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| - 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 disintegrate 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
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| abstract
| - 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 disintegrate 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 vestige 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 to 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 Question 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 occurring 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.
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