MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Libya
Index
For many Arabs, Turkey's surrender in Libya was a betrayal of
Muslim interests to the infidels. The 1912 Treaty of Lausanne was
meaningless to the beduin tribesmen who continued their war against
the Italians, in some areas with the aid of Turkish troops left
behind in the withdrawal. Fighting in Cyrenaica was conducted by
Sanusi units under Ahmad ash Sharif, whose followers in Fezzan and
southern Tripolitania prevented Italian consolidation in those
areas as well. Lacking the unity imposed by the Sanusis, resistance
in northern Tripolitania was isolated, and tribal rivalries made it
less effective. Urban nationalists in Tripoli theorized about the
possibility of establishing a Tripolitanian republic, perhaps
associated with Italy, while Suleiman Baruni, a Berber and a former
member of the Turkish parliament, proclaimed an independent but
short-lived Berber state in the Gharyan region. For the beduins,
however, unencumbered by any sense of nationhood, the purpose of
the struggle against the colonial power was defending Islam and the
free life they had always enjoyed in their tribal territory.
In 1914 the Sanusis counterattacked in Fezzan, quickly wiping
out recent Italian gains there, and in April 1915 they inflicted
heavy casualties on an Italian column at Qasr Bu Hadi in the
Sirtica. Captured rifles, artillery, and munitions fueled a
subsequent Sanusi strike into Tripolitania, but the success of the
campaign was compromised by the traditional hostility that existed
between the beduins and the nationalists.
When Italy joined the Allied Powers in 1915, the first ItaloSanusi war (1914-17) in Cyrenaica became part of the world war.
Germany and Turkey sent arms and advisers to Ahmad, who aligned the
Sanusis with the Central Powers with the objective of tying down
Italian and British troops in North Africa. In 1916, however,
Turkish officers led the Sanusis on a campaign into Egypt, where
they were routed by British forces. Ahmad gave up Sanusi political
and military leadership to Idris and fled to Turkey aboard a German
submarine. The pro-British Idris opened negotiations with the
Allies on behalf of Cyrenaica in 1917. The result was, in effect,
a truce rather than a conclusive peace treaty, for neither the
Italians nor the Sanusis fully surrendered their claims and control
in the region. Britain and Italy recognized Idris as amir of
interior Cyrenaica, with the condition that Sanusi attacks on
coastal towns and into Egypt cease. Further consideration of
Cyrenaica's status was deferred until after the war.
Although the victorious Allied Powers accepted Italy's
sovereignty in Libya, Italian forces there at the end of World War
I were still confined to the coastal enclaves, sometimes under
conditions of siege. A campaign was initiated to consolidate and
expand Italian-held territory in 1919, but the colonial policy
pursued by the Italian government was moderate and accommodating.
Steps were taken toward granting limited political rights to the
people in occupied areas. The provinces of Cyrenaica and
Tripolitania were treated as separate colonies, and Fezzan was
organized as a military territory. The Fundamental Law approved by
the Italian parliament in 1919 provided for provincial parliaments
and for local advisory councils appointed by the Italian governors
and district executives in the occupied areas.
The different settlements that Italy made in Tripolitania and
Cyrenaica, however, did illustrate graphically the dissimilarities
in the situations of the two provinces as they were perceived by
Italian authorities. In 1920 an accord was reached between Italy
and the Sanusi leaders that confirmed Idris as amir of Cyrenaica
and recognized his virtual independence in an immense area in the
interior that encompassed all the principal oases. Italy provided
a subsidy to the amir's government, and Sanusi shaykhs, holding
seats in the Cyrenaican parliament, participated in the government
of the entire province. Idris was also allowed to retain the Sanusi
army, although its units were to be stationed in "mixed camps" with
Italian forces. By this arrangement, the Italian government
officially accepted Idris as both secular and religious leader of
the Cyrenaican tribes, but in effect it did not extend his
political power beyond what he already exercised as head of the
Sanusi order.
Clearly, the Rome government had not formulated a coherent
policy toward a country that had not been conquered and whose
people were dubious about the benefits of Italian rule. But because
the Italians never faced a credible, united opposition in
Tripolitania, they were not under comparable pressure there to
yield the concessions they had made in Cyrenaica. Tripolitania
lacked the leadership and organizational structure that Idris and
the Sanusi order gave to Cyrenaica. The most prominent
Tripolitanian nationalist was Ramadan as Suwaythi, who had by turns
cooperated with the Italians, supported the Sanusis, and eventually
fought against them both. His rival, Baruni, who had acted during
the war as Ottoman "governor" in Tripolitania with German backing,
was mistrusted by the Arab nationalists. Tribal rivalries were
intense, and the aims of the beduin shaykhs and the nationalists
were fundamentally different, the latter being concerned with
forming a centralized republic while the former were interested
primarily in creating tribal states.
A prominent pan-Arab nationalist, the Egyptian Abdar Rahman
Azzam, persuaded Suwaythi and Baruni to cooperate in demanding
Italian recognition of an independent republic that was called into
being at Misratah in 1919. Talks with the Italians broke down when
the Misratah republic's governing body, the so-called Reform
Committee, claimed jurisdiction over Libya rather than over
Tripolitania only. In 1920 delegates from both occupied and
unoccupied zones convened the National Congress at Aziza. Claiming
to represent the "Tripolitanian Nation," they called for the
withdrawal of the Italian forces. No nationalist movement, however,
was able to rally the country behind it.
Even delegates to the National Congress had been sharply
divided on the degree of cooperation with Italy they would allow.
Rival delegations beat a path to Rome with their petitions for
recognition. Meanwhile, Count Giuseppe Volpi, a vigorous and
determined governor, gave decisive direction to Italian policy in
Tripolitania with his advocacy of military pacification rather than
negotiation. The nationalists lost their most effective leaders
when Baruni defected to the Italians as a result of hostility
between Arabs and Berbers, which Volpi successfully exploited, and
Suwaythi was killed by his political rivals.
In this situation, the Tripolitanian nationalists met with the
Sanusis at Surt early in 1922 and offered to accept Idris as amir
of Tripolitania. Idris had never sought any title other than the
one he held in Cyrenaica, and he was not anxious to extend either
his political influence or his religious leadership to northern
Tripolitania, where neither he nor the Sanusi order was widely
popular. He had always refused aid to Tripolitanian nationalists
and under the circumstances considered their offer to have been
made for reasons of expediency, that is, because there was no
alternative candidate for leadership apparent at the time. Idris'
acceptance, as the nationalists understood, would draw sharp
Italian disapproval and be the signal for the resumption of open
warfare. War with Italy, in any event, appeared likely sooner or
later. For several months, Idris pondered the nationalist appeal.
For whatever reason--perhaps to further the cause of total
independence or perhaps out of a sense of religious obligation to
resist the infidel--Idris accepted the amirate of all Libya in
November and then, to avoid capture by the Italians, fled to Egypt,
where he continued to guide the Sanusi order.
Data as of 1987
|
|