The Entente Realigns Italy, 1915
This chapter investigates the entente's successful attempt in 1915 to promote Italy's defection from and intervention against the Central powers. First, the entente sought to achieve a high degree of alignment change: to convert Italy from a hedged neutral into a cobelligerent against its former allies. The theory expects that this would be a difficult alignment goal to achieve, because Italy would face high costs both for reneging on its alliance and for entering the war. To achieve this goal, then, the entente needed to provide strong rewards to offset those costs and outbid Italy's erstwhile allies. Yet, the entente allies faced high alliance constraints, which, if they disagreed about Italy's strategic weight, would make it hard for them to concert such rewards. Despite initial differences, the entente allies did come to agree that Italy had war-tipping potential, and as the theory expects, they struck side bargains with each other in order to coordinate a powerful bid that well exceeded the bribes offered by Italy's erstwhile allies. This enabled the Italian government to defend a decision to intervene despite significant neutralist opposition, thus giving the entente what it sought.