After
several skirmishes, the Sanussi-led fighters began to push towards the coastal
city of Sirte in April 1915. The Italians counter-attacked with a force of
4,000 soldiers under colonel Miani, to be supported by 3,500 Libyan auxiliaries
under the leadership of Ramadan al-Suwayhli of Misrata. Ramadan had initially
fought and later collaborated with the Italians, who by now had assumed he was
loyal towards them. On April 29, the two sides met at Qasr Bu Hadi (south of
Sirte). Just as the battle started, Ramadan ordered his soldiers to open fire
on his Italian comrades. Sources described the battle as a massacre, with only
a handful of Italians (Miani included) escaping. The Libyans captured thousands
of rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition, as well as artillery, and marched
on to capture Misrata. The Italians panicked, with several garrisons abandoning
their posts. On July 5, the Italians issued a general withdrawal order to the
coastline, where they could be protected through Italian naval bombardments.
World War I and the British
Italy was
already preoccupied with the outbreak of World War I, which resulted in much of
the Italian force in Libya being recalled to the mainland. With the withdrawal of
active Italian units, factional disputes began to arise amongst the tribal
allies of Libya. Several ‘regional governments’ were set up across newly liberated
territories, each headed by militant leaders. For example, in 1915, Western
Tripolitania was controlled by Suf al-Mahmudi, and Eastern Tripolitania and
Misrata was controlled by Ramadan al-Suwayhli, while Khalifa al-Zawi controlled
Fezzan until 1926. Even though these regional governments were short-lived, it
highlighted the fractured nature of the Libyan fighters. This fracture arose due
to socioeconomic differences and quarrels over revenue.
Aid would soon
arrive to Italy in an unexpected form though - the United Kingdom. As nominal
allies in WWI, an enemy of Italy was therefore the UK’s enemy. In 1915, a
British army inflicted a heavy defeat on the Sanussi army in the Egyptian
desert, a defeat that saw Ahmed al-Sharif surrender his title as Grand Master
of the Sanussi Order to Muhammad al-Idris (who would later go on to be King
Idris in 1952). In 1917, the British
mediated an agreement between the Italians and Idris wherein the Italians
acknowledged Idris’ control of Libya’s interior and also gave autonomy to
Tripolitania’s numerous regional governments. Later that year, Idris (with the
support of the British government) negotiated another agreement with the
Italian government, which called for an end to all hostilities, the recognition
of Italian and Sanussi zones in Cyrenaica, outlined security responsibilities
of both parties, and called (ambiguously) for the disarming of the tribes.
Why would
Italy make these concessions? After going through decades of peaceful
penetration and years of war, why? The answer is simple. The Great War in
Europe forced Italy’s hand; peace, or at least a ceasefire, would free up
thousands of Italian soldiers to defend the Italian homeland. The ends
justified the means and the Italians had to compromise with the Libyan nationalists,
this did not leave the Italian government free from criticism for being “too
impractical”. Italy passed statutes that gave limited self-governance to
Tripolitania and Cyrenaica and elections for an ‘advisory parliament’. A more
liberal approach to Libya was adopted. For now.
The first Arab Republic and the rise
of Mussolini
In 1918, the
Arabs of Tripolitania capitalized on Italy’s weakness and declared the
independence of the Tripolitanian Republic (which is also the Arab World’s
first republic) under the leadership of the Committee For Reform, based in
Misrata and headed by Ramadan al-Suwayhli, the dominant figure in Eastern
Tripolitania. Largely symbolic and seen by contemporaries as the “seed for an
independent Libya”, the republic was very unsuccessful. Once again, tribal
infighting prevented a united response against the Italians. The Tripolitanian
Assembly failed to convene at all due to petty rivalries and the assembly was
dissolved in 1923. In contrast, the Cyrenaican parliament of the same period
met five times and was generally more effective than its counterpart. However,
the establishment of political entities in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania was a
significant attempt at establishing political unity between the two regions,
although by the 1920s, Italy had other intentions.
August 1921
marked the arrival of the eleventh governor of Libya in 10 years, Giuseppe
Volpi, to Tripoli amidst the raging wave of Fascism sweeping the Italian
mainland. On October 28 1922, Benito Mussolini marched into Rome and began what
would be a 21-year Fascist dictatorship of Italy. Mussolini, eager to gain
domestic triumphs, set his eyes upon reconquering Libya. He authorized Volpi to
conduct a Reconquista of Libya. Volpi
arrived in a Libya where the Italians controlled nothing beyond the barbed-wire
fences and where Libyan nationalists demanded even greater self-rule. By April
1922, Volpi amassed an army of 15,000 soldiers (20,000 by 1926) and made his
intentions clear. The only way to rule Libya was direct rule from Rome. He
summarized his policy as;
“Neither with the chiefs nor against the chiefs, but without
the chiefs”
In early
1923, Volpi’s campaign began. What happened during and in the aftermath of the
campaign was later described as textbook genocide by historians.
Supporting
Italy’s soldiers were an armada of airplanes, artillery and even poison gas.
Though Italy was a signatory of the 1925 Geneva Convention that banned chemical
weapons in battle, Italian forces were recorded to have used poison gas as
early as January 1928.
By the end
of 1924, Tripolitania was subdued and the republic dissolved. It would take
four more years before the Sanussi of Cyrenaica would surrender to the
Italians. In 1929, the two regions and northern Fezzan were united into one
entity, Libya, under the control of a military governor. Idris had fled to
Egypt by then.
Fascist Italy’s Victory
Libyan
authorities placed the casualty figure at 750,000. Large number of communities
were uprooted and sent to concentration camps, where they were slaughtered.
Contemporary sources describe the situation in the camps and major cities. Von
Gotbery, a German visitor in Tripoli, stated:
“No army meted out such vile and inhumane treatment as the
Italian army in Tripoli. General Kanaiva has shown contempt for every
international law, regarding lives as worthless”
Knud Holmboe,
a Danish Muslim, described a concentration camp he visited that was said to
contain six to eight-thousand people:
“The children were in rags, half hungry, half starved…. The
Bedouins…looked incredibly ragged…many of them seemed ill and wretched, limping
along with crooked backs, or with arms or legs that were terribly deformed.”
In the
spring of 1923, over 23,000 Libyan nomads were rounded up in concentration
camps. The imprisoned Arabs would suffer from repeated armored charges, killing
an average of 500 men, 30,000 sheep, and 2,300 camels.
By 1930, the
rest of Fezzan was reconquered. By this time, General Graziani was in charge of
Libya. He was praised in Italy as a national hero; in Cyrenaica he was called
“Butcher Graziani”. The ‘credit’ should not be his alone though. Historian
Geoff Simons argues that the Italian Colonial Ministry, the military governor,
the Italian press, and the Italian Fascists all played their part in the
genocide.
In March
1930, Graziani landed in Benghazi where he discovered that Libyan nationalists
were still engaging in skirmishes, under the leadership of Omar al-Mukhtar.
Omar himself was injured and Graziani believed he had a mere 600 guns at his
disposal. Calling Omar a ‘poisoned organism that should be destroyed’, he
believed that disposing of Omar al-Mukhtar would destroy the Libyan rebellion.
Observers believed that Graziani had a personal vendetta against Omar but in
fact, he was intent on destroying all Libyan resistance.
Graziani had
no limits to his plans to destroy the Libyan resistance. He proposed bombing
suspected rebel encampments with mustard-gas bombs. In June 1930, Graziani proposed
the mass deportation of Libyans as a means of separating civilians from the
guerilla fighters. The Italian general (and later Prime Minister) Pietro
Badoglio wrote to Graziani and told him that the mass deportations of tribes
were “a necessary measure”. In a letter, he went on to say:
“We must, above all, create a large and defined territorial
gap between the rebels and subject population. I do not conceal from myself the
significance and gravity of this action, which may well spell the ruin of the
so-called subject population. But for now on the path has been traced out for
us and we have to follow it to the end even if the entire population of
Cyrenaica has to perish”
The end of
the resistance
Graziani’s
final move in Cyrenaica was the construction of a 200-mile long barbed wire
fence along the Egyptian border in 1930. This was meant to restrict the
movement of Omar al-Mukhtar’s guerilla forces into neutral Egypt. On September 11 1931, Omar’s group of 12 was
intercepted by Italian forces after being spotted by an Italian airplane. Omar
was captured while the rest were gunned down. On September 12, he was sent to
Benghazi on board an Italian destroyer and was correctly identified by Italian
officials. The Italian general Badoglio relished the moment. He wanted to put
Omar on show-trial and execute him in a concentration camp. Graziani organized
a trial and the general consensus amongst Italians was that Omar should be
executed. After an extremely short court hearing, in which the prosecutor was
very sarcastic and partisan, the death sentence was handed to Omar.
