Italian colonization of Libya

Italy's representation of the takeover of Ottoman Tripolitania in 1911

Sheikh Sidi Idris al-Mahdi as-Senussi (later King Idris I of Libya)

On 3 October 1911, Italy attacked Tripoli, claiming to be liberating the Ottoman wilayats from Istanbul's rule.

Despite a major revolt by the Arabs, the Ottoman sultan ceded Libya to the Italians by signing the 1912 Treaty of Lausanne (not to be confused with a more famous treaty of the same name of 1923). The Italians made extensive use of the Savari, colonial cavalry troops raised in December 1912. These units were recruited from the Arab-Berber population of Libya following the initial Italian occupation in 1911–12. The Savari, like the Spahi, or mounted Libyan police, formed part of the Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali della Libia (Royal Corps of Libyan Colonial Troops). Tripoli was largely under Italian control by 1914, but both Cyrenaica and the Fezzan were home to rebellions led by the nomadic Senussi.

Sheikh Sidi Idris al-Mahdi as-Senussi (later King Idris I), of the Senussi, led Libyan resistance in various forms through the outbreak of the Second World War. After the Italian army invaded Cyrenaica in 1913 as part of their wider invasion of Libya, the Senussi Order fought back against them.[1] When the Order's leader, Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi, abdicated his position, he was replaced by Idris, who was his cousin.[2] Pressured to do so by the Ottoman Empire, Ahmed had pursued armed attacks against British military forces stationed in neighbouring Egypt. On taking power, Idris put a stop to these attacks.[2]

Arrival of the first Italian locomotive in the harbor of Tripoli, 1912

Senussi warriors en route to Egypt during the Senussi campaign, 1915

Instead he established a tacit alliance with the British, which would last for half a century and accord his order de facto diplomatic status.[3] Using the British as intermediaries, Idris led the Order into negotiations with the Italians in July 1916.[4] These resulted in two agreements, at al-Zuwaytina in April 1916 and at Akrama in April 1917.[5] The latter of these treaties left most of inland Cyrenaica under the control of the Senussi Order [2] Relations between the Senussi Order and the newly established Tripolitanian Republic were acrimonious.[3] The Senussi attempted to militarily extend their power into eastern Tripolitania, resulting in a pitched battle at Bani Walid in which the Senussi were forced to withdraw back into Cyrenaica.[2]

At the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire signed an armistice agreement in which they ceded their claims over Libya to Italy.[6] Italy however was facing serious economic, social, and political problems domestically, and was not prepared to re-launch its military activities in Libya.[6] It issued statutes known as the Legge Fondamentale with both the Tripolitanian Republic in June 1919[7] and Cyrenaica in October 1919. These brought about a compromise by which all Libyans were accorded the right to a joint Libyan-Italian citizenship while each province was to have its own parliament and governing council.[6] The Senussi were largely happy with this arrangement and Idris visited Rome as part of the celebrations to mark the promulgation of the settlement.[6]

The Palazzo Littorio, later called the "Parliament of Cyrenaica", 1927

In October 1920, further negotiations between Italy and Cyrenaica resulted in the Accord of al-Rajma, in which Idris was given the title of the Emir of Cyrenaica and permitted to autonomously administer the oases around Kufra, Jalu, Jaghbub, Awjila, and Ajdabiya. As part of the Accord, he was given a monthly stipend by the Italian government, which agreed to take responsibility for policing and administration of areas under Senussi control.[6] The Accord also stipulated that Idris must fulfill the requirements of the Legge Fondamentale by disbanding the Cyrenaican military units, however, he did not comply with this. [6] By the end of 1921, relations between the Senussi Order and the Italian government had again deteriorated.[6]

Following the death of Tripolitanian leader Ramadan Asswehly in August 1920, the Republic descended into civil war. Many tribal leaders in the region recognized that this discord was weakening the region's chances of attaining full autonomy from Italy, and in November 1920 they met in Gharyan to bring an end to the violence.[8] In January 1922 they agreed to request that Idris extend the Sanui Emirate of Cyrenaica into Tripolitania in order to bring stability; they presented a formal document with this request on 28 July 1922.[8] Idris' advisers were divided on whether he should accept the offer or not. Doing so would contravene the al-Rajma Agreement and would damage relations with the Italian government, which opposed the political unification of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania as being against their interests.[8] Nevertheless, in November 1922 Idris agreed to the proposal.[8] Following the agreement, Idris feared that Italy — under its new Fascist leader Benito Mussolini—would militarily retaliate against the Senussi Order, and so he went into exile in Egypt in December 1922.[9]

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  The Italian Army landing at the Port of Tripoli, 1911
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  An Italian Carabiniere and an Arabic Zaptié patrolling in Tripoli, 1914
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  Restaurant and goods train in Derna (stamped on 29 December 1916)
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  The Italian Benghazi Municipio (City Hall) in the 1920s
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  Berenice Theatre in Benghazi, opened in 1928 and designed by Marcello Piacentini
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  The Royal Palace of Tripoli
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  Roman theatre of Sabratha, restored during the Italian rule.

Territorial growth of Italian Libya: territory ceded by Ottoman Empire 1912 (dark-green) though effectively Italy controlled only five ports (black); territories ceded by France and Britain 1919 and 1926 (light-green); territories ceded by France and Britain 1934/35 (red)

After the accession to power of the dictator Benito Mussolini in Italy, the fighting intensified. Due to the Libyan people's effective resistance against Italy's so-called "pacification campaign", the Italian colonization of the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica was initially unsuccessful and it was not until the early 1930s that the Kingdom of Italy took full control of the area.[10] This conflict, known as the Second Italo-Senussi War, ultimately claimed the lives of around 56,000 Libyans.[11]

Several reorganizations of the colonial authority had been made necessary because of armed Arab opposition, mainly in Cyrenaica. Between 1919 (17 May) to 1929 (24 January), the Italian government maintained the two traditional provinces, with separate colonial administrations. A system of controlled local assemblies with limited local authority was set up but was revoked on 9 March 1927. In 1929, Tripoli and Cyrenaica were united as one colonial province. From 1931 to 1932, Italian forces under General Badoglio waged a punitive pacification campaign. Badoglio's successor in the field, General Rodolfo Graziani, accepted the commission from Mussolini on the condition that he was allowed to crush Libyan resistance unencumbered by the restraints of either Italian or international law. Mussolini reportedly agreed immediately and Graziani intensified the oppression.

Omar Mukhtar was a prominent leader of Libyan resistance in Cyrenaica against Italian colonization.

Some Libyans continued to defend themselves, with the strongest voices of dissent coming from the Cyrenaica. Beginning in the first days of Italian colonization, Omar Mukhtar, a Senussi sheik, organized and, for nearly twenty years, led Libyan resistance efforts. His example continued to inspire resistance even after his capture and execution on 16 September 1931. His face is currently printed on the Libyan ten dinar note in memory and recognition of his patriotism.

After a much-disputed truce, the Italian policy in Libya reached the level of full-scale war in 1932. A barbed wire fence was built from the Mediterranean to the oasis of Jaghbub to sever lines critical to the resistance. Soon afterward, the colonial administration began wholesale deportation of the people of the Jebel Akhdar to deny the resistance to the support of the local population. The forced migration of more than 100,000 people ended in concentration camps in Suluq and El Agheila, where thousands died in squalid conditions. It is estimated that the number of Libyans who died, killed in the fighting or through starvation and disease is at least 80,000, up to one third of the Cyrenaican population.[12]

Meharists led by Amedeo D'aosta. Thousands of Libyans fought in the Italian colonial troops.

Inmates at the El Agheila concentration camp

Both sides committed war crimes: the first were the Senussi forces who did not take prisoners of war since 1911 (like in the Shar Shatt massacre) and used to mutilate nearly all the Italian colonial troops (mainly the Christian Eritreans) when they surrendered. Italian war crimes included the use of illegal chemical weapons, episodes of refusing to take prisoners of war and instead of executing surrendering combatants, and mass executions of civilians.[13] Italian authorities committed ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000 local Cyrenaicans, almost half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements, slated to be given to Italian settlers.[14][15] According to Knud Holmboe, tribal villages were being bombed with mustard gas by the spring of 1930, and suspects were hanged or shot in the back, with estimated thirty executions tooking place daily.[16] Angelo Del Boca estimated between 40,000 and 70,000 total Libyan deads due to forced deportations, starvation and disease inside the concentration camps, and hanging and executions.[17] The Italian occupation also reduced the number of livestock by killing, confiscating, or driving the animals from their pastoral land to inhospitable land near the concentration camps.[18] The number of sheep fell from 810,000 in 1926 to 98,000 in 1933, goats from 70,000 to 25,000, and camels from 75,000 to 2,000.[18]

From 1930 to 1931, 12,000 Cyrenaicans died and all the nomadic peoples of northern Cyrenaica were forcefully removed from the region and relocated to huge concentration camps in the Cyrenaican lowlands.[19] Propaganda by the Fascist regime declared the camps to be oases of modern civilization that were hygienic and efficiently run –– however, in reality, the camps had poor sanitary conditions as the camps had an average of about 20,000 inmates, together with their camels and other animals, crowded into an area of one square kilometer.[20] The camps held only rudimentary medical services. The Soluch and Sisi Ahmed el Magrun concentration camps, with an estimated 33,000 internees, had only one doctor between them.[20] Typhus and other diseases spread rapidly in the camps, as the people were physically weakened by forced labor and meager food rations.[20] By the time the camps closed in September 1933, 40,000 of the 100,000 total internees had died in the camps.[20]