History of Libya As Italian Colony - Mussolini and Libya

Mussolini and Libya

Fighting intensified after the accession to power in Italy of the dictator Benito Mussolini. The Emir Muhammad Idris fled to Egypt in 1922. From 1922 to 1928, 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. Some Libyans continued to defend themselves, with the strongest voices of dissent coming from the Cyrenaica. Omar Mukhtar, a Senussi sheikh, became the leader of the uprising.

After a much-disputed truce on 3 January 1928, the Italian policy in Libya reached the level of full scale war. A barbed wire fence was built from the Mediterranean to the oasis of Jaghbub to sever lines critical to the resistance. Soon afterwards, the colonial administration began the wholesale deportation of the people of the Jebel Akhdar to deny the rebels 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 by Arab historians that the number of Libyans who died - killed either through combat or mainly through starvation and disease - is at a minimum of 80,000 or even up to one third of the Cyrenaican population.

But Italian historian Gentile wrote that this amount is excessive, and only a few thousands died, mainly of disease (even related to the "Spanish flu epidemy" and consequences) and starvation. After Al-Mukhtar's capture September 15, 1931 and his execution in Benghazi, the resistance petered out. Limited resistance to the Italian occupation crystallized round the person of Sheik Idris, the Emir of Cyrenaica.

By 1934, Libya was fully pacified and the new Italian governor Italo Balbo started a policy of integration between the Libyans and the Italians, that proved fully successful. Indeed in 1939, laws were passed that allowed Muslims to be permitted to join the National Fascist Party and in particular the Muslim Association of the Lictor (Associazione Musulmana del Littorio), and the 1939 reforms allowed the creation of Libyan military units within the Italian army.

As a consequence during the Second World War, there was strong support for Italy between many Libyans, who enrolled in the Italian Army (other Libyan troops were fighting for the Kingdom of Italy since the 1920s: the Savari (cavalry regiments) and the mounted police called Spahi). Indeed two divisions of Libyan colonial troops (with 30000 native Muslim soldiers) were created (and in summer 1940 the first and second Divisions of Fanteria Libica -Libyan infantry - participated in the Italian offensive against British army in Egypt ): 1 Libyan Division Sibelle and 2 Libyan Division Pescatori.

In March 1937 Mussolini made a state visit to Libya, where he opened a new military highway running the entire length of the colony (the Via Balbia). For propaganda reasons he had himself declared Protector of Islam and was presented with a symbolic sword. Mussolini's publicized encouragement of the Arab nationalist movement suited his wider policies of confronting Britain and France. He also sought to fully colonise Libya, introducing 30,000 Italian colonists which brought their numbers to more than 100,000. These colonists were shipped primarily to Sahel al-Jefara in Tripolitania and the Jebel Akhdar in Cyrenaica, and given land from which the indigenous inhabitants had been partially removed during the colonial war in the 1920s.

The Kingdom of Italy built in Libya nearly 400 km of railways with 950 mm gauge. The last line the Italians started to create was the Tripoli-Benghazi (of 1040 km with 1435 mm gauge) in summer 1941, but their defeat in World War II stopped it at the beginning.

In 13 September 1940, Mussolini's highway was used for the invasion of Egypt by Italian forces stationed in Libya. Two divisions of Libyan colonial troops (for a total of 30090 native Muslim soldiers) participated in the offensive. Even a battalion of Libyan paratroopers was raised shortly before World War II, the first force of this kind to be created in all Africa. They trained in Castel Benito, near Tripoli, where the first "Italian Military Parachute School" was located (the first troops trained were two Libyan battalions, the Libyan Parachute Battalion and the 1st National Libyan Parachute Battalion, of the Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali della Libia (Royal Colonial Corps).

Counterattacks of British Allied forces from Egypt, commanded by Wavell and their successful two-month campaign in (Tobruk, Benghazi, El Agheila), and the counteroffensives under Rommel in 1940-43, all took place during World War II. In November 1942, the Allied forces retook Cyrenaica; by February 1943, the last German and Italian soldiers were driven from Libya. In the early post-war period, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica remained under British administration, while the French controlled Fezzan.

In 1944, Idris returned from exile in Cairo but declined to resume permanent residence in Cyrenaica until the removal in 1947 of some aspects of foreign control. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy, which hoped to maintain the colony of Tripolitania, (and France, which wanted the Fezzan), relinquished all claims to Libya. Libya so remained united.

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.