Trieste: A State on Paper, Partition in Praxis

After World War I, Trieste, the single most important port city of the Habsburg Monarchy since the Middle Ages, became part of Italy, whose national movement had long demanded the annexation of the Italian-speaking territories of Istria and Dalmatia. After the liberation from fascism and the troops of the Wehrmacht, Yugoslavia and Italy equally laid claim to the city, which marked the beginning of the Trieste conflict. While the revolutionary Yugoslavian anti-fascism invoked the Slavic majority of Istria as a whole, Italy appealed that Trieste had been part of Italian territory since 1919, and referred to the city’s Italian-speaking majority.