of the Lands of St. Stephen”, united under the sceptre of the House of Habsburg. Fiume was one of the Lands that constituted the Hungarian state, together with the Kingdom of Hungary and the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia. The City of Fiume itself was annexed to Hungary by force of the diploma of Maria Theresa. As for sovereignty, neither Hungary nor Croatia who were claiming their sovereignty over Fiume were sovereign states nor subjects of international law, that status pertained only to Austria – that is to the Habsburg monarchy. The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 was an internal administrative arrangement, to which Croatia was similarly related to Hungary. In the analysis done by La Difesa and reported on several articles it was inadmissible for Fiume to be treated as a colony since its status within the Habsburg Empire or the Hungarian Kingdom was comparable to that of Hungary. La Difesa reviewed the position of cities with a comparable status to Fiume. Trieste and the privileged position it enjoyed in Austria was the obvious prime example. Germany, during the process of unification, that the Hungarians frequently referred to as a model, provided another interesting parallel. While the continental free cities lost their rights and privileges "disappearing politically" not so those of the Hanseatic league such as Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg. States that foster economic development via the maritime trade give to free ports ample liberties sanctioned by statutes in order to leave them free that with their international connections knowledge and expertise. Thus the proper institutional model for Fiume was the "Hanseatic model". But what about the nationality of the autonomists? Maylender defined the "Fiuman nationality" as a specific nationality: if Fiumans had to change their nationality accordingly to their sovereigns they would have changed at least 7 nationalities since 1509: his answer was that no one fitted perfectly to them, thus they were a national. The Populist Drive When in 1901 Kálmán Széll succeeded to Dezső Bánffy as Hungarian Prime Minister he seriously tried to restore a positive climate in the city, and Maylender was once again elected to the office of mayor. Meanwhile, the mandate of the Fiuman deputy at the Hungarian parliament was about to expire. In the new climate the majority of the Autonomist Party thought "it was time to send an Italian" (the office was held by count Lajos Batthyány) and it addressed