The League of Fiume () was one of the many political experiments that took place during the Italian Regency of Carnaro period when Gabriele d'Annunzio and the intellectuals that took part with him in the Fiume Endeavor attempted to establish a movement of non-aligned nations. In their plans, this league was meant to be in antithesis to the Wilsonian League of Nations, which was seen by many of Fiume's intellectuals as a mean to perpetuate a corrupt and imperialist status quo.
The organization was initially meant to help all oppressed nationalities in their struggle for political dignity and recognition, establishing links to many movements on various continents, but despite the links to various struggling groups across the international scene, it never found the necessary external support for success. Its most notable legacies remain today the Regency of Carnaro's recognition of the Soviet Union, first state entity in the world to have done so, as well as the recognition of the independence of the Irish Free State before the government of Great Britain had done so, mostly thanks to the pressures of minister Henry Furst.
Aims and aspirations
The project for the creation of a League of Oppressed Peoples had deep roots in D’Annunzio's thought, for he had conceived of his Fiuman endeavor in "universal" terms almost from the beginning. The comandante was not content to see the scope of his action limited to the city of Fiume, and he had established contacts with other foreign movements very early on.
The guiding spirit of the Lega di Fiume was Léon Kochnitzky, the Belgian poet who had come to Fiume late in the fall of 1919, left the city during the crisis of December, and then returned in January to become the head of the Fiuman International Relations Bureau (Ufficio Relazioni Esteriori). This institution, acting with scarce finances and only a handful of employees, attempted to enlist the support of foreign movements – and foreign powers – in behalf of the Fiuman "cause". At first, Kochnitzky (with the assistance of Eugenio Coselschi, Ludovico Toeplitz, Giovanni Bonmartini, Henry Furst and others) was content to gather statements of support from the representatives of movements sympathetic to D’Annunzio. By early spring there was abundant evidence that an "anti-League of Nations" would be able to count upon a wide range of support, and Kochnitzky decided to request the creation of a formal organization. There was good reason to be optimistic about the league as one learns from a long series of memoranda that Kochnitzky prepared for D’Annunzio during the last week of March and the first half of April, listing the nations and movements that were either already committed to the project or that were expected to join the cause in short order.
Kochnitzky saw the league as the vehicle for shattering the old order and establishing a world governed by the principles expounded in Italy and Life. It was, then, part of the sharp turn to the Left that characterized the policies of the Command during this period, and Kochnitzky significantly maintained that it was essential to acquire the support of the Soviet Union for the Lega. He considered this inevitable, claiming that Communist Russia, "like all spiritually alive elements of our time", could not fail to recognize the value of the new "International". Further, Kochnitzky urged D’Annunzio to support the Hungarian Communists and to issue an attack against Horthy’s regime. Such a stance would demonstrate the principles of "Fiumanism" upon which the new league would rest. Similarly, indicative of Kochnitzky's conception of the Lega is a statement in a note to the commander on 29 March: "while the presence of representatives of the Montenegrin Court seems scarcely desirable in Fiume for various reasons, it would instead be useful if one or more leaders of the Montenegrin insurrection against Serbia attended.".