Italy’s Endeavour to Take Over the Central European Railway Network, 1919–1923

W the Habsburg empire collapsed, it left behind one of the largest rail systems in Europe which was divided between great companies whose networks ran from Northern Italy and Tyrol to Budapest, and from Vienna to the Adriatic harbours of Fiume and Trieste. Before the Great War, the railway was a prized tool for growing State power abroad as capital and debt bonds could be taken in the form of foreign railway companies and directly serve the purposes of foreign policy. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Habsburg empire attempted to extend the network towards the Balkans, while Italy tried to surpass Austria-Hungary by constructing a new rail line connecting the Danubian network with the Balkan lines.1 As far as railway issues were concerned, Italy was not a new-comer in Eastern and Central Europe.