluid politics. Prior to his death in the previous chapter Jelačić was largely the one holding the various parties together. De-jure the Banship is answerable to Vienna, but even in 1848 de-facto Jelačić and the Croats were the ones actually in charge, mostly on an 'Anyone but the Magyars' platform, which just so happened to involve swearing allegiance to the Hapsburgs and using conservative elements throughout the Military Frontiers to such an end. By 1855 though the situation has changed. The pro-Hapsburg Croats, and their anti-Hungary Serbian allies, are politically on the downswing, while the more reformist and nativist Slovenes are taking the opportunity to make a grab for power. Also keep in mind that Austrian, and Hungarian, politics have also changed considerably since 1848. In Vienna a moderate liberal government reigns, gingerly in an alliance of convenience with the radicals, while the conservatives undergo a reformation of sorts. In Hungary the situation is even messier, where, without the conservative boogeyman to drive them together the radicals and liberals are unable to form a working government.

Its important to note that, in general, no one within the Quadruple Monarchy is interested in a war right now except the reactionaries; most of whom fled to Illyria after the Vienna radicals took control of the capitol.

Thank you once again for reading, and for your comments The next chapter will have us once again looking at Italy, followed by a French update; unless I change my schedule.

[Scipio Africanus]

Thanks for answering my question. And also for writing such a good timeline. I'm happy to read all your updates, and I am myself a Francophile. I am very curious to see what direction the new French kingdom takes. I hope is a great power on par with Britain instead of seemingly always seeming to play second fiddle to it during the 19th century. Could France try to expand sometime in the century into Belgium or something? Maybe partition it with the Dutch, kind of like what the tried to do during the 1830 rebellion?
Scipio

[wolf_brother]

Originally Posted by Scipio Africanus

Thanks for answering my question. And also for writing such a good timeline. I'm happy to read all your updates, and I am myself a Francophile. I am very curious to see what direction the new French kingdom takes. I hope is a great power on par with Britain instead of seemingly always seeming to play second fiddle to it during the 19th century. Could France try to expand sometime in the century into Belgium or something? Maybe partition it with the Dutch, kind of like what the tried to do during the 1830 rebellion?
Scipio

Thank you, and you're welcome

I'm not so sure, even IOTL, that France 'played single fiddle' to Britain throughout the 19th century. Regardless however ITTL France has a path laid out before her that will be quite different from IOTL; you'll just have to wait however to see exactly where I take her.

[Space Oddity]

Allow me to state, I'm almost half way through the first book at the moment, and it is awesome.

[wolf_brother]

Originally Posted by Space Oddity

Allow me to state, I'm almost half way through the first book at the moment, and it is awesome.

Thank you very much I'm likewise enjoying your own TL greatly.

[wolf_brother]

Hey guys, I'm just pipping in here to apologize for the lack of updates lately, and the general slow-down in the rate at which I post them. This time of the year generally becomes fairly hairy for my personal life, and what little free time I have I've for alt. hist. I've been putting towards research on a new project with a POD in 1800 to run parallel with TSPD sometime after the New Year. Hopefully I'll be able to clean up and post the newest update sometime this week and after Halloween the rate of updates will be able to pick up once again. Thank you all for your comments and insights, and I hope everyone has been enjoyed reading my work so far

[Geordie]

No apology needed. Real life does have to come first occasionally.

That being said, I look forward to future updates, and the new timeline when it arrives!

[wolf_brother]

[Spacing]

"A correre e cagare ci si immerda i garretti."
('By running and defecating at the same time, you'll get crap on your heels')
- Traditional Italian proverb

Reza, Ahmad. Reform: A History. Istanbul: Central Press, 1999.

... In the period between its birth in the 1848 Revolutions and the Italian Wars of 1855-56, the Roman Republic went through a significant political reformation. Radicals, by and large, had won the day in 1848 and 1849, with both liberals and conservatives shying away from politics throughout the revolutionary period. Thus it was to the radicals that the first Roman government fell, with the Triumvirate composed of the like-minded Armellini, Saffi, and the indomitable Mazzini...

... The first work attempted by the Assembly after the proclamation of the republic had been to reform the ever-changing executive power of the state, finally ending with a power-sharing scheme between the radicals, in the form of Saffi and Mazzini, and liberals willing to work with new regime, exemplified by Armellini. This was soon followed up by proposals for drawing up a new Constitution that were referred to a special committee. In the ardor of a republican enthusiasm, which even led some members of the Assembly to decorate themselves with the revolutionary Phrygian cap, a Constitution was rapidly elaborated, with its salient features being the the investment of the executive function of the republic was vested in Tribunes, Consuls, and Dictators, after the model of ancient Rome. This interesting, if archaic, scheme...

... There was a matter even more urgent than that of the Constitution however which called for the immediate attention of the Assembly - the financial position was desperate. Expenses and disorder had increased, revenue had decreased, public credit was non-existent, and the treasury empty. Government bonds to the value of 2,600,00 scudi, issued under Papal authority, still retained some value; but others, representing 800,000 scudi issued since the departure of Pius, had a value that was little more than nominal, while gold was at an exorbitant premium; roughly wavering between four and six hundred paper scudi for a British pound sterling. While the republic took some measures to combat this issue, the principle enounced was excellent, but the laws neither helped matters very much, nor did it long remain respected in principle. Temporary assistance was arranged from the Roman Bank, but it could do nothing to prevent the gradual and appalling depreciation of five millions of paper currency in circulation. Among the desperate remedies that suggested themselves was the confiscation of the property of the numerous wealthy Romans who had fled the capital, many of them for Gaeta; however for the moment what appeared preferable was the issue of a debased coin that was so composed as give the treasury a nominal gain of 60%, and a framing of a 5% forced loan, based on incomes, and graduated in scale. Neither of these desperate remedies gave the Roman Exchequer any appreciable relief, though they vastly increased the discontent and opposition to the Republic. In the Provinces deep dissatisfaction prevailed. As Ancona, Rimini, Faenza, and other towns secret associations sought in assassination and plunder to assuage their political animosities and financial necessities. Here and there, mostly by the exercise of dictatorial authority, order was restored by Republican authorities. In the capital the police were entirely in the hands and interests of the republican clubs; yet public order was fairly well maintained, and the Carnival of 1850 was a success, though political rioting was not infrequent...

... However while these radicals were wise enough to steer clear of the sociocratic ideal of a 'Right to Work,' the new government's mixed policies of free trade combined with, for political reasons, lower taxes and increased spending meant that the state had trouble with its finances and to restore to floating its current in order to pay its many debts. By the summer of 1851 runaway inflation had set in, with the price of bread doubling between January and April of that year, and again between April and June. On the tenth of that month the radical Minister of Justice, Giovita, was forced to resign, and replaced with a more moderate member. However by this time the crisis had reached political heights, and a movement was started, mostly by the city's liberals, now coming out of their self-imposed exile into the wilderness, to hold an election for the new Consulate. Some even, of more conservative leanings, called for an abolishment of the overtly republican government altogether and the establishment of a presidential or purely parliamentary system, arguing that the revolutionary government of 1848-49 needed to be 'stabilized.' However the radicals were not without their supporters, and under the guidance of Mazzini they agreed to the election, scheduled for September of that year. In the meantime the government quickly took an active position, while, still avoiding socriocratic methods, Rome instituted basic price controls over bread and a small assortment of other bare necessities. However it was not enough, and though the price of food stabilized other products and luxuries continued to raise, so that by the time of the 1851 election the moderate liberals were able to win a substantial number of the Roman Assembly. Though falling short of gaining a majority, the liberals true success was in the Consulate; while Armellini was lost, Saffi was also forced from power. Many in liberal circles bemoaned (privately) that they had not been able to eject Mazzini as well, the revolutionary's popularity was far too much for such a move. Mazzini was thus joined by Luigi Carlo Farini (1), a moderate liberal who had previously served under Pius IX before resigning when Pio Nono refused to go to war with Austria. Under this new Consulate Mazzini and Farini, curiously, though ideological dissimilar were both committed to the Italian cause, and quickly built a rapport by which Farini would work with the Assembly on domestic affairs, allowing the financial situation to stabilize (though the opening of British markets to the new Italian states in early 1852 also played a large role in this), while Mazzini became the de-facto head of state, serving Roman interests in Italian and foreign affairs, a tradition that Rome continues to this day, though of course following the Italian War the matter of Roman foreign policy became a moot point...

... To the North the Tuscan Republic faced similar problems; however Florence took a very different approach than that of her southern sister. Faced with similar financial woes; high unemployment, the value florin grossly depressed, and the rapidly rising cost of living, as well as the monarchical Savoyard North Italy to its north, and a rebellious peasantry who were neither republican, monarchists, or pan-Italian but simply wished to avoid the same brutal onslaughts that both Rome and Venice had experienced, the Tuscan government quietly elected Guerrazzi Dictator in the spring of 1850. A staunch democrat, even more radical than the 'wild-eyed' Mazzini or Manin, Guerrazzi quickly moved to settle the crisis by confiscating the mostly abandoned land of the old aristocracy that had fled the peninsula with former Grand Duke Leopold. These Guerrazzi then broke up in smaller lots and sold to the landless and small rural peasantry, effectively killing two birds with one stone, and laying the first foundations for the great 'Tuscan Renaissance' of the later part of the century (See Chapter 29). The credit crisis was resolved with a favorable loan floated by the Bank of Florence, while...

... However, unlike Dictator Manin, Guerrazzi was far from a popular figure. Well liked certainly among radical republican circles, he was far too controversial, and in the spring of 1852 a popular uprising in Florence forced Guerrazzi to flee to Corsica. Though there was some talk in Rome of an intervention, as feelings of a Tuscan-Roman unification were still strong, this was illegal under the charter of the Italian Confederation and thus would have likely caused a fracturing of the Italian cause and could have easily grown into an Italian civil war. Most important however the argument was staunchly rallied against by none other than Guerrazzi himself, who stated that 'we have not freed ourselves from the yoke of the French and the tyranny of the German only to begin oppressing one another.' Guerrazzi would remain on the sidelines of Italian politics for the next several years, publishing his Apologia in the spring of 1855, a thousand and twenty-two page tome of both sarcastic and self-depreciating, and sincere, self-defense of his controversial rule of the Tuscan state (2). In it Guerrazzi argued that only through radical resolutions, such as the 1848-49 revolutions, could Italy see a real and profound transformation of her political and social situation towards the basis for a new, freer and more just society; 'The revolution is not a demon, it is a necessity.' He also railed against those conservative liberals who would now wish for a return to the society of the old regime, stating that only those who 'through cowardice or selfishness of private interests' were afraid of the consequences of the Italian people determining their own political and social structure...

... In his place a Consulate based upon the Roman model was quickly introduced, where, just as in Rome, a delicate balance was struck between liberals and radicals as Giuseppe Montanelli (3) and Bettino Ricasoli (4) were elected the state's first executive...

Neapolitan War

... With the 'Battle' of Terracina the Roman Campaign of the Neapolitan War promptly opened. An ancient city laying along the coast, occupying the strategic location where the Volscian Hills reach the coast, leaving no space for passage between them and the sea, in a site commanding the Pontine Marshes, and directly on the Roman-Neapolitan border, Terracina was an obvious target for the 8,000 Neapolitans commanded by Giosuè Ritucci (5), aided by over a thousand Papal Swiss Guards. In the wee morning hours of 18 May 1855 these reactionary forces approached via the mountain pass of Lautulae, and quickly captured the city's catherdral, built on the ancient pagan temple of Jupiter. From this lofty hill-side height Ritucci was able to bring his cannon to bear on the city, forcing it to surrender without a fight; though there were some civilian casualties as patriotic Romans fought back, however these were few and were unable to stop Ritucci's campaign...

... Caught flat-footed by the Neapolitan Invasion, the Roman Consulate attempted to quickly martial its forces. However while Farini and Mazzini rallied the Roman militia, it was to the Italian Legions that the defense of the capital now feel. Led by the capable Nino Bixio after Garibaldi's retirement and adventures once more in South America (6), the Legio I Roma now quickly marched south, gathering volunteers underneath it as word of the approaching Neapolitan army streamed northward. By the time the two side clashed at the Massacre of Velletri Bixio's force had swollen from just under ten thousand to more than three times that of Ritucci's Neapolitans...

... Nestled firmly between the Alban Hills and the Pontine Marshes, reaching Velletri from Terracina had been slow going for the Neapolitan under Ritucci. Though less than 65 km away, it took the Neapolitan force nearly a week to reach the city, so that when Ritucci finally looked over the hills above Velletri on 23 May, and captured the city in a pitch-battle with local militia on 24-25 May, the Italian Legion approached the city on 27 May the Neapolitans were still in the process of putting down the insurrectionary Velltrians and fortifying their defenses. What exactly happened next however is still a mystery to historians. What is known is that sometime between the afternoon of 27 May when the Italian forces under Bixio first reached the outskirts of the city and 31 May when both the Italians and Neapolitans retreated from the field a fire broke out in the city, and the denizens of Velletri rose up against both the Italians and Neapolitans. Traditional Italian historiography holds that Ritucci, outnumbered, outflanked, and outmatched, fired on the city with his cannon sometime in the afternoon 28 May in an attempt to deprive the Italian forces of the key position; however due to the rapidly shifting battle lines the Velletrians believed that it was Bixio who had fired on them, and rose up against his Legio I Roma in an indignant rage which caught the Italians off guard and drove both the Romans and Neapolitans out of the region within a few days. Southern Italian apologists and revisionists, mostly either Neapolitan or anti-republicans, though not necessarily monarchists, however hold that it was Bixio who fired fired on the city, purposefully setting fire to the town using a barrage of French oranges (7) in order to trap the Neapolitan forces on the horns of dilemma (8), forcing the Velletrians to rise up and drive both groups away from their homes. Regardless of the exact sequence of events, within days both the Italians and Neapolitan were forced to retreat to Rome and across the Neapolitan border, respectively, while the uprising rapidly spread across the south of Latium. It took nearly a month for the Italian forces under Bixio to re-establish control over this border zone, in which time both sides launched punitive raids but no serious campaigns were organized due to the de-facto control of the region held by the so-called 'Velletri Insurgency.' Ultimately the city itself was destroyed, and southern Latium fell under military occupation and jurisdiction throughout the rest of the war effort. In the meantime however the battle continued to wage across the north, and in the south where...

Gerolamo "Nino" Bixio, right, and the Massacre at Velletri, left

Hernández, Rahul. Squadre; A History. Managua: Canal Books, 1976.

... Within two weeks of the Palermo uprising, disturbances were erupting in cities and towns throughout the island. The rural disturbances started in the central and eastern parts of the interior; the ares most affected by land reform. In March and early April, the time of spring sowing, peasants began to cultivate the unassigned commons and by the end of April had been the occupy the lands of the 'usurper' proprietors as well. The 1848 Revolution in Sicily was essentially a tax holiday, while a potential restoration to Naples would have meant the re-institution of the registers that recorded the taxes paid on grain, on transactions (carta bollata), and even on windows and doors. Thus the peasants rarely stopped at the occupation of unassigned commons or lands in the hands of usurper landowners. Mobs destroyed government offices, burned the registers, and opened the prisons. Other landowning families sought to capitalize on the peasants' anger, leading them in attacks which gutted the palazzi of the 'Bourbon' families. There were pitched battles in the streets and bloody ambushes as parties armed themselves with weapons from muskets to pitchforks and set out to eliminate their rivals...

... The lawyers who dominated the Sicilian House of Commons had done a creditable job of rewriting the 1812 constitution; nevertheless, they had little idea how to solve the agrarian crisis. In fact the revolutionary government shared of the Neapolitan government's misconceptions. The government also assumed a mission of succoring the peasants, whose poverty, the revolutionary deputies naturally claimed was an effect of Bourbon misrule. They voted to liberate them from the hated macinato, a tax on the grinding of cereals on the primarily agrarian island. While it was accepted that this was an iniquitous burden, the revolutionary government had few alternative sources of revenue. The Secretary to the Minister of Finance, Michele Amari, pointed out that this would deprive the new state of approximately one third of its tax revenues. Since they were unable to do so, the Sicilian parliament was forced to decree that the peasants would temporarily have to suffer the macinato as a patriotic duty. Unable to come up with any solution, the provisional government was forced to treat the peasants' depredations as a public security matter; this meant repression. But repression by whom? Most police officers in Sicily were Neapolitans, and any Neapolitan policeman who had survive the first few months of 1848 were Sicily with his skin intact could count himself a lucky man. One solution was to use the squadre. Preparation for the rebellion had been well under way since 1847, and the squadre that participated in the revolution were largely created out of pan-Italian secret societies. Throughout the Sicilian campaign of 1848-49 these squadre maintained their discipline and fought bravely. The most effective squadre leaders found themselves decked with medals and honors by a grateful government. These squadre formed the nucleus of the Sicilian Army during, and after, the revolution. Lead by Giuseppe La Masa (9), who envisioned a final revolution that would 'free all peoples from the chains of tyranny,' and thus took the newly commission squadre officers and the Sicilian army in the summer of 1848 during the Calabrian Expedition...

... The destruction of the fish and meat market was especially emblematic of the attitude of the crowds. Palermo benefited from subsidized bread. In economic terms the hated macinato represented a transfer of wealth from the peasants in the interior to Palermo. This was one of the reasons why the plight of the interior peasantry was not an issue over which Palermo felt strongly. About other foodstuffs, however, their feelings were different. The decision to centralizing the retailing and fish and meat through licenses and other controls and the construction of government-operated fish and meat markets were partially dictated by considerations of hygiene; yet the decision was equally dictated by a wish to ensure that taxes on these foodstuffs wee regularly paid. Unlike the macinato, these were taxes that were not paid by the consumers themselves. This help explains why the crowd did not attack the newly built butchery and fish markets, and why, though they had ignored the cause of the problem in 1848-49 and the early 1850s, the Sicilian government was able to temporarily solve the problem that had largely created the 1848 Sicilian Revolution...

... During this time the squadre were largely innocent of crime and non-political violence. During the revolt in Palermo, for instance, the squadre only attacked Bourbon institutions and symbols of Bourbon authority. However with the commissioning of the early squadre into the Sicilian military, and their losses due to the battles with the Neapolitans both on Sicily and Calabria, this left the other squadre which had arrived later. Much less is known about these men. The safest thing to say is that, while some of them probably conducted themselves well, others were indistinguishable from the mob...

... The squadre existed in the first place at the level of names; Turi Miceli was by all accounts the Capofamiglia the boss of Monreale fom 1848 to his death in 1866. He was the center of politics, revolution, and extortion there. Miceli would no doubt have contested the inclusion of the term 'extortion' here, arguing that all he did was to assist his friends and foster the interest of the community. Yet however the republican and civic-minded Miceli's activities may have been, they were still activities that made him rich and powerful. This gave him a position that he could bequeath to his heirs, for we find members of the Miceli family mentioned in police reports related to the mafia up until the death of all the sons of the family on the Greek front of the Tripartite War. Miceli however is simply the most illustrious example of a general connection between revolution, politics, and the mafia throughout Sicily and into Naples throughout the later part of the 19th century and into the 20th. Towns such as Monreale and Misimeri had strong revolutionary traditions before 1863 became mafia strongholds afterward. Many of the leading mafiosi in the 1870s could boast of participation in the squadre of the 1860s, and in some cases, as far back as 1848...

Squadre

... The Squadre (also known as 'Mafia') is a criminal association that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily. It is a loose organization of criminal groups that share a common administrative structure and code of conduct. Each group, known as a 'family,' 'clan,' or 'cosca' claims sovereignty over a territory in which it operates its rackets - usually a town or village of neighborhood of a larger city. The Squadre frequently parallels, collaborates with, or clashes with, criminals networks originating in other parts of southern Italy, such as the Stidda, also in Sicily, and the Camorra in Naples. However the terms 'mafia' and 'squadre' have come to be used as a general term for all criminal associations in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe...

History

... The genesis of the Squadre is difficult to trace because clans were secret societies and often did not keep records of their own activities. However it is widely believed that its seeds were planted in the upheaval of Sicily's transition out of Feudalism following the Napoleonic Wars, and the flowering of Italian nationalist movements during the Concert of Europe. Under the feudal order the nobility owned most of the land and enforced law and order through their private armies. However after the Napoleonic period the Sicilian barons sold off or rented their lands to private citizens. Later after Sicilian independence was achieved in 1848-49 a large share of public and church lands was either redistributed to, or forcibly taken by, private citizens. The result was a large boom in landowners; from 2,000 in 1815 to over 20,000 by 1850. With more property owners came more disputes that needed settling and properties that needed protecting. Because the authorities were undermanned and unreliable, property owners turned to extralegal arbitrators and protectors. These extralegal protectors would eventually organize themselves into the first Squadre clans. As well banditry became a prominent problem on the island nation. Rising food prices, the loss of public and church lands, and the loss of feudal common rights pushed many desperate peasants into banditry. In response many local elites recruited young men into 'companies-at-arms' to hunt down thieves and negotiate the result of stolen property. However these companies were often made up of former bandits and criminals, usually the most skilled and violent of them, meaning that these bands were far more inclined to collude with their former brethren rather than arrest or execute them, though it did not necessarily preclude them from doing so...

Neapolitan War

... After his capture of Messina on 19 May, which left the half-rebuilt city once more in ruins, Neapolitan forces under the command of Guglielmo Acton set sail once again, rapidly raiding up and down the Sicilian coastline. Acton split his forces, leaving some four thousand troops and four frigates, three of sail and one ironclad, at Messina while the rest of his fleet attacked several notable towns along the south-eastern Sicilian coast. Over the next week and a half large towns such as Catania, Augusta, Syracuse, Avola, and Pachino were all hit by the Neapolitans, who often stayed only long enough to defeat the Sicilian milita there and set the city ablaze before leaving once more. However as Acton swung north once again, hoping to return to Naples to gather more troops for a larger landing, his fleet was badly damaged by a storm on the night of 30 May, and in the morning he was found to be within the range of the remaining guns at Catania. The city had largely been destroyed in the First Sicilian War of Independece, even to a greater degree than Messina, and in the integrum the fortress there had been completely rebuilt from the ground up to modern standards which relied on successive, consecutive, fields of fire. The Second Battle of Catania devastated the Neapolitan fleet, and as Acton's remaining forces limped back to Messina on 2 June they were further ravaged when Sicilian militia forces numbering slightly over 3,000-strong under the command of General La Masa, aided by several gangs of squadre led by the Miceli family, bringing the Sicilian total forces up to almost six thousand, smashed into the weary Neapolitan forces just as Acton's fleet was anchoring in the bay. In a three-day battle pitched across the mostly burned and lifeless open plain where the fomer city and citadel of Messina had stood the Neapolitans were forced from the island. Less than a thousand troops under Acton's command escaped with only one badly damaged ironclad frigate, the Monarch as protection. However, Acton, instead of crossing the relatively short Strait of Messina, slightly over 5km at its widest, and landing his forces safely in Naples instead choose to turn west, circling around the Torre di Faro. Acton's actions have been scrutinized by historians and military strategists ever since. Many believe that Acton was simply too arrogant to return to Naples empty-handed, and that his final downfall was due to his own hubris (10). However a substantial minority believe that Acton's remnant fleet, damaged by the storm of 30 May and by the Second Battle of Messina (1855), were not water-tight and were rapidly sinking. They back this up by showing how, after capturing, instead of merely raiding, the Sicilian city of Milazzo Acton quickly press-ganged a large force to begin repairs on his transports. However it was not to be. On 4 June the Sicilian ship Turkey (11) entered the cape of Milazzo and engaged the still under-repair Monarch from afar. As the Neapolitans hurried to save their only warship, Sicilian troops under La Masa rushed the city from behind nearby hills, firing French oranges high overhead to smash into the city's port, denying the Neapolitans any chance to escape. By the end of the day the Sicilians were victorious, with Acton slain in battle and slightly over 200 Neapolitan prisoners of war captured. The Neapolitans had been driven from the island, however...

The Battle of Milazzo, 4 June 1855, which largely ended Sicilian involvement in the Neapolitan War
Note the Monarch and the Turkey exchanging fire in the background

... After the victorious Battle of Milazzo Sicily largely withdrew from the Neapolitan War, and indeed from Italian affairs altogether until the 1863 Referendum. With newly crowned King Tommaso barely a year old the kingdom was in no shape to fight a major war, even against her eternal foe. The war however had shown that the lack of centralized power, while determinantal to the nation's finances and focus, was not enough to topple the state altogether, as patriotic Sicilians both in the militia, squadre, and citizenry rose up against the attacking Neapolitans. With this in mind a power-sharing scheme was finally devised in early August of 1855 where by the young King Tommaso was to be guarded by a triumvirate Regency of Queen Alexandra, Prime Minister Settimo (12), and General La Masa, setting the standard for the continued Sicilian corporatist model of the Nobility, the Mafia/the Military, and the civilian Government...

Dawles, Richard. Trans. William McKnight. The Victorian Era. Brussels: Writer's Guild, 2007.

... Even as the Illyrian War entered its critical period, the Savoyards were still uncommitted to the war effort. Charles Albert, the ever cautious ruler that he was, was unsure of whether or not to proceed. The plan, as much as there was of one, prior to the sudden death of Louis-Napoléon had been for the Illyrians, Neapolitians, Savoyards, and the French to successful conquer and partition the Italian Confederation; however the nitty-gritty details were still being worked out between Lubiana, Naples, Turin, and Paris. Now Louis-Napoléon was dead, and both Ferdinand of Naples and the Illyrians, much to the dismay of Karl Ludwig of Illyria, had launched their own invasions of Italy, striking into Venetia, Sicily, and Rome. The entire Italian experiment hung by a thread, and that thread was Charles Albert. Neither the wolf in sheep's clothing, nor the coward, that he has often been painted out to be in the decades since the Italian War, Charles Albert was above all a cautious monarch who of course wished to expand his holdings, but unlike many of his contemporaries did not dare risk what he already had for what he might potentially gain. Charles Albert had served under Napoléon I, and had previously been taught in the intellectually liberal and 'revolutionary' atmosphere of Geneva, and then Paris, throughout the later stages of the First Republic and during the Napoleonic Empire. Thus, though of a noble, and though he would later take part in putting down the 1830-31 Revolutions, Charles Albert was a liberal Italian patriot, though one opposed to the idea of radical republicanism. The attacks on his character since his death have partially been motivated by those would wished to tarnish his character and present the idea of liberal, constitutional, monarchs as against Italianism, and partially in order to differentiate his rule from that of his son and successor, Victor Emmanuel II...

... Since the Springtime of Nations the politics of the Kingdom of North Italy (and Sardinia) had been a microcosm of Italian politics in general. Central power was held in Turin, but under the constitutional arrangement provided by the 12 March 1849 declaration of the kingdom, Milan maintained a rather large and healthy degree of autonomy in almost all of her affairs. As well in the six years since the revolution Cagliari began to increasingly push for her own autonomy, eventually leading to the Savoyard Constitution of 1865 which further federated the North Italian Kingdom...

... In Turin itself government was firmly in the hands of a right-left moderate coalition, nominally split along partisan lines between Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour as Prime Minister, Urbano Rattazzi (13) as Minister of the Interior. Though ideologically opposed in many ways this connubio was a stunning success for the Piedmontese, with the reform of the press laws being herald as a parliamentary victory for further liberal cooperation and integration across Europe. The moderate coalitions measures against the Catholic Church however, were, for the most part less well received throughout the continent, and the suppression of certain monastic orders, partial secularization of church property, and restricting the influence of religious associations in politics only further widened the chasm between the Catholic Church, which had now come to reside on a more permanent basis in Gaeta, and the Italian states. Indeed Catholic south Germans, French, Spanish, and even those outside of Europe roundly criticized the continued secularization of even the Italian monarchies, let alone the radical republics, with some in Pre-Carlist Spain calling for a 'crusade' to restore the Pope to his proper seat of power. While not going as far as their Spanish brethren those Catholics in Germany who commented on the affairs of Italy, most notably the ultramontan Piusverein, roundly attacked the 'Anglicanization' of the Italian churches, and...

... After the death of Count Gabriel Casati in 1852 power in Milan itself increasingly fell to Prince Victor Emmanuel II. Unlike his father Victor Emmanuel was neither cautious nor calculating; bold, decisive, and above all reared in the traditions of patriotic Italian nationalism, Victor Emmanuel was something of a loose cannon in his early years of rule. His rule was mostly checked by that of the Milanese governor, Massimo d'Azeglio (14), who, though a moderate liberal reformist and Italian patriot himself, was also much more of a cautious figure cut in the same visage as that of Charles Albert. Indeed when word of the Illyrian surprise attack first reached Milan Victor Emmanuel is said to have decried the Hapsburgs for their treachery as a 'vile and infected race of canailles,' and it was only the cool and calm restraining hand of d'Azeglio who prevented the Prince from marching forward that instant. d'Azeglio, along with other moderates of the Turin School, believed the Illyrian War to have been a case of mistaken identities and weak central command under the monarchy of Karl Ludwig. Indeed many in the North Italian kingdom believed that, any day now, the renegade Illyrian forces under von Urban and Zobel would be reeled in, perhaps under Hapsburg German intervention, and the horrifying potential of a war against the German Empire would be avoided. However d'Azeglio could not restrain either Victor Emmanuel or his own nationalist feelings forever, and when (incorrect) rumor that the Illyrians had finally broken the Venetian back at Pordenon after three weeks of siege and taken the city reached Milan the Prince could be restrained no more. Organizing his forces under legendary General Durando, Victor Emmanuel himself marched forward with his Lombard Legion on 5 July, reaching Venice on 9 July where, after briefly conferring with Tommaseo and Cavedalis, the combined Italian force of nearly ten thousand Italians marched forward on 10 July and reached Pordenon on the eleventh. Although the Illyrians had not, as the Lombards had believed, taken the city they were inside the city walls, where less than a few thousand of Manin's initial ten thousand volunteers of militia continued to hold the city center against the Illyrian forces...

... Considered the decisive engagement in the Illyrian War, the end of the Siege of Pordenon was one of the last great battles to be fought on Italian soil. On the Illyrian front were just less than 25,000 troops under the combined command of von Urban and Zobel, some 2,000 of which were cavalry, supported by 30 guns. Opposing them the combined Italian forces numbered slightly under 30,000, with 4,000 cavalry, though only 40 guns had been able to been brought on the campaign from either Milan or Venice. At the dawn of 12 July the Lombard-Venetia army moved south to deploy along the left bank of the river Noncello. The allied Italian forced hoped to occupy the villages of Portovieli and Rustighel before crossing the Noncello and taking the villages Villanova and Ponte Meduna in order to flank the Illyrian forces, trapping them within the city, and defeating them in detail. However after marching just a few kilometers the Italians came into contact with the Illyrian troops that had entrenched themselves in those villages. In the absence of a fixed battle plan, due to disagreements between Durando, Victor Emmanuel, and Cavedalis (who led the Venetian forces, Tommaseo staying behind in Venice to organize her defense and raise yet another militia force), as well as the lack of any clear contact or communication between the Lombardi-Venetian Italians and the Venetians inside Pordenon under Manin, the battle which took place was uncoordinated, leading to high casualties, and the fight quickly feel into three separate engagements at Portovieli (south), Rustigel (center), and Pordenon (north)...

... The battle was a particularly grueling one, lasting over nine hours and resulting in some four thousand Illyrian Hapsburgs killed, with another three thousand wounded, missing, or captured. Indeed, reports of wounded and dying soldiers being shot or bayoneted on both sides added to the horror and confusion, and directly lead to the fighting growing even more intense as the battle wore on as both sides refused to surrender or retreat. In the end the Illyrians were forced to yield their positions, with the Italians winning a tactical, but costly, victory; The Italian armies suffered from heavy casualties, with nearly half of the Lombard forces alone under Victor Emmanuel smashed at the Battle of Rustigel, meaning that though Pordenon was secured the Italians could not immediately follow the Illyrians as they retreated to Udine...

The Battle of Portovieli. General Durando's Lombardi forces were successfully able to route the Illyrians and break across the Noncello

... After the battle Victor Emmanuel was said to have been a changed man. After being told that the day was theirs Victor Emmanuel retired to his tent at early hour of four o'clock, and was not seen from again until the next morning where he was seen to be a calmer, though more focused man. When asked what his next order was the Prince was said to have simply said; "We defeat the enemy."

... Within five days of their victory at Pordenon the Italian forces captured Udine, driving the Illyrians out of Venetia altogether. It was at this point that Manin, recovered from his defense of Pordenon during that city's month-long siege, was able to successfully argue for pressing the attack into Illyria itself. The liberal North Italians, most prominently Victor Emmanuel but also Durando, were hesitant to commit to such a cause however; nothing in the Italian constitution called for the allied Italian states to attack into another sovereign country as one, only to come to each others mutual defense. Victor Emmanuel as well was concerned about the possibility of opening up a wider Italian-German war as an Italian invasion of Illyria, even ostensibly to capture the renegades von Urban and Zobel, could quickly lead into an escalation of conflict if King Karl Ludwig called on his father for aid, and in Archduke Franz Karl called upon the other German states. Durando as well had his own reservations, as the Italian forces now in Udine were both weary from marching and fighting, and quickly becoming low on key supplies, as the supply lines back to Milan were long and those in Venice were mostly being sent to the civilians of Pordenon. Thus the Italians sat for two days at Udine, debating their next move endless, while the Illyrians prepared their defenses just across the border at Gorizia. However on 20 July word arrived from Turin in the form of North Italian War Minister Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora; King Charles Albert was dead (15). More importantly though La Marmoa was firmly dedicated to the Italian cause, and to take the fight to the enemey; leaving behind a strong force to deter French invasion under the capable Manfredo Fanti, La Marmora had brought forward an army thirty-five thousand strong, carrying over sixty guns and 5,000 cavalry alone. Like in the ancient days of Rome, in the Piazza San Giacomo, Victor Emmanuel was crowned King of North Italy with a laurel wreath, and hailed by the combined Italian forces throughout the city - much to the disgust of the republican leaders present. Indeed Victor Emmanuel had gained great respect from the Italian peoples in Venetia throughout the campaign, and even greater respect from the Lombardi-Venetian forces he had fought with. Historians now believe that Udine was the first instance of Victor Emmanual being referred to as the Padre della Patria...

... With this combined army, nearly fifty thousand strong in all, the Italians were swiftly able to dispatch the meager Illyrian fores thrown at them, capturing Gorizia on 23 July, Monfalcone on 25 July, and coming with range of Trieste on 27 July. It was here that...

... What must not be forgotten is that role played in the second phase of the Illyrian war by Italian patriots throughout that country, especially in Trieste. Led largely by Carlo Favetti, the Young Italians had been quite active in Illyria throughout the peace between the Springtime of Nations and the Italian War. Indeed among the lay public Illyrian King Karl Ludwig is perhaps most famous, if at all, for the first recorded use of the term 'incendiary' to refer to secret societies that would take direct, destructive, action as a means of furthering their political goals (16). It is believed that Karl Ludwig was either referring to the actions of the Young Italians in burning several barracks housing German troops in Trieste (with the occupants sleeping inside), or as a reference to their earlier incarnation as the Carbonari. Either way...

... As word of the approaching the Army of Italy, as it has become known, reached Trieste several days in advance of that legion the citizens of the city rose up against the Hapsburg forces inside. Inspired and led by Young Italians, the Trieste Uprising was more than just an ethnic rebellion however, as the German, Hungarian, and even Croatian citizens inside joining the uprising. Indeed the uprising itself happened more along class lines as opposed to nationalists ones, with only the few conservative Hapsburg nobles then in the city and their supporters resisting. By the time the combined Italian forces reached the city on 27 July Trieste was firmly in Italian hands already, and the Young Italians swiftly handed over the symbolic keys to the center to Manin. It was to be a sign of the events to unfold, with...

Vienna
8 P.M.
1 August 1855

Julius Fröbel was uneasy as he entered the study. Opulence always made Fröbel uneasy, and perhaps more than a tad jealous, and nothing was more opulent in all of Vienna than the Schönbrunn Palace. I could feed and house ten families right here in Vienna just with what's in this very room, Fröbel calculated, lazily looking around his surroundings, taking in the deep carpets, the golden molding, the richly patterned walls, accented with their large paintings of various royals, nobles, scenery, and etc. The crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling cast a pale glow across everything in the room, covering everything with yet another layer of golden riches. Even the tables and chairs were the best he had even seen in all of his life; made by expert craftsmen, they oozed abundance, shouted it from every corner and every seem of their well constructed paneling with its beautiful golden gilding. And this, he was told, was one of the simplest adorned rooms in the whole palace! No, not ten families. Ten thousand families, a hundred thousand! The whole of Austria could be feed from what this one man holds casually in his hand, stolen from thousands of years of serf labor-

"Ah, Julius, it is good to see you." Fröbel was shaken from his dark thoughts by Hans Kudlich, his hand outstretched towards Fröbel, a smile on his bright young face. The Interior Minister towered over Fröbel as they embraced, his long wavy hair falling around his face; though the small patch of fur Kudlich called a beard was nothing compared to the dark forest that Fröbel himself proudly adorned his own jaw with. As they parted Fröbel looked around the room once more, this time taking in the who of what was there as opposed to the ornaments. There in the corner was Messenhauser; tall, dark, well groomed, trim and neat, his massive shoulders held back by the well-tailored dark suit he wore; a perfect bourgeois. At the desk bent over a collection of papers was von Buol, just as replenish as Messenhauser, if not even more so. The Prime Minister was almost appeared to be one of the nobility, with his hair parted to the side, his bowtie covering the white ruffles of his cravat, his suit even more well-off than the other radical. Across the small table sat or stood the conservatives. No, not conservatives, Fröbel reminded himself, '[/I]liberal reformers[/I].' von Buol believed they had to work with these fools and reactionaries, and, God help him, Fröbel agreed with him - for now. von Heß was, as usual, decorated like some sort of gaudy piece of artwork, his chest coated with more ornaments and medals than any Christ Mass tree Fröbel had ever seen, with the old man's white hair ruffled as if he had just awoken from bed, his belt hurriedly tied about his growing waistline, and every now and then von Heß had to pause in what he was saying in order to readjusted the outrageous and antiquated cavalry sword that hung there. And then of course there was the Archduke. A spitting image of the old order, of the feudal age of Metternich and Ferdinand I, Franz Karl looked as if he had just stepped off the page of some historical painting.

Fröbel of course wore his whatever clothes he had had on when the summons had come, only a fool bothered to worry about his appearance when what truly matters was his actions. And although his hair was a mad mess of curls that could put his even his beard to shame, and his clothes appeared that he himself had just come from sleeping in them, his late arrival was only due to the fact that no one had bothered to search him out until von Buol had realized he needed another radical body in the warm to swing the arguments their way. Well, we shall see about what Karl Ferdinand wants, and we shall see about what I want.

"What is this all about Hans? I was busy at a meeting with the Donnersberg Club; they wish to establish a chapter here in Vienna, and I think we should let them."

"What do you think is is about? The Archduke wants us to intervene in Illyria to save his son's throne."

"Well then I can leave now, we both know that von Buol will never-

"Ah, Fröbel, thank you for coming." Franz Karl had been the second among them to notice Julius' entrance, and now the Archduke himself approached him, offering his hand in greeting just as if he were another citizen and not the imperial excellency of Austria itself. "You know how much it means to me for you to be here," the Archduke said, smiling that dazzling smile of his. For such an old and decrepit man Franz Karl was still charming, when he choose to put the warm mask of allure over his cold exterior.

"The Archduke," von Buol interrupted, "believes that we should commit ourselves to intervening in his son's affairs with the Italians, now that they have taken Triest. I, of course, have assured him that we cannot go about supporting the crown of another sovereign simply because he happens to share the same blood of His Highness. This isn't the Middle Ages after all."

"Yes, yes, of course," Fröbel replied, smiling his best smile. "But let us at least hear out the Archduke's arguments. He is, after all, our lord."

Franz Karl wheezed a sigh of relief, his whole body seeming to relax upon hearing Fröbel's words; von Buol on the other hand was incensed, but contained. Looking about quickly Fröbel saw that Messenhauser seemed amused, while von Heß seemed confused. Kudlich was behind him. Well, they shall soon see. Still smiling as he shook Fröbel's hand again, perhaps more tightly this time, Franz Karl turned away, and as the others took their seats he stood behind the desk, looking about at them each in turn. The wood crackling from the fireplace in the corner seemed to add to the warm glow of the room, a glow reflected in the old Archduke's eyes as he visibly prepared, drawing himself up, shoulders back, legs straight, his hands clenched tightly behind his back.

"Gentlemen, you may think you know why you are here; you may think you know what I am about to say; and you may think you know why you should ignore my words and listen to your own council. But hear me out, not as your Lord, not as a father, but as an Austrian, and as a German. Even now as we speak, the Italians under that damned young firebrand Victor Emmanuel march from north Triest; soon they will take Laibach, and you would have us sit here and do nothing. When will we resist them, when will you men have us fight back for Germany? When they are at Krainburg? Or Klagenfurt? What if they take Wolfsberg? Will you stand up to them then? When will you resist these damned Italians in their unholy crusade on all that is pure, how many good Germans, good Catholics, will you sacrifice on the alter of peace before you will be moved to stop them? When they have crossed into Austria, and take Wöllan? When they have burned the Landeszeughaus in Graz? When they are on the very gates of Wien itself?

Even now reports flow onto my desk from our contacts abroad. These Italians, these rabble, who have defiled Rome, who have driven His Holiness into hiding in a dark cell in Gaeta, are now pressing forward in all directions. They have retaken Sicily, and are landing in Calarbria while even more of them flow around the Papal fortress and advance on Naples itself. They march in Illyria towards our borders, burning and enslaving Germans as they go. I even have reports that they are amassing an army in Nice and Savoy, and will soon intervene in the uprising in France against the Bourbon crown, though who is to say that they won't simply take Marseille for themselves. They advance on all front, they burn and capture all before them, and yet we sit here because you believe it is none of our affairs to intervene in the ongoings of another nation. I ask you, humbly, to join with me. Not for my son, not for my House, not for Austria, not even for Germany. Join me, for decency, for civilization, in stopping these barbarians before they have over-ran all of Europe and left naught but ashes in their wake."

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, as the four men before the Archduke sat disgesting his words. Fröbel looked about, seeing the emotions play across all of their faces, though his own was still; he had already made his decision, in fact had made it long before he had even be called to this meeting.

"That is very well spoken my Lord," von Buol began, "however, as I have already stated we cannot go about using our military forces intervening in other nation's affairs willy-nilly simply because-

"I agree with the Archduke," Fröbel quickly interjected. "We must martial our forces and quickly move to capture as much of the German land in Illyria as possible. After all, was not the entire raison d'être for the Year of Revolution to bring togeter all German peoples under one state? It has been the shame on the memory of the martyrs of 1848 that we left their work half-done with so many Germans living outside of the Reich in Illyria. Now with the opportunity before us not only should we intevene in this war, but we must; for if we turn out back on our fellow Germans now we turn our back on the whole of the revolutionary spirit, and we might as well return to the Congress System." Fröbel ended with a sly glance towards the Archduke, gauging his reception to the idea of a return to the reactionary order.

Looking to his right, Fröbel had to hold back a smile. If a man could be said to resemble a fish, that would describe von Buol perfectly in this moment. The blood seemed to have drained from the Prime Minister's face, and sweat slowly broke out on his forehead as he looked around the room, calculating, realizing that with Fröbel voting with Franz Karl and von Heß they now were dead tied with the other radical members. Unless of course...

"I agree with the Foreign Minister. We must send in our brave Austrian troops to save the Germans in Illyria from the Italian menace."

Good man Kudlich, Fröbel though to himself. You always know which way the wind is blowing. Perhaps I should invite him to join in my meetings with the Donnersberg.

Soon a vote was held, though the outcome was clear. With four in favor and two against, the Austrian intervention in Illyria was approved. Shaking his head from across the room Messenhauser no longer looked so amused.

"I am disappointed in you Julius." Was all he said, before turning to leave the room.

Well, he'll come around. And if he doesn't, I'm sure we can find someone else in the Academic Legion willing to lead. Tomorrow is, after all, another day.

Dawles, Richard. Trans. William McKnight. The Victorian Era. Brussels: Writer's Guild, 2007.

... With Austrian intervention into the war the Illyrian front largely collapsed. Although Karl Ludwig was thankful to have his father's armies marching into his kingdom, the reactionary nobles that surronded him were not, many of whom had been supporters, sometimes even actively, of von Urban and Zobel. Those two in particular were arrested on charges of treason, though they were left off with the lighter charge of conspiracy, and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment in Lubiana. Of course their sentance was shorten considerably when...

... Charles Albert's worst fears had come true with the Austrian intervention; however as word spread south of Austrian-Illyrian fighting along the Sava River his spirits were lifted considerably. Knowing that is was now a race to Lubiana, the Italian armies split, with the majority of the Lombards and Venetians under Victor Emmanuel and Manin moving north, while Durando led some 10,000 man at arms towards Fiume. The Italians knew that it was just a matter of time before the Croatians entered the war on the Hapsburg side, but they also had heard reports of the death of Jelačić, and hoped to advance on the Croatians weakness. Durando reached the city on 2 August, and though like in Trieste the Young Italians of the city had led an uprising it had been less successful, with the majority of the Croatians there resisting calls for absortion into the Italian state. Thus Durando was forced to capture the city, a grueling affair that took little over four days and left the port that city largely wrecked after the Venetian Navy entered the harbor on 4 August, decapitating the nascent fleet stationed there and setting fire to much of the city. From there Durando marched further inland, hoping to catapult on his successes throughout the campaign to capture Karlovac. It was here that desperate Croatian, Slovene and Serbian forces threw the Italians back, leaving Durando with a motley force of less than two thousand to retreat to Fiume, though the Ban itself at the time could field less than 12,000 soldiers altogether to defend itself against both Hungarian and Italian aggression...

... The combined North Italian-Venetian forces arrived outside the gates of Lubiana on 3 August to find a city in chaos. Here too the Young Italians had tried to raise up within the city; however at the same time the mostly German population of the Illyrian capitol, specifically the modestly well-off German middle-class and the reactionary Hapsburg nobility were alternatively attempting to flee, to put down the Young Italians, or to shore up the cities defenses. By the time the Italians had actually arrived over half the population was either dead, fled, or up in arms, with the city's garrison mostly in the former. After a two day pitched battle the Italians were firmly Lubiana, while the Austrians forces under Rothenlöwen were still forging the Sava River, attempting to both divert the flow of the incoming refugees and care for them at the same time...

... Amazingly, no greater Italian-German War came of the whole affair, perhaps most importantly because both sides largely gained the Italian or German speaking realms of the former Illyrian Kingdom. In the 1855 Treaty of London signed in late December of that year Austria annexed all of Illyria north of the Sava to Bohinj Lake, while everything to the south was brought into the Italian Confederacy. Here, with Victor Emmanuel being less politically minded than either his father or his former handles and advisors in Milan and Turin, Manin quickly took control. On 12 August the Republic of Triest was declared in the city from which it took its name. An election on 22 September named Carlo Favetti as Dictator of that state under a Venetian model of government, and an Assembly elected on the same day rapidly pressed for incorporation into the Italian Confederation, though this itself caused something of a constitutional crisis in Rome that wasn't resolved until 1856 after the conclusion of the Neapolitan War...

Originally Posted by DBWI; Hapsburgs don't go to war over Illyria

(1) Farini took part in the 1830-31 Revolutions before completing a university course in Bologna in medicine. Practicing as a physician he acquired a considerable reputation for his skill, but in 1843 his political opinions brought him under the suspicion of the papal secret police, forcing him to flee the country. He traveled abroad for several years, even famously working as the private physician to Jérôme Bonaparte before returning to Italy after the election of Pius IX. In 1848 he was appointed secretary-general to the Minister of the Interior; however he resigned with the rest of the ministry over Pius' refusal to commit to the Austrian war. He did however agree to an appointment to act as Papal ambassador to Turin, and after returning in late 1848 he was again appointed to the Ministry of the Interior.

He again resigned after the proclamation of the republic, and IOTL he moved to Turin, becoming a follower of Cavour, eventually becoming Prime Minister of the new Savoyard Italian Kingdom in 1862. ITTL he stays in Rome, and once again becomes involved in politics.

(2) This is several years later than IOTL, and due to his longer time in office is quite a bit lengthier of a read as well. Of course the shifting dates means that Guerrazzi never writes or publishes either his Apprendix or Beatrice Cenci.

(3) A Law professor from Pisa, during the 1848 Revolutions Montanelli was equally as much a staunch democrat as he was a 'Guerrazzian.' He led his students during the Battle of Curtatone, where he was wounded and taken prisoner by the Austrians, though he was later liberated and returned to Tuscany.

IOTL Leopold, knowing Montanelli's popularity, reluctantly asked him to form a government; however the Grand Duke fled the country after Montanelli established a constituent assembly, and in the aftermath Montenalli, along with Guerrazzi, formed a Tuscan republic, during which time Monetnalli strongly pressed for a Tuscan-Roman political union. Montenalli was in Paris negotiating peace terms with Louis-Napoléon when Florence fell to the Austrians, and over the next twenty years of exile he slowly but steadily become a supporter of the Second Empire. He returned to Tuscany in 1861 and was promptly elected a member of the Italian parliament.

(4) Orphaned as a teenager, with a deeply indebted estate, Ricasoli was declared of age by a special decree issued by Grand Duke Leopold and entrusted with the guardianship of his younger brothers. Ending his studies Ricasoli withdrew to the family estate in Brolio and for the next twenty years careful managed the family finances to bring them back into order. In early 1848 he was elected Gonfaloniere of Florence, but resigned on account of Leopold's actions and withdrew from public life.

IOTL he returned to politics in 1859 after being named Minister of the Interior, and was a strong proponent of Tuscan unification with Piedmont, which was achieved in early 1860. Elected to the Italian parliament in 1861, he succeeded Cavour as Prime Minister and embarked on a program of reconciliation with the radicals; opening the ranks of the army to Garibaldi's Camicie Rosse, revoked the decree of exile against Mazzini, and even sought (and achieved in 1866) reconciliation with the Vatican, while opposing French attempts to break up the early German-Italian alliance. For his rigid austerity and integrity he was named the barone di Ferro by the people of Florence. ITTL he re-enters politics earlier, espousing the liberal cause against that of the radicals while at the same time finding common cause with Montenalli.

(5) Who had volunteered for the Neapolitan kingdom during the Napoleonic Wars, and after taking part in the Battle of Palermo was promoted to a Lieutenant Colonel. IOTL He became a Neapolitan Field Marshal in 1860, leading the Neapolitans during the Battle of Volturnus.

(6) See Interlude #6 for full details regarding Garibaldi's adventures.

Bixio was forced by his parents to join the Piedmontese Navy while still at the age of thirteen, at which point he earned the nickname of 'Nino,' by which he preferred to be known for the rest of his life. After traveling abroad to the Americas and Africa, Bixio returned to Italy in 1846, where he quickly was recruited into the Young Italy movement. In 1847 Bixio made himself, and the Italian unification movement, quite conspicuous to Charles Albert by seizing the bridle of the King's horse and crying 'Pass the Tincino Sir, and we are all with you!' During the 1848 Revolutions Bixio fought as one of Garibaldi's leading captains, even taking taking an entire French battalion prisoner during the Battle of Rome.

IOTL Bixio attempted to kidnap Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph in Milan in 1852, which afterward caused a falling out between the Garibaldian and Mazzinian societies. In 1855 after years of family in-fighting, and receiving a papal dispensation, Bixio married his niece Adelaide. He served again with Garibaldi in the Second War of Italian Independence, he briefly sat in the new Italian parliament, before returning to the field once again during the Third War of Italian Independence, being captured by the Austrians at the Battle of Mentana, but he escaped, and one final time joined Garibaldi in the Capture of Rome. Notably Bixio, much like Garibaldi, was less a republic and more of an Italian nationalist; after the Sicilians rose up against the newly unified Italian kingdom Bixio personally defeated them in two pitched battles between separatists and nationalists on the island; Bixio left no survivors. ITTL After Garibaldi retires as Marshal of Italy Bixio would be his natural and obvious successor.

(7) See Book One, Chapter #20 for more information.

(8) The OTL phrase 'between a rock and a hard place' originated in the United States in the wake of the 1917 Bisbee Deportation. Previously the most equivalent phrases both originated from the ancient Greeks; 'between Scylla and Charybdis' and 'to be on the horns of a dilemma.'

(9) A moderate republican, along the same lines as Garibaldi actually, La Masa was studying in Palermo before being exiled for his political beliefs by the Bourbon authorities. Returning in the 1847 in order to help organize the revolution, and was one of the Sicilians leading generals throughout that campaign. IOTL after the island rebellion was suppressed he briefly lived in the Tuscan Republic before being exiled by Ricasoli for his 'extremist beliefs'; afterward he lived in exile in Paris. In 1860 Garibaldi contacted him to help organize the Expedition of the Thousand; though Bixio reproached him for his lacking military skills. After the final unification he was elected deputy to the Italian parliament. ITTL he remains in Sicily, organizing and leading the Sicilian militia.

(10) IOTL during, and after, the Expedition of the Thousand Acton refused to surrender even when grossly outnumbered and defeated, and indeed his stubborn resistance to (republican-led) Italian efforts eventually led him to be 'reconstituted' as one of the new Kingdom of Italy's leading naval officers, becoming Rear Admiral in 1868, Secretary of the Navy in 1869, Senator in 1871, and both Vice-Admiral and Chief of Staff of the Italian Navy in 1879.

(11) The Turkey was ordered as a passenger ship in 1848, however during construction the revolutionary Sicilian government purchased it from the ship-builders, though it was never delivered as it was confiscated by French authorities in Marseilles in April 1849. IOTL the Kingdom of Two Sicilies ultimately purchased it, again, and renamed it Fast; however on 30 July it was captured by Garibaldian revolutionaries, renamed Independence, and harrowed the Neapolitan coastline for over six months before being captured by the Bourbon authorities once again. However in 1857 it was captured once again by the Garibaldians, and used in 1860 as part of the Expedition of the Thousand before becoming apart of the new Italian Royal Navy. ITTL Turkey is eventually returned to the Sicilians, and becomes the flagship of the small Sicilian navy.

(12) Born into a rather rich noble family, Settimo was an Admiral in the Neapolitan navy, fighting mostly against the Barbary pirates before returning in 1812 to enter politics. He quickly became the leading exponent of the liberal party of the period, and during the 1820 Revolution he was among the first to declare himself for Sicilian independence. He was at the forefront again in the 1848 Revolutions, and was the one in the Sicilian government who argued loudest for a constitutional monarchy under Ferdinand Savoy.

IOTL Settimo spent the rest of his life in exile in Malta. After the Expedition of the Thousand he was offered the post of the President of the Italian Senate, third only in power to the king and the Prime Minister; he refused, and died just two years later. ITTL he remains in Sicily, and through his wealth of experience, years of connections, and ideological commit becomes the de-facto ruler of the island, even under Ferdinand and the Regency.

(13) Studying law in Turin, Rattazi began his practice there in 1838. Ten years later he was appointed to the Piedmontese Chamber of Deputies, where he was quickly aligned with the democratic far left. Mostly by his own powers of debate he was instrunmental in the downfall of the center-right Balbo ministry.

IOTL during the short-lived Gioberti cabinet he was Minister of the Interior, and after Gioberti's fall Rattazzi was entrusted with the formation of a new government. The Piedmontese defeat at Novara in March however, and Charles Albert's abdication forced Ratazzi from government. He drifted from the far left to the center-left liberals after the 1848-1849 period, and was instrunemental in forming a coalition righ the the center-right headed by Cavour, under whom Rattazzi was, at various points, President of the Parliament, Minister of Justice, and Minister of Interior; in the latter position he carried out a number of important reforms. ITTL however Cavour is in office much earlier, and Rattazi thus stays in office as well; though he still does moderate his political views.

(14) The scion of a rather ancient noble Piedmontese family, on the return of Pope Pius VII to Rome after the fall of Napoléon I, d'Azeglio accompanied his father as a special envoy to the Holy See. There d'Azeglio was given a commission in a Papal cavalry regiment, though he was soon fired to retire from such due to his ill health. Living in Rome for the next sixteen years d'Azeglio acquired a love of the arts, and, to the horror of his stiff and narrow Piedmontese aristocratic family, decided to become a painter; nevertheless his father reluctantly consented, and agreed to help support his son's endeavous. In 1830 d'Azeglio returin to Turin, and after his father's death the next year he moved to Milan to maintain the family estates there, swiftly becoming involved in the litary and artistic circles of the city. By 1834 he was iniated into the Milanese political socities, and organized the Salotto Maffei salon there. During the 1848 Revolution d'Azeglio volunteered for the Papal army under Durando, though he was severely wounded at Vicenza and forced to retire to Florence. Here thoug his liberal tendancies put him at odds with the democratic government there, and he was expelled from Tuscany.

IOTL he was asked to form a government for Charles Albert in early 1849, but refused. However after the defeat at Novara and Charles Albert's abdication in favor of Victor Emmanuel d'Azeglio accepted the call to join the government. d'Azeglio played a vital role in bringing young Cavour into government, though the two had a falling out over the latter's alliance with Rattazi and the center-left. ITTL he is elected Governor of Lombardy by the Milanese due to his strong familiar and financial connections there, and comes in many ways to be the power behind the throne during Victor Emmanuel's early years of rule.

(15) IOTL he died in 1849 in exile. ITTL he's lived quite a few more years, but even so he's an old man, from a family not well renounwed for their longevity, and the continual threat of his entire kingdom's, and house's, fortunes being destroyed proves to be too much for him.

(16) Refer back to Interlude #6 as to the terminological evolution, and importance, of incendiaries in politics.

[Haaki]

Now that's a big update, trying to compensate for the recent lack of updates?
Good to see Italy winning the Illyrian War, but if I understand it correctly the republic of Trieste also contains a lot of Croatians and Slovenians which could cause trouble in the future.

[wolf_brother]

Originally Posted by Haaki

Now that's a big update, trying to compensate for the recent lack of updates?
Good to see Italy winning the Illyrian War, but if I understand it correctly the republic of Trieste also contains a lot of Croatians and Slovenians which could cause trouble in the future.

Yes Actually this update had always planned to have been a rather large one as there was a lot I had to wrap up on the subject, which partially was to blame for why it was so long to get out.

To answer your second, yes, Triest will contain a substantial amount of Croatians in Fiume and Istria, and a large contingent of Slovenes in Lubiana and Inner Carniola, though not as much of either as the Italians potentially could have been facing if they had been more successful in conquering Illyria, particularly in Durando had taken Karlovac.

[Nanwe]

Hey wolf-brother, could you provide us with a similar map to the one of Family Ties to see the change son the border.
Only if possible, of course.

[wolf_brother]

Originally Posted by Nanwe

Hey wolf-brother, could you provide us with a similar map to the one of Family Ties to see the change son the border.
Only if possible, of course.

The next Italian chapter will have a map that part of which will show the new border.

If you absolutely must see where it is now overlay the map from Book #2 Chapter #8 (Family Ties) over a map of OTL's modern Slovenia to see where the Sava River and Lake Bohinj lie. Roughly everything from north of a 315° angle running through Lubiana and Karlovac is now Austrian, while all of Illyria south of that, and Fiume, is now Italian.

[Mirza Khan]

Originally Posted by wolf_brother

Yes Actually this update had always planned to have been a rather large one as there was a lot I had to wrap up on the subject, which partially was to blame for why it was so long to get out.

To answer your second, yes, Triest will contain a substantial amount of Croatians in Fiume and Istria, and a large contingent of Slovenes in Lubiana and Inner Carniola, though not as much of either as the Italians potentially could have been facing if they had been more successful in conquering Illyria, particularly in Durando had taken Karlovac.

Yes, I was wondering why the Italians annexed territory that far east-I don't recall any OTL irredentists actually claiming Ljubljana! I think it would make more sense if they just annexed the coast and Istria, leaving most of OTL Slovenia to the Germans. TTL, the Italians are going to have to deal both with large, restive populations of Slovenes and Croats, and I expect there would be some German irredentism over Ljubljana/Laibach-something Italy very much doesn't need.

EDIT: Wiki has a handy map of the lingustic situation in A-H circa 1910. Again, I just don't see the need to go that far east when there's no Italians there.

[wolf_brother]

Originally Posted by Mirza Khan

Yes, I was wondering why the Italians annexed territory that far east-I don't recall any OTL irredentists actually claiming Ljubljana! I think it would make more sense if they just annexed the coast and the Illyrian peninsula, leaving most of OTL Slovenia to the Germans. TTL, the Italians are going to have to deal both with large, restive populations of Slovenes and Croats, and I expect there would be some German irredentism over Ljubljana/Laibach-something Italy very much doesn't need.

Well past the (Venetian-) Italians propaganda of their irredentist claims, there's also a very large motivation to provide a buffer between themselves and the Germans, who historically, and now recently ITTL, have shown themselves quite willing to launch invasions of the Italian states, even without direct and proper oversight by the respective German government. As well the increase in territory, power, and prestige, both internationally and within Italian politics, doesn't hurt either. At this point you have to realize that the Italians are essentially telling the Germans to sit on it. Now the Savoyards especially aren't exactly pleased with that, but Victor Emmanuel isn't his father, and is more willing to go along with the Italian nationalist wave on this point. The republicans of course are quite pleased to be able to tip the balance in the Italian Confederation considerably their way, and they've always been more inclined to launch expeditions against Italy's historical enemies. Remember it was the radicals who created the Italian Crusade against the Austrians in 1848/49. On the other hand the German Reich itself is very much so disinterested in the whole affair, particularly the north and central Germans who are running the show right now, as they're more focused on gaining Holstein and keeping the Russians at bay. The Hapsburg Austrians themselves only became involved in Illyria when it became obvious that the Italians were going to over-run the whole of the kingdom.

Now that being said, before the war Lubiana was mostly split between Italians and Slovenes, with a German elite class, and after the war, and the formation of the Trieste Republic, the Germans are gone and quite a few Slovenes will leave making the Italians at least a plurality in that city and the region. Though of course that will still leave a large amount of Slovenes there to resist and feed German, and even Banship, irredentist claims, the Italians in general are going to be a bit less harsh on them than they would be on hypothetical conquered German territory, by an example. Fiume is a different matter though; the Croats there are going to be a much larger thorn in Italy's side, the Italians are going to be less interested in settling in the area due to the possession of the larger port of Trieste, and in general the different way the city and region was brought under Italian control will make for larger troubles down the line.

[wolf_brother]

[Spacing]

"When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will.
His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field the next man will appear."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson's Representative Men
published 1850

McKnight, William. Trans. W. Scott Haine. The Revolutionary Tradition: France in the Nineteenth Century. 2011 Ed.

... The central message for a student of history casting his gaze upon the May Uprising, and the Occitan Social Republic, if there is one to be had, is that though, with the movement at their back the time ripe for a revolution, the French radicals were foiled once again in their leadership. However, unlike 1848/49, where there were far too few capable men to take on the role of a central, unitary, figure upon which the revolution could oscillate about, but instead in 1855 the French had far too many. Indeed between 1855 and 1856 no fewer than eighteen different people have been listed as 'leaders' of the May Uprising, from the Battle of Grenoble to the final...

Lefèvre, Benjamin. Departure in the Dark: The Life and Times of Martin Naduad. London: Macmillan Publishers, 1998.

... The journey starts with a line of men, and a few boys not quite grown, in the dark before the sun begins to rise in a watery sky, making their way down a muddy track in central France. They move quickly, making their way in a hauntingly silent march before the day proper begins. They have a long way to go, that day, and for several days ahead. Many of them travel in their loose working clothes that glimmer light through the darkness, bleached by the dust of plaster and stone; others were their stiff Sunday jackets and trousers, made tight after the fashion of the time, and broad-brimmed felt hats. Over their shoulders they carry small packs or bundles on sticks. They are joined along the way by other men, emerging from isolated hamlets and lanes. I do not think they talk much yet. Each has just said goodbye to a household where the children clung to them, the old people loaded them with recommendations, and warnings, and the women cried as if they would never see them again. For many, this would turn out be the final truth. Is is March 1830, and Martin Naduad, who is fourteen years old, is joining his father and uncle for the first time on the long walk to Paris. The maçons de la Creuse, the itinerant builders out of the vastness of central France, are on the move to their building sites in far-off cities.

The Panthéon, the Louvre, indeed much of Paris of the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, which is what we mostly see today after the compete rebuilding of the French capitol under the Second Republic (1), was built by men from the Creuse. For centuries men migrated from this region to work and earn money by building far from home. The eighteenth century saw far greater structures erected in stone than most before in France, and a corresponding steady, if unspectacular, increase in working men moving about the country. This was the era when the concept of the Tour de France was established as a tradition by which members of trade guilds (compagnons) would go on their trabels to perfect their skills in a complex system of apprenticeship (2). The French Revolution drove the compagnons underground. The fractured years that followed dislocated building plans everywhere and kept the masons at home on their small-holdings, when they were not conscripted into the levée en masse. However after Napoléon I came to power there were new projects; in spite of the competiting demands of army service, the mason's own seasonal rhythms were re-established. In the first years of the new century eight of ten thousand men were leaving the Limousin annually for Paris, Lyon, Marseilles, Toulouse, and other major cities...

... But also returning. For the Creusois masons had a characteristic which distinguishes their story from that of the one-way drift to large urban centers which is the tale of all other mature societies. Though by the mid-nineteenth century in one of working age out of every two were leaving their deeply rural homes for Paris and the cities, it was only a temporary abandonment. The mass-departure, like flocking birds, following the retreat of the snows in March were balanced by their return in the late autumn. Towards 1 November, All Saint Day, when building sites were becoming inhospitable and daylight hours too short for employers, who then paid a standard daily rate, the masons would soon set off back again down the long roads to their homes...

... What the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars could not do in some twenty-six years the May Uprising and the French Civil War did in less than half that. However, while the migratory patterns of the maçons de la Creuse were first substantially shifted in the spring of 1855 following the Greater Bourbon Restoration, the root of their final end were laid in the Springtime of the Peoples and the Années des Journées de Juin. Specifically the flight of the previously urbanite, proletarian, radical republicans into the countryside irrevocably changed the landscape of French society. To understand this transformation is the ultimate goal of this work; however the greater process to understanding the metamorphosis of France from the old, centralized, highly partisan society of the final days of the Ancien Régime and the Vormärz to the France of today means first studying the life and times of the Civil War's philosophical father; Martin Nadaud...

McKnight, William. Trans. W. Scott Haine. The Revolutionary Tradition: France in the Nineteenth Century. 2011 Ed.

... Though he did not take part in the Second June Days, Martin Naduad had been one of the more active members of the démoc-socs in the Assembly after being sent there in the early may elections of 1849. He was a critical opponent of not only the Roman Expedition, but also of laws restricting universal suffrage, and in general opposing the policies of Louis-Napoléon. However following the events of the Conservatory Massacre Naduad resigned his post in protest of the government's actions and returned once more to spreading the republican word among the rural population of the south and central valleys. (3) Once more Naduad proved to be critical in raising radical support throughout the countryside, and infusing leftist republicanism with the traditional French culture, including that of the Catholic Church. Many historians believe that Naduad to be the instigator of the Battle of Grenoble based on, admittedly rather flimsy, records which indicate Naduad was in that city between 10 and 20 May. Whether or not he was in fact at the battle is a moot point however, as that is what the folklore surrounding the events. Indeed even to this day a great many French people, even in the north of the country, and often with only a vague idea that the Creuse is 'somewhere in the mountains' will react animatedly to the phrase maçons de la Creuse or to a mention of Martin Naduad. They may even begin to hum or recite a line or two of verse. Tucked away somewhere in their history is the builders, and overtly republican, song which was only written down following the French Civil War, though even then it appears to be based on a much older original. It exists in various versions, but a number of verses are more or less extant;

Là, ils y vont encore,
Arrêt sur leur campagne,
Sur leur chemin vers Paris,
Bourgogne et de Champagne.
Ils sont fiers de ce qu'ils font
Et si leurs mains sont rugueuses
C'est parce qu'ils sont ouvriers du bâtiment,
Ces Creusois forts et résistants.

Il ya Naduad
Et il ya la Provence,
Gascogne et du Languedoc,
et bien sûr le Rhône;
De tous ces braves
La France est assez fière,
Soyons donc reconnaissants à
Ces Creusois forts et résistants...


Martin Naduad, Father of French rural republicanism

... One has to keep in mind that Naduad, and his contemporaries, were not the children-devouring devils that his opponents attempted to paint him as. Indeed many of the wants and desires of the French left in the mid-nineteenth century would appear tame by today's standards. Naduad often advocated fairly simple, straight-forward, proposals that today are not bench-marks of not only French, but European society. This included not only the standard republican fare of the time, such as universal suffrage, a social republic, secularization of teaching, but also, non-surprising given his background as a Freemason, improved public infrastructure throughout France but especially in the south, which has been traditionally neglected by Paris. Indeed more than part of Naduad's popularity and the spread of republican ideals throughout the country, but particularly in the south, throughout the mid-century was the widespread belief, more than somewhat justified, that the government was increasingly concerned only with the goings-on at Paris, and that the provinces were neglected at best, and often times exploited as mere des colonies de la capitale. Of course this had traditionally been the way of it in France, from even before the Revolution, the Restoration, or the July Monarchy, but for those who had grown up in the highly decentralized Vormärz era when the large cities of France such as Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Nantes, Strasbourg, as well as a slew of smaller but still vitally important towns that were rapidly industrial- and urbanizing, making their associated provinces all the more important to the French economy...

... As much as French folklorist might try to persuade one otherwise, Naduad however was not the only radical republican operating in the south and central valleys between the Second Republic and the Civil War. Agricola Perdiguier, a contemporary and often 'co-worker,' so to speak, of Naduad was himself an important figure in the spreading, and acceptance of republican ideals. (4) Already well-known in republican circles prior to the 1848 Revolutions, Perdiguier first entered politics in the late 1820s when he was first sent to Paris as a dignitary of his compagnons, and over the next decade he devoted himself to unifying the various factions of the French worker's movement, finally publishing his [I[Book of Companionship[/I] in 1839, which not only laid out the various duties compagnon, also proposed several methods by which the workers could modernize their guild structures, not only to aid in vocational training and health benefits for retirees but also to develop its role as a fraternal brotherhood benefiting society...

... In the Springtime of the Peoples Perdiguier was elected to the Assembly in both 1848 and 1849, however after the Second June Days and the 18 July plebiscite the mood of Paris changed, and Perdiguier was forced from government finally in the 1852 elections after serving as one of the very few remaining members of the left, where his calls to brotherhood had been increasingly ignored. It was however outside of Paris, more accurately outside of the official halls of government where Perdiguier's political power grew. Although induced to the Supreme Council of France (5) in 1846 Perdiguier had been one of its quieter members throughout the past six years, instead choosing to lead the fight for worker's rights in the public spotlight. However he now returned to the...

Williams, Christopher. Secret Socities Revealed. Atlanta: Whitman Publising, 1992.

... Continuing the reforms they had undertaken, the Grand Orient de France reorganized its system of high Masonic degrees in founding the French Rite of seven degrees. In a circular dated 12 November 1802 the Grand Orient banned the traditional practice of other lodges using rites other than the ascribed rites of Paris in their highest degrees. Initially there was relatively little immediate reactions, as continental Freemasonry had been devastated by the social and political affects of the French Revolution. However, one lodgelodges, the Mother Lodge of Avignon, refused this development and decided to instead convene with representatives of the then recently formed Scottish Rites lodges in the Americas, petitioning them for recognition as the 'Mother Lodge of Scottish Rite of Avignon,' which was accepted in August 1804. This gathering of Scottish masons, coinciding with the birth of the First Empire, presented an opportunity, and soon the Marquis de Tilly, working with the Scottish Rite lodges directly, had established the Supreme Council of France, bringing Scottish Rites Freemasonry to the continent. This would quickly contribute to the transformation of the once...

... However Emperor Napoléon I immediately demanded the merger of these new structures with the Grand Orient. He had already appointed his brother Louis Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Orient the previous year, and was loath to let such a potentially political force exist outside of his family's reach. An agreement was swiftly reached in late December 1804 by which the Scottish Rites were allowed within the Grand Orient, and such 'Scottish Lodges' were allowed to practice their own degrees outside of the French Rite, to the third degree, throughout the imperial period. However the union of 1804 did not survive the end of the Empire, and new divisions took place under the Bourbon Restoration, leading to the Supreme Council once again breaking free of the Grand Orient in 1821, with all degrees in the Council being those of the Scottish Rites. These two faiths then coexisted smoothly for the next thirty years, even famously organizing a joint Masonic party recognized by both the Grand Orient and the Supreme Council in honor of La Fayette, who was a member of both persuasions...

... In the first half of the nineteenth century, in stark contrast to the situation of the late eighteenth, the leadership of the Supreme Council was primarily composed of aristocrats, while those of the Grand Orient were dominated by the bourgeois. This difference brought about a balanced yet noticeable divergence in the tone and character of the two trends of freemasonry, before moving again after 1850, at which time the number of masons of modest means increasingly turned to the Supreme Council - largely in part because of the lower premiums offered by the Grand Orient...

McKnight, William. Trans. W. Scott Haine. The Revolutionary Tradition: France in the Nineteenth Century. 2011 Ed.

... By the spring of Perdiguier was ready to try his most daring feat yet; resting control of the free-masons from the upper classes. Even before the 1848 Revolutions Perdiguier had worked tirelessly to purge French freemasonry and the compagnons of the presence of what he titled a 'third order' of aristocrats and finances in favor of the petite bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Now he set his sights on Élie, duc Decazes, Grand Commander of the Supreme Council (6). Traditionally Grand Commanders serve for life, however the increasingly republican-leaning Supreme Council and Scottish Rites free-masons had become restive in 1855 following the assassination of Le Empereur-Président and the downfall of the Second Republic. Though records of the notoriously secretive societies of free-masonry are scare, what is known is that Perdiguier attempted to wrest control of the Supreme Council from Decazes in early March of 1853, and by August of that year he had left the Supreme Council altogether, taking with him a substantial number of lower degree and junior members, who then flooded the Grand Orient before being expelled from that group in early 1854, once again taking a large swath of the former's membership with them. By the time of the May Uprising Perdiguier was the de-facto leader of the still constituting Federated Lodges of France (FLOF) which would go on to mix the French and Scottish Rites into the new Continental Rites, also known, somewhat derisively as Liberal Rites, which now dominate Freemasonry in Europe and across much of the globe...

... The Great Schism of 1855 is an oft-overlooked chapter in the May Uprising. Though most of the action in 1855 campaign took place in the south of France, there were also limited skirmishes between government forces and pro-republican 'Perdiguiers' in the north and west, particularly in Alsace, and the 17-18 June 'Third June Days' riots in Paris which were brutally put down by a young Elie Frédéric Forey, setting the tone for the later Civil War...

... Among the most important figures of the May Uprising, and subsequent French, and European, history however was one Victor Prosper Considérant. A genius in many respects, young Considérant earned his bachelor's degree at age sixteen, and had graduated with full honors from the Besançon Polytechnic by eighteen. Arriving in Paris he met Fourier (8), and for the next two years Considérant worked with him editing the journals La Phalanstère and La Phalange. In 1828 he moved to Metz to attend the Artillery and Engineering School there, and once again graduated at the top of his class in only four years. Perhaps most importantly it was there that Considérant began to spread his radical ideology. After graduating he returned to Paris to continue his work with Fourier, taking over his school after the master's death in 1837. During the 1848 Revolutions Considérant was elected to the Assembly where he became (in)famous not only for his support of worker's rights but also of other, then, radical ideologies; Considérant was the only member of that body to propose extending the franchise to women. Taking part in the Second June Days Considérant witnessed the events of the Conservatory Massacre first-hand, barely escaping with his own life before fleeing into exile in Belgium...

... Considérant is now, perhaps, best well known outside of academia and historical circles for his publication of the Democracy Manifesto, which became one of the most prominent schools of philosophy among the French sociocrats during the Civil War. In it Considérant outlined both the proportional representative system and the measures of direct democracy, a phrase he coined, such as the referendum and recall. For the uninformed reader who has perhaps never left the confines of Europe or her colonial holdings and allies, and certainly never ventured into the sociocratic states of the world, proportional representation is a system by which the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example if 30% of voters support a particular part than 30% of seats in the body will be won by that party. While this prevents disproportionate outcomes which favor larger, more powerful, political groups the proportional system also leads to fragmentation of the political process, meaning the balance of power is then left in the hands of demagogues and other charismatic individuals who are able to bring together large enough factions of the various multiple small parties. The referendum, initiative, and recall are of course merely the legitimization of the populist mob's formerly illegal but still quite numerous, frivolous, demands, which have now become standard ideological components of the socriocratic world. Indeed Considérant, alongside his contemporaries Proudhon, Engels, Bakunin, among many others who attended the First International, is considered to one of the Founding Fathers of Sociocracy...

Victor Considérant, Father of Direct Democracy

... With the opening blows of the May Uprising Considérant once again returned to France. Arriving incognito in Paris on 27 May he quickly judged that the city was not ready, the worker's there unwilling, to lead a serious effort to rise up against the return of the monarchy after the disastrous defeats in 1848 and 1849. So within a mere three days Considérant left once more, this time to his native Jura. After staying there for little over a week while digesting the many reports flowing to the north from the southern theater, Considérant next returned to Alsace, making contact with his many friends and colleagues in the Artillery & Engineering School which still bared his mark. By 22 June the Alsace Mutiny began in Metz and quickly spread across the province, with protesting bands of workers, students, peasants, and soldiers forcing the city government of the provincial capitol of Strasbourg to capitulate. A revolutionary council committee was quickly established, and here Considérant's ideals of democracy were first put into place, with the revolutionary himself being elected as Chairman, de-jure first among equals but de-facto the final authority on both the civilian and military government of Alsace...

... Perhaps the most famous of all the French radicals in the 1855 period, due in no small part alone to his historic name, was that of Pierre-Napoléon Bonaparte. Born in Rome, the son of Lucien Bonaparte, Pierre-Napoléon continued in his father's footsteps, establishing the division between the republican, sociocratic, Bonapartes and the liberal, imperial, ones of greater fame. Pierre-Napoléon took part in the Italian Uprisings of 1830, along with his cousins Louis-Napoléon & Napoléon Louis (II), before escaping to the United States just ahead of the Papal police. On his return to his homeland in 1835 he was arrested, but managed to escape a year later and took refuge in Great Britain. Pierre-Napoléon took his first step in France in the spring of 1848 when he returned to his family's ancestral lands in Corsica, being elected from there to the Constituent Assembly in Paris. It was due to point of view, both of himself and how others saw him, of an outsider that allowed Pierre-Napoléon to deftly navigate his way between the radicals, moderates, and liberals in the Assembly. Indeed it was Pierre-Napoléon who quickly became the leader of the démoc-socs during the Presidency of his cousin after the Second June Days, and it was there that he earned his formidable reputation as both an orator and opponent for many on the right of the chamber...

... Following his cousin's assassination Pierre-Napoléon's fortunes took a sudden dive, as was to be expected, however he continued to work diligently in the Assembly, leading the republican left in calls for elections to the office of the Presidency, arguing that by the 1849 constitution Léon Faucher's post of the Vice-Président did not automatically elevate him to higher office upon Louis-Napoléon's assassination. Indeed, working with his cousin Jérôme Napoléon ('Plon-Plon') Pierre-Napoléon had almost achieved his aims until the former decided to launch his expedition to Italy. With the Battle of Ciamberì and the death of the 'Prince of the Mountain' in the passes of the Alps Pierre-Napoléon's measure died as well, and soon after the monarchist right overturned the Republic, again installing a Bourbon monarchy. At this Pierre-Napoléon fled Paris, once more just ahead of arrest, arriving in Lyon on 9 June after having lost time throwing his pursuers off his trail. There Pierre-Napoléon found a city already bubbling with class- and nationalist-antagonism just below the surface, and he quickly set out to burst the bubble. The Lyon Riot is often considered to be the first true event of the May Uprising, with Jérôme Napoléon's...

... The Lyon Riot was what finally drove the new government in Paris to react to the situation. Many in the capitol initially believed the upheavals in the south to have been purely against the Bonapartist Expedition through the Rhône valley. While the House of Bourbon and the monarchist-dominated Parti de l'Ordre celebrated the return of the monarchy and Henri's 'light of civilization' to France, the south of the country burned with peasant agitation, and in the cities the Uprising spread with the worker's joining the movement, taking over the factories and businesses where they worked, sometimes destroying the machinery they found threatening to their way of life, but often times turning those very forces of industry against their former masters. Faucher, now Prime Minister, was alone amongst those in Paris who saw the danger, and it was he who, finally on 18 June convinced the king to authorize an expedition to the south under François Certain Canrobert... (9)

Dawles, Richard. Trans. William McKnight. The Victorian Era. Brussels: Writer's Guild, 2007.

... Canrobert's first target was, of course, Lyon. Marching south from France at the head of a core group of just over 12,000, mostly National Guards taken from the capitol for the campaign, by the time Canrobert reached the city his force had swollen to well over 28,000 men, including some seventy guns and two thousand cavalry. Against such numbers Pierre-Napoléon and the Lyonnais radicals could muster only some 17,000 radical workers, students, soldiers, and mostly peasants who would take up arms against the French military and the new monarchy in Paris. However the natural geography of the area worked against the government forces. Though they quickly took much of the 9th and 5th arrondissements on the western side of the city, and made limited gains onto the Plateau de la Croix-Rousse in the initial contacts, it wouldn't be until four days later on 24 June that the authorities were able to cross the Saône. From there however Canrobert's forces still had to tackle the formidable heart of the city; the ancient Presqu'île. From these heights the rebels had the upper hand, and though without cannon of their own, which could have turned the tide of the battle, they were able to create home-made grenades and other incendiary devices, their lack of artillery, and of modern rifles, meant that though the government forces paid for every inch of territory gained in blood, by the morning of 26 June Canrobert stood on the northern Croix-Rousse, and the next evening his men held the western Fourvière. However, the 'hill that works,' traditionally home to many small silk workshops, was re-taken by Pierre-Napoléon's radicals the following morning, and the French army was continually held at the Saône by the radicals in the Fourvière throughout the rest of the battle, even as Canrobert side-stepped the issue by using his cannon to largely level the hilltop, pinning down the radicals there, while the rest of his forces simply moved around the peninsula. Perhaps the greatest challenge to Canrobert in taking the city however was the Place Bellecour, then the largest public square in France, even larger than the Paris rebuilt by Haussmann; the radicals had turned the entire square into a massive death trap into which an entire Army cavalry troop was slaughtered after attempting a charge to force the radicals out...

... Finally on 3 July Canrobert was able to force himself across the Rhône, and from there radical lines still within the city and without largely collapsed. Pierre-Napoléon and his forces fell back along the Rhône to Valence, 105 km south of Lyon. At the same time Canrobert consolidated his grasp over the city while sending word back to Paris asking for reinforcements, for while he had taken the city Canrobert had lost well over a fourth of his men in the process, either dead in the sprawling city streets or too wounded to continue fighting...

The Battle of Lyon, the bloody opening campaign of the May Uprising

(1) See Interlude #1 for more information.

(2) Which is very different from how OTL Tour de France, which grew out of a sporting rivalry between two cycling enthusiasts who also were newspaper editors, and had differing opinions on the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus throughout, and after, the Dreyfus Affair. Of course there ITTL's Tour has very difference cultural connotations, and only resembles OTL in the name. More on this in a later chapter.

(3) Who was first seen in Book #1, Chapter #14. IOTL he was arrested during the coup d'état on 2 December 1851, however the following year he was freed, though banished from France. He went into exile in London, where he taught French at the Wimbledon Military Academy. He returned to France at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, joining the Paris Commune, and afterward being regularly elected to the Assembly on the far-left of the Third Republic until his death in 1898.

(4) Also mentioned in Book #1, Chapter #14, Perdiguier was IOTL elected to the Assembly in spring 1849, only to be exiled to Belgium following the 1851 coup. For the next several years he bounced around the various German states before joining Victor Hugo in Geneva to correspond on Memoirs of a Companion. He was allowed to return to France in 1858, and laid low for some years before rejoining the worker's movement in 1861, bringing the old guilds together for the first time since 1851. He fought for the Paris Commune, being critical there in the organization of the Commune's National Guards, however he died soon after of a stroke. Proudhon famously described Perdiguier as "St. Vincent de Paul's companion."

(5) Which is the highest governing body of the Scottish Rites Freemasonry in France. Note that this is separate from the Grand Orient de France, a schism with its origins in the French Revolution. Traditionally IOTL the GODF was supportive of worker's rights and uprisings, while the SCOF was 'Americanized' to a large extent; today IOTL Scottish Rites Freemasonry is the largest tenet of Freemasonry in the United States, and the world, while continental Freemasonry largely fractured and died off in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

(6) While the highest dignitary of a Grand Lodge of the Grand Orient is called a 'Grand Master,' the equivalent title in 19th century Scottish Rites freemasonry was the 'Grand Commander.'

Élie, duc Decazes was an aristocrat who had briefly served in the cabinet of Louis Bonaparte, but otherwise took no part in either the French Revolution of Napoleonic Empire. However after Napoléon I's downfall in 1814 Decazes declared himself a royalist, and staunchly supported the Bourbon cause throughout the Hundred Days, even personally meeting King Louis XVIII. He was appointed Minister of Police in 1815, suppressing the ulra-royalist White Terror, and in 1819 was briefly made Prime Minister before being forced to retire due to his allegiance to neither the ultras (reactionaries) or the radicals. He sat in the Chamber of Peers throughout the rest of the Bourbon Restoration, and the July Monarchy, during which time he was made Grand Commander of the Supreme Council. After the 1848 Revolutions Decazes retired from public life, but IOTL retained his position as Grand Commander until his death in 1860.

(7) Actually, there is no acute accent on the 'e' in Considerant, a fact that the man had to fight throughout all his life IOTL. Given the 'messier' period he lives in ITTL and his greater role in it, it is easy to comprehend such a simple mistake being repeated both throughout his lifetime and beyond, even by historians.

(8) A traveling salesman and office clerk who became a philosopher in his spare time, Charles Fourier was one of the most influential thinkers in historical utopian socialism of the very early 19th century. Fourier believed that cooperation, and more appropriately cooperation of the working classes, would and should be the secret of social success. By this he believed that workers should be compensated for their labors according to their contributions, and that new, utopian, communities should be constructed of link-minded workers, based on cooperation. He called these communities 'phalanxes,' based around structures called Phalanstères, a type of grand hotel where the richest had the uppermost, and most luxurious, hotels and the poorer had ground floor residence, and where wealth was determined by one's job, which were assigned based on the interests and desires of the individual, but with an incentive system so that menial labor received the most pay. In this Fourier characterized poverty, but not inequality, as the principal cause of social disorder.

Fourier was also an early advocate of women's rights, and of reformation of the education system, ironically along much the same lines as Fröbel.

Though most famous for his above listed work in utopian socialism, Frourier also held another, lesser known, theory of passionate attraction, by which the 'impulse given by nature prior to reflection, and persistent despite the opposition of reason, duty, prejudice' was expressed through twelve radical passions; five sensual, four affectionate, and three organizing. Fourier believed that satisfying all twelve passions could satisfy the innate human need for unity and bring about harmony between man and nature.

(9) The scion of a relative obscure and low-ranked noble family, Canrobert became a royalist émigré at a young age, and his family's few properties were confiscated during the French Revolution. Though he joined the military at a young age Canrobert never showed any great inclination or skill. sent to Algeria in 1835, his first taste of true glory came four years later when he organized a battalion of the French Foreign Legion to be sent to Spain at the tail end of the First Carlist War. He returned to Algeria soon after, only receive the rank of brigadier general in 1850. He was recalled to Paris soon after, where he supported the coup d'état of December 2, 1851, personally meeting Louis-Napoléon, who liked, and trusted, him well enough that Canrobert was entrusted to lead the French Army in the Crimean War after the Battle of Alma; though he resigned his post due to disagreements with his British counterpart, FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan.

[TheBerlinguer]

Poor France! So far from God, so close to the... French.

And it's not even ten years after the POD! I thought I saw a France in that spoilerrific "after-Tripartite-war" map you posted, but I'm starting to question my eyesight.