General war in Europe delayed at least a dozen years from 1914 - political evolution in Italy?

......exactly what happens? Dictate for potential discussants what every great power was doing at every moment from 1914-1918 instead of warring with each other?

I've chosen to let participants let their imaginations roam free within a pretty big cage or long leash, in which the only rule is, 'no great power coalition war happened in Europe 1914-1926, you can outline what happened instead, and by the way here's what happened with Italy.'

Let's put it this way, I'll give everyone a starting point - there is no Sarajevo assassination in June 1914 to start the particular Austro-Serb crisis that led to the war we knew in 1914. As for what kept happening to make Europe lucky enough to keep avoiding coalition war for several additional years, that's up to your imagination.



It is but the British naval lead is expanding



Which theoretically could lead to a war of opportunism against Russia if it makes Russia look weak and an enemy power has something they want to take from it.

But in most cases it will make Russia less prone to start wars. And unless the instability is hurting the overall economic growth and military rearmament, war now usually won't sound better than war later for St. Petersburg.



Which in most cases, which make Austria-Hungary less likely to start wars, unless their instability is linked to assassinations sponsored by groups in foreign countries with designs on their territories (like the OTL Sarajevo incident)
Or theoretically could lead to a war of opportunism against them if they have an internal civil war.


Similar situation for these guys, although for the Ottomans, there really has been more precedent for other countries making war on them when they have internal revolts and disturbances (Greek rebellion, Lebanon intervention, Bosnia and Bulgarian revolts, the Cretan revolt - as of 1914, the Armenian situation was probably lined up to be next big excuse). Usually though the European powers developed a common policy or a policy that kept them away from war with each other, just in the nick of time, over the Ottoman succession, through conference that usually usually gave different powers and local rebels small pieces of what they wanted. The time it got most out of control and contagious was the Crimean War -maybe there could have been a 20th century equivalent of that with a different line-up of pro and anti Ottoman powers.

For Italy i see:

1) some type of agreement and rapproachment with the church like OTL, even before the war there were clearly sign that both side government and Church wanted end the situation, in fact we have seen the relaxing of the proibition of the catholic to partecipate at the political life of the nation; in OTL it was lifted officially in 1919 and brought the creation of the Partito Popolare Italiano (future Democrazia Cristiana) IMVHO more or less on the same time maybe even a little earlier can happen here without the war to dictate the political discourse.
2) the socialist will divide themselfs in two party one moderate and one for the hardliner, without the war and the russian revolution is very probable that the moderate one will be the strongest.
3) the liberal party will decrease of importance with the increase of the electorate franchise but will remain important still trying to controll the political life of Italy by allying himself alternatively with the moderate socialist or the catholic depending on the situation.
4) Some modification of the electoral law to increase the franchise will happen and the next battle will be the vote for the women.
5) Benny will try to form his own party probably but without the war i will not see him succeeded, honestly he will probably in the end try to enter in the socialist hardliner party or in the ANI (Associazione Nazionalistica Italiana) that will take the role of the nationalistic populistic party
6) the Triple is dead, everybody knows it, once the last treaty signed expire, Italy is out...it's very probable that the Ottoman Empire will take her place;this doesn't mean an alliance with France but more Italy acting as a wild card and looking for ad hoc alliance but honestly France will be always preferred to A-H,
7) No war will mean that the italian army will have time and resources to deal with the pacification of Libya, it will not be pretty (for the locals) and frankly by the end of the decades it will be over
8) I expect a mini 'great game' between Italy, Russia and A-H for influence in the Balkans and Albania in particular.

Naturally this is very generic because little particular exist as 12 years are almost an eternity in political terms and there were a lot of hot point:

- Franz Ferdinand reform: he knows that reform were necessary but not only many of his idea was unpratical but it was generally disliked and little diplomatic, so A-h can become a powderkeg
- the Irish Home Rule crisis: without the war this will be the prominent political event in the UK and honestly a civil war between catholic and protestant and between moderate and hardliner is very probable.
- Probably a war between the Ottoman and Greece
- Probably a third war in the Balkans

Without butterflies, Franz Joseph will die in 1916, and even with, he probably won't live much longer. Maybe until 1918, to celebrate his 70 years of reigning (and Willy's 30 years at the same time)? And then, it's Franz Ferdinand in charge. Of course, turning A-H into the US of Greater Austria will make him unpopular, and he never was that popular to start with. I mean, when he was shot, few people in Austria were sad. (Contrast that with Rudolph.)

The trouble with no limits is that speculation runs soon into ASB territory. It is hard to to write "realistic" alternate outcomes unless initial start conditions are kind of defined to bumper-rail possible outcomes.



Like that. (^^^) That I can work with. 

For example; I can see Taft dying of a swallowed chicken bone, and Roosevelt trounces that expletive deleted, Wilson. Hiram Johnson succeeds Roosevelt and suddenly RUSSIA has an ally...  

Interesting - what do you think that (F-F's unpopularity and possible controversial decisions after 1916 or 1918) would all mean for Austro-Hungarian stability?  And F-F would be no fan of conflict with Russia, but what would be the reaction of all the neighbors - Germany, Italy, Montenegro, Serbia, Romania...and Russia, to protracted instability in Austria-Hungary starting in 1916 or 1918?

I was not interested in the Italy as described, because that was not the Italy that was.  
I am not sure that the north-south split that dominated Italian politics from 1860 forward down to the present would be put into abeyance by anything less than a WWI. You will note that Mussolini started as a socialist? Most of his initial opposition, the southern Italian agrarian political parties coalitions, were the seeds of his future "fascist" black shirts? Without the Moose, you have The House of Savoy, the northern "socialists" (read communists), the Italian "Combines" who are really Zhaibatsu with a Tuscan accent. Then in the south you have the MOB, the Church and the Agrarians of what used to be the "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies". That remains. Utter chaos.