The feat of Fiume was the occupation of the city carried out by a group of Italian soldiers, led by the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, from September 1919 to December 1920. The occupation began with the March of Ronchi, an expedition carried out between 11 and 12 September 1919. The legionaries enjoyed the support of the Italian nationalist political currents and, with some limits, also of Mussolini and the fascist movement, which was still in its phase embryonic. The occupation ended in December 1920 when the Italian government, after having signed the Treaty of Rapallo with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, ordered the city to be forcibly evacuated in an operation that went down in history as “Bloody Christmas”. Today Fiume belongs to Croatia, with the name of Rijeka, and within it the Italian population is reduced to a small minority.
Because the Italian nationalists claimed the city of Fiume
After the First World War, Fiume became the main claim of a vast Italian political area, which insistently requested the annexation of the city to Italy.
Rijeka is located on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, just south of Istria, and at the time was inhabited by a multi-ethnic population, of which a significant percentage of Italians were part.
According to the 1910 census, out of a total of 49,806 inhabitants, 24,212 declared Italian as their language. According to other estimates, the Italians were even more numerous. The city, however, was not included in the London Pact, the agreement signed in 1915 by the Italian government with the Entente powers, containing the list of territories which, after the victory in the war, would be annexed by Italy. Furthermore, Fiume was also claimed by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians (Kingdom SHS, later becoming the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), born after the war from the union of Serbia with territories previously belonging to the Austrian Empire. The powers of the Entente and the United States – which was not a signatory to the Pact of London and had entered the war in 1917 – opposed the Italian requests.
The claim to Fiume, in fact, was contradictory and difficult to support on a logical level: Italy had annexed vast territories not inhabited by Italian-speaking populations (for example Alto Adige and the eastern part of Istria) by virtue of the London Pact, but claimed Fiume on the basis of the principle of nationality, i.e. the same principle that it had not respected in the other cases.
What Gabriele d’Annunzio did: the Ronchi march
Despite the contradictions, Italian nationalists and the most politicized sectors of the armed forces were convinced that the city of Fiume belonged to Italy. After the war the city was occupied by a unit of grenadiers, who however in August 1919 were forced to retreat beyond the armistice line. They therefore quartered themselves in Ronchi (today Ronchi dei Legionari), in Friuli, and organized a coup to occupy the city again. At their head was the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, who had become a point of reference for Italian nationalism after some propaganda exploits carried out during the war. The grenadiers, led by the poet and reinforced by other army departments, crossed the borders between 11 and 12 September and occupied Fiume. The expedition, renamed the “Ronchi March2”, enjoyed the support of nationalist groups, in particular the Italian Nationalist Association, and the nascent fascist movement, although Mussolini preferred to avoid committing himself too decisively alongside d’Annunzio because he did not want to risk his political future in an operation with an uncertain outcome. The Fiume undertaking also benefited from the economic support of some large Italian industrial groups. However, non-nationalist political forces and the government, led by Francesco, were against Saverio Nitti, who feared that the occupation could create conflicts with the United States and the European powers.
The occupation of the city
Fiume remained under occupation of the D’Annunzio legionaries from September 1919 to December 1920. However, the city was not annexed to Italy, because the government was against it. In November 1919, General Pietro Badoglio, on behalf of Nitti, sought an agreement with d’Annunzio and proposed the so-called modus vivendi: the government undertook to prevent the city from being annexed to the SHS Kingdom, while refusing immediate annexation to Italy. The modus vivendi created conflicts between d’Annunzio and other Fiume leaders, because, while the poet was against it and called for annexation, others were in favor of accepting it. After various conflicts, the modus vivendi was rejected and the negotiations with Badoglio were interrupted.
In September 1920, d’Annunzio and his men proclaimed the birth of the Italian Regency of Carnaro, an independent state, which should have been governed on the basis of the Carnaro Charter, the constitution drawn up by the trade unionist Alceste De Ambris (which in reality was never applied).
Both before and after the proclamation of the Regency, Fiume became the point of reference for Italian nationalist currents and rituals were developed within it that would later be adopted by the fascist regime, such as the Roman salute. In October, D’Annunzio legionaries and some nationalist representatives who arrived from Italy began planning a coup d’état to overthrow the government of Rome and take power, but they did not carry out their plan.
The Treaty of Rapallo, the Bloody Christmas and the fate of the city
In Italy, in June 1920 the Nitti government had been replaced by an executive led by Giovanni Giolitti, who entered into negotiations with the SHS Kingdom. In November, the two countries signed the Treaty of Rapallo, defining the border line (very generously for Italy) and establishing that the city of Fiume would become an independent state, not part of either Italy or the SHS Kingdom.
After the treaty, Giolitti was able to order the eviction of d’Annunzio and his legionaries. On 24 December the Italian fleet began the bombardment of the city and in the following days a clash developed, which d’Annunzio called “Christmas of blood”. On 31 December the poet surrendered and, on the basis of the Treaty of Rapallo, the Free State of Fiume was established.
The city, however, did not remain independent for long and in 1924, after an agreement with the SHS Kingdom, it was finally annexed to Italy. After the Second World War it became part of Yugoslavia, with the Croatian name of Rijeka. Almost the entire Italian population abandoned the city as part of the Julian-Dalmatian exodus. Today Rijeka belongs to Croatia and the Italian population is reduced to a small minority.
