Notes on Italian Rule in Dalmatia under Bastianini, 1941–1943

Abstract

invasion of Yugoslavia and the lightning victory achieved by the axis powers during April 1941 resulted in the dismemberment of the country into a number of foreign-dominated units occupied by Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Italy's protectorate, Albania and the so-called 'Independent State of Croatia'. The Italian-occupied zone, which included Dalmatia, was assigned by the Italian High Command (Comando Supremo) to the principal Italian military force of the invasion, the Second Army, which numbered about 200,000 men. The Second Army would remain in Italian-occupied Yugoslavia throughout the occupation: until 1942 under the command of General Vittorio Ambrosio; from January 1942 to January 1943 under the previous chief-of-staff of the army, General Mario Roatta; and from January to 8 September 1943 under the former commander of the Eleventh Army Corps in Slovenia, General Mario Robotti. The Second Army gave the occupation of Dalmatia to the Sixth Army Corps -which established its headquarters at Split (Spalato)1 and later, towards the end of January 1942, to the Eighteenth Army Corps. On 18 May 1941 in Rome, Benito Mussolini and Poglavnik Ante Pavelic signed a treaty for the limitation of the boundaries between the kingdom of Italy and the newly created Independent State of Croatia. They also drew up two other agreements, the first pertaining to military questions in the Adriatic littoral and the second to guaranties and collaboration between the two states.2 On the same day, Italy issued