Italy and Libya

Paper Summary:

Impelled by a mixture of motives, republican Italy seized control of the northern coast of Libya in 1911-1912. This research paper discusses the colonization of Libya by Italy between 1911 and 1943 and the implications of that process for contemporary Libya. The paper also discusses the current status of relations between the two nations.

From the Paper:

"To the Italians' consternation, the Young Turks in Constantinople resisted the Italian invasion. They dispatched an able young officer, Mustafa Kemal, to organize defenses inland from the coastal beachheads initially seized by the Italians. Preoccupied with the threat posed by the First Balkan War and aided by the intervention of the great powers, Turkey under the Treaty of Ouchy of October 1912 granted independence to Tripolitania and Cyrenaica while Italy simultaneously announced their annexation. A six year war then followed between the Italians and Tripolitanian nationalists and bedouin (Sanusi) tribesmen in Cyrenaica. Italian forces in Libya suffered many defeats at the hands of the Sanusi in Fezzan in the southwest and in the central Sirtica desert. Metz (1989) said "Italian forces [in Libya] at the end of World War I were still confined to the coastal enclaves, sometimes under conditions of siege" (p. 25)."

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