Governorate of Dalmatia

of the Republic of Venice from 1420 to 1797 in 1807 shown in yellow The Republic of Venice, between the 9th century and 1797, extended its dominion to Istria, the islands of Kvarner and Dalmatia, when it was conquered by Napoleon. Istria and Dalmatia were then aggregated to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1805, and annexed to the Illyrian Provinces in 1809 (for some years also the Republic of Ragusa was included, since 1808). After the fall of Napoleon (1814) Istria, the islands of Kvarner and Dalmatia were annexed to the Austrian Empire. From the Middle Ages to the 19th century, Italian and Slavic communities in Dalmatia had lived peacefully side by side because they did not know the national identification, given that they generically defined themselves as "Dalmatians", of "Romance" or "Slavic" culture. Later, many Dalmatian Italians looked with sympathy towards the Risorgimento movement that fought for the unification of Italy. The first events that involved the Dalmatian Italians in the unification of Italy were the revolutions of 1848, during which they took part in the constitution of the Republic of San Marco in Venice. The most notable Dalmatian Italians exponents who intervened were Niccolò Tommaseo and Federico Seismit-Doda. However, after 1866, when the Veneto and Friuli regions were ceded by the Austrians to the newly formed Kingdom Italy, Dalmatia remained part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, together with other Italian-speaking areas on the eastern Adriatic. This triggered the gradual rise of Italian irredentism among many Italians in Dalmatia, who demanded the unification of the Austrian Littoral, Fiume and Dalmatia with Italy. Before 1859, Italian was the language of administration, education, the press, and the Austrian navy; people who wished to acquire higher social standing and separate from the Slav peasantry became Italians. In the years after 1866, Italians lost their privileges in Austria-Hungary, their assimilation of the Slavs came to an end, and they found themselves under growing pressure by other rising nations; with the rising Slav tide after 1890, italianized Slavs reverted to being Croats. were the majority of the population, in orange are the areas where Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians were the majority of the population. The boundaries of Venetian Dalmatia in 1797 are delimited with blue dots. Austrian rulers found use of the racial antagonism and financed Slav schools and promoted Croatian as the official language, and many Italians chose voluntary exile. During the meeting of the Council of Ministers of 12 November 1866, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria outlined a wide-ranging project aimed at the Germanization or Slavization of the areas of the empire with an Italian presence: Dalmatia, especially its maritime cities, once had a substantial Italian-speaking population (Dalmatian Italians). According to Austrian censuses, the Italian speakers in Dalmatia formed 12.5% of the population in 1865, but this was reduced to 2.8% in 1910. The Italian population in Dalmatia was concentrated in the major coastal cities. In the city of Split in 1890 there were 1,971 Dalmatian Italians (9% of the population), in Zadar 7,672 (27%), in Šibenik 1,090 (5%), in Kotor 646 (12%) and in Dubrovnik 356 (3%). In other Dalmatian localities, according to Austrian censuses, Italians experienced a sudden decrease: in the twenty years 1890-1910, in Rab they went from 225 to 151, in Vis from 352 to 92, in Pag from 787 to 23, completely disappearing in almost all inland locations. While Slavic-speakers made up 80-95% of the Dalmatia populace, only Italian language schools existed until 1848, and due to restrictive voting laws, the Italian-speaking aristocratic minority retained political control of Dalmatia. Only after Austria liberalised elections in 1870, allowing more majority Slavs to vote, did Croatian parties gain control. Croatian finally became an official language in Dalmatia in 1883, along with Italian. Yet minority Italian-speakers continued to wield strong influence, since Austria favoured Italians for government work, thus in the Austrian capital of Dalmatia, Zara, the proportion of Italians continued to grow, making it the only Dalmatian city with an Italian majority. In 1909, the Italian language lost its status as the official language of Dalmatia in favor of Croatian, and could no longer be used in the public and administrative sphere. ==The first Governorate of Dalmatia ==

Dalmatia was a strategic region during World War I that both Italy and Serbia intended to seize from Austria-Hungary. Italy joined the Triple Entente Allies in 1915 upon agreeing to the London Pact that guaranteed Italy the right to annex the northern of Dalmatia in exchange for Italy's participation on the Allied side. From 5 to 6 November 1918, Italian forces were reported to have reached Vis, Lastovo, Šibenik, and other localities on the Dalmatian coast. At the end of hostilities in November 1918, the Italian military had seized control of the entire portion of Dalmatia that had been guaranteed to Italy by the London Pact, and by 17 November, it had seized Fiume as well. In 1918, Admiral Enrico Millo declared himself the Italian governor of Dalmatia. (1915), i.e. Trentino-Alto Adige, the Julian March and Dalmatia (tan), and the Snežnik Plateau area (green). Dalmatia, after the WWI, however, was not assigned to Italy but to Yugoslavia The ships of the Italian Royal Navy occupied the main Dalmatian ports, where they made contact with the headquarters of the , i.e. the local sections of the Italian political party expression of the dissident Italian fascist movement. Following the withdrawal of the Austrian army from Dalmatia, the Yugoslav National Council, which was formed in Zagreb awaiting the union of Croatia with Serbia, established a provisional government of Dalmatia which extended from Split to Zadar. ==The second Governorate of Dalmatia==

The Governorate of Dalmatia was made up of parts of coastal Yugoslavia that were occupied and annexed by Italy from April 1941 to September 1943 at the start of World War II in Yugoslavia, together with the prewar Italian Province of Zara on the Dalmatian coast, including the island of Lastovo and the island of Saseno, now Albania, and totalling about , which Italy had possessed since 1919. The town of Zadar, which had included most of the Italian population of Dalmatia since the beginning of the 20th century and was largely Italian-speaking, was designated as its capital. The creation of the Governorate of Dalmatia fulfilled the demands of Italian irredentism, but not all of Dalmatia was annexed by Italy, as the Italian-German quasi-protectorate known as the Independent State of Croatia took parts. Nevertheless, the Italian army maintained de facto control over the whole of Dalmatia. The Kingdom of Italy divided the Governorate in three Italian provinces: • the province of Zara, which was assigned to Italy after World War I following the Treaty of Rapallo (1920). At the time, it had an area of only (it was the smallest Italian province) with a population of 22,000 inhabitants distributed across two municipalities. In 1941, with the creation of the Governorate of Dalmatia, its provincial territory was broken up, reaching an area of Fascist Italy even occupied Marindol and other villages that had previously belonged to the Banovina of Croatia, Milić-Selo, Paunović-Selo, Žunić-Selo, Vukobrati, Vidnjevići and Vrhovci. In 1942, these villages were annexed to Cernomegli (now Črnomelj, in Slovenia), which was then part of the Italian Province of Lubiana, even though their population was not Slovene, but Serbian. . Many public works were undertaken, such as new hospitals and sewages. At the end of 1941, an attempt was made to "normalize" civil life; in Split, for example, the creation of sporting activities linked to the Italian championships was promoted. For this purpose, in 1942 the team was re-established with the name Associazione Calcio Spalato, according to the directive of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) which recognized AC Spalato as a new club affiliated to the Football Federation. However, due to the war events, AC Spalato did not play any championships. At the end of 1941, the Slavic population was subjected to a policy of massive and violent Italianization. The political secretaries of the fascist party, of the after-work club, of the agricultural consortia and doctors, teachers, municipal employees, midwives were sent to administer them, immediately hated by those whose jobs they took away. Italian was imposed as a compulsory language for officials and teachers, although Serbo-Croatian was tolerated for communications within the civil administration. In the major centers, various signs written in Croatian were replaced by writings in Italian, Croatian flags, newspapers and posters were prohibited except the bilingual ones published by the Italian civil and military authorities; cultural and sporting societies dissolved, the Roman salute imposed, some Italian surnames restored. A special office for the Adriatic lands offered loans and benefits to those willing to denationalize, and in the meantime purchased land to redistribute to former Italian combatants. Scholarships were established for Dalmatians who wanted to continue their studies in Italy and 52 Dalmatian Italians and 211 Croatians and Serbs made use of them. Numerous concentration camps were also established in the territory for repressive purposes, especially starting from 1942, such as those in Rab, Rijeka, and many others. Already from the end of 1941, against the atrocities committed by the Ustaše regime within the territories of the Independent State of Croatia, both against the Serbs and Jews and against the political opponents (communists and socialists), the communist and socialist partisan resistance led by Tito, multi-ethnic and communist, and various Serbian nationalist and monarchist factions known as Chetniks, were born. Numerous war crimes were committed by all parties, including the Italian fascists, resulting in a bloody civil war. The governorship was held until January 1943 by Giuseppe Bastianini, when he was recalled to Italy to join the cabinet, his place as governor being taken by Francesco Giunta. The Governorate of Dalmatia was cancelled administratively by Badoglio on August 19, 1943; it was substituted by direct rule of the 3 "Prefetti" governing the provinces of Zara, Spalato and Cattaro. After the Kingdom of Italy changed sides to the Allies in 1943, German forces took over the area. The territory was not given to the fascist Italian Social Republic, which was a puppet state of Germany, but was instead completely dissolved and added to the puppet Independent State of Croatia. by the Allies (1944): from these events began the exodus of the Dalmatian Italians from the city. However, Zara (and the surrounding territory that was the original Provincia italiana di Zara until 1941) remained Italian (even if under nominal control and protection of the German Army) until 1945. The city was exposed to bombings between November 1943 and October 1944; the Allies documented 30 bombing raids, while contemporary Italian accounts claim 54; fatalities recorded range from nearly 1,000, up to as many as 4,000 of the city's 20,000 inhabitants and 60% of the city's buildings were fully destroyed. The Yugoslav Partisans liberated Dalmatia in 1944. On October 30, 1944, the last Italian authority in Dalmatia the Zara prefect Vincenzo Serrentino left the destroyed city with the remaining Dalmatian Italians. Nearly 89% of the Zara buildings & installations were destroyed and so the city was called the "Dresden of Italy" After 1945, most of the remaining Dalmatian Italians fled the region (350,000 Italians escaped from Istria and Dalmatia in the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus). Currently there are only 300 Dalmatian Italians in the Croatian Dalmatia and 500 Dalmatian Italians in coastal Montenegro. After World War II, Dalmatia became part of the People's Republic of Croatia, part of the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia. Territory , province of Spalato and province of Cattaro The Governorate of Dalmatia consisted of three provinces: province of Zara, province of Spalato and province of Cattaro. The administrative capital was Zara. After the autumn of 1941, the Dalmatian islands of Pag (Pago), Brač (Brazza) and Hvar (Lesina), part of the Independent State of Croatia, were occupied by the Italian army, along with an area of Croatia which was away from the coast of Sinj towards the center of Bosnia, near Sarajevo and Banja Luka. However these were not formally annexed to the Governorate. Demographics The Governorate of Dalmatia had an area of , equal to 35% of Dalmatia. File:ProvinciaDiZara.png|Province of Zara File:ProvinciaDiSpalato.png|Province of Spalato File:ProvinciaDiCattaro.png|Province of Cattaro ==Governors of Dalmatia==

• Enrico Millo (21 November 1918 – 12 November 1920) • Athos Bartolucci (16 April 1941 – 6 June 1941) • Giuseppe Bastianini (7 June 1941 – 14 February 1943) • Francesco Giunta (14 February 1943 – 19 August 1943) ==See also==