Employing evidence from local newspapers, images, and archival materials, this article analyzes the consequences that the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 had for the Austrian Littoral. The main focus is the city of Trieste, third largest city in Cisleithania and the most important port in the Monarchy. The widespread mourning was, however, just part of the picture. In the following days Austrian authorities reported - and sentenced people for - many acts of subversive rhetoric and hate speech. Although there were no large-scale riots in the city, several physical and verbal attacks to Triestine Slovenes were reported in the days after the assassination and in the days following Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war on Serbia a month later. These acts open new questions on the relations between national/ethnic affiliation and dynastic loyalty among the local population.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1536273092
Drawing on an analysis of unpublished primary sources held by the British National Archives, this article shows the attempts of the British diplomats to act as mediators in the process of defining the Yugoslav-Italian border after World War I. They had also prepared themselves carefully for the peace conference in Paris in 1919 – British participants at that conference were equipped with a series of secret handbooks on most countries and provinces and on a number of issues presenting a potential threat to post-war peace. In addition to these handbooks outlining the basic historical and socio-political information on individual nations or national groups and their territory and population, economic, climatic, demographic, social and other features. The National Archives also contain a number of other reports from the first post-war period, spanning from late 1918 and the early months of the following year. These reveal how the diplomats of what was then one of the strongest and most powerful empires wanted to be as objective as possible (of course also taking into account its interests) in finding the most efficient solution for maintaining peace and stability between Italy and the new Yugoslav state that would also be the most promising one in terms of economic development.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2444243
The article analyses the views of the Anglo-Americans on the acts of violence committed by the occupying forces and the "domestic" counter-formations as well as violence employed by post-war Yugoslav authorities (extrajudicial executions, deportations, attitude towards prisoners of war, political repression etc.). It highlights the key methodological issues, for example: what was the real interest of the Allies about the violence in Yugoslavia during and after the war, who informed them and how they were able to monitor the situation. The author points out the role of intelligence missions, various informants and other ways of data collection. He stresses out the thesis that the interest was to register as many cases of violence as possible, but being especially interested in those cases where the Anglo-American soldiers and civilians were involved.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2411475