Gabriele D'Annunzio was the first of the 20th Century Fascists and last of the pirate kings in modern history
Fiume is a port city on the Adriatic. It is currently part of the country of Croatia and named Rijeka, but in 1918 it belonged to the Hapsburg controlled Austrian-Hungarian Empire and had since the year 1466. The Austrians found themselves on the losing side of World War One and on October 23 the city garrison, dominated by locally drafted Croat minority troops mutinied and seized the city ten days before Austria surrendered to the Allies. On November 4th an Italian Naval cruiser sailed into the harbor and was joined two weeks later by a French destroyer that landed a token force of American and British troops. A council of Allied officers took control of the city's government and began occupation of the port city.
In Versailles the following year debate raged over the fate of Fiume. The newly minted Kingdom of Yugoslavia, backed by the United States maintained that it should be a part of that country while Italy, citing a pre-war promise from Britain and France claimed the city. In September with the likelihood of Italy's wish not being granted, something remarkable in modern history occurred.
Fiume was captured by pirates.
Three thousand black shirted demobilised Italian veterans, led by an eccentric anarchist-fascist named Gabriele D'Annunzio, swarmed into the city and ejected the small Allied garrison in a bloodless fight on September 12, 1919. Calling himself 'Il Duce', D'Annunzio, a celebrated writer of his day who had become something of a war hero in Italy while serving in the Italian Air Forces, was the forerunner of Hitler and Mussolini who later borrowed many of his ideas and tactics. He declared martial law in the city of 40,000 and, after Italy refused his embarrassing offer of taking over the city, set up a utopian form of government with himself at the head.
The Republic of Fiume became a reality of looting and surreal decadence unmatched since the worst days of the Roman Empire. Nightly fireworks displays capped off round the clock rain or shine concerts and poetry readings given by wandering bohemians from all over the world. The black shirted storm troopers branched out into piracy of the local waters to support the government and even seized two small Yugoslav islands offshore. This is the latest known instance of organized European piracy and was referred to by political writer Hakim Bey as "the last of the pirate utopias".
This idyllic existence was doomed from the start in the modern world when relations with the city-state's much larger neighbors deteriorated. The Italian Navy blockaded the port and a Yugoslav army was within marching distance. Deciding to strike first, D'Annunzio declared war on Italy on December 3rd, 1920. Italian Premier Giovanni Giolitti grew tired of the little dictator on his border and dispatched an expedition under General Enrico Couiglia to seize the city. The Italian battleship "Andrea Doria" (pictured above) bombarded Fiume's municipal palace which was the headquarters of the local government and residence of Il Duce on December 28th. Deciding the preverbal 'gig was up' D'Annunzio quietly slipped out of the palace and then the city itself as Italian Marines landed and took control, ending the twenty-five day long Italio-Fiume War of 1920. He gave one last speech to his legion in January 1921 after it left the town disarmed.
Fiume became a part of Italy due to this action made offical with the Treaty of Rome on March 16, 1924, where Yugoslavia ceded its claim on the port in return for other concessions. History is poetic as the city was ceded eventually to Yugoslavia twenty years later at the end of the second world war. The 'Andrea Doria' survivied the war and was scrapped in 1957.
The last of the pirate kings did not live to see this pass. Gabriele D'Annunzio died peacefully in a villa in Italy in 1938, paid for by his admirer and friend Benito Mussolini.
Sources
Paolo Valesio, Marilyn Migiel, ~Gabriele d`Annunzio : The Dark Flame~ Yale University Press 22 April, 1992 ~ ISBN: 0300048718
