# Croatian Committee

The Croatian Committee (Croatian: Hrvatski komitet) was a Croatian political émigré organization, formed in the summer of 1919, by émigré Frankist politicians and members of the former Austro-Hungarian Army. The organization opposed the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) and aimed to achieve Croatia's independence. The Croatian Committee was established in Graz, Austria, before its headquarters were moved to Vienna and then to Budapest, Hungary. It was led by Ivo Frank.
Frank received aid from the Kingdom of Italy seeking to destabilize Yugoslavia before the Paris Peace Conference and bilateral negotiations regarding their mutual border. The issue was contentious because Italian territorial claims, largely based on the Treaty of London, conflicted with Yugoslavia's interests, which relied on the right of self-determination. The Croatian Committee concluded a number of agreements with Gabriele D'Annunzio who had seized the city of Rijeka (Fiume), attempting to resolve the Fiume question in favour of Italy. Furthermore, the Croatian Committee established cooperation with other groups fighting to destabilize Yugoslavia such as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. The Croatian Committee established the Croatian Legion, estimated at 100 to 300 troops, as its armed wing headquartered in Hungary.
The Croatian Committee was dissolved in 1920, after the Yugoslav authorities learned of the group's activities and sent letters to Austrian and Hungarian governments protesting further Committee activities on their soil. This was enough to force the group to cease its operations. Italy also cut its support to the Croatian Committee after signing the Treaty of Rapallo the same year, defining the Italian–Yugoslav border. Several people, including Milan Šufflay and Ivo Pilar, were tried on charges of treason in Yugoslavia because of contacts with the Croatian Committee.

## Background

In 1915, the Kingdom of Italy entered World War I on the side of the Entente, following the signing of the Treaty of London, which promised Italy territorial gains at the expense of Austria-Hungary. Representatives of the South Slavs living in Austria-Hungary, who were organized as the Yugoslav Committee, opposed the treaty. Following the 3 November 1918 Armistice of Villa Giusti, the Austro-Hungarian surrender, Italian troops moved to occupy parts of the eastern Adriatic shore promised to Italy under the Treaty of London, ahead of the Paris Peace Conference. The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, carved from areas of Austria-Hungary populated by the southern Slavs (encompassing the Slovene lands, Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina), authorized the Yugoslav Committee to represent it abroad. The short-lived state, shortly before seeking a union with the Kingdom of Serbia to establish the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia), laid a competing claim to the eastern Adriatic to counter the Italian demands. This claim, relying on the principle of self-determination, was supported by deployment of the Royal Serbian Army (subsequently reformed as the Royal Yugoslav Army) to the area. The Creation of Yugoslavia was formally announced on 1 December.

## Finzi's plan

In late November 1918, General Pietro Badoglio received a plan for propaganda activities designed to hinder the consolidation of Yugoslavia. The plan was devised by Lieutenant Colonel Cesare Pettorelli Lalatta Finzi [it], the chief of the Information Office in the Occupied Territories (Italian: Informazioni Territori Occupati, ITO) in Trieste. Finzi's plan envisaged stoking anti-Serbian sentiment in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Vardar Macedonia to promote separatist ideas. The plan provided for a substantial budget and 200 agents. Badoglio submitted the plan for approval, which Foreign Minister Sydney Sonnino, Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and chief of staff Marshal Armando Diaz granted on 9 December.
Finzi founded a secret unit in Budapest to establish and maintain contacts with and support opponents of Yugoslavia. Finzi first came into contact with Stjepan Radić, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (Croatian: Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS). Sonnino planned to bring Radić to the Paris Peace Conference to advocate Croatian interests, but Yugoslav authorities arrested the entire HSS leadership. Sonnino unsuccessfully tried, on Radić's behalf, to obtain support for Croatia's greater independence from the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.
Finzi also contacted Ivo Frank, son of Josip, a former leader of the Party of Rights. Frank requested Italian assistance in pursuit of his political objectives, promising in return to recognize Italian territorial claims under the Treaty of London. Frank, as well as a number of the faction of the Party of Rights known as the Frankists had been previously briefly arrested in relation to the protest of Croatian Home Guard soldiers in Zagreb. Frankists were excluded from participation in the Temporary National Representation (the interim parliament) in February 1919, and faction leaders Vladimir Prebeg and Josip Pazman were arrested for sending the Frankists' political programme advocating independent Croatia to the Paris Peace Conference.

## Establishment

Frank and a number of other Frankists (including a member of Party of Rights leadership, Vladimir Sachs-Petrović) moved to Italy, Hungary, or Austria. Historian Jozo Tomasevich described Frank as the only person of significant standing in Croatian political emigration in the aftermath of World War I. In May 1919, they formed the nationalist Croatian Committee in Graz, Austria, joined by a number of former Austro-Hungarian Army officers, NCOs, and police officers including Generaloberst Stjepan Sarkotić, Lieutenant Colonel Stephan Duić [de], Emanuel Gagliardi, Niko Petričević, Major Vilim Stipetić, and Beno Klobučarić. Some sources indicate that Gagliardi, Stipetić, and Klobučarić first formed the Croatian Committee. Others indicate that the founders were Frank, Sachs-Petrović, Duić, and Gagliardi.
Frank led the Croatian Committee whose objective was to obtain independence of Croatia from Yugoslavia. For this purpose, it intended to gather support in Croatia by spreading and amplifying anti-Serbian sentiment relying on discontent with the conditions of creating Yugoslavia. The organization's headquarters were first moved to Vienna and then, after Miklós Horthy’s rule was established in Hungary, the Committee moved to Budapest.

## International collaboration

Frank sought support from Gabriele D'Annunzio who had seized the city of Rijeka (Italian: Fiume) attempting to impose a solution of the so-called Fiume question. Frank also contacted Italian fascists regarding potential alliances. Cooperation with D'Annunzio was first formalized on 5 July 1920, when Frank and Gagliardi met with D'Annunzio's representatives, Giovanni Host-Venturi and Giovanni Giuriati, in Venice and signed two agreements. The first promised money and arms to Croatian émigrés. The second agreement dealt with the borders of the future Croatian republic, which was envisioned as generally corresponding to the former Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. The agreement defined Italian territorial gains around Rijeka and some Adriatic islands. Main Dalmatian cities were to become politically autonomous free ports. Namely, Zadar, Šibenik, Trogir, Split, and Dubrovnik were to form an independent, loose federation or a "maritime alliance". The rest of Dalmatia would be organized as a separate republic. The Dalmatian republic was to decide on joining the Croatian republic in a plebiscite. Some sources claim that D'Annunzio was acting as a proxy of Italy. When D'Annunzio organized a meeting in Rijeka in 1920 aimed at establishing an alternative League of Nations for politically oppressed peoples, Frank attended and signed an alliance agreement with D'Annunzio.
The Croatian Committee drew inspiration from D’Annunzio’s actions and planned to replicate the flight over Vienna in Zagreb. It also maintained contacts with the former emperor, Charles I of Austria who was in Switzerland at the time, and contacts established with Albanian anti-Yugoslav forces. The latter also received Italian aid in opposition to the Yugoslav state, as did the Montenegrin pro-independence Greens and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). Yugoslav military intelligence accused Frank and the Croatian Committee of conspiring with unknown Hungarians to secure Hungarian takeover of Bačka, Banat, and Baranya regions in return for renunciation of Hungarian claims regarding Međimurje.

## Croatian Legion

The Croatian Committee established a small, volunteer military wing in Hungary named the Croatian Legion. It was meant to deploy to Croatia in case of an invasion or a revolution. Members were largely recruited from Italian prisoner-of-war camps by Duić as the organisation’s chief recruiter, whose visits to the camps were permitted by Italian authorities. Furthermore, the Croatian Legion was supplied with arms through the Italian ambassador to Austria. The force was based in Hungary, initially in the town of Kőszeg, and later in Zalaegerszeg. The Croatian Committee announced the existence of its military wing in November 1919, claiming it was 300,000 members. Yugoslav intelligence estimated their true number to be 300, while Sachs-Petrović indicated there were about a hundred in the ranks of the Croatian Legion. The force was initially commanded by Major Gojkomir Glogovac and then by Captain Josip Metzger.

## Dissolution

The Croatian Committee's activities ended in 1920 after Yugoslav authorities learned of the group's contacts abroad. Yugoslavia sent letters of protest to Austria and Hungary that caused the Austrian and Hungarian authorities to shut down the group's operations. Similarly, Italian support for the Croatian Committee ended after the Treaty of Rapallo, which defined the Italian-Yugoslav border, concluded in late 1920.
Gagliardi provided Yugoslav authorities information on Croatian Committee members and returned to Yugoslavia in 1922. He published a paper on the Croatian Committee, paid by Yugoslav interior minister Svetozar Pribićević. According to Frank's wife Aglaja, Gagliardi was constantly supplying information on the Croatian Committee and its foreign contacts to the Yugoslav authorities.
A group of Frankists was arrested in Zagreb on charges of treason, suspected of maintaining contacts with the Croatian Committee. The most prominent among them were historians and politicians Ivo Pilar and Milan Šufflay. They were tried in 1921, in what became a Croatian cause célèbre with defence led by another Frankist, lawyer Ante Pavelić. Šufflay was convicted and imprisoned for three years; Pilar was also convicted, but he received a two-month suspended prison sentence.

## Legacy

While the Croatian Committee never posed a real threat to Yugoslavia, the group's defeat contributed to the concept of the "Croatian culture of defeat" portraying the creation of Yugoslavia as a betrayal of wartime sacrifice by Croats in the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, the central organ of the short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. The "Croatian culture of defeat" was later used by Pavelić to develop a radical programme to avenge the defeat of 1918. Frank and Pavelić jointly wrote a letter to Benito Mussolini in 1927 seeking Italian support for Croatian independence while promising Croatia would be within the Italian sphere of influence. The influence Frank had among the Croatian political émigrés was eclipsed by the rise of the Pavelić-led fascist Ustaše in 1929. In the early 1930s, Frank endorsed Ustaše, but distanced himself from them in 1934.
Sarkotić and Duić, together with Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Perčević von Odavna [hr] formed the core an informal "Sarkotić Group" within the Croatian Committee. The group disagreed with Frank on some issues and continued to informally meet in the 1920s to pursue politics, maintaining communication with Pavelić and Radić. When Pavelić left Yugoslavia in 1929, shortly before establishing Ustaše, he first visited the Sarkotić Group in Vienna. Gagliardi was among the first to join Ustaše. He was summarily executed by Ustaše in 1942.
The armed groups sharing the Italian support in their struggle against Yugoslavia, as well as their former members, established mutual cooperation independent of the Italian aid. In one such instance, former members of by then defunct Croatian Legion conspired with the IMRO to assassinate king Alexander I of Yugoslavia during his wedding celebration. The plot was abandoned after Yugoslav authorities learned about the conspiracy.