service, Ciotta met John Leard, a Fiuman of English origins. In 1889, Ciotta and Leard initiated the piano regolatore, a comprehensive urbanisation plan for the city. The new plan laid out a modern commercial city, which would require destroying most of the older buildings and roads and introducing the regular planning, as was done in Budapest and other cities of the time. In 1891, the Acquedotto Ciotta was finished, providing the city with a modern water supply and sewage system. Ciotta was also a founder of several philanthropic institutions. In 1896, the "Ciotta system" underwent a crisis, when Hungarian Prime Minister Dezső Bánffy initiated a policy of centralization. Ciotta, being unable to assure equilibrium between Fiume and Hungary, resigned and retired to private life, following the example of Governor Lajos gróf Batthyány de Nemetujvár. In response Michele Maylender, backed by Luigi Ossoinack (initiator of the Royal Hungarian Sea Navigation Company "Adria"), founded a new party, the Autonomist Association, ending the rule of the Liberal Party of Hungary in Fiume. At the turn of the 20th century, the future mayor of New York City Fiorello La Guardia lived in the city and reportedly even played football for the local sports club. The Italo-Yugoslav dispute and the Free State Habsburg-ruled Austria-Hungary's disintegration in the closing weeks of World War I, in the fall of 1918, led to the establishment of rival Croatian and Italian administrations in the city; both Italy and the founders of the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) claimed sovereignty based on their "irredentist" ("unredeemed") ethnic populations. In November 1918, an international force of Italian, French, Serbian, British, and American troops occupied the city, and the city's future was discussed at the Paris Peace Conference during the course of 1919. Italy based its claim on the fact that Italians were the largest single nationality within the city, 88% of the population. Croats made up most of the remainder and were also a majority in the surrounding area, including the neighbouring town of Sušak. Andrea Ossoinack, who had been the last delegate from Fiume to the Hungarian Parliament, was admitted to the conference as a representative of Fiume, and essentially supported the Italian claims. On 10 September 1919, the Treaty of Saint-Germain was signed, which declared the Austro-Hungarian monarchy dissolved. Negotiations over the future of the city were interrupted two days later when