1918–20 unrest in Split

In 1918–1920, a series of violent fights took place in the city of Split between Croats and Italians, culminating in a struggle on July 11 1920 that resulted in the deaths of Captain Tommaso Gulli of the Italian protected cruiser Puglia, Croat civilian Matej Miš, and Italian sailor Aldo Rossi. The incidents were the cause of the destruction in Trieste of the Hotel Balkan by Italian Fascists.

The confrontations were the product of a centuries-long struggle for the control of the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea between South Slavs and Italians. During the second half of the 19th century Split saw antagonism between the pro-Italian Autonomist Party and the pro-Slav People's Party.

Hostilities between the two ethnicities increased after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when Italian irredentists called for the annexation of several formerly Austro-Hungarian cities on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, which were home to both South Slavs and Italians, into Italy, and occupied several of them by force.

According to the 1910 census the population of Split numbered 20,275, of which 18,176 (85.18%) were Croats or Serbs (Croats were the majority, but the census made no distinction between the two), while 2,082 (9.73%) were Italians.

In the city of Split there was an autochthonous Italian community, which was reorganized in November 1918 through the foundation of the "National Fasces" (not related to fascism) led by Leonardo Pezzoli, Antonio Tacconi, Edoardo Pervan and Stefano Selem, former members of the Autonomist Party, which had been dissolved by the Austrian authorities in 1915.

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