Ottoman Air Force - Italo-Turkish War

Italo-Turkish War

In 1911, the Kingdom of Italy invaded the Tripolitania Vilayet (modern day Libya) of the Ottoman Empire, using aircraft for reconnaissance and bombing missions for the first time in aviation history (on October 23, 1911, an Italian pilot flew over Ottoman lines for reconnaissance; and the next day Italian dirigibles dropped bombs on ground targets, both of which represented the first effective use of aircraft in combat.)

Ottoman troops opened fire on an Italian aircraft on 15 December 1911. The first aircraft to be brought down in a war was that of Lieutenant Manzini, shot down on 25 August 1912; and the first aircraft to be captured was that of Captain Moizo, on 10 September 1912.

When Italy invaded the Tripolitania Vilayet, the Ottoman Army was not ready to use its few new aircraft in battle. The Ottomans had very few troops in North Africa and countered the Italians mostly with organized local Arab militia (a massive Italian amphibious assault force of 150,000 troops had to be countered by 20,000 Bedouins and 8,000 Turks.) The British government, which militarily controlled the de jure Ottoman provinces of Egypt and Sudan since the Urabi Revolt in 1882, didn't allow the Ottoman government to send additional troops to Libya through Egypt. There were attempts to purchase aircraft from France and send them to Libya via Algeria, but they did not materialize.