On the morning of September 12 1919, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Italian author, poet, journalist, politician and Great War hero inspired by nationalist furore, entered Fiume (present-day Rijeka) with a group of renegade Italian officers and soldiers.

They were greeted with joy by the local Italian population who wanted their city to become part of Italy, in stark contrast to the Italian and other Allied governments at the time, which were seeking to give Fiume to the newly-founded Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later known as Yugoslavia.