Former country in Europe between Italy and Yugoslavia
Free Territory of Trieste
Territorio Libero di Trieste(Italian) Svobodno tržaško ozemlje(Slovene) Slobodni Teritorij Trsta(Croatian) Слободна Територија Трста(Serbian) Teritorio Libero de Trieste (Triestine·Venetian)
1947–1954
Flag
Coat of arms
Anthem:Inno Di San Giusto "Hymn to Saint Justus"
Zone A (green) and Zone B (blue and pink), indicating how the territory was split following its dissolution
The territory was established on 10 February 1947, by a protocol of the Treaty of Peace with Italy, to accommodate an ethnically and culturally mixed population in a neutral independent country. The intention was also to cool down territorial claims between Italy and Yugoslavia, due to its strategic importance for trade with Central Europe. It came into existence on 15 September 1947. Its administration was divided into two areas: one being the port city of Trieste with a narrow coastal strip to the northwest (Zone A); the other (Zone B) was formed by a small portion of the north-western part of the Istrian peninsula.
The territory was de facto dissolved in 1954 and given to Italy (Zone A) and Yugoslavia (Zone B). This created a border dispute which was only settled twenty years later with the signing the bilateral Treaty of Osimo in 1975, which was ratified in 1977.[3]
The Free Territory of Trieste comprised an area of 738 square kilometres (285sqmi) around the Gulf of Trieste in the northern Adriatic, from Duino (Devin) in the north to Cittanova (Novigrad) in the south, and had approximately 330,000 inhabitants.
Unofficial coat of arms of the Free Territory of Trieste as used in Zone B from 1947 to 1954
Since 1382, Trieste had been part of the Habsburg monarchy, whilst neighboring Istria had been divided for centuries between the Habsburg monarchy (its central, northern and eastern parts) and the Republic of Venice (its western and southern parts). The population of the territory has been diverse and mixed, with different and often changing ethnic majorities in different parts of the territory.[citation needed]
Italian-speakers have been predominant in most urban settlements and along the coast, with significant ethnic Slavic minorities of Slovenes and Croats inland - especially in the Trieste district, where Slovenes represented a third of the population by the end of World War I (although most of them were recent arrivals, after 1880, from interior Slovene districts).[4][5] The countryside of the territory was mostly populated by ethnic Slovenes or Croats in the southernmost portion of the area. There was also a smaller number of Istro-Romanians, Greeks, Albanians, as well as a sizeable Triestine Jewish community.
The local Triestine dialect reflects this ethnic mix. Based on the Romance Venetian language, the dialect was influenced by ancient Rhaeto-Romance substrate. In addition, some Triestine vocabulary are of German and Slovene origin, and there are also loanwords from other languages, such as Greek.
The variations of spoken Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian in the territory were also largely dialectal, sharing words with the Triestine and Istrian dialects. In the southernmost part of the territory, the Croatian-based dialects are of the Chakavian type, while the Venetian-based Istrian is also commonly used.
A 1950 poster for the Marshall Plan displaying national flags of European countries, including one for Trieste with a blue background (the United Nations' official colour)
At the end of World War I in 1918 and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of Italy annexed Trieste, Istria and part of modern-day western Slovenia, establishing the border region known as the Julian March (Venezia Giulia). In 1924, Italy also annexed the Free State of Fiume (now the city of Rijeka in Croatia).
During the 1920s and 1930s, the Slavic population was subject to forced Italianization and discrimination under the Italian Fascist regime led by Benito Mussolini. They were also exposed to state violence by mobs incited by the ruling fascist party PNF, which included the infamous burning of the Slovene National Hall in Trieste on 13 July 1920. Because of this, some native Slovenes and Croats emigrated to Yugoslavia, while others joined the TIGR resistance organization, whose methods included more than 100 bombings and assassinations, mostly against Italian authorities in the region, and especially in the areas around Trieste and Gorizia to the north.
Amid the collapse of German front line towards the end of the war, Yugoslav Partisan units (4th Army and the 9th Corps) entered Trieste on 1 May 1945, after a battle in the town of Opicina on the outskirts of Trieste.
The 2nd New Zealand Division also arrived the following day, and forced the surrender of some 2,000 German troops holding out in Trieste, who warily had refused to capitulate to Yugoslav troops, fearing reprisals and executions. An uneasy truce then developed between New Zealand and Yugoslav troops occupying the area, until British General William Morgan proposed partition of the territory into separate military-administered zones.
Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito agreed with the idea on 23 May, as the British 13th Corps was moving forward to the proposed demarcation line. A formal agreement on partition was signed in Duino on 10 June, which created the so-called Morgan Line dividing the Julian March territory. Yugoslav troops withdrew to their area on 12 June 1945.[6][7]
Establishment of the territory and provisional government
A postage stamp for Zone B of the Free Territory of Trieste, 1948
In January 1947, the United Nations Security Council approved Resolution 16 under Article 24 of its charter calling for the creation of a free state in Trieste and the region surrounding it. A permanent statute codifying its provisions was to become recognized under international law upon the appointment of an international governor approved by the Quatripartite Powers (UK, US, France, and the Soviet Union). On 15 September 1947, the peace treaty between the United Nations (UN) and Italy was ratified, establishing the Free Territory of Trieste.
Official languages were Italian and Slovene, possibly with the use of Serbo-Croatian in the portion of Zone B south of the Dragonja River. However, local government bodies were never formed, and it continued to be run by military authorities, respecting the administrative division demarcated by the Morgan Line: Zone A, which was 222.5 square kilometres (85.9sqmi) and had a population of 262,406 - including Trieste itself - was administered by the British and American forces; Zone B, which was 515.5 square kilometres (199.0sqmi) with 71,000 residents - including north-western Istria - was administered by the Yugoslav army.
Cyclists from the Free Territory of Trieste during the 1950 Peace Race in Poland
Between October 1947 and March 1948, the Soviet Union rejected the candidacy of 12 successive nominees for the civilian governor of the territory, at which point the Tripartite Powers (United States, United Kingdom, and France) issued a note to the Soviet and Yugoslav governments on 20 March 1948 recommending that the territory be returned to Italian sovereignty.
Since no governor was ever appointed under the terms of UN Resolution 16, the Territory never functioned as a real independent state - although its formal status and separate overeignty were generally respected, and as a separate state it was involved in the Marshall Plan (launched in April 1948) and the related OEEC (formed in March 1948).[8] Meanwhile, the Tito-Stalin split in mid-1948 led to the deterioration of relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, which resulted in a political stalemate, and the proposal to return the territory to Italy was suspended until 1954.
The Allied Military Government (AMG) thus continued to administer Zone A. The governance was split into peacekeeping and law enforcement sectors, with the local command comprising 5,000 Americans in the Trieste United States Troops (TRUST) and 5,000 British personnel in the British Element Trieste Forces (BETFOR).
According to the estimates published by the Allied Military Government, the population in Zone A as of 1949 was about 310,000, which included 239,200 ethnic Italians and 63,000 ethnic Slovenes.[9]
According to contemporary Italian sources,[citation needed] in Zone B there were at the time 36,000 to 55,000 Italians and 12,000 to 17,000 Slovenes and Croats. According to the Yugoslav census of 1945 (which was considered falsified by the Quadripartite Commission set up by the UN),[10] in the part of Istria which was to become Zone B there were a total of 67,461 inhabitants - including 30,789 Slovenes, Serbs and Croats, 29,672 Italians, and 7,000 people of unidentified nationality.
Elections in the Territory were held twice, in 1949 and 1952, but only for municipal councils. The elections for what was supposed to be the People's Assembly (Free Territory of Trieste's national legislature) were never held.
Free Territory of Trieste Diplomatic visa issued in Vienna.
Dissolution
On 5 October 1954, the London Memorandum was signed by ministers of the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, and Yugoslavia. The memorandum effectively disestablished the Free Territory of Trieste, which meant that the civilian administration was formally transferred to neighboring Italy and Yugoslavia.
Former Zone A with Trieste was given to Italy, while Zone B - which already had a separate communist civilian government since 1947 - to Yugoslavia. In addition, Yugoslavia was given some smaller parts of the former Zone A, including the city of Koper (Koppe), as well as several villages in the municipality of Muggia, like Plavje, Spodnje Škofije, Elerji, Hrvatini, Kolomban, Cerej, Premančan, and Barizoni. The castle and village of Socerb above San Dorligo della Valle was also ceded to the Yugoslav administration, according to the demarcation line defined by Annex I to the London Memorandum.
However, objections to the demarcation line and territorial claims from both sides continued. These were finally put to rest with the November 1975 signing of the bilateral Treaty of Osimo between Italy and Yugoslavia, which ended any current or future claims - as the London Memorandum had only dissolved the territory defacto, but not dejure.[11]
Annex VIII to the Treaty of peace with Italy of 10 February 1947 stipulates in its Article 1 that the port of Trieste shall be a customs-free port. Article 5(2) of Annex VIII provides that in connection with the importation into or exportation from or transit through the Free Port, the authorities of the Free Territory shall not levy on such goods customs duties or charges other than those levied for services rendered.[14] [emphasis added]
During the late 1940s and in the years following the division of the territory, up to 40,000 people[16] (mostly Italians) chose to leave the Yugoslav Zone B and move to the Italian Zone A for various reasons: some were intimidated into leaving, and some simply preferred not to live in Yugoslavia. (See Italianization that occurred previously.) Within Yugoslavia, the people who left were referred to as optanti 'choosers', whereas they called themselves esuli 'exiles'. About 14,000 Italians chose to remain in the Yugoslav zone. The population of the Free Territory of Trieste was approximately 370,000 in 1949.
Istria is the largest peninsula within the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Kvarner Gulf. It is shared by three countries: Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy, with 90% of surface area being part of Croatia. Croatia encapsulates most of the Istrian peninsula within Istria County.
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the regional decentralization entity of Trieste.
Northeast Italy is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), a first level NUTS region and a European Parliament constituency. Northeast encompasses four of the country's 20 regions:
The province of Trieste is a province in the autonomous Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. Its capital was the city of Trieste. It had an area of 212 square kilometres (82 sq mi) and it had a total population of 234,668. It had a coastal length of 48.1 kilometres (29.9 mi). Abolished in 2017, it was reestablished in 2019 as the regional decentralization entity of Trieste, and was reactivated on 1 July 2020.
The Julian March, also called Julian Venetia, is an area of southern Central Europe which is currently divided among Croatia, Italy, and Slovenia. The term was coined in 1863 by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, a native of the area, to demonstrate that the Austrian Littoral, Veneto, Friuli, and Trentino shared a common Italian linguistic identity. Ascoli emphasized the Augustan partition of Roman Italy at the beginning of the Empire, when Venetia et Histria was Regio X.
The Austrian Littoral was a crown land (Kronland) of the Austrian Empire, established in 1849. It consisted of three regions: the Margraviate of Istria in the south, Gorizia and Gradisca in the north, and the Imperial Free City of Trieste in the middle. The region has been contested frequently, with parts of it controlled at various times by the Republic of Venice, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Yugoslavia among others.
The Austrian Riviera was a term used for advertising the seaside resorts on the Adriatic coast of the Austrian crown lands of Gorizia and Istria. The name arose with the emergence of tourism in the Austrian Littoral from the mid 19th century onwards and was common until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I.
The Slovene Littoral or simply Littoral is one of the traditional regions of Slovenia. The littoral in its name – for a coastal-adjacent area – recalls the former Austrian Littoral, the Habsburg possessions on the upper Adriatic coast, of which the Slovene Littoral was part. Today, the Littoral is often associated with the Slovenian ethnic territory that, in the first half of the 20th century, found itself in Italy to the west of the Rapallo Border, which separated a quarter of Slovenes from the rest of the nation, and was strongly influenced by Italian fascism.
The Istrian–Dalmatian exodus was the post-World War II exodus and departure of local ethnic Italians as well as ethnic Slovenes and Croats from Yugoslavia. The emigrants, who had lived in the now Yugoslav territories of the Julian March, Kvarner and Dalmatia, largely went to Italy, but some joined the Italian diaspora in the Americas, Australia and South Africa. These regions were ethnically mixed, with long-established historic Croatian, Italian, and Slovene communities. After World War I, the Kingdom of Italy annexed Istria, Kvarner, the Julian March and parts of Dalmatia including the city of Zadar. At the end of World War II, under the Allies' Treaty of Peace with Italy, the former Italian territories in Istria, Kvarner, the Julian March and Dalmatia were assigned to now Communist-helmed Federal Yugoslavia, except for the Province of Trieste. The former territories absorbed into Yugoslavia are part of present-day Croatia and Slovenia.
The Triveneto or Tre Venezie, also often referred to as North-Eastern Italy or simply North-East, is a historical region of Italy. The area is made up of the three smaller historical regions of Venezia Euganea, Venezia Giulia and Venezia Tridentina. This territory was named after the Roman region of Venetia et Histria.
The Morgan Line was the line of demarcation set up after World War II in the region known as Julian March which prior to the war belonged to the Kingdom of Italy. The Morgan Line was the border between two military administrations in the region: the Yugoslav on the east, and that of the Allied Military Government on the west. After 15 September 1947, the Allied Military Government was composed of both the British Element Trieste Forces (BETFOR) troops from the United Kingdom and the Trieste United States Troops (TRUST) from the United States.
Muggia is an Italian town and comune (municipality) in south-eastern Regional decentralization entity of Trieste, in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia on the border with Slovenia. Lying on the eastern flank of the Gulf of Trieste in the northern Adriatic Sea, Muggia is the only Italian port town in Istria. The town's architecture is marked by its Venetian and Austrian history, and its harbour hosts a modern 500-berth marina for yachts.
San Dorligo della Valle is a comune (municipality) in the Regional decentralization entity of Trieste in the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, located about 4 kilometres southeast of Trieste, on the border with Slovenia. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 6,019 and an area of 24.5 square kilometres (9.5 sq mi).
Italy–Yugoslavia relations are the cultural and political relations between Italy and Yugoslavia in the 20th century, since the creation of Yugoslavia in 1918 until its dissolution in 1992. Relations during the interwar years were hostile because of Italian irredentist demands to Yugoslav territory, leading to Fascist Italy and the Axis Powers invading Yugoslavia during World War II. After lingering tensions after the war over the status of the Free Territory of Trieste, relations improved during the Cold War.
The foibe massacres, or simply the foibe, refers to mass killings and deportations both during and immediately after World War II, mainly committed by Yugoslav Partisans and OZNA in the then-Italian territories of Julian March, Kvarner and Dalmatia, against local Italians and Slavs, primarily members of fascist and collaborationist forces, and civilians opposed to the new Yugoslav authorities. The term refers to some victims who were thrown alive into the foibe., deep natural sinkholes characteristic of the Karst Region. In a wider or symbolic sense, some authors used the term to apply to all disappearances or killings of Italian and Slavic people in the territories occupied by Yugoslav forces. Others included deaths resulting from the forced deportation of Italians, or those who died while trying to flee from these contested lands.
Istrian Italians are an ethnic group from the Adriatic region of Istria in modern northwestern Croatia and southwestern Slovenia. Istrian Italians descend from the original Latinized population of Roman Histria, from the Venetian-speaking settlers who colonized the region during the time of the Republic of Venice, and from the local Croatian people who culturally assimilated.
Slovene Istria is a region in southwest Slovenia. It comprises the northern part of the Istrian peninsula, and is part of the wider geographical-historical region known as the Slovene Littoral. Its largest urban center is Koper. Other large settlements are Izola, Piran, and Portorož. The entire region has around 120 settlements. In its coastal area, both Slovene and Italian are official languages.
The Imperial Free City of Trieste and its Territory was a possession of the Habsburg monarchy in the Holy Roman Empire from the 14th century to 1806, a constituent part of the German Confederation and the Austrian Littoral from 1849 to 1920, and part of the Italian Julian March until 1922. In 1719 it was declared a free port by Emperor Charles VI; the construction of the Austrian Southern Railway (1841–57) turned it into a bustling seaport, through which much of the exports and imports of the Austrian Lands were channelled. The city administration and economy were dominated by the city's Italian population element; Italian was the language of administration and jurisdiction. In the later 19th and early 20th century, the city attracted the immigration of workers from the city's hinterlands, many of whom were speakers of Slovene.
The Italian irredentism in Istria was the political movement supporting the unification to Italy, during the 19th and 20th centuries, of the peninsula of Istria. It is considered closely related to the Italian irredentism in Trieste and Rijeka (Fiume), two cities bordering the peninsula.
Slovene minority in Italy, also known as Slovenes in Italy is the name given to Italian citizens who belong to the autochthonous Slovene ethnic and linguistic minority living in the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The vast majority of members of the Slovene ethnic minority live in the Provinces of Trieste, Gorizia, and Udine. Estimates of their number vary significantly; the official figures show 52,194 Slovenian speakers in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as per the 1971 census, but Slovenian estimates speak of 83,000 to 100,000 people.
↑ Italian: Territorio libero di Trieste; Slovene: Svobodno tržaško ozemlje; Croatian: Slobodni teritorij Trsta; Serbian: Cлободна Територија Трста; TriestineVenetian: Teritorio Libero de Trieste
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