Italo-Turkish War (1911-1912): Italy's Conquest of Libya

The Italo-Turkish War was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. Italy invaded the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, which together form much of modern Libya, and also occupied the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean. The war is remembered for the first bombs dropped from an aeroplane and for exposing Ottoman weakness on the eve of the Balkan Wars and the First World War.

Background

After the unification of Italy, the new kingdom sought colonies to match the older European powers. Its hopes in East Africa suffered a severe blow at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, and by 1900 France held Algeria and Tunisia while Britain occupied Egypt. The Ottoman provinces around Tripoli and Benghazi were the last part of the North African coast not under European control, and they lay just across the sea from Sicily.

Italian diplomats spent a decade preparing the ground. Secret agreements with France in 1900 and 1902 traded Italian acceptance of French ambitions in Morocco for French acceptance of Italian claims to Libya. Britain, Austria-Hungary and Russia also gave varying degrees of consent. Italian banks, especially the Banco di Roma, had built up commercial interests in the region.

In 1911 the Second Moroccan Crisis, also called the Agadir Crisis, brought France closer to taking Morocco. Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti feared Italy might lose its chance, and nationalist newspapers were demanding action. In late September 1911 Italy sent the Ottoman government an ultimatum accusing it of mistreating Italian subjects and threatening their interests. The Ottomans offered talks, but Italy declared war on 29 September.

The invasion of Libya

The Ottoman garrison in Libya was small, and the Ottoman Empire could not easily reinforce it. Italy controlled the sea, and Britain, which ruled Egypt, refused to let Ottoman troops cross its territory in uniform. Some Ottoman officers, among them Enver Bey and Mustafa Kemal, later known as Atatürk, slipped in by land or sea in disguise.

The Italian navy bombarded the forts of Tripoli on 3–4 October 1911, and a landing party of about 1,700 sailors went ashore on 5 October. An army expeditionary corps under General Carlo Caneva followed. During October Italian forces also took Tobruk, Derna, Benghazi and Homs (Al-Khums), so that within weeks the main coastal towns were in Italian hands.

On 5 November 1911 Italy proclaimed the annexation of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica by royal decree, although its troops controlled only a narrow coastal strip. The Italian force grew to around 100,000 men during the war, but it rarely advanced far from the coast.

Resistance and Shar al-Shatt

Italy had expected the local Arab and Berber population to welcome it. Instead many joined the Ottoman regulars, supported in Cyrenaica by the Sanusi religious order. On 23 October 1911 Ottoman and Arab forces attacked the Italian lines at Shar al-Shatt (Sciara Sciat) on the edge of the Tripoli oasis, and several hundred Italian soldiers were killed.

In the days that followed, Italian troops carried out harsh reprisals in the oasis, including mass arrests, executions and deportations of civilians. The number of victims is disputed, with estimates ranging from several hundred to several thousand. Reports by foreign journalists caused outrage in Britain and elsewhere and damaged Italy’s international image.

War in the air

The war was the first in which aeroplanes were used in combat. On 23 October 1911 Captain Carlo Piazza flew a reconnaissance flight over Ottoman positions in a Blériot monoplane, a type made famous by the Channel crossing of 1909.

On 1 November 1911 Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti dropped small grenades by hand from an Etrich Taube monoplane onto Ottoman troops near Ain Zara and the oasis of Tagiura. The damage was slight, but it is generally regarded as the first aerial bombing in history. Italian airships also carried out bombing and reconnaissance missions in 1912.

War at sea and the Dodecanese

Unable to force a decision in the Libyan interior, Italy put pressure on the Ottoman Empire elsewhere. Its navy sank Ottoman vessels at Preveza in the Ionian Sea in late September 1911, in the Red Sea at Kunfuda Bay in January 1912 and off Beirut in February 1912. In April and July 1912 Italian warships and torpedo boats operated at the entrance to the Dardanelles.

Between late April and May 1912 Italy occupied Rhodes and the other islands of the Dodecanese in the south-eastern Aegean. The Ottoman garrison on Rhodes surrendered on 17 May. Italy presented the occupation as temporary, but it lasted until after the Second World War.

Key people

• Giovanni Giolitti (1842–1928): Italian prime minister who decided on the war.
• Carlo Caneva (1845–1922): commander of the Italian expeditionary force in Libya until 1912.
• Enver Bey (1881–1922): Ottoman officer who organised resistance in Cyrenaica and later became a leading figure of the Young Turk government.
• Mustafa Kemal (1881–1938): Ottoman officer who served near Tobruk and Derna, later founder of the Republic of Turkey.
• Giulio Gavotti (1882–1939): Italian aviator who carried out the first aerial bombing.

Peace and consequences

Talks began in Switzerland in the summer of 1912. The decisive pressure came from the Balkans: Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 8 October 1912, and its allies were about to follow. The Ottomans signed the Treaty of Ouchy, near Lausanne, on 18 October 1912.

Under the treaty the Sultan withdrew his officials and troops from Libya and granted its people autonomy, a face-saving formula that left Italy in control. The Sultan kept a religious role through a representative. Italy agreed to evacuate the Dodecanese once Ottoman forces had left Libya, and to contribute towards Libya’s share of the Ottoman public debt. Italy never returned the islands; the Ottoman successor state recognised Italian rule there in 1923, and they passed to Greece in 1947.

Italian deaths are usually put at around 3,400, of whom roughly 1,400 were killed in action and the rest died of disease. Ottoman, Arab and Berber losses are far less certain but are generally thought to have been considerably higher. In Libya the war did not end with the treaty: resistance, led in Cyrenaica by the Sanusi order, continued for two decades, and Italy completed its conquest only in the early 1930s after a brutal campaign.

Timeline

• 1911, 29 September: Italy declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
• 1911, 5 October: Italian sailors land at Tripoli after a naval bombardment.
• 1911, 23 October: Battle of Shar al-Shatt outside Tripoli; first reconnaissance flight of the war.
• 1911, 1 November: Giulio Gavotti carries out the first aerial bombing.
• 1911, 5 November: Italy decrees the annexation of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.
• 1912, 24 February: Italian cruisers sink Ottoman ships off Beirut.
• 1912, 17 May: The Ottoman garrison on Rhodes surrenders.
• 1912, 8 October: Montenegro declares war, opening the First Balkan War.
• 1912, 18 October: Treaty of Ouchy ends the war.

Why it matters

The Italo-Turkish War was one of the last episodes of the Scramble for Africa and created the colony that became modern Libya. It showed both the Balkan states and the great powers how vulnerable the Ottoman Empire had become, helping to trigger the Balkan Wars and the chain of crises that led to 1914. It also previewed the military use of aircraft that would transform warfare in the decades that followed.