# Italo-Yugoslav crisis of 1953–54

The Italo-Yugoslav crisis of 1953–54 was a diplomatic crisis between the two countries which represented the culmination of the Trieste question.

## Historical context
### World War II

The end of World War II had brought about a major upheaval in the situation in the Julian March. In Trieste (where both the troops of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia and the New Zealand troops had arrived) a period of Yugoslav occupation began, during which disappearances occurred to the detriment of those who opposed the annexation of the city to Yugoslavia. The onsuing events would be known as The Foibes. It was later discovered that many of these people had been thrown into sinkholes or deported to prison camps in Slovenia, with victims ranging between 5,000, 11,000, and 20,000.

### The Morgan line

On 9 June 1945, with the Belgrade Agreements, the Julian March was divided in two by the Morgan Line, which determined an area that would remain under Yugoslav control (zone B) and another that would pass under the control of the Allied military government (zone A), within which Trieste was also located. After 43 days, on June 12, the Yugoslav troops then withdrew from the Julian capital.
The line divided the Julian March into two military occupation zones:
* "Zone A" (British and American Army), which included Gorizia, Trieste, Sesana, the border strip up to Tarvisio and the exclave of Pola;
* "Zone B" (Yugoslav Army) included two thirds of the Italian Julian March, with Fiume, almost all of Istria and the islands of Quarnaro and an exclave near Opacchiasella (this included, in addition to Opacchiasella, also Boscomalo, Castagnevizza del Carso, Corita, Lippa di Comeno, Loquizza-Seghetti, Novavilla, Novello, Temenizza and Voissizza of the current municipality of Merna-Castagnevizza; it was delimited by the line joining the heights of Mount Tersteli (Trstelj [sl]), Stol, Mount Trisnecco (Tresnik-Vrtovka), Colle nudo (Renški vrh-Golnek), Mount Grande (Veliki vrh), Veliki Medvejšče, Colle Grande (Veliki hrib-Cerje), by the current border line of Italy and Slovenia, and by a line passing south of Corita and Voissizza (which however excluded the Brestovizza Valley as it was to the north) reached Goli vrh, a hill to the north-west of Sutta; for this reason the headquarters of the Allied Military Government of "Zone A" of the Julian march under British-American control was set up precisely in Sutta between June 1945 and 1947).

### Treaty of Paris

In 1947 the Paris Peace Treaty determined the definitive passage of a good part of the region to Yugoslavia, with the exception of Gorizia and the Lower Isonzo, which remained in Italy. Moreover, Italy conceded 125 million US dollars to Yugoslavia, as part of war reparations. Trieste and Capodistria were included in the Free Territory of Trieste. The latter, however, never became operational, but remained divided by the Morgan Line into two areas of occupation: in Trieste, in "Zone A", there continued to be the Allied military administration, while in Capodistria, in "Zone B", the Yugoslav administration continued.

### Prelude

In 1948 the break between Tito and Stalin and the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Cominform had direct consequences for the Julian area. The so-called "iron curtain" between Eastern and Western Europe suddenly no longer ran on the Karst plateau, and the Trieste question became a dispute between only two parties, between Italy and Yugoslavia. The United States and the United Kingdom therefore increasingly assumed a mediating role between Italy (which would enter the Atlantic Alliance in 1949) and Yugoslavia, a non-aligned country but with which they were interested in maintaining good relations to avoid a rapprochement with the Soviet bloc. The partisans then withdrew from Carinthia and Trieste. On the other hand, this also led to an internal fracture in the Julian communist world, with the detachment of the Communist Party of the Free Territory of Trieste, under the influence of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI) and faithful to the Cominform, from the Yugoslav government and from those who remained faithful to it.
In the following years, starting from 1950, direct negotiations between Italy and Yugoslavia followed, at the insistence of the Allies.

## Chronology
### The outbreak of the crisis

After the establishment of the Free Territory of Trieste (TLT) in 1947, a new independent state emerged under the aegis of the United Nations, intended to act as a buffer between Italy and Yugoslavia to avoid an immediate clash (in which, among other things, Italy, still weak and isolated, would certainly have had the worst of it) which would have appointed its Governor. For seven years, Italian and Yugoslav diplomacy worked to obtain the entire region, thus creating a political stalemate.
In the summer of 1953 a turning point: with the political elections of June the new Prime Minister Giuseppe Pella immediately launched an explicit signal, responding with a military demonstration to the attempt of the Yugoslavs to raise the stakes of their claims also on "Zone A", taking advantage of the fragility of the new Italian political framework, bringing Europe to the brink of war. The Allies then tried to work for a division of the Free Territory between the two countries, but further complicated the situation by publishing the bipartite note: a declaration in which they assumed the commitment to hand over the civil administration of "Zone A" to Italy.
Faced with Tito's reaction, who was preparing to invade Trieste, the Allies interrupted the application of the bipartite note, provoking strong protests from the Italian side.

### The revolt in Trieste

On November 3, 1953, on the anniversary of Trieste's entry into the Kingdom of Italy, a revolt broke out by pro-Italian Triestines, starting riots that lasted three days. The mayor Gianni Bartoli [it] contravened the ban of General Thomas Willoughby Winterton by displaying the Italian flag from the Town Hall flagpole, but British officials immediately intervened to remove and confiscate it.
On November 4, the demonstrators returning from the Redipuglia shrine improvised a demonstration for the Italianity of Trieste. The Civil Police, amounting up to 4,296 men, led by British officers but composed of Triestine people (including Gen. Gerald Richardson [it]), intervened harshly to seize the demonstrators' flag: violent clashes followed, which in a few minutes spread throughout the city.
The next day, November 5, the students called a strike and demonstrated in front of the church of Sant'Antonio. When a Civil Police vehicle passed by, with a British officer on board, they started throwing stones. The officer confronted the demonstrators but was pulled and thrown to the ground on the steps of the church; then the mobile nucleus of the Civil Police, created specifically for these days, intervened and dispersed the boys who took refuge inside the church, where they were chased using a water cannon during the raid, and violently beaten. Bishop Antonio Santin set the reconsecration ceremony of the temple for the afternoon: thousands of citizens participated, and when the police vans arrived, new incidents arose. The British officer opened fire, and the police followed his example: Piero Addobbati and Antonio Zavadil died, while dozens of other boys were injured. The marks of the bullets remained visible on two sides of the church until its renovation in 2012.
On November 6, the city was crossed by an immense crowd, determined to attack all the symbols of the British occupation: police cars and motorcycles were set on fire, and the headquarters of the "Front for the Independence of the Free Territory of Trieste" was set on fire. The demonstrators reached Piazza Unità d'Italia and attempted to assault the Prefecture building, the headquarters of the Civil Police: the police officers reacted by shooting at the crowd, wounding dozens of people and killing Francesco Paglia, Leonardo Manzi, Saverio Montano and Erminio Bassa.

### End of the crisis

On 5 October 1954 a memorandum of understanding was signed in London in which Italy and Yugoslavia provisionally divided the territory with "Zone A" being transferred to the Italian civil administration and "Zone B" to the Yugoslav one. On 10 November 1975 the foreign ministers of Yugoslavia and Italy signed a treaty in Osimo which definitively fixed the borders between the two countries. The treaty officially came into force on 11 October 1977.