Was Italy ever close to joining the Central Powers in WW1? How likely is such an action to have changed the course of the war?

by HockeyModsBlow
Klesk_vs_Xaero

Not really.

Forces favorable to an intervention with the Triple Alliance were a small minority already at the time of the Austrian declaration of war - notably the Nationalist association had published a few pro-German pieces during July and August and certain sectors of the Army were more committed to the idea of a cooperation with the German Army (which, after all, had been a part of their strategic doctrine for decades).

Nor the Austrians themselves expected Italy to join their side, since the entire Italian and Austrian cooperation was predicated on the maintenance of balance with mutual compensations for expansion within the Balkans, as expressed in art. 7 of the Triple (since 1891)

Austria-Hungary and Italy, having in mind only the maintenance, so far as possible, of the territorial status quo in the Orient, engage to use their influence to forestall any territorial modification which might be injurious to one or the other of the Powers signatory to the present Treaty.

To this end, they shall communicate to one another all information of a nature to enlighten each other mutually concerning their own dispositions, as well as those of other Powers. However, if, in the course of events, the maintenance of the status quo in the regions of the Balkans or of the Ottoman coasts and islands in the Adriatic and in the Aegean Sea should become impossible, and if, whether in consequence of the action of a third Power or otherwise, Austria-Hungary or Italy should find themselves under the necessity of modifying it by a temporary or permanent occupation on their part, this occupation shall take place only after a previous agreement between the two Powers, based upon the principle of a reciprocal compensation for every advantage, territorial or other, which each of them might obtain beyond the present status quo, and giving satisfaction to the interests and well founded claims of the two Parties.

This concept had already been shaken with the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, which had inspired a certain tolerance from the Austrians in the subsequent Italo-Turkish war of 1911-12 and the special interest of Austria and Italy in the Albanian settlement of 1912-13.

The Austrian occupation of Serbia (and really any substantial expansion of the Austrian influence within the region) carried the potential - according to the Italians - of infringing on the aforementioned article.

At the same time - either for fear of revealing their hand, or confident that the Italians were going to be more amenable after a positive resolution of the crisis - the Austrians had done very little to promote the definition of such a "preemptive agreement", and in fact had kept Italy out of their talks with Germany.

It's also worth noting that the compensations Italy demanded - in order not to denounce the Triple - were significant ones: Trent and Trieste. More so, they insisted on having them as soon as possible, certainly before the end of the conflict (the Italian Foreign Office had good reason to doubt a victorious Austria was going to be much forthcoming after the war). Which for Austria was both a strategic (Trieste was a main port and significant part of their railroad communication) and political need (giving away such a substantial portion of their lands to Italy would certainly weaken their hold on the other national groups - consider that Romania was also negotiating with the Central Powers and asked a large portion of Transylvania).

You can see how problematic already was the way of an agreement to keep Italy neutral.

As for the public opinion, soon after the opening of hostilities it had begun to lean more decisively towards the French and British side - many newspapers of early August 1914 display strong reactions against "the rape of Belgium" and various acts which betrayed German imperialism and aggression policies.

All things considered, it was rather clear that Italy was either to remain neutral or to side with the Entente, as a campaign in favor of the Central Empires was doomed for the start. At this point, even the Nationalists, despite their sympathy for imperialism and authoritarianism, concluded that any war was bettern than no war at all and begun supporting an anti-Austrian war.

That said, the Austrians hoped to keep Italy out of the conflict with more generic promises of revision of their frontier; but their action was somewhat inconsistent, and the Italian Foreign Office committed soon enough to the definition of an agreement with the Allies, with the ambassadors to Berlin and Vienna, Bollati and Avarna being left out of the loop (understandably, Italy's negotiations were rather discreet); so that, when the Germans grew concerned and attempted to pressure the Austrians into giving something to Italy (going so far as to sending their own informal representative to Italy to rekindle certain political relations - and still, only to keep Italy neutral), a good portion of the Italian diplomatic position within the Entente had already been defined.