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Italo-Senussi Wars: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

Italy's conquest of Libya from the Ottomans in 1911 and twenty years of resistance by the Senussi order, ended by Graziani's concentration camps and the hanging of Omar Mukhtar.

Fought
1911 to 1932
Duration
21 years
Dates
October 1911 to January 1932
Deaths
Perhaps 100,000 Libyans, including 40,000 to 70,000 in the Cyrenaican camps; Cyrenaica's population fell by a third or more
Italy
Liberal Italy, then Fascist Italy; Volpi, Badoglio, Graziani; Eritrean askari
Libyans
Ottoman garrison (1911-1912); Senussi order under Ahmad al-Sharif and Idris; Omar Mukhtar; Tripolitanian Republic (1918)
Result
Italian colony of Libya; Senussi resistance destroyed

The Italo-Senussi wars (1911-1932) began with the Italo-Turkish War, when Italy invaded Ottoman Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in October 1911 and won the coast, and continued as the Senussi religious order led resistance in the interior, allied with the Ottomans in the First World War and briefly recognised as an emirate under Idris in 1920. Mussolini's Fascist regime resolved on total conquest from 1922; Omar Mukhtar's guerrillas held the Green Mountain of Cyrenaica for nine years until Marshal Graziani sealed the Egyptian border with barbed wire, deported the population to concentration camps where about 40,000 to 70,000 died, and captured and hanged Mukhtar in September 1931. Kufra fell in 1931 and Libya was declared pacified in 1932; Idris returned in 1951 as king.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Italo-Senussi wars. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

120013001400150016001700180019002000Italo-Senussi wars (1911 to 1932)Open: Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire (1299 to 1922)Open: Spanish EmpireSpanish Empire (1492 to 1976)Open: British EmpireBritish Empire (1583 to 1997)Open: French conquest of AlgeriaFrench conquest of Algeria (1830 to 1903)Open: Second French colonial empireSecond French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)Open: Conquests of Menelik IIConquests of Menelik II (1878 to 1904)Open: Mahdist WarMahdist War (1881 to 1899)Open: Italian EmpireItalian Empire (1882 to 1947)Open: Balkan WarsBalkan Wars (1912 to 1913)Open: World War IWorld War I (1914 to 1918)Open: Nazi GermanyNazi Germany (1933 to 1945)Open: World War IIWorld War II (1939 to 1945)

Cyrenaica's population and the camps

062.5125187.5250Cyrenaica population c. 1928: 225225Cyrenaica population c. 1928Deported to camps 1930-31: 100100Deported to camps 1930-31Died in the camps: 6060Died in the campsLivestock killed (percent): 9090Livestock killed (percent)thousands (approximate)

Timeline of the Italo-Senussi wars

  1. 1911
    Italy invades Libya; first aerial bombing
  2. 1912
    Treaty of Ouchy
  3. 1915
    Senussi attack Egypt; Italians driven to the coast
  4. 1920
    Idris recognised as emir
  5. 1923
    Fascist reconquest begins
  6. 1930
    Concentration camps and border wire
  7. 1931
    Omar Mukhtar hanged; Kufra falls
  8. 1932
    Libya declared pacified

The Italo-Turkish War

Italy, seeking a colony across the sea, declared war on the Ottomans on 29 September 1911 and landed at Tripoli, Benghazi and Tobruk; the first bombs ever dropped from an aircraft fell on Ottoman troops at Ain Zara. Ottoman officers including Enver and Mustafa Kemal organised Arab and Senussi resistance that pinned the Italians to the coast; the Treaty of Ouchy in October 1912 handed Libya to Italy as the Balkan Wars distracted Istanbul, though the Ottomans kept encouraging the tribes.

The Senussi and the Great War

The Senussi, a Sufi order with lodges across the desert, led the interior; Italy's advance to Fezzan collapsed in 1914-1915, and Ahmad al-Sharif's attack on British Egypt in 1915 was beaten off. Idris made peace with Britain and Italy, and in 1920 was recognised as Emir of Cyrenaica; Tripolitania's notables proclaimed a republic in 1918. Italy's liberal governments accepted autonomy under the 1919 statutes; the Fascists tore them up.

Reconquest and Omar Mukhtar

From 1922 Volpi retook Tripolitania and Badoglio pushed into Cyrenaica; Idris went to Egypt, and the 60-year-old teacher Omar Mukhtar led some 3,000 fighters in ambushes from the Jebel Akhdar. Graziani, from 1930, closed the Senussi lodges, deported some 100,000 people from the plateau to fenced camps at Soluch, El Agheila and Marsa Brega, built 270 km of wire along the Egyptian border, and used aircraft and gas. Mukhtar was captured, wounded, on 11 September 1931 and hanged before 20,000 prisoners at Soluch on 16 September. Kufra oasis fell that year; Badoglio declared Libya pacified in January 1932. Italy settled 100,000 colonists before losing the colony in 1943.

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8 surprising things about the Italo-Senussi wars

  1. The first bomb dropped from an aeroplane in war fell on Ottoman troops in Libya on 1 November 1911.
  2. Omar Mukhtar, a Quran teacher who fought in his sixties, is on Libya's 10-dinar note and was played by Anthony Quinn in Lion of the Desert (1981), a film banned in Italy until 2009.
  3. Graziani earned the name 'Butcher of Fezzan'; the camps' death rate has been compared to genocide by Libyan and some Italian historians.
  4. Italy's border fence with Egypt was 270 km long and 4 metres wide, guarded by aircraft.
  5. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk fought his first war in Libya against the Italians in 1911-1912.
  6. Italy apologised and agreed to pay 5 billion dollars in reparations in the 2008 Benghazi treaty with Gaddafi.
  7. Idris al-Senussi became King of Libya in 1951 and was overthrown by Gaddafi in 1969.
  8. Italian settlers in Libya reached about 110,000 by 1940; all were expelled by 1970.

Sources

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