Italy's Case Against the Jugo-Slavs

(Written by Felice Ferrero, taken from the journal “Italy Today: A Fortnightly Bulletin”, Volume 2, Issue 2, 1919.)

An Address made by Dr. Felice Ferrero in answer to Mr. V. R. Savic at a Luncheon organized by the League for Free Nations.

In order clearly to understand the Italian position in the so-called Adriatic question, we must state first what is the real political status at present of the Jugo-Slavs. This point has been brought out already several times in the press, but it is necessary to insist upon it because it has a good deal of bearing upon the whole question. As you doubtless know, the Jugo-Slav state does not exist; neither the United States, nor Great Britain, nor France, nor Italy, have recognized the Jugo-Slav state, although they have all expressed their sympathy with the Jugo-Slav aspirations. The Jugo-Slavs accuse Italy of being the real obstacle to such recognition and it is quite possible that such is the fact, but we shall see that there are many very good reasons for it.

As things now stand, we have the old kingdom of Serbia, which is one of the Allies and will be represented at the peace conference. On the other hand we have a group of populations composed of Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Herzegovinians and Dalmatians who are part of an enemy country; who to the effects of international law are still an enemy population, and who are waiting for the peace congress to decide what shall be done with them. In this decision they, as well as the other parts of the Austro-German Empire dr, Germany, have no voice at all. It is for us, the Allied countries, and more precisely for the four Great Powers, to say what their fate shall be. There is no doubt that the verdict of the congress of peace will be that those people, in so far as they make up a compact national unit, shall join their Serbian kinsmen to form a greater state therein to enjoy a full national life, if their internal quarrels will allow. When, however, it comes to territories, where such people do not form a compact national unit, but are mixed with Italian populations, that is to say, to the Adriatic provinces, the question as to what should be done with such regions is already settled by the all too famous and much abused Treaty of London.

Validity of Treaty of London

Before I go any further into the discussion of the Treaty of London, I should like to indulge in a few general considerations concerning the reception that the treaty has been given in the world at large. The Jugo-Slav agitators in this country and in Europe would like to give the impression that the treaty is null and void because it was a secret treaty, and this being the dawn of the wonderful era of democracy and people's brotherhood, secret treaties are not allowed. I should like to call your attention to the fact that, so far, such view has been expressed officially only by the Premier of Serbia and the Premier of Greece, two countries in which, as is unfortunately the case of most Balkanic countries, political good faith is usually held in very low esteem. As a matter of fact the treaty still exists and none of the signing powers have expressed any intention of not honoring it. The Minister of Foreign Affairs in Great Britain, Mr. Balfour, has solemnly declared in Parliament that any treaty bearing the signature of the British Government is sacred to Great Britain; and no opposition has arisen on the part of the French Government, although the Jugo-Slavs, by the very reprehensible game of stirring up ill feelings between allies in favor of an enemy, have succeeded in creating a certain current in their favor in part of the press of all countries.

As for the United States, it is futile to say that the fact that it was not a party to the compact makes it free to help the cause of the enemy Croatians against allied Italy. If my information is correct the United States was informed of the existence of the treaty when it entered the war and raised no objection to it; then actually implicitly accepted it by sending troops to the Italian front. The number of American troops at the Italian front was, it is true, quite small; but again, if I am correctly informed, the American Government had decided to send, and Secretary Baker had ordered, very large contingents to the Italian front, when the order was suspended and withdrawn because of certain opposition which for the moment I need not discuss further, as this is not quite pertinent to the subject in hand.

It is rather unpleasant to have to remind people of a debt of honor, because such things are supposed to be unnecessary among gentlemen. If anyone will say that, circumstances having changed, the signatures of France and England are no longer good, I shall not argue the question with him. I shall remind him that the war which devastated Europe was possible only because of an act of international bad faith on the part of Germany, which alone brought the intervention of England in the war; and also that the cause of the entrance of the United States in the war was not, as people often say, the championship of any principles of democracy but again an act of international bad faith on the part of Germany in not keeping her submarine agreement. International laws and relations are based on good faith, as there is no other possible force to enact international agreements; and it would be a sad league of nations, indeed, or a poor peace, indeed, that would begin with such an act of bad faith as the violation of a treaty.

The Slav's Threat of War

The Serbian and Jugo-Slav agitators would like to have us believe that a settlement of the Adriatic question according to the Treaty of London would mean certain war in the future; in fact, they threaten us with war to the knife if we dare to think of it. I am quite sure that the Jugo-Slavs and their friends need not worry about possibilities of war. This peace, like every other peace, will have the germs of the next war in it, no matter what we do. Without going any further, Alsace-Lorraine will be sufficient excuse for a powerful Germany of the future to start trouble whenever she feels strong enough for it, not only because of national claims, but because of the very important fact that the transfer of Lorraine to France will have given to France the best iron deposits of Germany and 80 percent of the total iron production of Europe. And the rivalries of the small states which are rising all through Eastern and Central Europe, making of it an immense Balkanic peninsula, will be enough to give food for thought and occupation for armies for centuries to come, unless some way can be found of keeping them down.

The threat of war on the part of Premier Vestnich, of Serbia, strikes me as either funny or pitiful, according to the point of view. We know very well that Serbia has a little army left — the army which Italy saved for her after the tragic retreat of Albania by transferring it to Corfu and then to Salonica — but it might be well to remind the Premier that all the manhood of military age of Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia and of Slovenia is held prisoner in Italy, and that Italy has been supplied by the collapse of the Austrian army, which was made up of one-third of Croatians, with enough guns, ammunitions, horses, motor trucks, airplanes, gasolene and ships to keep in order for a long time to come not only little Serbia, but greater Serbia, or a fellow many times her size. But the threat seems to me too absurd to consider it further, even as a jest.

Conciliatory Faction in Italy

The Treaty of London, then, stands as it is. The intemperance, however, of the Jugo-Slavs in putting forth their claims has stirred up a counter current of nationalism in Italy which goes much beyond the limits of the Treaty of London and claims, besides Fiume, the whole of Dalmatia, and, beyond, Ragusa and Cattaro. I should not be surprised if these claims were recognized by the peace congress, and if so, the Jugo-Slavs will have only to thank their own work for it.

The Jugo-Slavs and their friends tried to make much of the fact of supposed dissension in the Italian public concerning the Treaty of London. The party of conciliation with the Jugo-Slavs, which the Jugo-Slavs have very wrongly interpreted as a party of renunciation, is headed by the Corriere della Sera of Milan. Inasmuch as I have belonged to the editorial staff of the Corriere since my college graduation and I am still connected with it, I may claim the privilege of giving you some exact information as to what the polemics started by the Corriere last fall exactly mean in this matter. The Corriere and its followers never meant to abandon the claims of Italy to Trieste, Gorizia, Gradisca and Istria; lately the Corriere has added Fiume to the claims of Italy, about which no discussion is even admitted. The Corriere said, however, that in view of the evident advantages of conciliation and friendly relations with the neighboring Slav state-to-be, it might be advisable to compromise on the question of Dalmatia by allowing the Croatians to control Dalmatia on condition, however, that the necessary guarantees be given for the protection of the Italian element living there. That was all.

And this is also the standpoint that I have supported in this country, strenuously enough to bring upon my head, on the part of the Italian press, the accusation of being a pro-Slav; but I must sincerely confess that given the tone of the Jugo-Slav agitation, I very much fear that no matter what the Italians might be willing to concede for the sake of conciliation, no conciliation is possible, and I doubt very much besides whether the arrangement suggested by this conciliatory party would be of any greater satisfaction to the Croatians than the intransigent behavior of Minister Sonnino. This party of conciliation, in fact, would require, as I said, absolute guarantees for the Italian element in Dalmatia, failing which they would approve of armed intervention to secure them.

Since the Croatians of Dalmatia, short of a miracle, are not to be depended upon to respect other nationalities, as I shall show you later on the basis of documents, this would mean a clash between Italy and the future Jugo-Slav state within a very few years, and with such prospect in view I think it would be a safer proceeding to settle the matter now along the clearer, if apparently stiffer, lines of the Sonnino program. 

Pact of Rome

There has been a tendency on the part of the Jugo-Slavs toward accusing Italy of, let us say, forgetfulness, because of that Pact of Rome of last winter which was supposed to have established an agreement between Italy and Slavs. I shall say, however, that that Pact of Rome expressly excluded any question of territorial boundaries and simply formulated a program of action by which the oppressed nationalities of Austria should co-operate in the destruction of the Austrian Empire. This was accomplished, but it is regrettable to say that while all the other oppressed nationalities did their part, the Croatians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Slovenes and Dalmatians did not; they fought with the Austrian Empire and for the Austrian Empire until the last, running out of the house and seeking shelter in the bosom of the Allies only when they heard the timbers of the roof crash over their heads. Under the circumstances, little consideration is due to them for the results.

And now let us examine very briefly the arrangements of the Treaty of London, as far as they apply to the Adriatic. There are two separate parts of the Adriatic provinces which the Treaty of London gives to Italy; one is the northern part including Gorizia, Gradisca, Carinthia, part of Carniola, Trieste and Istria — to these now Fiume has added itself by its own plebiscite. The other is Dalmatia.

As far as the first part is concerned, I beg to state that no differences of opinion exist in the mind of any Italian; that part is occupied, will be retained, and no discussion is at all admitted by any Italian party of any kind. Only as a matter of extreme courtesy, I will allow myself to take up a few arguments which may be of interest in this question.

Population of Disputed Area

The reason why Italy insists on the possession of these regions is twofold. First, because the country is inhabited by a large Italian population, amounting to about one-half of the total, which has been long persecuted and oppressed by Austria, especially through the medium of the Slovene population. It might be of interest to you to know that irredentism in Trieste is a matter of comparatively recent times. ... With the advance of Italy toward the East and the freeing from Austrian dominion of Lombardy and Venice, Austria entirely reversed its policy and began a most determined attempt to stifle the Italian character of Trieste and neighboring countries by helping and encouraging the national invasion of the Slovene population. A state of political tension followed which I shall describe later, and resulted in a Slovene oppression of the Italian city and the development of a powerful feeling of irredentism in its Italian population.

The case of Fiume is even more conspicuous, as Fiume has always been a free city strongly animated by feelings of local freedom. The irredentism of Fiume which led to its declaration of union with Italy practically dates from the declaration of the war and the regime of violence which under the protection of the Austrian Government was instituted in the city by the Croatian element. Such feeling is now so strong that the Mayor of Fiume solemnly declared in Rome that should Fiume be assigned by the peace conference to Croatia, the entire population of Fiume would rather migrate than stay, and other officials of the city, not constrained by the necessity of keeping parliamentary language, put it more bluntly by saying that the Fiumans would rather go to hell than be with Croatia.

A curious thing is to be noted here. I said that the population of those regions is about half Italian and half Slav. According to the Slavic figures it is exactly 439,413 Slavs and 354,595 Italians. It must be remarked, however, that these figures are based on a revised census of 1910 for the city of Trieste — an interesting instance, this, which I shall explain to you later — the first census taken that year giving Trieste 24,000 more Italians and therefore 24,000 fewer Slavs — that is with a shift of 48,000 in the proportions of the two parts of the population. This shift would bring the total Slav population down to 415,000, and the total Italian up to 378,000. If we add to these 35,000 Italians and the 10,000 Slavs of Fiume, we should reach the final figures of 413,000 Italians against 425,000 Slavs, which figure, however, includes a few thousand Germans and Hungarians of Trieste, Fiume and Pola. In other words, the population is about equally divided.

The curious thing is that the Jugo-Slavs and their friends, while they accuse Italy of imperialism for its intention to incorporate 425,000 Slavs in this region, apparently think nothing of the fact that the Jugo-Slavs would like to include 413,000 Italians in their own territory.

The facts on which the whole question of the population hinges, Italians and Jugo-Slavs substantially agree upon. The Jugo-Slavs admit that the majority of the cities is Italian, and the Italians agree that the majority of the country[side] population is Slav; in what exact proportions it really does not matter. We also agree that it is practically impossible to separate the cities and the hinterland. The question then is: shall the cities go with the country, or the country with the cities? In the world of hypothesis the Italian claim that the country must go with the cities is as good as the Slav claim that the cities must go with the country.

Frontier Question

But the Italians have some other and better reasons in their favor, chief of which is the protection of their frontiers. By extending the boundaries to the main divide of the Alps in Southern Tyrol and in the East, Italy has secured for herself absolute protection against any possibility of foreign invasion. The war has proved that no army, no matter how powerful, can cross a well defended mountain chain. The Russians failed in the Carpathians, the French and Germans failed respectively in the Vosges, the Austrians failed on the Trentino side of Italy and the Italians failed on the eastern side. The only chance for the invasion that devastated part of Italy for a year was exactly through the open door of the East. You may rest assured that Italy, having now conquered by force of arms, the eastern door to her house, will not relinquish it.

[...]

Suppression of Italians in Dalmatia

As to Dalmatia, the story is a little bit different, but only apparently so. It is true that the overwhelming majority of the population is Croatian, with the exception of the city of Zara, which is Italian-note the curious fact that the capital of a Slavic province has remained Italian in spite of all things done to change it but it will not be amiss to remember that Dalmatia was for three centuries part of the Republic of Venice, that from 1815 to 1866, during the first part of the Austrian occupation, Dalmatia was still connected with the provinces of Lombardy and Venice, that Italian was the official language of the courts, of all public offices and of the schools. Until about 1870 Italians and Slavs in Dalmatia lived in very good harmony, the Slavs accepting the influence of Italian civilization, going to Padua and not to Agram [Zagreb] for their college studies, and generally recognizing the historical necessity of the Italian character of Dalmatia.

It might interest you to know that Nicolò Tommaseo, a Dalmatian who wrote (in Italian) a lyric to the Greater Serbia which would come in the future, and who became one of the greatest grammarians of Italy, wrote in 1837 the following lines to Cesare Cantù: “I am Italian because I was born of Venetian subjects, because my first language was Italian, because my great-grandmother's father came to Dalmatia from the valleys of Bergamo. Dalmatia virtually is more Italian than Bergamo, and I at heart am more Italian than Italy.” And let me also quote from a Croatian newspaper of Spalato, the Nase Jedinsto of December, 1910: “We no longer study Italian and great is the danger that comes from this, especially among the young people.”

Affairs changed in Dalmatia, at the same time as in the north and for the same reason, in about 1870, and in the new generations of Croatians, helped and egged on by the Austrian Government, grew the fierce, almost savage, spirit of aggressive nationalism that had only one program: destroy everything, and with all means, that was not Croatian. With the help of the Government they suppressed Italian as the official language in offices, they suppressed the Italian schools, they suppressed the Italian courts, they even forced Italians that have to do with courts to stand proceedings in Croatian without any interpreter, and to have all documents concerning property, like mortgages, transfers, etc., written and registered in Croatian. It is a very easy argument, of course, on the part of the Croatians to say that we must deal with conditions as they are now and not as they were. That is the comfortable argument by which Germany tried to persuade the world that the occupation of Belgium was no longer to be discussed; but it is not unnatural that many in Italy should want not only to recall a past which dates back only about forty years—about the time of the Alsace-Lorraine occupation-h also investigate the methods with which some of the results of the present day have been achieved. I do not see, therefore, that the matter of the present make-up of the population of Dalmatia should be any obstacle to the Italian occupation.

Italy, on the other hand, has some important reasons, also of a military nature, for the occupation of those lands, and especially of Sebenico, which is the best harbor of the Adriatic after Cattaro. Slavs accuse Italy of wanting to make of the Adriatic an Italian lake. That, however, is not the idea of Italy. What Italy wants to do is to make the Adriatic a sea in which there is no foreign navy to threaten her coasts, nor any possibility of such a foreign navy being developed; with the occupation of the harbors of Pola, Sebenico, possibly Cattaro, and the control of the entrance to the Adriatic through the occupation of Valona, such result is very definitely and positively obtained. “But whoever threatens Italy?” say our Croatian neighbors, who alternately play the role of the lamb and the lion according to the effect desired. The Croatians with their Serbian friends have struck such a belligerent tone that any measure of protection on the part of Italy would be, by this very fact, justified in the eyes of all peoples.

The Russian Peril

That is not all. We come here to a very interesting argument, which has to do with the present situation of of Central and Eastern Europe and the possibilities of their future. For one thing I read in the book of my esteemed opponent, Vladislav R. Savic, the following passage: “It is of no small concern to Italy and the world which road the future Russian policy will take; will she develop like a sincere, broad-minded, peaceful and tolerant democracy, or be eaten by the cancerous desire of world domination? ... In vain Italians would say tomorrow that imperial Russia had consented to their occupation of those Slav lands ... Unable to hinder the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria, Prince Gorchakov, at the Congress of Berlin is reported to have said to Count Andrassy: 'Well, go in, but Bosnia and Herzegovina will prove to be the tomb of Austria-Hungary. Are the words of Prince Gorchakov to Count Andrassy no warning to Italy?'”

Here we see our Jugo-Slav neighbors threatening us the resurrection and the vengeance of Russia. But, gentlemen, the possibility of Russia's reaching the Adriatic shore through the lands of the Southern Slavs, acting either as her allies or as her vassals, was exactly one of the reasons that prompted the claims of Italy at the time of the Treaty of London, a reason which the contracting parties then and most writers now acknowledged to be very good. The danger is then still impending, it seems. Why should the Italian policy change, then, if such is the condition?

But there is something more that I should like to call to your attention.

Revival of Austrian Empire

The Jugo-Slavs will be a small power and to Italy, at least, an inoffensive state, it is said. Granted. But there is something behind and beyond the Jugo-Slav state that must be considered. I have recently, in a statement to the press, accused the Croatians of making Austrian propaganda by their trying to stir up trouble and ill feeling among the Allies. This, gentlemen, is not idle talk, is not chasing of spooks. The revival of the Austrian Empire in the original form, only enlarged, is far from being a remote contingency. We heard a few days ago President Masaryk of Czecho-Slovakia openly declare that one of the purposes of the foreign policy of Czecho-Slovakia would be the formation of a Danube Confederation, to which the Germans of Austria will be also admitted, if they so desire, the center and directing power of such federation to be in Prague. Gentlemen, this is nothing more and nothing less than Austria as it was, with the addition of Serbia; the only difference being the ingenuous belief of President Masaryk that if the Germans of Austria are admitted to the confederation, the Slavs of Czecho-Slovakia could even for one moment retain the controlling position in the confederation as against the active organizing and executive powers of the Germans of Vienna.

[...]

To come now to a conclusion, the situation is really a very simple one. It is not possible to dispose of the Adriatic coast without putting Slavs under Italian control or Italians under Slav control; it is only a matter of who should get first consideration. That Italy has the right to this first consideration is something that very few people will doubt in view of the facts and of the considerations already stated. I have been myself a partisan of the conciliatory policy suggested by the Corriere della Sera, as I stated before, and in this sense I have spoken at Columbia, at City College of New York, in cities outside of New York, and have written on many occasions; but I fear me that in view of the attitude assumed by our Croatian enemies, and I regret to add by our Serbian friends, a conciliation will be It difficult to reach. very seems to me that the cry which the Jugo-Slavs are trying to pass for the exultant voice of a new-born nation is nothing more than the ugly growl of a dog who sees a fat chunk of meat taken away from him and knows besides that the big stick of his master is no longer there to defend him in the enjoyment of his improperly acquired meat. I still hope against hope, but I must say the Adriatic question is a question that concerns Italy and the Jugo-Slavs — nobody else — and the next move for a good understanding must come from the Jugo-Slav side and in the proper frame of mind, that is of modesty and repentance; as far as I know Italy has done everything that she could do.

See also:

Documents on Austrian and Slav Oppression of Italians

Dalmatia by Dr. Roberto Ghiglianovich

(Written by Roberto Ghiglianovich, taken from “The Journal of American History”, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1919.)

The Honorable Roberto Ghiglianovich is the representative of the Italians of Dalmatia. For the last thirty years he has been a Member of the Dalmatian Diet; he is a former President of the Political Association of the Italians of Dalmatia and of the Board of Directors of the National League for their Italian schools. During the War he was a Member of the Board of Directors of the Political Society of Unredeemed Italians in Rome. A man of his calibre would naturally be a shining target for the Austrian police, who hounded him ceaselessly and finally triumphed in an order for his arrest. This he forestalled by his escape to Italy in March, 1915.

It is a constant source of grief to the Italian Dalmatians to recall how near they had come to attaining their goal of unity with Italy when Garibaldi, in 1866, had actually planned the expedition for their liberation, in which he was supported by Premier Ricasoli. Garibaldi conceived of this as a continuation of the general programme of Italian unity and freedom. The unfortunate events that followed cut short the cherished hopes of Garibaldi and his Dalmatian brothers. The latter always assumed that, in any martial activities for liberation and Italian unity, they were to take their share of dangers and hardships equally with the Italians of the Kingdom. They proved this gloriously in 1848, in 1859, and 1866. The following clear statement of Dr. Ghiglianovich is full of inevitable suggestion.

– The Editors.

DALMATIA

By Doctor Roberto Ghiglianovich

Member of the Dalmatian Diet

After making my escape to Italy in March, 1915, I had the joy of returning to my native country with Admiral Millo, the hero of the Dardanelles, whom the Italian Government had named Governor of Dalmatia. I landed with him first at Sebenico and then at Zara. The two cities, and the Dalmatian Islands, had been occupied a few days before by the Italian land and sea forces. When we landed, the Italians at Sebenico received us with manifestations of joy. I found my native city, Zara, in ecstasy after the signing of the Armistice in November, 1918. Its streets were all bedecked with thousands of Italian flags. When the Italian battleship arrived, with the Commander who had occupied Zara several hours before the signing of the Armistice, the entire population of the city gathered along the shore. Young and old, women and children, knelt devoutly, blessing Italy, their liberator!

When Admiral Millo spoke to the crowd from the balcony of the Municipal Palace of Zara, public demonstration knew no bounds. The entire population swore eternal allegiance to the Mother-Country, Italy, and to her glorious and victorious King. The Italians of the Dalmation Islands received the Italian forces of occupation with the same joyful acclaim. Thanks to the provisions made by the Italian Governor, after the first difficulties of feeding the population were overcome, and after dealing with Bolsheviki soldiers and prisoners whom Austria scattered through the interior of the country, life assumed its normal aspect. Food is plentiful there, and land and sea communications are being reestablished. Public administration and schools have resumed their regular work. The conduct of the troops of occupation is correct in every respect. Even the rural Slavs of the interior are receptive and appreciative.

But the joy of all the liberated Italians is far from unalloyed. The chief city of Dalmatia, Spalato — the city which bears so long and sad a history of struggles for the triumph of Italian sentiment in Dalmatia — has not been occupied by the Italian Army and Navy. It was not included in the line of the occupation of Dalmatia as traced by the conditions of the Treaty of Armistice between Italy and Austria-Hungary. At Spalato there is now a provisional Croatian government, acting under directions from the National Committee of Sagabria [Zagreb]. With unheard-of violence, they suppress every demonstration on the part of the large and important Italian element of the city. Italian and foreign newspapers have published for American and Allied public opinion news of the outrages committed against the Italians at Spalato. Their tragic fate can easily be foreseen if their city should not be reunited to Italy as Zara, Sebenico, and the Dalmatian Islands will be.

As an evidence of the persistently Italian character of Spalato, and of the ardent longing of the Italians at Spalato to have their city joined to Italy, the following incident will be enlightening. Only two days after the signing of the Armistice, about 5,000 Italians in Spalato became members of the National Association of the “Dante Alighieri” of Rome, which, since its foundation about thirty years ago, has been ceaseless in its efforts to uphold the sacred Italian aspirations among which, just like the Trentino, Venezia Giulia, Trieste, and Fiume, Dalmatia has always largely figured.

Dalmatia has been as Italian as Rome and Venice for 2,000 years. It was Roman up to the time of the fall of the Roman Empire; then it constituted itself into free communities, thoroughly Latin and Italian in character. It belonged to the Republic of Venice from 1409 to 1797, in which year it was given by Napoleon to Austria, together with Venice and Istria.

In spite of the barbarous methods employed by Austria from 1866 to the day of her disruption, in order to bring about forcibly a preponderance of Croatian population in Dalmatia, the Italian sentiment there is very much alive. This fact should be recognized and given serious consideration. Dalmatia has nothing of the Balkan and Eastern character. One has only to see its cities and be genuinely in touch with its populations in order to be convinced that Rome and Venice did not influence them externally only, but left indelible marks of Italian thought and culture upon them. Italy, therefore, has not only a legal claim, but a spiritual hold over the country.

See also:

Fiume by Dr. Gino Antoni

Trieste by Giorgio Pitacco

Fiume by Dr. Gino Antoni

(Written by Gino Antoni, taken from “The Journal of American History”, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1919.)

The Honourable Gino Antoni was born in Fiume and for the last twenty years has had but one purpose in life: to aid his fellow Italians in restoring their city to its motherland. In 1914 and the following year a goodly number of impetuous, daring Fiumans, with loyalty in their hearts and the glorious vision of union with Italy before their minds, braved the dangers of crossing the frontiers, for the joy of fighting beside the Italians. On the Isonzo and in the Alps they fought and died, happy in a death that found them on their own soil at last. Volcanic feeling was not only finding expression on the battle-fields, but among the civilian Fiumans who had succeeded in escaping from Magyar tyranny, and among those of their fellow-citizens who were in Italy before the War broke out. To be ready for the long-prayed-for hour, they formed a National Committee for Fiume and the Quarnaro. The cup for which they had bravely lived and bravely died was at their very lips, but it proved to be filled with the waters of Tantalus. But the bitterness of disappointment only whetted their determination, leaving their spirit uncrushed, undaunted. Doctor Antoni speaks for himself and his fellow-citizens. 

– The Editors.

FIUME

By Doctor Gino Antoni

Vice-Mayor of Fiume and Member of the National Council of the City

For the last twenty years my fellow-citizens and I have been fighting for the cause of the redemption of Fiume. During the War, I was one of those put on trial for implacable Irredentism. How I escaped the gallows only adds another to the list of unexplained miracles. Now I have come to America to make the true voice of my city heard, and to make it clear in my official capacity that Fiume craves to be united to Italy. Fiume is Italian by the blood that flows in her veins, the words of her mouth, and the burning desire of her heart!

Fiume has always fought against foreign oppression. She was a part of Hungary, but as a “separate body”. Hungary was composed of three states: Hungary proper, Croatia, and Fiume. The victory of the Italian Army severed this union and Fiume regained her independence. On the 30th of October, 1918, four days before Austria signed the Armistice, Fiume unanimously declared her union with Italy, thus repeating her own history. For in 1779 she fought against the proposed annexation to Croatia, and in 1868 obtained recognition of her peculiar position as a free and independent city, united to Hungary in a temporary way, but a state in herself.

In so far as her self-determination is concerned, she counts on the sympathetic encouragement of America. In Fiume all the Mayors, all the Deputies, the Members of the Municipal Council, of the Chamber of Commerce, and of the Courts, have always been Italian. This being the case, they think themselves free to dispose of their own fate and who can deny them the right of joining their Mother-Country?

We hear people say that if Fiume is united to Italy, the populations of the interior will not have an outlet to the sea. This is not true. Jugo-Slavia has excellent natural harbors between Buccari and Carlopago. It is not at all necessary to sacrifice the purely Italian character of Fiume in order to give an outlet to the interior. It is interesting to recall that before the War the commerce of Croatia at Fiume was only 7% of the total commercial output, the rest of the traffic belonging to Hungary. We are not enemies of the Jugo-Slavs, unless they invade our territory. Near Fiume they have the beautiful city of Susak which they may easily and naturally develop and enlarge. If we can each live within our own boundaries, peace and friendship will naturally follow.

The Mayor, the President of the National Council, and the Deputy of Fiume to the Hungarian Parliament were received in Paris by President Wilson, to whom the situation was clearly explained and the justice of our national aspirations demonstrated. President Wilson and the American delegates expressed themselves as profoundly impressed with their significance: it was even triumphantly reported that the silent Colonel House lifted his voice in their favor.

Fiume has a population of 35,000 native Italians. This population rules its own city, and the will of the citizens of Fiume must be seriously considered. We want to be Italians and Italy wants us to be Italians. We are like brothers who are at last reunited after centuries of suffering and struggles.

See also:

Dalmatia by Dr. Roberto Ghiglianovich

Trieste by Giorgio Pitacco

Trieste by Dr. Giorgio Pitacco

(Written by Giorgio Pitacco, taken from “The Journal of American History”, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1919.)

The Honourable Giorgio Pitacco, a Member of the Municipal Council of Trieste, was a former Deputy to the Parliament at Vienna. He was thus in a position for close observation and first-hand knowledge of the Austrian intrigue for crushing the Italian soul out of Trieste and Dalmatia. From 1900 to 1910 he watched the Austrians driving human hordes of Slovenes and Croats into Trieste — solely to outnumber the Italian census. Laibach [Ljubljana] was the centre of this Austrian activity which actually subsidized its hirelings of Slovene business men, agents, and tradesmen to emigrate into essentially Italian cities, especially Trieste. This is the true explanation of the sudden disproportionate increase of the Slav element in the immediate environs of Trieste.

Doctor Pitacco was sent to America by the Political Association of Unredeemed Italians as their President. This association is composed of all those from the Unredeemed Provinces who succeeded in escaping to Italy during the War. It has over 10,000 members from Trieste, Istria, Trentino, Fiume, and Dalmatia. Among them are eleven Deputies to the Parliament at Vienna, thirty-five Deputies to the Provincial Diets, and fifty Mayors. The name of the Association explains itself; it was formed to crystallize the national determination of the Unredeemed Provinces.

– The Editors.

TRIESTE

By Doctor Giorgio Pitacco

Municipal Councillor of Trieste; Former Deputy to the Austrian Parliament

We have come to America in this period in which the future of our Unredeemed Country is to be decided, to implore the support of the generous American people. America, who, like Italy, entered the War of its own accord, for liberty and justice, will surely not permit the gravest kind of injustice to be perpetuated in separating from their Mother-Country provinces which always were, are, and are determined to remain, Italian.

Trieste, like the rest of Istria, as a sign of protest, refused to send representatives to the Austrian Parliament, in the hope that some day they might be able to send them to the Italian Parliament. The Provincial Diet of Istria, when called upon to elect its Deputies to the Parliament of Vienna in 1867, replied, "Not one," and dissolved the meeting. After universal suffrage was introduced, the Italians were obliged to participate in the political elections and send their Deputies, in order to defend their national existence and their economic interests.

After 1866, Austria, with the motive of depriving Italy of every claim to the territory along the Adriatic Sea, which had always been Italian, began a systematic plan of destruction of the indigenous Italian element, in which enterprise she received the effective support of the Croatians and Slovenes. All the Government offices were entrusted to the Slavs, to the exclusion of the Italians. In Trieste, for example, a city with a majority of 200,000 Italians in a population of 250,000, the whole personnel of the Department of Post, Railroads, Judiciary, Ports, and Customs, was Slav. The employees were sent from Carniola, Carintia, Stiria, and from other provinces that had nothing in common with the city of Trieste, either in language or customs. In one day alone they transported 700 families of Croatian and German railroad men, aggregating 5,000 persons in all, to Trieste. This system, which was carried out further by the order that the Italians should be deported for every small offense, was intended to secure for the Austrian Government a preponderant number of Slavs who had been taught to antagonize the Italians. For the same purpose the census was compiled, using figures so evidently false that the Central Committee of Vienna could not explain the sudden reduction of the Italian population from 78.27% to 62.31%, compared to an increase of 100% of the Slav population. This Committee, therefore, had to admit that the census was not reliable.

In spite of all this, the Italian character of Trieste was ardently maintained through the many Italian schools for which the community of Trieste alone paid an annual sum of over two and a half million crowns.

Trieste and Istria, which form a geographic whole, have always loyally demonstrated their great attachment to Italy, especially during this War. Many thousands of men from Trieste, Istria, Fiume, and Dalmatia volunteered in the Italian Army. Of these, hundreds died in action and eight were decorated with the gold medal for extraordinary acts of heroism. All these volunteers faced a double death: that on the battlefield, and that on the gallows, if they were captured, as in the case of Nazario Sauro from Istria, Francesco Riamondo from Spalato, and Cesare Battisti from Trento.

In the Parliament at Vienna, the Italian Deputies have held memorable debates. The one in defense of the municipal autonomy of Trieste in 1906, against the decree which deprived the city of its administrative independence, was particularly famous. Not a single one of the representatives of the various other peoples which formed the Austro-Hungarian Empire supported the Italians, with the exception of the Roumanians, who upheld them in their fight against this arbitrary act of the Government.

This war has brought into high relief the utter vileness of the reactionary and autocratic Government of Vienna. It, alas, is not yet obliterated, since it survives in the hatred of other peoples who are trying to reorganize themselves on the spoils of Austria.

Throughout the War, the Italian people have displayed wonderful qualities, on the battlefield and at home. A people whose wounded soldiers requested the physicians to attend to the enemy first, because they were more seriously wounded, whose same soldiers offered their own bread to their prisoners, because they knew them to be more hungry, are a people who can look the future straight in the face and await the triumph of Justice over every wicked intrigue.

See also:

Fiume by Dr. Gino Antoni

Dalmatia by Dr. Roberto Ghiglianovich

Horror in Slovenia: Over 3,000 Bodies Discovered

Skeletal remains of massacred victims at Macesnova Gorica, Slovenia

In September 2022 a team of speleologists and anthropologists investigating the foiba of Macesnova Gorica, in Slovenia, reported that they had identified more than 3,000 bodies belonging to victims massacred by the Yugoslav Partisans of Communist dictator Josip Broz Tito.

These were victims of the Kočevski Rog Massacre. In truth only a fraction of the victims, as the total number of people killed in this massacre could be as high as 30,000 people, buried in multiple different locations. This most recent investigation at the Macesnova Gorica site resulted in the recovery of over 3,000 skeletal remains.

The bodies are mostly of adult men, but with a high percentage of children, namely young boys between the ages of 13 and 17. They are said to be primarily Slovenian civilians, though the presence of other nationalities – including Italians and Croats – can not be excluded.

The victims were arrested in May 1945 by Tito's Partisans and detained in the village of Šentvid, near Ljubljana, after the war had already ended. Between June 9 and June 15 they were brought to Macesnova Gorica and dumped into deep pits known as foibe. According to the team, no less than 30 bodies were discovered in isolated tunnels, indicating that they had been thrown alive into the abyss and attempted to escape by dragging themselves into small openings of the crevice, only to die a slow and agonizing death beneath the earth's surface.

Based on the experts’ analysis of the remains, as many as 500 bodies had been dismembered as a result of explosives thrown onto the pile of bodies by the Yugoslav Partisans, in an attempt to kill the still-breathing victims and cause a collapse of the cave's walls in order to cover up the bodies.

 
On September 28, 2022 the Bishop of Novo Mesto and President of the Slovenian Bishops’ Conference Andrej Saje visited the horrific site.

Visibly shaken, he stated the following after his visit:

“I am deeply disturbed by the criminal acts that have been carried out here, and I express my expectation that the State and responsible authorities will ensure that all those who were violently murdered during and after World War II receive a dignified burial and have a place in the nation's historical memory.”

The largest cemetery in Slovenia's capital, Žale Cemetery, as well as the municipality of Ljubiana itself, have already rejected any notion of hosting the remains of the victims. This is quite reflective of a country that still refuses to come to terms with its past. Denialism of crimes and justification of brutalities is unfortunately very common in this region of Europe.

This is far from the only skeleton in Slovenia's closet. The country is home to some of the largest mass graves in Europe, known as “silenced mass graves” (zamolčana grobišča) because for decades their existence was concealed from the public.

It is estimated that in total there are over 700 different sites where Tito's Communist partisans killed, ‘infoibed’ or disposed of their victims’ bodies in the period between May-September 1945. What has been uncovered at Macesnova Gorica is merely one of the hundreds of mass graves, connected to but one of innumerable massacres carried out by the Yugoslav Partisans.

The Slovene-Yugoslav partisans also slaughtered thousands of Italians in the Foibe Massacres. They chased thousands more Italian civilians out of their homes in Istria and Julian Venetia, before repopulating the territory with Yugoslav settlers. Capodistria (Koper), the 5th largest city in Slovenia, was 92% Italian in 1900; now the Italians are less than 5% of the population, owing to the genocide conducted by those who today are still exalted as ‘heroes’ and ‘liberators’ in Slovenia.

Slovenia is not yet prepared to admit or acknowledge how it treated its own people, let alone admit the role it played in the horrific crimes and ethnic cleansing perpetrated against the Italian population who lived in these lands since time immemorial – since before the Slovenes themselves did.

Sources:

• Trieste Cafe - Orrore in Slovenia, riesumati 3.000 corpi delle vittime dei partigiani titini del giugno 1945 dall'abisso di Macesnova Gorica (16 ottobre 2022)

• Nova24TV - Ogrin ob koncu izkopa pobitih v Macesnovi gorici v Kočevskem rogu: “Brezno, ki je skrivalo to strahoto, je zdaj odprto in prazno” (15. 10. 2022)

• Nova24TV - Kočevski rog: Grozljiva odkritja (29. 9. 2022)

Image Gallery

Containers holding the skeletal remains of over 3,000 victims

Skulls of the victims

Investigator collecting the ekeletal remains of the victims

Inside the deep pits of Macesnova Gorica, Slovenia

Italy and the Balkans: The Problem of Dalmatia

(Written by Ferruccio Bonavia, taken from “The Near East”, Volume 13, 1917.)

Traù — Former Italian city in Dalmatia

With a view to enabling our readers to see both sides of the controversy between the Southern Slavs and the Italians regarding the future of Dalmatia, we have asked Signor F. Bonavia to state the Italian case. This he has undertaken to do, and we publish below the first of his articles:


Italy and the Balkans: The Problem of Dalmatia

There seems to be a general, if not clearly-defined, impression that the claims of Italy to her unredeemed provinces on the eastern shores of the Adriatic are based more or less on a very recent imperialistic policy, and that their attainment would be a repayment for the help given by Italy in the present war, entailing gross injustice to other races. Fiume is spoken of as a Hungarian town, although the Magyars are at most only a twelfth of the population. One writer, obviously honest and eager to deal fairly with the subject, suggested a little while ago that Trieste should become, at the end of the war, an international city; another, less unbiassed, perhaps, but equally misinformed, suggested that Austria be given a “chance” in the future partition of the Adriatic. Austria has had her chance; and this state of mind, this uncertainty, is the direct result of the policy through which Austria wished to justify her possessions in the Adriatic in face of the democracies of the world.

There was never a more ruthless application of the motto “Divide et impera” than the history of these unfortunate provinces can show. For half-a-century the most cruel policy of wholesale banishment and persecution was carried out by the Viennese Government; yet the world at large heard little of it, since the Italians, represented by a hopeless minority in the Austrian Parliament, could not make themselves heard while the storm raged between Czechs and Germans. Italy, their natural protector, was gagged and bound by the unnatural treaty of alliance, which was the first cause of that mistrust with which she was in the past sometimes regarded by those very nations whose history, race and sympathies fashioned them to be her friends. The free choice of the people of Italy in the moment of crisis showed where the heart of Italy had always been, but the mischief has not been undone wholly yet.

The Italian claims on Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia (their right to the Trentino does not seem to have been questioned) are neither imperialistic nor recent. Since ever the idea of a united Italy began to take root from the blood-soaked fields of Napoleonic campaigns these provinces, which had been Roman first and then Venetian, in any case Latin for twenty centuries, were claimed for the new Italy. In the little town of Capodistria two pieces of cannon placed in the only square and a gallows equally permanently established, were necessary to stifle the protests of the people when the population was handed over to Austria in payment for her treachery to Venice. The people in the Dalmatian towns wept with grief when they saw the insignia of the Venetian Republic lowered. It was not difficult then to know the political wishes and the nationality of these provinces.

In the days of Mazzini and Garibaldi the aim of the Italian patriots was equally known and accepted by all liberal-minded people. “Austria is arming herself to defend Istria and Venice; for Garibaldi, as soon as his army is reinforced, will throw himself on Dalmatia, crossing from Puglia, and shut in the face of the barbarians that always open door, the Italian Alps,” wrote Count Prospero Antonini to G. Rinaldi. Cavour's Charge d'Affaires, in a long interview with Napoleon III., submitted a memorial, which gave as the boundaries of Northern Italy “Piedmont, Lombardy, Venice, Italian Friuli and the coastland of Dalmatia.” There was then no doubt in the minds of statesmen as to the justice of the Italian claims, the only doubts were as to the expediency of a war to realise them.

If further proof be wanted, one need only glance at the proclamations of the Dalmato-Istrians calling the people to arm for Italian independence, to the sums of money freely and generously given for the liberation of Venice ; to the repeated protests of the municipalities of Istria against its union with Krain; to the requests for national and administrative autonomy. Carlo Cattaneo in January, 1851, in a letter to The Times and the Daily News, wrote:

“Many English people are under the erroneous impression that Austria possesses her Italian provinces in virtue of some old hereditary right, and they go so far as to believe that Prussia or any other Germanic Power has not only the right, but the duty, by uninterrupted tradition, to ensure to Austria the domination of these lands. I wish to point out that two-thirds of the Italian subjects of Austria are quite a recent acquisition; almost four million inhabitants belong to the Venetian States and its original dependencies on the Istrian coast of the Adriatic — Istria, Dalmatia, Ragusa, and Cattaro. ... The way in which the Venetian, the oldest autonomous State existing in Europe, passed sixty years ago suddenly from one moment to the next, from being the ally of Austria to becoming its prey and victim, marks one of the lowest and meanest transactions to be met with in modern history.”

This is the fons et origo of all the evil which, let us hope, the present war will rectify, as it certainly will if justice and right are to prevail over violence, and if the remnants of a policy by which nations were traded in and handed about like chattels are no longer to poison the future destinies of the world. The Treaty of Campoformio, which gave Austria these provinces, irrespective of the wishes of the population, prepared the way for the attempt to force a way through to Salonika and to the East, suppressing on the way both the Italians of Dalmatia and the Slavs of Serbia.

As long as the Austrians still hoped to reconquer Venice and their Italian dominion, they did not deny the Italian nationality of the southern provinces. In 1848 the Osservatore Triestino, the official organ of the Austrian Government in Trieste, commenting upon a proclamation of the Governor relative to a revolt in favour of Italy ruthlessly suppressed, wrote:

“Citizens, he who writes is Italian, and proud of the fact. If he were ordered to renounce his nationality he would be the last to write a line in this paper; but, for the love of Heaven, be not misled by those who play upon your unfounded fear of seeing your nationality adulterated, disturbing your minds by a mere phantom.”

How well founded was this fear of a murderous attempt upon their nationality is proved by the fact that little more than half a century later an apparently unbiassed writer could seriously suggest the internationalization of Trieste.

As Austria lost first Lombardy and then Venice, she tightened her deadly grip on the remaining provinces. Her dream of an Italian domain lost, with the establishment of a free and united Italian nation, she had no more use for an Italian population. Taking advantage of the fact that Italy was shackled by an alliance and that Germany was drawing to herself the alarmed attention of the rest of Europe, she turned her energies to the ruthless systematic uprooting of the Italian element in her Italian provinces. How this war was waged and with what success will be considered in the next article.



Italy and the Balkans: The Problem of Dalmatia II

The latest Austrian statistics give an overwhelming majority of Slavs in Dalmatia. The Slavs themselves are not satisfied with this majority, and maintain that the statistics favour the Italians. The electoral returns seem to show that, far from being favoured, the Italians in Dalmatia have been under-estimated by two-thirds. But if the policy of persecution, of intimidation, and violence pursued by Austria during the last fifty years is not to be allowed to obtain its object, if the great democracies of the world are not to let crime go unpunished, it will be necessary to consider not the statistics of today alone, but the statistics of the last fifty years, and to inquire very carefully into the astonishing changes which have taken place. Even in 1880 all the municipalities of the largest Dalmatian cities were Italian. Today the capital alone — Zara — has an Italian corporation. Even Ragusa had until the turn of the century a municipality which consisted half of Italian and half of Serbian representatives. Now Ragusa, like Spalato since 1883, like Sebenico and Trau, is entirely in the hands of the Croats.

In the Dalmatian Diet of 1861 the Italian party had thirty members against thirteen more recently. When the Venetian Republic fell the Dalmatian cities showed in unmistakable manner their attachment to the State which had carried on the traditions of Rome extending over a period of twenty centuries. What has happened in the last fifty years to change the national character of the province? Simply this: the Austrians, to justify their possession in the face of Europe, which demanded a national base for the State, decided upon a crusade to denationalise the whole of the Italian provinces, a crusade which sometimes was childish and futile, as when the Austrian authorities cut a Venetian lion from one of the city walls of Monfalcone, but more often was bloody and violent.

The notion originated with Radetzky. But it was not adopted at once, for Austria had still hopes of recovering Venice and possibly the Milanese, in which case there would have been one more nationality to steady the political balance of the empire. When the statesmen of Vienna realised that Italy was more likely to claim what belonged to her by right than to lose a part of what she held, they embarked on their new policy, which is the exact counterpart of the policy carried on by Germany in Alsace-Lorraine and attempted in a necessarily modified form in Belgium since the occupation. Europe demanded that the people should choose their government. Austria and Germany — autocracies — undertook to provide the kind of people that would be faithful to them. The experiment has not been altogether successful in Dalmatia, for part of the Slavs now demand separation. But the Croatian Slav is still one of the mainstays of the monarchy, and in the meantime the Italians were sacrificed.

How Austria respected the wishes and aspirations of her people is shown by the manner in which the elections for the Diet were carried on in Dalmatia. The preparation consisted in a series of acts of brutal violence to intimidate the Italian electors. Flourishing vineyards were destroyed, trees cut down, fields ready for the harvesters trampled upon, electors shot at and stoned. The electoral commission worked protected by the soldiers' bayonets. One of the Austrian officials, unaware that a Croatian victory had been ordered from Vienna, reprimanded the authors of some gross fraud. He was immediately suspended, and the campaign was carried on with greater violence, with contemptuous disregard of all equity and justice.

When it became apparent that the victory would go to the Italians unless new subterfuges were resorted to, the Slav electors were recalled and made to impersonate voters long dead. The Italians discovered the fraud, and obtained and produced death certificates; the commission refused to listen to them. But victory still hung in the balance. The special Viennese envoy had to resort to open violence. He began by teaching the Slav from the country to make the road dangerous for the Italian electors. He ended by ordering or countenancing a charge of two battalions of Tyrolese chasseurs to disperse a few hundred Italians who were waiting their turn to enter the polling booth.

Is it surprising if the result gave a Diet in which the number of the Italian representatives fell from thirty to thirteen? Nor was the method adopted to win over the municipal government essentially different. When Spalato passed over to the Croatians in 1883 a couple of warships kept their guns trained on the town, while patrols of soldiers and sailors prevented Italian electors from reaching the voting stations. Italian votes were cancelled, clocks were tampered with to hasten or suspend the closing hour as the election seemed to go in favour of or against the Croatian party. The Austrian “prefect” ordered all the Government employees to vote for the Croatians, and the Slav bishop issued a similar command to his dependents. Thus gradually all the civic government fell into the hands of the protégés of the Austrians. A few years ago the islands of Brazza, Lisa, Werbosca, in Lesina, still held out. Today the capital — Zara — stands alone.

To capture the municipal government was essential to the success of the Austrian plan. The municipality alone is sufficiently powerful to protect the city and the surrounding district from the attacks of the government party. To drive away or convert forcibly the Italians, it was necessary to control schools and churches. This could not be done as long as the town authorities had the means to open new schools and the power to protest against a political campaign carried on from the pulpit. When the control of the city government was secured church and schools were used with unparalleled. unscrupulousness to sow hatred and distrust of all Italians.

There are cases on record where the Croatian priests (the bishops of Trieste and Veglia are Slavs) have refused to administer baptism and the last sacraments of the Church to Italians because they were Italians. A funeral procession was refused admittance to church, and denied permission to enter the cemetery for the same reason. A few years ago the Bishop of Veglia, Monsignor Mahnic, issued an order that religion was to be taught [in Croatian in all the Quarnero islands] irrespective of the nationality of the students and of their inability to understand the language. But the schools' council had still some power over which the Government's hand did not stretch, and it exercised it by substituting for the priests lay teachers able and willing to teach religion in the only tongue the pupils spoke and understood. At the close of the scholastic year the bishop retorted by excommunicating both teachers and council, a procedure which the Croatian clerical paper, Pucki Prigateli, described as an excellent manoeuvre.

Another teacher was arrested and tried because he happened to use Latin instead of Croatian when singing the “Tantum ergo.” When a religious body from Slav Zagabria asked permission to open a school at Pola, the authorisation was granted immediately, but the friars of Pirano, when they made a similar request, received a sharp denial, because they were of Italian nationality. Such examples could be multiplied indefinitely, but enough has been said, perhaps, to prove at least that the power which inspired this policy of extermination against the Italians of the Irredenta is hardly likely to have “cooked” the statistics in order to favour the Italians at the expense of the Slavs. The Italians of Dalmatia, says Gayda, contributed 30 per cent of the provincial taxes in 1911, yet the Budget did not give them a single school in which their children could receive their education in the language of their fathers.

The Austrian Minister of Education, after many petitions, acknowledged in 1886 that “the conditions required by the law for the institution of an Italian school at Spalato exist without doubt,” and the Imperial tribunal confirmed the Government's statement, and yet the school was not established.



Italy and the Balkans: The Problem of Dalmatia III

The Austrian statistics in regard to the Italian population of Dalmatia are exceedingly eloquent, if seen in their true perspective. Once the official census gave 56,000 Italians; in 1880 the official figure fell to 20,000; ten years later there were apparently only 16,000 Italians left. The conclusion is obvious; the Italians were being suppressed no less effectively than they could have been, if Vienna had followed the example of Constantinople and adopted its more primitive and more direct way of destroying the Armenians. Cruel or puerile, the persecution of the Italians is always directly traceable to Vienna. As long as the Austrian Lloyd ships belonged to a Trieste company they were named after cities and the heroes of mythology — there was the Venezia, the Milano, the Pandora, the Ettore. As soon as the Government stepped in and controlled the company, Achilles and Hector had to make way for the names of obscure Austrian statesmen. Of course, it was childish; but it was the reductio ad absurdum of Teutonic thoroughness. The church, the school, the police were handed over to an alien race. The names of things and places had to follow.

When the war began it was considered that the game had been won in Dalmatia. Trieste was the next objective, and all the apparatus used in Dalmatia was brought to bear — provocation, intimidation, military force. In addition, Trieste being a commercial city and consequently less dependent on favours and less afraid of the displeasure of the Government, banks began to exercise their influence to finance and direct politico-commercial operations similar in every way to those undertaken by Germany to snare other unsuspecting peoples and making them dependent financially upon Berlin. The Government offices were filled with foreigners, of whom not one could speak correctly the language of the people. Every obstacle was placed in the way of Italian subjects wishing to establish themselves in Trieste, and to prevent the swelling of the Italian party, in spite of the fact that no foreign subject could obtain political rights.

A [man named] M. Vernet was refused permission to build a mill because he happened to speak Italian like a native, having lived some years in Sicily. When he threatened to place the matter in the hands of the French Consul, he was told that had he made known his nationality sooner all the difficulties would have vanished, and the concession was given forthwith.

An Italian was murdered by a drunken Croat. All that the murderer could say in defence was that he had killed “an Italian.” He was condemned to four months' imprisonment. More than once Italian subjects accused of a trifling offence have been condemned to terms of imprisonment and — inevitable corollary — deportation. If the Court of Appeal cancelled the sentence and the imprisonment was remitted, the banishment was nevertheless upheld by the police even for those born in Trieste, if the parents were Italian subjects.

Throughout these years the animus of the Austrian authorities in these provinces was that of the bully who, although physically much stronger than his victim, is afraid and anxious lest he should be caught red-handed and his brutality punished. They lost their heads for no particular reason; they believed the wildest rumours. They mobilised suddenly all the available troops in Dalmatia and set them to defend the coast, because it had been reported (obviously by some wag) that 30,000 Garibaldian volunteers were preparing to invade it. The Athletic Club of Trieste, with 3,000 members, was closed by order of the police five times. But as there is no law against the formation of a new society, the closure of the club only meant a change of name.

Some of the reasons given for the action of the authorities are perhaps worth recording. In 1864 the alleged reason was that a public entertainment had been given in the garden of the club; in 1882 the club postponed a meeting in sign of mourning for the death of Garibaldi, and this, the Austrian authorities said, showed that the club had “political aims dangerous to the safety of the State.”

“I want to clear out all these Italians,” the the chief of the police was overheard to say in Trieste. “We must do in Trieste as we have done in Dalmatia; help with every means the non-Italian elements and wipe out the Italians altogether,” wrote Lieutenant-Marshal Foerstner in the Oesterreichische Rundschau shortly before the war.

The merciless persecution of the Italians in the unredeemed provinces must be taken into account even before the great historical and important military claims of Italy on these lands are considered. Any solution, any proposal which did not make full amends for the wrongs suffered during fifty years by the Italian population would be bound to encourage a policy which is not only immoral, when measured by every canon humanity ever evolved to save civilisation from barbarism, but is also bound to lead to international complications. The sufferer must needs revolt against the oppressor as soon as the opportunity arises. The oppressor himself who does wrong, and is conscious of it, redoubles his cruelties to stifle the victim before Nemesis can overtake him.

Neither the most cynical and most hardened criminals nor the new tyrant can escape this instinctive dread of justice even when they have reason to think themselves beyond its reach. Germany was eager to “give France a lesson,” although she knew that France was not in a position to attempt, and was far from contemplating, the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine. At the time of the Messina earthquake Austrian generals, betraying the instinct which combines fear and cruelty, suggested an attack on Italy to prevent even the remote possibility of a cry of anger from the mother country for the Italian population across the frontier deprived of its birthright. One wrong leads inevitably to another.

As for the strategical claims of Italy on these coastal provinces, their importance may have been thought exaggerated once. Now, however, it must be clear that for the mastery of the Adriatic the possession of the eastern coast is an indispensable condition. Neither Italian, English nor French commanders have been able to accomplish much, in spite of the great skill shown in smaller operations and the devotion of the sailors. “The long coastal State of Dalmatia, which flanks Bosnia-Herzegovina on the west,” writes Sir Thomas Holdich, “is divided from them by the effective wall of the Dinaric Alps. Across that rugged system no railway has yet been carried, and Dalmatia owes her independent existence entirely to the natural strength of her frontier.”

This is the reason why her history and her civilisation were those of Rome and Venice, not those of the people living beyond the Alps. These are, of course, frontier provinces, and frontier provinces have always a more or less mixed population. If the Czechs obtain their autonomy and France recovers Alsace-Lorraine, the percentage of the foreign population will be higher there than it will be in these unredeemed provinces of Italy. Nor is it to be thought that the fulfilment of the Italian claim would mean the exclusion from the Adriatic of other nations. Both to the north and to the south of Dalmatia there are excellent harbours which would give the hinterland its outlet on the sea.

Foibe Massacres: The Deep Italic Roots of Istria and Dalmatia

(Written by Mario Bortoluzzi, taken from the journal “Secolo Trentino”, February 9, 2021)

Map of Italy after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) 

Objectors say: “The exodus of the Istrians, Fiumans and Dalmatians is a consequence of the events of the Second World War; the tragedy of the Foibe Massacres is the result of violence perpetrated by the Slavs in retaliation for violence during the Italian occupation from 1920 to 1945.”

This is the objection that is raised every year on the Day of Remembrance. It is repeated like a mantra by the media in our country, which is controlled by a well-identified school of thought. In essence, they claim that the Slavs led by Tito may have been a bit excessive in their anti-Italian violence, but it was simply a reaction to the violence and oppression of the Italian occupier.

All this denotes a profound ignorance – if not intentional bad faith – with regard to the history of Istria and Dalmatia. These lands were never divorced from Italian history, as we shall see later, but are rightfully part of our national history, just as are the histories of all the current-day Italian regions.

What Tito did was only the final act of a process that began in 1860, and quite frankly the Communist ideology professed by Tito was not the triggering factor; if anything it was the new ideological glue that held the Slavic peoples together (Slovenes, Serbs, Croats) in their anti-Italian operation.

The history of those lands, which were Roman and then Venetian for nearly a thousand years, is part of the history of our Fatherland and should be studied in schools in all grades. But today it is forgotten history, indeed its history is unacknowledged and hidden.

That is why, for example, nothing is ever said about what took place in Istria and Dalmatia between the time of the Risorgimento and the First World War.

That is why they fail to teach and explain that the methods used by the Italian government from 1918 to 1945 (the famous compulsory use of the Italian language in schools, the supposed “italianization” of surnames and violence during the war), although considered wrong by people today, were not considered wrong according to the mentality of the time; during that time these policies were regarded as the only feasible way to repair the injustices suffered by Italians in previous decades.

Remember, nothing ever happens for no reason.

In order to discuss the origin of the conflict between the nationalities in these areas it is first necessary to give a basic account of Dalmatian history, from the beginning.

Ancient Dalmatia, called “Illyria”, entered history beginning in 156 BC with the first of eight wars that were waged against Rome. Dalmatia became a senatorial province in 27 BC and later an imperial province. It was fully integrated with the Roman world and was the birthplace of Roman Emperors like Claudius and Diocletian.

The entire Dalmatian coast and islands were Latinized by the Romans who founded cities and favored a fusion with the native Illyrian element.

In 475 A.D. Emperor Julius Nepos took refuge in Dalmatia, while Romulus Augustulus was raised to the purple in Ravenna. In 476 A.D. the latter was deposed by Odoacer and the Western Roman Empire ceased to exist. But Julius Nepos survived in Dalmatia with the Emperor's insignia and remained a symbol of Romanity until 480 A.D., the year of his death.

In the seventh century A.D., the barbarian invasions began. In particular, the Avars invaded the Balkans with their slaves, the Slavic tribes, and later pushed towards the Adriatic coast. These invasions lasted for nearly two centuries, with ups and downs, conquests and reconquests, and essentially was limited to the hinterland. The Latin people retreated to the fortified towns of Dalmatia. The Slavs eventually reached the sea along the Velebit Channel and occupied the the mouths of the Narenta river where they devoted themselves to piracy. The Dalmatian cities sought help from the rising Venetian power; seeing as its trade was threatened, Venice decided to intervene.

On Ascension Day in the year 1000, after refusing to pay the pretium pacis to the Croats, i.e. a tax to avoid attacks on Venetian convoys, the Doge Pietro Orseolo II set sail for Dalmatia with his ships and his warriors, obtained an oath of submission from all the Latin cities, and defeated the Slavic pirates everywhere, reaching as far as Spalato and Curzola.

This was a historical act of immense importance.

Venice would forever consider it a perpetual and inalienable acquisition and one of the fundamental cornerstones of its statal right. From then on until 1797, with some losses, re-conquests and wars, the submission of the Latin cities was uninterrupted, and since the fifteenth century all of Dalmatia became an integral part of the Venetian “Stato da Mar”.

Cities such as Zara, Spalato, Traù, Sebenico, Cattaro, Ragusa (the modern Dubrovnik, which was the 5th Italian maritime republic after becoming independent from Venice), islands such as Curzola, Lissa, Lesina, Brazza, Meleda and a hundred other towns of Dalmatia still carry the signs of Venetian culture and political presence today in their urban layout, artistic and military monuments, palaces and streets.

The Slavs were never able to impose their language on the Dalmatians, whose language was a vernacular derivative of Latin known as Dalmatico.

In the fourteenth century the Dalmatian language was gradually replaced by Venetian, which became the official language of the region and the language of culture.

Until the fall of the Republic on May 12, 1797, Dalmatia flourished in institutions, in the arts, in culture and in commercial activities under the Venetian banner.

Even the Slavic-Croatian element, invited by the Venetians to repopulate the countryside affected by the plague, peacefully coexisted for centuries with the Latin element, sharing uses and customs; even the language spoken by the Slavs on the coast from Fiume to Spalato, known as “chakavian”, a special variety of language distinct from Croatian, is rich in Venetian words that are unknown to the Croats of Zagreb.

These new “Dalmatian Slavs” (peasant farmers, sailors, fishermen), who were in contact with the Latin element, are anthropologically “Mediterraneans”.

The most loyal Schiavoni, the Oltremarini, were the last troops to leave Venice after the fall of the Republic.

The Morlochs of Latin blood, pastores Romanorum, for centuries fought under the banner of San Marco and so did the Stratioti (mercenaries) who provided Venice with light cavalry and were used against the Turks.

All felt united and protected under the wings of the Venetian Lion.

Just as the Roman Empire survived in Dalmatia even after 476 A.D., so the Venetian Signoria continued on in Dalmatia for some time after the fall of the Republic.

In Zara the flag of San Marco was lowered on July 1, brought to the Cathedral, kissed and bathed in tears by the people.

The last and most poignant farewell was given on August 23 by the inhabitants of the town of Perasto, bearer of the battle flag of the Venetian fleet, in the Bay of Cattaro.

The Commander of the fortress, after placing the fallen Venetian banner under the altar, pronounced a noble speech whose most famous line we will here quote:

“For three hundred and seventy-seven years our bodies, our blood and our lives have always been for You, O San Marco; and most faithful we have always thought ourselves, You with us, we with You; and always with You on the sea we have been illustrious and full of valor. No one with You has seen us flee, no one with You has seen us defeated or fearful…”

With the Treaty of Campo Formio, Dalmatia was sold by Napoleon to Austria, but a few years later, in 1806, Dalmatia returned to the Kingdom of Italy, together with Istria. Later, after a few decades marked by bitter disputes, the region returned to Austria again.

And so we come to 1815, the year in which we can date the beginning of the Risorgimento, also in Dalmatia. The Austrian police immediately realized that the Italian citizens in the Adriatic supported the ideas of independence and reunification with Italy. They discovered Carbonari lodges, and later, in 1830, found supporters of Mazzini's Young Italy movement.

It was in 1847 that Nicolò Tommaseo of Sebenico entered the history of Dalmatia. Adhering to the opinions of Mazzini, he advocated the destruction of the Habsburg Empire and the resurrection of nationalities.

Therefore Hungarians, Italians, Romanians, Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, Albanians, “must rise up and form a living nation of young associated nations.”

The Dalmatians pursued camaraderie with the Slavs and therefore multiplied the initiatives of scientists, scholars, jurists.

But, when the uprisings broke out in 1848, the Croats remained indifferent because they were pursuing the consolidation of the Habsburg dynasty through a Croatian movement that they hoped would become a pillar of the Empire's strength.

The Croats thus became the military arm of Austrian absolutism and they aspired, as part of the Empire, to annex Dalmatia to Croatia.

Now, Dalmatia in 1848 was nationally the same as how Venice left it.

Up to that point Dalmatia had been preserved by Austria: it was totally Italian in culture, in administration, in its ecclesiastical hierarchy, in wealth, in commerce, in navigation, in artisanry. Austria never changed the names of the cities, islands, mountains or rivers. These names remained Italian under Austria for 120 years because they had existed for tens of centuries.

But unfortunately the Italian element, in the eyes of the imperial authorities, represented an ethnic group whose loyalty to the Empire was questionable. The sea was the only thing that separated the Dalmatians from their Italian Motherland and Austria was well aware of this.

In early March of 1848 Milan, Venice, Zara, Sebenico and Spalato revolted together. The swift Austrian suppression nipped in the bud any possibility of success. The Dalmatian cities were surrounded by Austro-Croatian troops and the Croatian peasants of the countryside were armed and incited against the Dalmatians. They were also incited by the Croatian clergy, who depicted the Italians as godless Freemasons.

On the political plane the Croats of Zagreb began to require a pledge of their loyalty to the Empire and openly demanded the annexation of Dalmatia to Croatia.

In 1860, after years of Croatian attempts and strenuous opposition by the Dalmatians (it is sufficient to recall Spalato's response to a letter sent by Zagreb proposing annexation: “Dalmatia is Italian: only one citizen of Spalato, out of 12,000, was able to translate your honorable words [from Croatian]”), the Croats, supported by the Empire, proclaimed the forced annexation of Dalmatia to Croatia.

The elections of a Diet of Dalmatia to be sent to Zagreb were held and the ballot boxes gave 29 Italian representatives and 12 Croats. But the majority of the Diet refused to go to Zagreb. The Croatian delegates departed for Zagreb to join the Croatian delegation which soon left for Vienna.

To counter the Croats, the Diet of Dalmatia, all in unison and guided by the ailing Archbishop of Zara Giuseppe Godeassi, left for Vienna and was received on May 8 by Emperor Franz Joseph, who realized the adamant will of the Dalmatians to remain autonomous from Zagreb. No one spoke of annexation to Croatia any longer.

Unfortunately, the slow and inexorable operation of slavicizing Dalmatia continued in forced stages. On June 15, 1866 an imperial ordinance limited the use of the Italian language in offices and forced officials to learn Croatian.

On November 12, 1866, the Council of the Crown met in Vienna.

The report reads verbatim:

“His Majesty has expressed the precise order that we decisively oppose the influence of the Italian element still present in some Crown lands, and to aim unsparingly and without the slightest compunction at the Germanization or Slavicization – depending on the circumstances – of the areas in question, through a suitable entrustment of posts to political magistrates and teachers, as well as through the influence of the press in South Tyrol, Dalmatia, and the Adriatic Coast.”

On June 14, 1867 another decree ordered the Slavicization of the grammar school in Zara; in the same year there were the first anti-Italian street riots provoked by masses of Slavic peasants; citizens were forbidden access to the countryside; the Italian landowners had their vines chopped, trees cut down, crops stolen; the Croatian friars in Signo refused to administer the sacraments to the Italian population.

In Sebenico on July 31, 1869 a Croatian mob attacked and killed 14 sailors of the Royal Italian ship Monzambano which was anchored in the port of the Dalmatian city.

On February 15, 1870 the Croats attempted to set fire to the Verdi Theatre of Zara, a temple of Italian art.

All of these incidents led to the first exodus of the Dalmatian population towards Zara, Istria and the Italian Motherland. Croatian Slavic irredentism, which aimed at annexing Dalmatia to Croatia, thus was able in such a short time to destroy centuries of peaceful coexistence guaranteed by the good governance of the Republic of San Marco.

And in Italy? The young Kingdom of Savoy made it known to Austria that “as far as a solution to the problems of the East, Italy intends to participate with its own ideas and in defense of its own interests.”

This position of Italy rekindled the hopes of the Italians of Dalmatia, despite the difficulties due to the daily harassment they suffered, so much so that the Italian Chamber of Deputies burst into uncontrollable applause during the communication of the greeting and thanksgiving from the city of Zara.

Trento, Trieste, Istria, Gorizia and Zara were the names of the places that needed to be liberated and were on the lips of every Italian irredentist.

But forty-eight long years passed before part of Dalmatia was finally reunited with the Italian Motherland.

In the meantime, the Austrians inexorably continued the forced Croatization of Dalmatia. It began with threats and abuses to change the balance of power within the provincial Diet: more power was given to Croatian politicians and less to Italians, which brought about a reversal of the anti-annexation results of 1860; now there was a new 24 to 16 majority in favor of the Croatian annexationists.

By means of electoral fraud, violence, corruption and intimidation, one by one the Italian cities of Dalmatia fell. The offices, schools, churches and all public institutions were then Slavicized, always with the consent of the Austrians.

In the provincial Diet – where until 1865 the discussions were held only in Italian – from 1866 onward Croatian was gradually imposed alongside the Italian language until 1883, when the use of the Croatian language was made exclusive and Italian was forcibly excluded.

This situation dragged on through thick and thin until the eve of the First World War, but with a constant progressive loss of land by the Italian Dalmatians, as if it were a retreating battle, slow and tenacious but forced to surrender ground inch by inch.

Following the Pact of London, on April 26, 1915 Italy entered the war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On the basis of this pact, signed with France, Great Britain and Russia, Italy was promised – in the event of victory – recognizing of Italian sovereignty over Trentino-Alto Adige, Istria and Dalmatia up to the south of Sebenico, in addition to some Dalmatian islands.

Many Italians from Istria and Dalmatia dedicated their lives to the liberation of their land by fighting in the Italian army. Nazario Sauro, captured by the Austrians and executed as a deserter, was one of them and every city in Italy today has a street or square named after this Italian hero.

In 1918, at the end of the conflict, the American President Wilson opposed the implementation of the London agreements, which had not been signed by the United States, and in Italy there was then talk of a ‘Mutilated Victory’ due to Italy's own allies refusal to respect the signed agreements.

France and England were in fact worried about the growing Italian influence on both sides of the Adriatic Sea.

After months of intense diplomatic actions, on September 10, 1919 the Treaty of Saint-Germain was reached with Austria, which ceded Trentino, Alto Adige, Venezia Giulia with Istria and the Quarnaro islands, but excluding from the negotiations Fiume and Dalmatia.

All the sacrifices endured by the Italians during the war appeared to most as vain and useless, to the point of arousing a strong wave of indignation in the population.

On the basis of this widespread popular sentiment, on September 12, 1919 Gabriele D'Annunzio, together with his volunteers the Legionaries of Ronchi, undertook the liberation of Fiume, an overwhelmingly Italian city, giving rise to the Regency of Carnaro and a new constitution, the Carnaro Charter, quite socially advanced for the time and in fact provided for the right to education, the vote for women, the recognition of a living wage and health insurance.

(The Carnaro Charter was essentially the work of the revolutionary syndicalist Alceste De Ambris who, in March of the same year, had collaborated in the drafting of the program of the first Fasci di Combattimento in Milan.)

On November 12, 1920, the head of the government Giolitti signed the Treaty of Rapallo with the Yugoslavs, which assigned to Italy the city Zara, the only enclave of Dalmatia and the islands of Lagosta and Pelagosa, and declared Fiume a Free State. D'Annunzio did not accept the clauses of the Treaty, refusing to abandon Fiume. The consequence was a fratricidal clash between the legionaries and the Italian troops that went down in history as the Bloody Christmas.

The Pacts of Rome of 1924 ratified the Treaty of Rapallo, definitively assigning Fiume to Italy but almost all of Dalmatia passed to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

General Caviglia spoke during the discussion in the Senate regarding the Treaty of Rapallo. His words were prophetic:

“Certainly the Treaty of Rapallo will be judged by history, but we can determine right now that this treaty has consumed a historical event of great importance and laid the seeds of endless troubles in a soil too fertile. After twelve centuries of slow advance and four centuries of struggle with the Italian race, the Slavic race was able to obtain from Italy, in an official document – the first in history – the recognition of its undisputed dominion on the east side of the Adriatic. This historical fact is consumated by the Treaty of Rapallo. Using the lesson of history, allow me to make some predictions. All of modern history indicates a strong movement of expansion of the Slavic race in all directions. As serfs, slaves, mercenaries, feudatories, they will expand westward, penetrate the boundaries of various neighboring nationalities and will replace the populations.

They do not carry a civilization of their own, but absorb the civilization of the peoples they replace, changing the names of the lands. But the expelled nationality preserves its identity; and thus the Italian will be forced to migrate to Italy, the German forced to migrate to Germany and Austria, the Greek to Greece, the Hungarian to Hungary. Voltaire, in his history of Charles XII of Sweden, found to his regret the disappearance of Greek-Byzantine civilization in the lands to the south-east of Poland due to the advance of the Slavs and the substitution of Greek names of rivers and cities with new Slavic names; with greater sorrow Italy will see the disappearance of Italian names from the eastern shore of the Adriatic and their replacement with Slavic names. Our people will gradually be driven from the eastern shore of the Adriatic; our merchant ships and our fishing boats will gradually encounter more and more obstacles forbidding us to exercise our millennial rights; we will end up having to flee from the eastern coast, and the Italian flag, which represents the banner of Rome and Venice with their most noble traditions, will be forced to abandon the coast of Dalmatia.”

 slow and constant ethnic cleansing created the conditions for the re-Italianization policy that in the years following the First World War affected those few Dalmatian lands that passed to the Italian state after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The Slavicization of Dalmatia and the gradual expulsion of the Italian element thus became a fait accompli.

All this was before the advent of the Fascist regime, before the attempted re-Italianization of these lands by the Italians (1918-1941), and before the Italo-German military occupation of World War II.

The poisonous seeds of ethnic hatred had certainly been planted, as can be seen, not by the Italians, but by the Slavs, and the plants unfortunately grew between 1943 and 1945 with the tragedy of the Foibe Massacres and the final exodus of the Italians in the years after.

The nationalisms that caused the collapse of the Central Powers were unable to reconstruct that centuries-old peaceful coexistence among the people of Dalmatia which the Republic of Venice had managed to wisely guarantee from the fourteenth century until its fall. A peaceful coexistence which still remains as a living testimony and example for all generations.

See also:
The Agony of Italian Dalmatia Under Franz Joseph

The First Dalmatian Exodus, 1870-1880

Brief History of Dalmatia in the 19th Century

The Population of Dalmatia in the 12th Century

The Extermination of Dalmatian Italians in Lagosta

The Habsburg Genocide in Dalmatia

The Forced Slavicization of Clergy and Liturgy in Julian Venetia and Dalmatia by the Habsburgs (1866-1914)
Quotes on the Italianity of Dalmatia
Quotes on the Italianity of Fiume
Quotes on the Italianity of Istria
Quotes on the Italianity of the Quarnaro
Quotes on the Italianity of Ragusa