When location matters: Anglo-American direct rule in Trieste, 1945-54.

When location matters: Anglo-American direct rule in Trieste, 1945-54.

Gaetano Dato, Ph.D. University of Trieste The northern Adriatic region is called in different ways by its residents. In Italian, it is known as Venezia Giulia (Julian Venice), to underline its ancient Roman heritage. In English, however, this name is usually translated as Julian March, which references its role as a border. Slovenians and Croatians call it Primorska or Primorje (Littoral), a partial translation of what was termed Österreichisches Küstenland (Austrian Littoral) during the Austrian dominion; but the term Julijska Krajina (Julian region) is also used.

Trieste, or Trst, is its most prominent city.

During the late modern period the region’s borders have been modified numerous times.1 For centuries, until the Napoleonic era, the border between the Habsburg lands and the Republic of Venice had remained unchanged. French expansionism, however, upset this age-old balance and initiated a long era of instability. After the Congress of Vienna, the territories dominated by the Austrian empire expanded west into a large portion of northern Italy, but during the nineteenth century the Italian Risorgimento and the process of national unity progressively forced the border back east. Following World War I and the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Italy conquered Trieste and infiltrated the Balkans, while the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes emerged. Fascism’s strong nationalist policy violently repressed the Slavic minorities in the region. During World War II Italy joined Germany in the occupation of Yugoslavia, and between 1943 and 1945 the North Adriatic area was annexed to the Reich and called Adriatisches Küstenland (Adriatic Littoral), with Trieste as its capital.

A turbulent post-war period ensued.

The end of the World War did not immediately bring peace to the region. On May 1 st Tito's army began a new military occupation, entering Trieste and soon after all other urban centres.

A few hundred Italian soldiers and civilians were killed and a few thousand were sent to the prison camps in Slovenia.

On 9th June 1945, US, UK and Yugoslavian authorities signed an agreement in Belgrade, which led 1

Some recent international works have highlighted the main historical issues for Trieste and the Adriatic Borderland: Ballinger, P. HistoryoinoExile,,Memoryoand Identity at the Borders of the Balkans. Princeton: PrincetonoUniversityoPress, 2002. Hametz, M. MakingoTriesteoItalian,1918-1954. Woodbridge: BoydelloPres,2005. Kent, N. Trieste. Adriatic Emporium and Gateway to the Heart of Europe: A TwentiethoCenturyoTragedy, London: C.oHursto&oCo.,2011. Sluga, G. TheoProblemoofoTriesteoandotheoItaloYugoslaviaoBorder: Difference,oIdentity, andoSovereigntyoinoTwentieth-CenturyoEurope. Albany: SUNY, 2001.

Wörsdörfer, R. Krisenherd Adria 1915-1955. Konstruktion und Artikulation des Nationalen im italienischjugoslawischen Grenzraum. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2004.

to a temporary settlement of the region. Its final destiny should be attributed to the Peace Conference in Paris, beginning one year later. Thereafter, it was administrated by the Allied Military Government of Venezia Giulia (AMG – VG) and divided into Zone A, under British-American control, and Zone B under the Yugoslavian army. On 12 th June Yugoslav military forces retreated from Trieste and the rest of the western Zone, replaced by Anglo-American troops.

Subsequently, in order to enforce the outcomes of the Peace treaty with Italy, from 15 th September 1947 onwards, for seven years, the two fiduciary forces controlled the smaller Free Territory of Trieste (FTT): this was the failed project of a buffer state directly controlled by the UN, in view of a Roosevelt-inspired2 Federation of the World that never took off. With the London Memorandum in 1954, the Italian republic and Tito’s Yugoslavia found a new temporary agreement for the border, and absorbed the former FTT Zones A and B respectively. The situation was ratified in 1976 with the Osimo Accord, a local application of the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 on the stabilization of European borders. Finally, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of Yugoslavia created a new border in the region between the two independent republics of Slovenia and Croatia.

Source: F. Cecotti, B. Pizzamei, Storia del confine orientale italiano – 1797-2007, IRSML FVG, Trieste 2007. DVD multimediale

The AMG VG – Zone A organisation was strictly embedded into the chain of command of the complex system of military occupation that the Allies developed in Europe, while they advanced in the Old Continent during the war.

The western Zone had its headquarters in Trieste. Its highest official in rank was the British general 2

Bowman, A. C. Zones of Strain – A Memory of the Early Cold War. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1982, 111, 155. Kennedy, P. The Parliament of Man – The United Nations and the Quest for World Government. London: Penguin Books, 2006, IX-XV.

John Harding, head of the 13th Corps and military commander of the British-American zone.

Harding's military career began in the trenches of WW1. He arrived near Venezia Giulia at the end of April 1945. Among his first and most important efforts in the administration of Zone A was the creation of the Civil Police, which enlisted local residents to support the public order and control of the territory.

In November 1946, he succeeded General Alexander as commander of British forces in the Mediterranean, and moved his office to Padua, but he maintained his position in Trieste until March 1947. He then served as Commander-in-Chief of Far East Land Forces during the Malayan Emergency, and in the second half of the 1950s became the governor of Cyprus3.

Senior Civil Affair Officer US Col Alfred C. Bowman was more directly in charge of the administration of Zone A, who arrived after being given brief tenure by Col Nelson M. Monfort.

Born in Detroit in 1904, Col Bowman was a lawyer, and was awarded his degree at the renowned University of Michigan Law School. In 1931 he was admitted to the State Bar of California and practiced in Los Angeles. WW2 led him to training at the School of Military Government in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1942. In December 1943 he joined the Allied forces in southern Italy, and in February 1945 he was appointed regional Commissioner of the Emilia-Romagna region. On 4th July of the same year, he finally took his post in Trieste, and maintained it for almost two years.

He was later involved in the plan of the settlement of post war Korea and worked as a publicist in legal and military issues4.

AMG VG structure was integrated into the Allied Control Commission – ACC of Italy, which had headquarters in Rome. The ACC shared a similar Anglo-American management as much as the AMG. In the Italian peninsula, military occupation excluded French and Soviet participation. Their representatives were solely in Rome as observers. The status of Italian military occupation was different from that of Germany and Austria, where the UK, USA, France and the USSR respectively controlled a swath of the country; in Italy, Britons and Americans shared powers in the AMGs and worked side by side5.

The ACC coordinated the civil administration of the Italian peninsula, which at the time was divided into thirteen regions, corresponding to AMGs. The ACC began reducing its activities after the 2nd June 1946 referendum that led to the birth of the Italian Republic, and progressively devolved its power to Italian authorities everywhere apart from Venezia Giulia. The ACC was terminated on 31 January 1946.

3 4 5

A. Millo, La difficile intesa. Roma e Trieste nella questione giuliana 1945-1954, Ed. Italo Svevo, Trieste 2011, p.

101.

A. C. Bowman, Zones of Strain.

R.H. Wells, Interim Governments and Occupation Regimes, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 257, Peace Settlements of World War II (May, 1948), pp. 57-71.

The ACC was under the Allied Forces Headquarter – AFHQ, based in Caserta, the highest Allied military authority in the Mediterranean theater. It was closed on 16 September 1947, the day after the Treaty of Peace with Italy entered into force. The AFHQ head was again Gen Alexander, replaced on December 1945 by the UK Gen William D. Morgan 6, the man who drew the demarcation line between VG Zone A and B at the Belgrade agreement.

However, the peculiar situation of Venezia Giulia, set the AMG VG Zone A under AFHQ direct supervision, differently from the rest of the twelve Italian AMGs, which were headed by the ACC. The chain of command from AFHQ then continued to the Combined Chiefs of Staff – CCS located in Washington DC. It was the primary Allied military structure, made up of high officials directly sent by Pentagon and the War Office7.

THE DIRECT RULE Yugoslav military occupation in late 1945 brought communist institutions to Trieste and the rest of the region. They were the so called 'popular powers'. Communist tribunals began to prosecute and jail war enemies. Once the Allied forces entered Zone A, together with food and health relief, Gen Harding signed the general Order N°1: it established the AMG Zone A as the sole authority of the Zone, suspended popular powers, and repealed all the laws enacted by Nazi or Yugoslav authorities.

From June to August, Allies tried to involve both political groups on the ground in the management of the area. The Pro-Yugoslav communist party refused to cooperate, claiming the restoration of the popular powers, while pro-Italian parties did not have enough organization and means to proactively counterbalance their opponents. In addition, while other AMGs in the Italian peninsula knew they were holding control of the territory until they should give it back to the Italian state, Venezia Giulia was a disputed region. Only the Peace Treaty Conference would define which sovereign power would definitively acquire it.

AMG VG Zone A was thus led to an unprecedented move for the Allied Military occupation in Italy: that of the direct rule onto the whole issue of the civil affairs in the Zone. The general order n°11 of August 1945 delivered full and exclusive authorities to govern, control and supervise Zone A to the same AMG. It established three area commissioners with executive duties for each of the three major cities of the Zone (Trieste, Gorizia, Pola) and 37 municipal councils, which member would be co-opted by the AMG in order to represent all the classes, and racial, political and economic groups of the Zone. Popular powers were abolished.

6 7

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/locreg/MORGAN7.shtml http://90.147.68.248/ACC_user/inventario/intro.html http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/331.html#331.23 http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/331.html http://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/finding-aid/military/rg-218.html

The Communist Party of Venezia Giulia kept on refusing to participate in the municipal councils, clearing the way for total control by Italian parties.

Direct rule, namely the full control of the executive power in Trieste, was maintained up to the end of the AMG in 1954, despite multiple reforms to the structure of local institutions8.

AMG economic intervention in Trieste and Zone A in 1945-47 followed the same 'prevention of disease and unrest' program active in the rest of the Italian peninsula. It meant a regular supplies flow to the populace, the reorganization of transport networks, and the restoration of harbor facilities. The latter were of primary importance to the flow of relief goods to central Europe and especially towards Austria. There were no plans for broader economic reforms nor industrial plans, given the exceptional post-war conditions.

Source: F. Cecotti, B. Pizzamei, Storia del confine orientale italiano – 1797-2007, IRSML FVG, Trieste 2007. DVD multimediale

The transition from AMG VG to FTT, led to a progressive adjustment of the region's Allied structure. On March 1947, UK Gen Terence S. Airey replaced Gen Harding as military commander of the British-American zone. In June 1947, US Gen James Carnes succeeded Col Bowman as Senior Civil Affair Officer, but was in turn replaced by US Gen Ridgley Gaither on October 1947.

In the meantime, FTT came into force, and the AMG VG Zone A reduced its jurisdiction upon only Trieste and in its surroundings, the FTT Zone A or BUSZ, the British-United States Zone. The 8

G. Valdevit, La questione di Trieste 1941-1954. Politica internazionale e contesto locale, Angeli, Milano 1987. R. Spazzali, “La struttura del Governo Militare Alleato a Trieste dal 1945 al 1954”, in La città reale: economia, società e vita quotidiana a Trieste1 945-1954, Comune di Trieste, Trieste 2004.

Yugoslav army continued to administer an equally diminished Zone B, confined to the northwestern strip of the Istrian peninsula.

Major changes in the AMG structure, as well as its purpose, began from 1948. In January the charge of the Civil Affair Officer was renamed Civil Affair General Director, while the Area Commissioner acquired more prominence, only to be soon dismissed in April. Nonetheless, it was in June that major reforms unfolded, via general orders n° 259 and 308, which abolished general order n°11; the whole Allied administration was reformed following the hypothesis of the complete establishment of the Free Territory of Trieste. It was conceived of as a presidential state, after the Peace Treaty with Italy contemplated the election of the FTT president by the United Nations: this was the irreplaceable condition that would really and fully operationalize the FTT. However, the Cold War pushed the United States to involve the western side of the FTT in the containment strategy, and to firmly keep alive direct rule in Trieste, while overwhelming British influence9.

These conditions consigned more power to the hands of the military commander of the Zone, Gen Airey, who from August 1948 to March 1951 became the zone commander – general director of BUSZ. Gen Airey began his career serving in Sudan and Egypt, between the 1920s and 1930s. He fought the North African campaign and became Assistant Chief of Staff of Gen Alexander. After his duties in Trieste, he moved to Washington at the supreme Allied Headquarter, and in 1952-53 acted as Commander of British Forces in Hong Kong10.

Under the general director of BUSZ, Gen Airey, there were three directorate-generals: Civil Affairs, Internal Affairs, and Economy & Finance. These divisions were concerned with the entire administration of the territory. A further reorganization among divisions and sub divisions was made in May 1952. Moreover, following the declaration of 20 March 1948 made by the USA, Great Britain and France that advocated the consignment of the whole FTT to Italy, Italian parties in Trieste and Slovenian parties in rural areas were gradually more involved in the administration. The Zone was divided into six municipalities, governed by a Major and his executives with limited powers. Elections for city councils were held in 1949 and 1952. A representative of the Italian Government, the Zone President, was nominated by the general director together with Rome11.

Gen Airey was ultimately succeed by Gen John W. Winterton on March 1951, the last military commander of the British-American zone. The latter fought in WW1 in France, Belgium and Italy.

Since 1930 he served in Burma, where he also spent most of WW2 after participating at the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. In 1944, he moved to Italy, and after the conflict became Deputy Commissioner of the Allied Control Commission for Austria. His role changed to British High Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief of Austria in 1950. That in Trieste was his last service 9 G. Valdevit, La questione di Trieste.

10 http://www.unithistories.com/officers/Army_officers_A04.html#Airey_TS 11 R. Spazzali, “La struttura del Governo Militare Alleato a Trieste dal 1945 al 1954”.

abroad12.

After 1947, economic intervention became stronger in the western Zone of the FTT. Huge funds from the European Recovery Program and the Italian Government were spent in Trieste for public works and industrial facilities. The total amount was 37 bln liras 1954. The Zone’s average quality of life was decisively higher not only than Zone B, as it was from 1945, but also than the rest of north east Italy. In FTT Zone A 127 $ was spent per capita, while in the rest of Italy combined investment by the ERP and the Italian Government during the same period resulted in 27 $ per capita.13 Direct rule in Trieste has never been compared by North Adriatic historians to military governments other than those in post war Europe.

In fact, a wider and brief look at the curricula of the men in charge of AMG Zone A clearly point to different and multifaceted experiences of military and colonial administration around the world.

These are experiences that definitively influenced AMG executive powers in everyday administration, in the implementation of the orders from London and Washington, and in the handling of the ideological and national conflict between Italians and Slovenes, Communists and Anticommunists.

A full comparison among the AMG of Trieste, and the variable typologies of administration in the British Empire, would also better underline the state of the crisis of the Empire itself, and the importance of Trieste in the East-West relationship at the beginning of the Cold War. The years of the AMG in the Julian city marked the beginning of decolonisation. But while the formal Empire of Great Britain begun collapsing, the informal empire of the United States was becoming stronger and stronger: this was also clear in the AMG. While British officers kept important roles, orders from Washington, especially after 194714, took priority, since the UK cut any financial aid to the AMG and the balance sheet was fully covered by US funding.

The Allied AMG in zone A was also the last act of a history, almost 150 years old at the time.

In fact, a British and American presence in the upper Adriatic was not just the outcome of WW2, but also an outcome of late modern globalisation. Trieste was a location that mattered in both historical phenomena and, to a lesser extent, in the Cold War. 12 http://www.kingscollections.org/catalogues/lhcma/collection/w/wi80-001 13 G. Mellinato, P.A. Toninelli, “La città reale: l’evoluzione del quadro economico”, in La città reale: economia, società e vita quotidiana a Trieste 1945-1954, Comune di Trieste, Trieste 2004, 12-13. F. Bednarz, “Crisi economica e governo della società”, in ,…anche l’uomo doveva essere di ferro, L. Canapini ed., Franco Angeli, Milano, 1986, 303.

14 G. Valdevit, La questione di Trieste 1941-1954.

Britons were in Trieste since the XVII c.. During the Napoleonic wars an American consulate was opened in the Habsburg port city. Soon after French military occupation in 1813, a prosperous British community thrived in Trieste for the whole of the 19 th c.. They had their institutions, such as the Anglican church, and supported British commercial interest in central-east Europe, as well as navy needs for control of the Mediterranean Sea. American and British connections were strong in Trieste for the whole era in between the Napoleonic “world wars� and WW1, and this is what I am working on now.