D’Annunzio and Giolitti: Fiume blockade and military expulsion

D’Annunzio and Giolitti: Fiume blockade and military expulsion is a political confrontation in which the Italian government’s effort to enforce the Treaty of Rapallo ended D’Annunzio’s armed defiance in Fiume. The conflict moved from ultimatums and blockade to an assault by regular troops, then to the use of artillery against the city. Its decisive reversal was not a private settlement between two men: government policy and military orders steadily narrowed D’Annunzio’s options until he handed his powers to Fiume’s civic representatives and the legionnaires were demobilized.

Competing claims to Fiume

The relationship between D’Annunzio and Giovanni Giolitti is presented chiefly through a contest over political authority. D’Annunzio remained in Fiume despite opposition from the Fiumani, regarding it as a place where the soul was freer and casting its cause against the postwar settlements. Giolitti’s government, by contrast, sought to impose the state’s recognized territorial limits and enforce the Treaty of Rapallo. The clash was therefore not simply a disagreement about the city’s symbolism: it concerned who could determine its status and command the armed forces present there.

The immediate dispute extended beyond Fiume itself. At the beginning of December, Enrico Caviglia, commanding the contingent sent from Rome to enforce the treaty, ordered D’Annunzio to evacuate Veglia and Arbe, towns occupied in defiance of the agreement. On December 20, Caviglia delivered a further ultimatum: within forty-eight hours, the legionnaires were to return inside the boundaries of the Fiume state recognized by the treaty. At the same time, the Italian forces effectively imposed a blockade by land and sea. The pressure combined a demand for withdrawal with a practical restriction on the territory around which the dispute revolved.

Ultimatums and declarations

D’Annunzio answered pressure with public proclamations rather than compliance. He issued three within twenty-four hours. The first appealed to Italian sailors involved in the siege, urging them to disobey orders against their fellow Italians. The next reduced the crisis to a stark choice: Fiume had been betrayed, and resistance, even at the cost of death, was presented as the remaining duty. In the third, D’Annunzio addressed the mothers of the soldiers who might attack the legionnaires, warning that they would disown sons who shed their countrymen’s blood.

These appeals reveal the terms in which D’Annunzio sought to make the confrontation legible: not as the enforcement of a treaty against an armed occupation, but as Italians being ordered to attack Italians. The language of brotherhood and family challenged the government’s claim to act in the name of national unity. Yet it did not stop the orders. A telegram from Milan prefect Alfredo Lusignoli to Giolitti called for an immediate advance along the front and entry into Fiume, presenting occupation as necessary for the nation’s salvation and honor. An order of the Italian government to Caviglia, dated December 24, likewise directed the operation. The account thus shows Giolitti at the head of a government whose policy was carried through administrative and military channels, rather than depicting a direct personal negotiation between him and D’Annunzio.

The Christmas fighting

The assault began on December 24. When news reached the command room at about six in the evening, Major Vagliasindi needed an hour to obtain D’Annunzio’s order to fire. By then, regular troops had surrounded and captured the first legionnaire garrisons advancing near Cantrida. The delay formed part of a larger contrast: D’Annunzio had repeatedly invoked a willingness to die for Fiume, but as the attack began he appeared distant, and the account describes him as bewildered rather than resolute. Around five thousand legionnaires remained to defend the city.

The regular troops advanced rapidly despite appeals asking them not to cross the line and cause disaster among fellow Italians. Once ordered to fire, the legionnaires reinforced breaches in their defenses and counterattacked; the initial surprise was checked, and by nightfall the line around Fiume had been restored. General Ferrario then ordered artillery prepared for renewed action on Christmas Day. Caviglia, hoping the defenders would reconsider, imposed a truce until dawn on December 26. During that pause D’Annunzio prepared a proclamation for Trieste and Venice, portraying the fighting as fratricidal bloodshed and calling for aid. The appeal produced an uprising in Trieste, but it was quickly suppressed, with little public participation elsewhere.

The renewed assault began at 6:50 a.m. on December 26, supported by artillery and concentrated in the central sector. It failed to break the defense: the legionnaires held and counterattacked, capturing a cannon and taking prisoners. By midday, however, the prospect of entering the city had become inseparable from the prospect of a massacre. Caviglia then ordered Admiral Simonetti, aboard the battleship Andrea Doria off Fiume’s port, to fire on military targets. The bombardment continued over the next forty-eight hours, though it was not heavy; one civilian was killed and several others wounded. The escalation made the government’s coercive power unmistakable while raising the human cost of continuing the defense.

Transfer of authority and aftermath

On December 28, Ferrario refused to negotiate terms for the legionnaires’ surrender and threatened more intense bombing. Fiume’s citizen representatives appealed to D’Annunzio to give in. He then relinquished the powers entrusted to him on September 12, handing them to the mayor and the people of Fiume because he would not impose ruin and death on the city. The account underscores the limits of the Commander’s role during the fighting: through the week of combat, he scarcely left his study and never joined the legionnaires on the firing line. His public image as a leader prepared for sacrifice thus ends in a transfer of authority prompted by the city’s appeal and the threat of further destruction.

The final settlement was formalized outside Fiume. At 4:30 p.m. on December 31, an agreement was signed in Abbazia for the legionnaires’ total demobilization from the city. This outcome completed the reversal at the center of the relationship: D’Annunzio’s proclamations had sought to turn resistance into a national moral test, but the government’s blockade and military action determined the immediate political result. The account frames the expulsion not as a triumph won through a personal encounter between D’Annunzio and Giolitti, but as the consequence of state pressure, armed confrontation, and the eventual surrender of D’Annunzio’s authority.