Although it was Russia that was punished by the Paris Treaty, in the longer term it was Austria that would lose the most from the Crimean War, despite having barely taken part in it. Without its conservative alliance with Russia, which never quite forgave it for its armed neutrality in favour of the allies in 1854, and equally mistrusted by the liberal Western powers for its reactionary politics and ‘soft-on-Russia’ peace initiatives during the war, Austria found itself increasingly isolated on the Continent after 1856. Consequently it would lose out in Italy (in the war against the French and
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