Italy and the Yugoslav state

At the end of September 1918 the Italian government issued a communiqué on the Yugoslavs. It stated that Italy regarded the movement of the Yugoslav peoples, striving to win independence and to form a free state, as consistent with the principles for which the Allies were fighting and with the aims of a just and lasting peace. The British chronology of the war records this under 25 September as Italy’s recognition of the independence of the Yugoslav state. Such a state, however, did not yet exist, and Italy recognised neither any state nor any government, not even the émigré Yugoslav Committee. It was a declaration of support for the aspiration itself. According to a dispatch from the United States ambassador in Rome, sent on 26 September, the government issued the communiqué on that very day.

The wording of the communiqué had been decided several weeks earlier. On 8 September, after a long discussion, the Council of Ministers adopted it on the motion of Leonida Bissolati, a reformist socialist, minister without portfolio and the most ardent supporter in the government of an understanding with the Yugoslavs. According to a later account in the Corriere della Sera, the Foreign Minister, Sidney Sonnino, opposed it with all his might but finally gave way. When sending the text to the Italian ambassadors in the Entente capitals, however, he presented it as a temporary measure of wartime propaganda, without further consequences. Before publication Rome passed the declaration to the Allies for approval, which is why it appeared only at the end of the month. Some works date it to 8 September, the day of the decision.

Italy had long hesitated over the matter. The Treaty of London of 1915 had promised it Istria, part of Dalmatia and the islands, lands inhabited largely by Croats and Slovenes, and Sonnino regarded the treaty as the sole basis of Italy’s participation in the war. In April the Prime Minister, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, had endorsed the resolutions of the Rome congress, but in June Italy would not agree to the Versailles declaration promising the Yugoslavs anything more than sympathy, while Washington was already speaking of the complete liberation of the Slavs. The American embassy in Rome reported on 17 September that the Italians, united in their support for the Czechoslovaks, showed uncertainty and distrust towards the Yugoslavs. They did not trust the Committee’s chairman, Ante Trumbić, doubted whether the Yugoslavs really wanted the break-up of the monarchy rather than merely autonomy within its borders, and feared that their claims on the Adriatic would be irreconcilable with Italy’s.

The press received the communiqué favourably but stressed that it in no way set aside the provisions of the Treaty of London, and announced further explanations from the government once parliament opened. On 30 September the Italian ambassador in Washington, Vincenzo Macchi di Cellere, passed the text to the State Department. The declaration appeared just as Serbian and French troops, having broken the front at Dobro Pole, were advancing deep into Macedonia and the Bulgarian army was in disarray.

The British historian Harold Temperley considered this declaration the most far-reaching Italian-Yugoslav agreement until the Treaty of Rapallo of 1920. The accord proved short-lived. As early as 29 October the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was proclaimed in Zagreb, and at the beginning of November Italian troops began to occupy the lands assigned to Italy in the Treaty of London. The dispute over the eastern shore of the Adriatic became one of the most difficult problems of the Paris Peace Conference.