ABSTRACT
At the end of World War One, the Habsburg monarchy collapsed and parts of the now-defunct empire became areas of contention between successor states. Especially in multiethnic borderlands, states, armies, and civic organizations struggled in diverse ways to affirm their rights to one or another contested area. The Austrian Littoral, as the northern Adriatic region was called during Habsburg times, was no exception. After the war, it was claimed by both the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (the Kingdom of SHS, later on Yugoslavia). The political context of the Adriatic question is well known, and it shows how the area became one of the postwar “shatter zones” of the Habsburg empire. 2
