There are only three countries in the world, and Italy accounts for two of them, which are San Marino and the Vatican. Although Italy did not gain much in World War I and World War II, and there were some gaps with countries such as Britain and France, it was still at least a great power. Why, then, after all these years, has Italy not annexed these two small countries?The total area of San Marino is only 607 square kilometers, and the Vatican is even smaller, covering only 044 square kilometers, making it one of the smallest countries in the world.
Despite the small size of these two countries, they have a much longer history than Italy. San Marino is one of the oldest republics in Europe, and in its long history, Italy has not been united, but rather fragmented, so a small country has not attracted much attention. The Vatican, on the other hand, has an even older history. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many large and small kingdoms were formed in the original territory, and the bishops of Rome gradually became the de facto secular rulers of central Italy, forming the Papal States, which at one time reached an area of more than 40,000 square kilometers. However, with the unification of Italy in the mid-19th century and the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the two states of nations became special.
Although Italy annexed a number of small principalities within its borders, San Marino and the Vatican were preserved. San Marino, who had supported Garibaldi in Italy's War of Independence, was content not to have greater ambitions of its own. Thus, Italy and San Marino signed a treaty recognizing the sovereign status of the latter. The Vatican, on the other hand, had a papal state in its heyday, with the support of France, and did not take Italy seriously at all. During the Franco-Prussian War, Italy seized the opportunity to attack the Papal States and occupy the city of Rome, leaving Pope Pius IX trapped in the Vatican, and the Papal States were destroyed. However, even then, Italy did not completely annex the Vatican. This is because Catholicism has a profound influence in Europe, and even in Italy, and if the Vatican is destroyed, it may not be supported by ordinary people at all. On the contrary, such behavior may also provoke resentment from some powerful countries.
Thus, after half a century of confrontation, Mussolini of Italy signed the Lateran Treaty with the Pope, officially recognizing the Vatican as a sovereign state, and its sovereignty is vested in the Pope. The treaty provided that from July of the same year, the Vatican became an independent city-state, with the full name of the Vatican City State, and enjoyed permanent neutrality, and its territory was considered sacrosanct.