Europe@War 001 - The Trieste Crisis, 1953. The First Cold War Confrontation in Europe (2019).pdf

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CONTENTS

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Text © Bojan Dimitrijević 2019

Photographs © as individually credited

Colour profiles © Tom Cooper 2019

Map from the author’s collection

Designed & typeset by Farr out Publications,

Wokingham, Berkshire

Cover design Paul Hewitt, Battlefield Design

(www.battlefield-design.co.uk)

Printed by Henry Ling Limited, Dorchester,

Dorset

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errors or omissions in this work, and would

be grateful if notified of any corrections that

should be incorporated in future reprints or

editions of this book.

ISBN 978-1-914377-26-6

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Abbreviations

Introduction

The Cold War Starts at Trieste 1945

Establishing the Free Territory of Trieste 1947

Trieste Crisis 1953

Eighth of October 1953

Towards the Compromise

Conclusion

Bibliography

Notes

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Note: In order to simplify the use of this book, all names, locations and geographic

designations are as provided in

The Times World Atlas,

or other traditionally accepted major

sources of reference, as of the time of described events.

EUROPE@WAR VOLUME 1

ABBREVIATIONS

AMAS

AMG

BETFOR

DAT

FSS

FTT

KNOJ

JNA

MAP

MDAP

Anti-aircraft

American Military Assistance Staff

Allied Military Government

Aeronautica Militare

(Italian Air Force)

Anti-tank

British Element Trieste Force

Difensa Antiaerei Territoriale

(Italian Defence of the

Territory)

Field Security Service

Free Territory of Trieste

Headquarters

Korpus narodne odbrane Jugoslavije

(Yugoslav People’s

Defence Corps)

Jugoslovenska armija

(Yugoslav Army)

Jugoslovenska Narodna armija

(Yugoslav People’s Army)

Military Assistance Pact

Mutual Defence Aid Programme

MZO

NATO

OZAK

OZNA

QRA

RAF

SACEUR

TRUST

TSO

VUJA

UDBA

USAAF

YAF

Mešoviti združeni odred

(Mixed Joint Force)

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland

(Operational

Zone Adriatic Littoral)

Odeljenje za zaštitu naroda

(Yugoslav Security Service)

Quick Reaction Alert

Royal Air Force

Supreme Allied Commander Europe

Trieste United States Troops

Trieste Security Office

Vojna uprava Jugoslovenske armije

(Yugoslav Army

Military Government)

Uprava državne bezbednosti

(Yugoslav Department of

the State Security)

United States Army Air Force

Yugoslav Air Force

INTRODUCTION

The term “Trieste Crisis” refers to a short but sharp military-political

episode in autumn 1953 that was the peak of a much longer conflict

over the question of the city of Trieste and the surrounding territory

populated by Italians and South Slavs. It was one of the most serious

challenges in southern Europe during the early Cold War. Although

it started in 1945 and marked the place where the Cold War began,

or where “Iron Curtain” ends, the Trieste question would have its

conclusion in 1953, when the Italian and Yugoslav Armies massed

their troops and nearly ended in open hostilities. Those were the

events which shook the stability of the NATO defence against the

Soviet bloc threat.

To date there is no one specific monograph that deals with the

military side of this issue. One explanation for this lack is the relative

unavailability of relevant archival sources in Italy or in former

Yugoslavia for many years, and a general focus on other subjects which

were treated as much more important. On the contrary, there are a

substantial number of available historiographical works which focus

on the political, ethnical and other question of the Trieste dispute and

we recommend them for further reading; from Jeoffrey Cox (1946)

who was the officer in 2nd New Zealand Division; to the works of Jean-

Baptiste Duroselle (1966), Bogdan Novak (1970), Roberto G. Rabel

(1988), or local authors such as Janko Jeri (1961), Giampaolo Valdevit

(1986), Cvetko Vidmar (2009), Bojan Dimitrijević with Dragan

Bogetić (2009), up to Miljan Milikić (2012); they have researched the

ethnic, political, economic and other aspects of the Trieste problem

since 1945.

This book will focus mainly on the military part of the Trieste

problem in the period between 1945 and 1954, with emphasis on the

“Trieste Crisis”, namely: its culmination in 1953 which saw the largest

related deployment of the military forces of Italy and Yugoslavia.

The author has researched this matter for many years and was

attracted to the subject as this was the most serious military challenge

for Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Cold War. The author also served as a

conscript solider in one of the Yugoslav Army’s units in the wider

zone of Trieste; although this service was more than thirty years

after the events described in this book it added a degree of first-hand

experience for a better understanding of the events.

The author has researched in several archives that were situated

in Belgrade, as the capital of former Yugoslavia; namely, the Military

Archive, Diplomatic Archive of the (Yugoslav) Foreign Ministry

and Archive of Yugoslavia as the three most relevant archives for

this subject. The other institutions that we have included in our

research were the Yugoslav Air Force museum and the Organisational

Department of the Serbian Ministry of Defence, since they contained

additional organisational facts and figures relating to the Yugoslav

forces. The author also had the unique opportunity to research in

the

Medija Centar

of the Serbian MoD which has kept extraordinary

photo-material of the Yugoslav Army since 1945.

On the other hand, despite some previous contacts the author did

not have an opportunity to research in the Italian military archives.

However, the work of Filipo Cappellano helped us to understand and

describe the role of the Italian military in the crisis. His outstanding

study on the activities of the Italian forces formed the basis for our

description of the Italian Military involvement. And also, not to

forget the

La nuova difesa

web-page, which was very helpful in the

reconstruction of the order of battle for the Italian Army during the

Trieste Dispute.

The Allied troops, which were garrisoned in Trieste and the

surrounding area in 1945-1954 are still missing a good description

or detailed monograph, however, the internet pages of the US Army

forces (TRUST), as well as the British Army (BETFOR), provided

us with adequate tools for outlining the Allied military presence in

Trieste – the Free Territory of Trieste.

To avoid the confusion or misinterpretation of the city names and

other toponyms in the area, we have used names based on the political

allegiance of the locality since 1954. For the places in Italy, the Italian

name is given and for those in Yugoslavia (nowadays Slovenia or

Croatia) the Slovenian or Croatian version.

THE TRIESTE CRISIS 1953: THE FIRST COLD WAR CONFRONTATION IN EUROPE

THE COLD WAR STARTS AT TRIESTE 1945

Yugoslav Partisans and Allies Enter Trieste

Wholesale [the] Army was fed with the idea that we should liberate

Istria and Trieste. When the fighting for Bihać started […] on all

of the lorries and guns were painted slogans:

Forward to Istria,

Istria is ours, We shall liberate Trieste,

etc. That was the best proof

that the assignment that Marshal Tito had given to the IV Army,

reached the mind of every Partisan. Each of the comrades was

ready to sacrifice its life, just to fulfil the assignment set out in front

of him. For example, when [German] Panthers showed in front

of our light tanks, and then the tank crews reported to the Tank

Brigade commander, he replied “Trieste or Death!” Generally while

XX Division and Tank Brigade advanced to Trieste with the slogan

“Trieste or Death!

Those words from the report of the Yugoslav Fourth Army after the

battle for Trieste was over, on 2-3 May 1945, testified on the military-

political intentions of the Yugoslav Partisan/Communist movement

led by Josip Broz Tito – perhaps better known as Marshal Tito – and

even more: about the enthusiasm and morale which Tito’s units had

during their advance and while fighting for such an important goal –

the city of Trieste.

The city of Trieste stands as a symbol of the Italian-Yugoslav

border dispute in the first decade after the Second World War. But the

problem included a much larger territory which covers the wider area

of Trieste itself. Ranging from Julian Alps in the north to the bottom of

the Istrian peninsula, the area where the Italians meet and neighbour

the South Slavs. The administrative borders between the states in this

area were known and strict but the ethnic divisions over the Julia

Region were complex and always a matter of dispute. The prevailing

inhabitants in Trieste and other cities of different scale were Italian,

while the majority of the rural inhabitants were Slovenes, to the north

and around city, and Croats further south in Istria. Simply, the cities

were Italian while the peasant land was Slavic. Such division created

different views as to who owned the lands. The Italian municipal

tradition where cities, no matter their size, were actually the centres

of the districts treated the land as Italian in general. The Slovenes and

Croats stressed the importance of the territory and lands, perceiving

the region as the land settled by Slavs, including the cities, no matter

who inhabited them.

In the military sense, the Julian region that surrounds Trieste was

a large battlefield in the First World War from 1915-1918 where Italy

and Austro-Hungary confronted each other on a massive scale. The

belligerence simply replaced the actors in the years between the wars.

After the war, in 1918-1919 Italy had moved its borders to the east over

former Austro-Hungarian lands covering larger portions of territory

inhabited by the South Slavs. On the other side there was Kingdom of

Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

who stood as the pivot for all South Slavs in South-Eastern Europe.

Although with periods of cooperation, Italy and Yugoslavia remained

opposed to each other, crowding troops on both sides of the mutual

frontier. Italian rule introduced a wave of Italianization over the

South Slavs which just added fuel to the poor mutual relations which

continued into the Second World War. The turning point was the

capitulation of Italy in September 1943.

After the capitulation of Italy, the area that surrounded Trieste

including the parts of the Italian province of Friuli (Udine), Italian

and Yugoslav pats of Western Slovenia, Istria and parts of the Kvarner

A panorama of Trieste, as caught by a Partisan camera 30 April or 1-2 May 1945. (Military Museum Belgrade)

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