THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT

The outbreak of the First World War marked a sudden interruption in the exceptional economic development of the port of Trieste which was never to recur in the history of the town. The increase in shipping tonnage arriving in the port between 1905 and 1913 exceeded that of other major continental ports (Figure 6.1). Between 1912 and 1913, after the opening of the new Franz Joseph port, port traffic increased by 907,000 net tons; only Rotterdam in that year recorded a higher increase (Camera di Commercio, 1914; Babudieri, 1962, pp. 1–8). In 1913, thanks to the record tonnage arriving in the port, Trieste was the fifth most important continental port, just behind Genoa but ahead of Bremen (Camera di Commercio, 1914; Babudieri, 1982, p. 172; see also Table 6.1). In terms of financial revenue, it was the third largest Austrian town and, with a population of 230,000 in 1910, only Vienna and Prague within the Austro-Hungarian Empire had more inhabitants.

The ‘first port of the Empire’ was a relatively recent construction of the Hapsburgs (Figure 6.2): at the beginning of the eighteenth century Trieste was still a self-administered town with a poor economy, dependent on saltpits, fishing and agriculture, ruled by a traditional municipal and aristocratic system and with less than 4,000 inhabitants (Martini, 1968, p. 165). In 1717, in accordance with mercantilist principles, Charles VI proclaimed the freedom of transit through the Adriatic Sea and in 1719 the port was exempted from customs duty. In 1769 Maria Theresa extended this exemption to the whole town, laying the foundations for its expansion as a commercial centre (Babudieri, 1964; Luzzatto, 1953, pp. 6–11).

Jewish, Greek, Serbian and Armenian immigrants, who were attracted to Trieste by the new economic opportunities, were granted by various statutes relative legal autonomy, full freedom of worship and the right to undertake commercial activities. These ethnic and religious groups, with their own judicial institutions, were called ‘nations’ (Martini, 1968, pp. 93–125). In a short period of time a new commercial and cosmopolitan town developed adjacent to, but at the same time in contrast with, the old medieval borough: the ‘new Trieste’ represented a sort of island, characterized by religious tolerance and economic liberalism, in the semi-feudal and corporative background of the extremely Catholic Hapsburg Empire.