Timeline: 1866-1890 (Das Große Vaterland)

A Moment of Silence (1866-1870)
As Austria rebuilds from the wreckage that was its loss to Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War, Chancellor Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust of Austria wished to see Austria resurgent, and Prussia crushed. He sought to make an alliance with the Second French Empire, Austria would only create said alliance if the young Kingdom of Italy was part of the alliance. However, Victor Emmanuel, who wanted to create the alliance, knew his recently established rule would disingrate if he joined, as the Italian popular opinion was heavily against France. France occupied the city of Rome, for the purpose of defending the Pope Pius IX against the nationalistic Italians, and unless France left the city Italy had declared its capital, the alliance could not be created. Pope Pius IX didn't wish to see himself lose the last vestage of power the Papal States had, and refused any deal which Napoleon III proposed.

Von Beust and Napoleon worked together with Victor Emmanuel II of Italy to try and turn the Pope's decision, and went to the Pope's cardinals for help. They worked to put pressure on the Pope, enough so that he'd agree to let the French soldiers leave. Pope Pius IX remained defiant as deal after deal was proposed, but none were acceptable, and left the French, Italians, and Austrians between a rock and a hard place. However, when the Pope's cardinals began to turn their opinions towards knuckling under the political pressure, Pius began to reconsider. He finally gave into negotiating with the political powers that be, who agreed to give him certain financial abilities in Rome, as long as he agreed to recede his authoritative area to the Vatican itself. Pope Pius IX agreed, and the Rome Agreement of 1867 was signed on November 13, and the next day the Italian Army, and therefore the government, was introduced to Rome, now the de facto as well as the de jure  capital of Italy.

With the Roman Questiona answered, the Italian public opinion turned in favor of France when news got out of Napoleon III's role in the compromise. On November 28, 1867, the Triple Alliance of Italy, France, and Austria was created, which was made as an organization against the Kingdom of Prussia, and its allies.

On Christmas Day, 1867, the ironically named Three Kings, Napoleon III of France, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, and Franz Joseph I of Austria met in Vienna to discuss the possible outcomes and effects of a war with Prussia. The same day, the King of Prussia, Wilhelm I, met with the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in Berlin along with the Prussian General Staff. Von Bismarck, also Foreign Minister of Prussia, needed to set a common reaction for Prussia and its allies to follow. They resolved that to counterattack the threat of a surrounded Prussia, they needed a method of breaking the alliance, or of creating their own. As Prussia's North German Confederation was the reigning powerhouse of Germany, the southern states of Germany, Baden, Wurttemberg, and Bavaria remained mostly neutral to the simmering tensions.

However, on January 27, 1868, Prussia and the southern states established the Council of Germany, an interlocking foreign policy group, created out of the German states. The Council met in the city of Frankfurt, and deemed that the threat of the Triple Alliance likely applied to all of the German states. They agreed to begin a series of military integration projects in the case of warfare, and the general staffs of all the member nations met constantly in Frankfurt.

But Bismarck had grown to be distrustful of the Bavarians, and feared they were in league with the Austrians, as they had been in the Austro-Prussian War. He feared that if their military secrets were being leaked to the enemy, then the structural integrity of the Prussian Army was being compromised. He had discussed the possibility of this occuring often with the King, who agreed that something had to be done to keep the Bavarians in their subordinate place. They agreed that in this case, they needed a larger ally to secure the safety of the Kingdom of Prussia, and sought Italy as their target.

Betrayal in the Midst
As the political battlefield of Europe began to grow, Bismarck sought to turn Italy into a Prussian ally, rather than a Franco-Austrian one. He knew that even though the appearant stance of the Italians was pro-Austrian, they were likely still suspicious of the Austrians, after years of fighting them for independence. He correctly assumed if Prussia could offer them a better deal, the Italian government would turn towards Prussian favor. However, if any deals were to be made, it was possible the Council of Germany would stand in his way, as all foreign policy decisions had to be universal, and that the Bavarians would stand in his way. In this case, Bismarck instead decided that he would send the telegraph secretely to the Italian government, without the knowledge of Wilhelm I. He offered the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel II that if they would secretely join into an alliance with the Kingdom of Prussia, they would be given the Austrian Illyrian provinces upon a victory over the Austrians, and also argued that because the Italians had no land connection to Germany, that they stood nothing to gain from defeating them.

Secret backroom talks openned up betwen Bismarck and Victor Emmanuel II, and he knew if the talks were found out, that Wilhelm may have Bismarck evicted from office, or worse. In the end, on August 2, 1868, Bismarck met with King Wilhelm I and told him that he had secured the prospect of a secret alliance with the Kingdom of Italy. Wilhelm agreed with von Bismarck that if Italy were kept as a double agent in the opposing Triple Alliance, it served to benefit the two countries even moreso. The Council of Germany, having failed in its purposes to the Prussians, was disbanded in late 1868, and a secret deal signed by Wilhelm and Victor Emmanuel on November 20.

A secret system of contacts were established between the two governments, but they needed to define a common strategy against the French and Austrians. They decided to quickely defeated the Austrians with their combined forces in the east, while fighting off possible French attacks in the west. From there they would move their complete efforts against France, and from there they would secure a treaty ending the theoretical war.

The Last Chance For Peace
As 1869 dawned, the two sides of the conflict worked around the clock on the surface to see to it that no war would happen, while underneath, a secret world of treaties and agreements developed between the four powers. Prussian popular opinion was heavily against the French, who many believed to be the last major roadblock on the way to a single Germany. The popular idea was that if the French could be defeated, then no power on the continent of Europe would remain that was equal to, or greater than, a unified Germany. The public opinion was also well shared with the General Staff, much of whom believed war with France was inevitable. But still, the foreign ministry under Otto von Bismarck kept trying to reach a detente with the French and Austrians. But working against them was many historical rivalries and conflicts that pushed the two towards war.

France was under the threat of seeing the power of Prussia overwhelm their own, and Napoleon III needed to secure his empire, still relatively young, as the ruling power of France. Napoleon was elected to the presidency of France in 1848 to a government ruled by Bourbon monarchists and staunch republicanists. After his ascension to the monarchy in 1852, he faced deep opposition, and by 1870 though he was inevitably in the midst of a popular revolution that would uproot his government. He needed a big event that would prove his ability as a leader, and that would save his position in French politics. Austria still sought revenge against Prussia for their loss in the 1866 war, and for this purpose, sough its alliance with France and Italy. But soon began immeadiate events that turned the mass of opinions against eachother, and began the steady road to a great war.

In 1868, a Revolution in Spain overthrew the Queen Isabella II of Spain, and the new government sought to establish Leopold, a cousin of King Wilhelm, as the new King of Spain. But Napoleon III fought against the decision, knowing a Hohenzollern in the east and in the west would encircle him, leaving France on the losing end of a possible war. Leopold, facing political pressure, declined the offer, but tensions rose nonetheless between France and Prussia.

After the Hohenzollern Crisis began to settle down, the Ems Dispatch Crisis began. After the mistranslation of a dispatch that the Chancellor Bismarck had sent to King Wilhelm I of the French ambassador's demands after the Prussians backed down in the previous crisis. The French wanted certain things to ensure the Prussians would remain out of the affairs of Spain and its monarchy. Following the editing of the document by Chancellor von Bismarck, who ached for war with France, the message he gave to Wilhelm was that the French ambassador had made a direct insult to the Prussian king. After the Dispatch was published, the public opinion turned heavily towards anti-French sentiment, and on July 19, 1870 France declared war on Prussia, with support from Austria, and originally from Italy.

The War of Nations (1870-1872)
As the situation that became the War of Nations unfolded, the four participants chose sides, beginning with Austria declaring war on Prussia on July 25, now they just waited for Italy to declare war. Italy did declare war on July 27, but not on Prussia, instead, to their allies' suprise, on the French and the Austrians. They mobilized to begin their war with Austria first, as per the plans they coordinated with Prussia, and the element of suprise was their best weapon. As the hold of the Italians betrayal set in, the war began to unfold into a war that would make and break entire nations. On August 4, the Italo-Prussian invasion of the Austrian Empire began, much the same as it did in the previous war, turning appearant favor against the war for Austria.

See: War of Nations