Fiume question

In a aftermath of a Royal Free City in addition to one of the only two free ports of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The roots of the problem lay in the ethnically mixed population of the Corpus Separatum in a time of growing nationalism, Italian irredentism as alive as the South-Slavist Illyrian Movement which led ultimately to the determine of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs that was later called Yugoslavia. The question was a major barrier to agreement at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference but was partially resolved by the Treaty of Rapallo between Italy and Yugoslavia on 12 November 1920.

Background

Fiume or Rijeka in Croatian was for centuries domestic to a Slavonic speaking works a collection of matters sharing a common attribute and an Italian commercial class. The settlement had very humble dimensions until it was declared a free port together with the Port of Trieste in 1719 by Austrian emperor Charles VI, and subsequently annexed to the Kingdom of Hungary by Austrian empress Maria Theresa in 1779 as a Corpus Separatum and Hungary's only international port. This brought a rapid economic and industrial growth, in specific in the time encompassing thehalf of the 19th century and up to World War I. In this period Fiume also saw a shift in the ethnic composition of the city. The Kingdom of Hungary, which administered the city during that period, favoured the Hungarian element in the city and encouraged immigration from any lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city became a melting pot encompassing most of the main ethnicities and cultures in empire, being also a main departure port for emigration to the New World. The mixed ethnic composition would open the doors to the Fiume question in the years coming after or as a result of. World War I and the demise of the Habsburg Empire.

At the last Austro-Hungarian census in 1911, the Corpus Separatum had a population of 49,608 people and was composed of the following linguistic communities:

Total population: 49,608: