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| Italy,
which became a unified state only in 1860, was a late starter in the
race for colonies. For the Italians, the marginal Turkish provinces
in Libya seemed to offer an obvious compensation for their humiliating
acquiescence to the establishment of a French protectorate in Tunisia,
a country coveted by Italy as a potential colony. Italy intensified
its long-standing commercial interests in Libya and, in a series of
diplomatic manuevers, won from the major powers their recognition
of an Italian sphere of influence there. It was assumed in European
capitals that Italy would sooner or later seize the opportunity to
take political and military action in Libya as well. In
September 1911 Italy engineered a crisis with Turkey charging that
the Turks had committed a "hostile act" by arming Arab tribesmen
in Libya. When Turkey refused to respond to an ultimatum calling for
Italian military occupation to protect Italian interests in the region,
Italy declared war. After a preliminary naval bombardment, Italian
troops landed and captured Tripoli on October 3, encountering only
slight resistance. Italian forces also occupied Tobruk, Al Khums,
Darnah, and Benghazi. In
the ensuing months, the Italian expeditionary force, numbering 35,000,
barely penetrated beyond its several beachheads. The 5,000 Turkish
troops defending the provinces at the time of the invasion withdrew
inland a few kilometers, where officers such as Enver Pasha and Mustafa
Kemal (Atatürk) organized the Arab tribes in a resistance to
the Italians that took on the aspects of a holy war. But with war
threatening in the Balkans, Turkey was compelled to sue for peace
with Italy. In accordance with the treaty signed at Lausanne in October
1912, the sultan issued a decree granting independence to Tripolitania
and Cyrenaica while Italy simultaneously announced its formal annexation
of those territories. The sultan, in his role as caliph (leader of
Islam), was to retain his religious jurisdiction there and was permitted
to appoint the qadi of Tripoli, who supervised the sharia courts.
But the Italians were unable to appreciate that no distinction was
made between civil and religious jurisdiction in Islamic law. Thus,
through the courts, the Turks kept open a channel of influence over
their former subjects and subverted Italian authority. Peace with
Turkey meant for Italy the beginning of a twenty-year colonial war
in Libya .... (see Italian occupation of Libya)
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