Zanella served in office as president of the Free State of Fiume from 5 October 1921 to 3 March 1922 , when his term was cut short due to Italian occupation , following a fascist putsch . Italy formally annexed the territory on 16 March 1924 . During 1930 's Zanella resided mainly in exile in Belgrade . Following World War II Zanella demanded the restoration of the Free State as a sovereign entity , but failed to receive support for his idea at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco . Nevertheless , he restated the request also to the London Council of Foreign Ministers in September 1945 . Thereby he compared the Free State of Fiume , " submerged by an act of Fascist aggression " to that of Albania and Ethiopia . Moreover , he denied its annexation to Croatia or Yugoslavia , where it never belonged , since it was a country of the Holy Crown of Hungary . Zanella 's efforts proved utterly unsuccessful and he died in exile in Rome in 1959
United Nations Conference on International Organization
United Nations Conference on International Organization
Riccardo Zanella