On November 3, 1918, Austria-Hungary signed an armistice and capitulation, leaving World War I. It was the final recognition of defeat, and the capitulation was signed with representatives of the Italian army at Villa Giusti near Padua.
During the war, King Vittorio Emanuele III. he often stayed in this villa. It is interesting to note that the furniture in the villa has been preserved to this day, as it was at the time of the signing of the capitulation.
On behalf of Austria-Hungary, the capitulation was signed by General Viktor Weber pl. von Webenau. On behalf of the Kingdom of Italy, the capitulation was received by General Pietro Badoglio, the future Marshal and Italian Prime Minister. The truce officially took effect the next day.
This also meant the end of the war for many Croatian soldiers who fought on the most difficult battlefields of the First World War from Soča (against Italy) to Galicia (against Russia). The total Croatian military losses in the First World War amounted to about 190 thousand people, and data on 137 thousand military and 109 thousand civilian casualties are also mentioned. The death toll was increased by the Spanish flu at the end of the war.
Negotiations at Villa Giusti began on November 1 and ended late in the evening of November 3. They were complex and very difficult, with an intensive exchange of telegrams between commissions, major states, governments and rulers, as well as frequent conflicts. General Badoglio decided at one point to suspend negotiations and continue the military offensive. General Weber knew that the Austro-Hungarian army was in decline and that the troops were starving. Encouraged by the favorable opinion of his emperor, he decided to sign a contract valid from 3 pm on 4 November. When the news of the signing of the capitulation spread at the nearby church of Santa Maria di Mandria, a bell rang.
The armistice agreement, announced on November 7, 1918, provided for very severe military sanctions for the Austro-Hungarian army, which was to deliver almost all heavy and light weapons and almost all naval units still present in the ports.
The Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Dual Monarchy (1867-1918) was a multinational state in Central Europe with rulers from the House of Habsburg. It was inhabited by Germans, Italians, Friulians, Ladins, Croats, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Ruthenians, Slovaks, Czechs, Serbs, Slovenes, Ukrainians and other peoples. Austro-Hungary was founded in 1867 by a settlement that ensured the equality of Hungary in state relations with Austria. The dual monarchy disappeared after the defeat in the First World War. When the units of the Thessaloniki Front arrived in Austria-Hungary, no one had to defend it anymore, so it signed an armistice and capitulated on November 3, 1918. Other peoples of the multinational state had a negative attitude towards the founding of Austria-Hungary. The Slavs in particular considered their interests to be neglected, which led to constant tensions in relations with the imperial government. It was not until the end of the First World War, in early October 1918, that Charles IV. "Manifesto of the People" gave equal rights to all nationalities.
At the end of the First World War, the Kingdom of Italy, immediately after the armistice, set out with its army to occupy Istria and large parts of Dalmatia. This was promised to her by the Entente forces, as a reward for her accession to the Entente and entering the war against her former allies: Austria-Hungary and Germany, by the secret Treaty of London of 1915. Acting as the Entente Allied Army, the Italian army occupied November 4 1918. Pazin, Mali Lošinj, Rijeka and Zadar, 5 November Pula, 6 November Šibenik, and so on. By mid-November, it occupied the whole of Istria, and by the end of November, Dalmatia to a much greater extent than promised to it by the secret Treaty of London. In parallel with the Italian military occupation, the military occupation of the Serbian army took place, whose detachments occupied some cities in Vojvodina, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia on the grounds that they had the task of protecting order, peace and security. These areas occupied by the Serbian army coincided with the Greater Serbia idea of an enlarged Serbia. The Serbian state leadership calculated: if there is no agreement on the annexation of the entire State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to the Kingdom of Serbia, that the Serbian army will occupy the territory north of the Sava and Danube and west of the Drina will remain part of such an expanded Serbia.
In this difficult situation, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs agreed to unite unconditionally with the Kingdom of Serbia on 1 December 1918 under the state name: Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, in which the supreme, ruling power remained in at the hands of the Serbian royal dynasty Karadjordjevic.
