THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE ITALIANS IN DALMATIA - 2

(continuation from first section of the "Disappearance of the Italians in  Dalmatia")

The Treaty of Rapallo

To solve the Adriatic problem it was necessary to resort to direct negotiations between Rome and Belgrade, which signed the Treaty of Rapallo on 12 November 1920.

Italy brought the eastern borders of Venezia Giulia to the natural borders made by the chain of the Alps. 

Fiume became an independent state. But the Italian Dalmatia of the Pact of London was given to the new State of Yugoslavia, less Zara and the island of Làgosta (a total of 104 sq km of territory). The Italians of Arbe and Veglia protested and even sent their cities flags to Italy and San Marino (see the following image of a famous stamp of S.Marino Republic).

One should suppose that in Rapallo, the diplomats of Palazzo Chigi, almost feeling on its shoulders the weight of renunciation to the Dalmatia territories, wanted to protect the Italian minority that, in this way, remained under the sovereignty of the Yugoslavia state.

Perhaps failing to obtain a special status for that community - in this case changing some norm from the former Austrian law for the minorities of the ceased Empire - they devised a clause that allowed Italians - as such - to stay in their cities. Evidently the exodus of those thousands of Italians, in 1919 and 1920, as well as the reasons that had determined it, did not seem to have been evaluated and so Rome did not capture the real situation in which the Italians were experiencing in Dalmatia. In international customs it is expected that, with the change of sovereignty over a given territory, the population is able to not accept the citizenship of the new State but with the obligation to transfer its residence elsewhere. In other words, it is granted the right to exercise the right of option.

However, in the Treaty of Rapallo, in this traditional institution, a completely new clause was introduced. Those who opted for Italian citizenship were not obliged - as a rule - to transfer their residence. And innovation was considered a success of Italian diplomacy, so much so that Count Sforza - in the Chamber of Deputies - declared that they "had obtained privileges such as none of the recent European treaties had come to recognize for an ethnic minority".

But those who opted to remain Italians and kept the residence in place automatically became "foreigners". They remained ousted from the political and administrative life of their cities to which, until then, they had - well or badly - always participated. They were faced with considerable difficulties to continue their professions, to obtain licenses and permits necessary for the exercise of arts and crafts. And in that naturally hostile environment they would have been pointed out as "Italians". 

On the other hand, those who opted not to be Italians became Yugoslavian citizens, as sanctioned by the Constitution of the State of Yugoslavia: "Citizenship is one in the whole Kingdom".

With the Treaty of Rapallo the General Consulate of Spàlato, the Consulate of Sebenìco, the Vice Consuls of Cùrzola and Ragusa were reopened or established to allow the Italians to opt. In those moments, however, Rome still ignored how many Italians "really" there were in Dalmatia, which certainly were not the 6,559 of the 1910 census.

At the Chamber of Deputies, during the debate on the Treaty of Rapallo, the same  Salvemini, who certainly was not in favor of Italian aspirations in Dalmatia, stood at the figure of 40,000 Dalmatian Italians. Similarly, the deputy Colajanni did not rule out even a presence of 60,000 people.

Furthermore, in 1919 the Spalatini (native neolatin citizens of Spalato) had affixed 8,000 signatures - authenticated - to a petition sent to the Italian Delegation to the Peace Conference to demand the annexation of the city to Italy. That is, in the city of Spàlato/Split alone there were at least 8,000 Italians able to sign.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order to have more precise data, had to ask the Consular Representatives for information on the spot that they answered with a series of notes between February and April 1921.The Italian Vice Consul in Cùrzola reported the "huge number of citizens of Cùrzola - 118 families with 564 members - who announced themselves to this civil commissioner with the intention of leaving the city and moving to the Kingdom". And he added: "Excluding the regnicoli here domiciled and the officials of the ceased Austrian regime  entered our service [who are almost all Italians] and not even calculated the Italians of fresh date, declared such after our occupation, still remain between Cùrzola and the neighbor Petrara Village as many as 189 families with 835 members ". Overall, therefore, the Italians were more than a thousand.

From Sebenìco, that Consul informed that in the city lived 190 Italian families with 650 people and , with the surrounding territory, they would have been at least 800. Data for defect, since when the so-called "second zone" (Sebenìco) was evicted - as far as we know - 20 families left on 20 April 1921. A week after 300 people, and on June 13 another 653.

In Lissa, April 17, 1921, the Italian flag was lowered. The minutes of the handover were countersigned by the mayor Lorenzo Doimi of de Lupis and 30 Italian family leaders.

In relation to Ragusa, the Consul General of Spàlato, reported on the existence of about 100 families of "Regnicoli" (Italians born in the Italian Peninsula), and added: "Italian Dalmatian families who will opt will be fifty".

In this search for data, the list of names of the Dalmatian magistrates and chancellors who were displaced in the Peninsula can be of some interest. These are 74 former Austrian employees placed in the roles of the Italian judiciary in Dalmatia since 1919.The Consul General Umilta, in his book of memories, would have written that, "Including Zara, remained annexed to Italy, the Italians were certainly not inferior to 50/60 thousand." And he added: "Then we must mention those who, isolated in the countryside and in small villages, were to be called Slavs not to be slaughtered by the Croatian energumens, then the indifferent who, while they wished that their country was annexed to Italy, did not dare to demonstrate openly their aspiration, so as not to see any possibility of life precluded ".Finally, a more political than statistical consideration: "In short, among Italians proper and sympathizers, there were no less than one hundred thousand people in Dalmatia, who did not expect anything good from the union of Dalmatia to Yugoslavia.

The exodus of Dalmatian Italians from Spalato  

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The Second Exodus

By 1921, the Italians who were still in the Dalmatia occupied by the Serbian troops, and in the areas formerly controlled by the Italians, were able to exercise the right of option. But there is very little news about it.

The elements that the Consul General Umilta provides, even if not included in an official or service publication but in his book, are probably those closest to reality given the authoritativeness of the source and the non-instrumentality of the volume, considering that it was published in 1948."When it came to the moment of the option," he writes, "and this operation lasted about five months, a ten thousand people became Italian citizens [..], a total of fifteen thousand people remained yugoslavian subjects".The option applications, collected by the consular representations, were sent for notification to the "Civil Commissariat for Dalmatia", then the Prefecture of Zara. And they were a declaration of faith. The interested party, in fact, signed a question where, in addition to the reference to Article 7 of the Treaty of Rapallo, it was specified that the option was "in accordance with the rules that will be enacted". That is, you opted for a closed box.

On 11 April 1923, the newspaper "Corriere di Zara" reported the news that up to that date, despite a rather complex procedure, 3,419 applications had been accepted. Furthermore, a note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows that 344 late applications had been accepted by late May 1925, while a hundred were still in the preliminary investigation.In any case, it is believed that in 1921-1922 more than 10,000 Italians exercised their right of option. In general, people traditionally clinging to their cities, or who had their own heritage, their own self-sufficiency, so they could resist the pressures of the environment.The other 15,000 who did not opt, despite remaining "spiritually" Italian, became confused with the Croatians. But, in progression of time, many later moved to Italy. Because of the difficulty that the Croats, at all times, opposed to their cohabitation. For the political instability of Yugoslavia. For the animosity of Belgrade towards Rome that found immediate resonance in the Dalmatian cities.

According to a Yugoslavian statistic, only between September 1926 and October 1929, 1,493 Italians emigrated from Dalmatia, and Ivo Rubic considers the presence, around 1930, of only 7,500 Italians. Therefore the figures presented by the Consul General Umilta can be considered coherent.

The Last Exodus

Italy returned to Dalmatia in April 1941. Following the Pacts of Rome on 18 May, that were concluded with the Independent State of Croatia which arose from the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Italy included under its own sovereignty both the territories of the London Pact of 1915 and those of Spàlato & Càttaro, erected to new provinces of the Kingdom of Italy which, with that of Zara (constituted the "Government of Dalmatia").

In 1941 there were 20,000 Italians and 2,000 Croats in Zara. In the rest of Dalmatia there will have been at most 3 to 4 thousand Italians (lacking precise data), with the most consistent groups in Spàlato, Ragusa, Sebenìco, Cùrzola.

On July 25, 1943, the personnel of the "Government of Dalmatia" and of political organizations from the Peninsula in 194 returned to Italy.

On September 10, while Zara was being guarded by the Germans, and the city's population suffered no offense, the Tito's partisans entered the town of Spàlato. They remained there until September 26, when the city was conquered by the Germans. In those 16 days, between Spàlato and Trau, the titines suppressed 134 Italians, including public security agents, carabinieri, prison guards.Ten people were shot in Sebenìco, although the partisans had the chance to stop only one day. Shootings happened also in Ragusa. Another 94 Italians were suppressed in various locations in Dalmatia. 51 were also shot by the Germans or died in Nazi deportation camps. And each figure shown here corresponds to the sum of persons identified by name. Therefore, it is permissible to think of others who, similarly disappeared, have left no memory.

During 1943 and 1944, from the place occupied by the Germans - like Spàlato, Ragusa, Sebenìco - the last Italians, took the road of exile in their homeland. But there were still the 20,000 Italians from Zara. Tito, making the city appear to be a crucial logistic center for the supplies of the German divisions engaged in the territory of Yugoslavia, convinced the allies of its military importance.The Anglo Americans, between November 2, 1943 and October 31, 1944, with fifty-four bombings razed the city to the ground. No less than were 2,000 dead under the rubble. About 10-12,000 were the "Zaratini" citizens who at various times managed to save themselves in Trieste. Just over a thousand were able to reach Puglia.The Tito partisans entered Zara on October 31, 1944, and 138 were the Italians shot, suppressed, or drowned: this number limited to those identified by name.

With the Treaty of Peace of 1947, Italians who were still in Dalmatia were granted the right to opt for Italian citizenship, but with the obligation to transfer residence in Italy. There will not have been more than five thousand and all of them were scared by the terror related to the foibes and the massacres done with continuous harrassments perpetrated by the Titos's partisans.

The exodus was total. In Dalmatia the Italian minority had ceased to exist.

A group of Dalmatian Italians (and Istrians) in a 1947 refugee camp in Tuscany's Pisa

An Ethnocide?

Finally I want to remind you that in 2018 there are still one hundred Italian Dalmatians in Cherso-Lussigno/Cres-Losinj and about a half hundred in Zara/Zadar. Someone (a few dozen old ones) is also found elsewhere, from Spalato/Split to Lagosta and Ragusa/Dubrovnik of Dalmatia. However you do not reach half a thousand, to be optimistic! The Dalmatian Italians who exiled in the world have their own association called "Libero Comune di Zara in esilio" (Free city of Zara exiled in the world) and have their magazine called "Il Dalmata" (http://www.libertates.com/newlibertates/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/dalmata-97-dig-def.pdf ).

In short, in the nineteenth century according to the reliable Austrian census of 1857 there were in Dalmatia (excluding the Quarnaro/Kvarner islands: Cherso/Cres, Lussino/Lošinj and Veglia/Krk) 45,000 Italian Dalmatians and 369,310 Croatshttps://books.google.cl/books?id=r60EAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA74&dq=%C3%96sterreichisches+K%C3%BCstenland&as_brr=1&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false. Officially then almost 15% of the inhabitants in Dalmatia south of the Quarnaro area was Italian (and if you add these islands of the Quarnaro where the Italians were very numerous, you reach almost twenty percent) ...……... but today unfortunately nothing remains.Only a percentage that is practically nothing! And -sincerely- this fact raises a disturbing question: this disappearance of the Italians in Dalmatia should be called "Ethnocide"?

PS: If interested in further information, please go to http://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2013/08/lagosta-perfect-ethnic-cleansing.html (about the complete disappearance of the Italians in Lagosta -now in Croatian called Lastovo, a Dalmatian island that was officially part of the Kingdom of Italy until 1947).