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| Italian Tripolitania andCyrenaica | 1911–1934 |
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| Italian Libya | 1934–1943 |
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TheItalian colonizationof Libya began in 1911 and it lasted until 1943. The country, which was previously anOttoman possession, was occupied byItaly in 1911 after theItalo-Turkish War, which resulted in the establishment of two colonies:Italian Tripolitania andItalian Cyrenaica. In 1934, the two colonies were merged into one colony which was named the colony ofItalian Libya. In 1937, this colony was divided into four provinces, and in 1939, the coastal provinces became a part of metropolitan Italy as theFourth Shore. The colonization lasted until Libya'soccupation by Allied forces in 1943, but it was not until the1947 Paris Peace Treaty that Italy officially renounced all of its claims to Libya's territory.
On 3 October 1911, Italy attacked Tripoli, claiming to be liberating the Ottomanwilayats fromthe Sublime porte’s rule.
Despite a major revolt by the Arabs, the Ottoman sultan ceded Libya to the Italians by signing the1912 Treaty of Lausanne (not to be confused with a more famoustreaty of the same name of 1923). The Italians made extensive use of theSavari, 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 theSpahi, or mounted Libyan police, formed part of theRegio Corpo Truppe Coloniali della Libia [it] (Royal Corps of Libyan Colonial Troops). Tripoli was largely under Italian control by 1914, but both Cyrenaica and theFezzan were home to rebellions led by thenomadicSenussi.
Sheikh Sidi Idris al-Mahdi as-Senussi (laterKing Idris I), of the Senussi, led Libyan resistance in various forms through the outbreak of theSecond World War. After the Italian army invaded Cyrenaica in 1913 as part oftheir 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 theOttoman 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]
Instead he established a tacit alliance with the British, which would last for half a century and accord his orderde 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 andat 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 establishedTripolitanian Republic were acrimonious.[3] The Senussi attempted to militarily extend their power into eastern Tripolitania, resulting in a pitched battle atBani Walid in which the Senussi were forced to withdraw back into Cyrenaica.[2]
At the end ofWorld 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 theLegge 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 visitedRome as part of the celebrations to mark the promulgation of the settlement.[6]
In October 1920, further negotiations between Italy and Cyrenaica resulted in theAccord of al-Rajma, in which Idris was given the title of the Emir of Cyrenaica and permitted to autonomously administer the oases aroundKufra,Jalu,Jaghbub,Awjila, andAjdabiya. 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 theLegge 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 leaderRamadan 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 inGharyan to bring an end to the violence.[8] In January 1922 they agreed to request that Idris extend the SanuiEmirate 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 leaderBenito Mussolini—would militarily retaliate against the Senussi Order, and so he went into exile in Egypt in December 1922.[9]
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After the accession to power of thedictatorBenito 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 theOttoman provinces ofTripolitania andCyrenaica was initially unsuccessful and it was not until the early 1930s that theKingdom of Italy took full control of the area.[10] This conflict, known as theSecond 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 underGeneral Badoglio waged apunitive pacification campaign. Badoglio's successor in the field,GeneralRodolfo Graziani, accepted the commission from Mussolini on the condition that he was allowed to crushLibyan resistance unencumbered by the restraints of either Italian orinternational law. Mussolini reportedly agreed immediately and Graziani intensified the oppression.[citation needed]
SomeLibyans 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 Senussisheik, organized and, for nearly twenty years, ledLibyan resistance efforts. His example continued to inspire resistance even after his capture and execution on 16 September 1931. His face is currently[when?] 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. Abarbed wire fence was built from theMediterranean to the oasis ofJaghbub to sever lines critical to the resistance. Soon afterward, the colonial administration began wholesale deportation of the people of theJebel Akhdar to deny the resistance to the support of the local population. Theforced migration of more than 100,000 people ended inconcentration camps inSuluq 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 least80,000, up to one third of the Cyrenaican population.[12]
Both sides committed war crimes: the Senussi forces who did not take prisoners of war since 1911 (as in theShar 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 illegalchemical weapons, episodes of refusing to take prisoners of war and instead of executing surrendering combatants, and mass executions of civilians.[13] Italian authorities committedethnic 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 toKnud Holmboe, tribal villages were being bombed with mustard gas by the spring of 1930, and suspects were hanged or shot in the back, with an estimated thirty executions taking place daily.[16]Angelo Del Boca estimated between 40,000 and 70,000 total Libyan deaths 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 hugeconcentration 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. TheSoluch andSisi 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 byforced 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]
By 1934, Libyan indigenous resistance was effectively crushed. The new Italian governor,Italo Balbo, created the political entity calledItalian Libya in the summer of that year.[21] The classical name "Libya" was revived as the official name of the unified colony. Then in 1937 the colony was split administratively into four provinces:Tripoli,Misrata,Benghazi, andDerna. The Fezzan area was calledTerritorio Sahara Libico and administered militarily.
In March 1937 Mussolini made a state visit to Libya, where he opened a new military highway running the entire length of the colony (theVia Balbia). For propaganda reasons he had himself declaredProtector of Islam and was presented with a symbolic sword.[22] Mussolini's publicized encouragement of the Arab nationalist movement suited his wider policies of confronting Britain and France.[23] He also sought to fully colonize Libya, introducing 30,000 more Italian colonists, which brought their numbers to more than 100,000. These colonists were shipped primarily toSahel al-Jefara in Tripolitania and theJebel Akhdar in Cyrenaica, and given land from which the indigenous inhabitants had been partially removed during the colonial war in the 1920s.[24] At the time of the 1939 census, the Italian population in Libya numbered 108,419 (12.37% of the total population), concentrated on the coast around the city of Tripoli (37% of the city's population) and Benghazi (31%). The 22,000 Libyan Jews were allowed to integrate in the society of the "Fourth Shore", but after summer 1941, with the arrival of the GermanAfrika Korps, they began to be moved to internment camps under Nazi SS control.[citation needed]
On 9 January 1939, the coastal regions of the colony were incorporated into metropolitan Italy and thereafter considered by Italy to be an integral part of their state. By 1939, the Italians had built 400 km of new railroads and 4,000 km of new roads. During World War II a new road was still being built, theVia della Vittoria, and a new Tripoli-Benghazi railway. On 13 September 1940, Mussolini's highway was used for the invasion ofEgypt by Italian forces stationed in Libya.[25]
In 1939, laws were passed that allowed Muslims to be permitted to join theNational Fascist Party and in particular theMuslim Association of the Lictor (Associazione Musulmana del Littorio). These reforms allowed the creation of Libyan military units within the Italian army (with 30,000 native Muslim soldiers).[26] Two divisions of Libyan colonial troops were created (1st Libyan Division,2nd Libyan Division), and in the summer of 1940 both participated in the Italian offensive against the British army inEgypt[27]). A battalion of Libyanparatroopers[28] was even raised shortly before World War II, the first force of this kind to be created in all of Africa. Other Libyan troops had been fighting for the Kingdom of Italy since the 1920s: theSavari (cavalry regiments) and theSpahi (mounted police).
Mussolini sought to assimilate the Arabs of Libya (whom he called "Muslim Italians") and so in 1939 ten villages were created for Arabs andBerbers:
All these new villages had their mosque, school, social centre (with sport grounds and cinema) and small hospital. This was purportedly a reward for the military performance of the Libyan colonial troops: in 1936 Savaris and other Libyan units took part in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and received a "Gold Medal of Honour" for their distinguished performance in battle.[29]
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From 1943 to 1951, Libya was underAllied occupation. The British militaryadministered the two former Italian Libyan provinces of Tripolitana and Cyrenaïca, while the Frenchadministered the province of Fezzan.
Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with theAllies, Italy, which hoped to maintain the colony ofTripolitania, (and France, which wanted the Fezzan), relinquished all claims to Libya. Libya remained united as it experienced the process ofdecolonization that characterized colonies of Europe in the mid-Twentieth Century.
Omar al-Mukhtar's final years were depicted in the movieLion of the Desert (1981), starringAnthony Quinn,Oliver Reed, andIrene Papas. The Italian authorities had banned the film in 1982 because, in the words ofGiulio Andreotti, it was "damaging to the honor of the army".[30]
In July 1998, the Italian government offered a formal apology to Libya. In August 2008 the two nations signed a treaty of friendship in which US$5 billion in goods and services, including the construction of the Libyan portion of the Cairo-Tunis highway, would be given to Libya to end any remaining animosity.[31][32][33] In exchange, Libya would take measures to combatillegal immigration coming from its shores and boostinvestments in Italian companies.[32][34] The treaty was ratified by Italy on 6 February 2009,[31] and by Libya on 2 March, during a visit toTripoli bySilvio Berlusconi, who recognized historic atrocities and repression committed by the state of Italy against the Libyan people during colonial rule, stating: "In this historic document, Italy apologizes for its killing, destruction and repression of the Libyan people during the period of colonial rule." and went on to say that this was a "complete and moral acknowledgement of the damage inflicted on Libya by Italy during the colonial era".[35]
Cooperation ended in February 2011 as a result of theLibyan Civil War which overthrew Gaddafi. On 26 September 2011, Italian energy companyEni announced it had restarted oil production in Libya for the first time since the start of the 2011 Libyan civil war. The quick return of Eni to Libyan oilfields reflected the positive relations between Rome and Tripoli.[36]The Italian embassy in Tripoli is one of the few Western embassies still active in Libya during thePost-civil war violence in Libya, because Italy is the most important trade partner for Libya.[37][38]
between 40,000 and 70,000 deaths due to forced deportations, starvation and disease inside the concentration camps, and hanging and executions
