The Carabinieri Stood by: The Italian State and the “Slavic Threat” in 1919–1922

Abstract

On 2 August 1919 in the Upper Adriatic port city of Trieste (as it was called in Italian) or Trst (as it was referred to in Slavic languages), nationalist youths harassed socialist children returning from a group outing. The incident escalated into a riot. Police opened fire, and one nationalist was killed. On 12 July 1920, a nationalist mob incited by Fascists looted and burned Narodni Dom, the Slovene cultural center. The carabinieri, Italy's state police, collaborated in the attack, or at the very least stood by and watched as the building was torched using gasoline obtained from the nearby barracks. The next day, Italian nationalist demonstrators torched the Croatian-managed Adriatic Bank. Police at the scene stood on the sidelines and watched the bank burn. In the autumn of 1920, Fascist squads attacked a funeral procession mourning a socialist worker killed in a general strike. The socialists erected barricades in the streets of the San Giacomo quarter, a working class neighborhood. Police leveled the undefended barricades and intimidated the quarter's residents during a house-to-house search. In 1921, a firebomb exploded in the offices of Il Lavoratore, the local socialist newspaper. Police watched the premises burn. In all five instances, the forces of public security in Trieste stood by, unable or unwilling to stem violence and restore order in the city newly annexed to Italy from the Habsburg empire. The Italian liberal authorities officially disavowed mistreatment of ethnic minorities and members of the political opposition, but they found themselves unable to deal effectively with the clash among ethnic groups and political parties precipitated by the transfer of the territory to Italian sovereignty. They sympathized with those adopting extra-legal and violent strategies that they perceived as useful to further state political agendas and promote assimilation, or at least quiescence, of the border population.