Province of Spalato

The puppet Independent State of Croatia ceded by the Treaties of Rome of 18 May 1941, extensive Adriatic coastal areas to the Fascist Kingdom of Italy.

The Italians started immediately a process of improvement in the underdeveloped area, creating needed infrastructures from hospitals to schools and sewages.

The reclamation of 76,000 hectares of land and an agrarian reform were even started (for the Italian one it will be necessary to wait for 1950) which in the spring of 1942 had already registered the requests of 22,000 Slavic peasants for access to the benefits provided by law.

Over a thousand teachers were recruited for the schools, 531 of whom were Italian and in 1941 over 260 Dalmatian students (211 of whom were Croatian) received scholarships for universities in the Kingdom of Italy.

Fabrizio Gregorutti Under orders of Mussolini, it was also started in July 1941 a process of forced Italianization (related to the history of Venetian Dalmatia[4]).