The Papal States

In truth, while Franz was busy stirring up trouble everywhere, Prime Minister Metternich was not idle either; however, he continued to slide along the historical trajectory toward the Italian region.

In Central Italy, the four states of Parma, Lucca, Modena, and Tuscany were effectively under Austrian control, remaining independent only in name.

Especially with the construction of railways and the establishment of the Apennine Commercial Alliance, the ties between these regions and the Austrian Empire had continuously strengthened, effectively making them a part of the Austrian market.

As for the Kingdom of Sardinia, the most powerful state on the entire Italian Peninsula, it had also entered into multiple marriage alliances with the Austrian Empire and was, to a certain extent, influenced by the latter, at least appearing submissive on the surface.

Ferdinand II of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, due to constant domestic rebellions and a deep-seated fear of death, transformed directly from an extreme liberal into an extreme conservative.

He became so conservative that he turned to isolationism—yes, the very same king who had once built the first railway, the first modern shipping company, and laid the first telegraph line on the Italian Peninsula.

Ferdinand II even went so far as to cut off foreign trade routes out of fear that revolutionaries might land from the sea, ultimately leading to domestic famine and the decline of commerce.

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was too far from the Austrian heartland, and such a neurotic style of governance was naturally not to Metternich's taste; his sights were set on the Papal States.

If Tsarist Russia was the sewer of literacy rates among the great powers, then the Papal States were a bottomless pit of illiteracy among non-great power nations.

The peasants, who made up the vast majority of the