Italo-Turkish War

Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, Niger to the southwest, Algeria to the west, and Tunisia to the northwest. With an area of almost 1.8 million km (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the fourth-largest country in Africa and the Arab world, and the 16th-largest in the world. The country claims 32,000 square kilometres of southeastern Algeria, south of the Libyan town of Ghat. The capital and largest city is Tripoli, located in the northwest and contains over a million of Libya's 7 million people.

Libya has been inhabited by Berbers since the late Bronze Age as descendants from Iberomaurusian and Capsian cultures. In classical antiquity, the Phoenicians established city-states and trading posts in western Libya, while several Greek cities were established in the East. Parts of Libya were variously ruled by Carthaginians, Numidians, Persians, and Greeks before the entire region became a part of the Roman Empire. Libya was an early centre of Christianity. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area of Libya was mostly occupied by the Vandals until the 7th century when invasions brought Islam to the region. From then on, centuries of Arab migration to the Maghreb shifted the demographic scope of Libya in favour of Arabs. In the 16th century, the Spanish Empire and the Knights Hospitaller occupied Tripoli until Ottoman rule began in 1551. Libya was involved in the Barbary Wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. Ottoman rule continued until the Italo-Turkish War in 1911, which resulted in Italy occupying Libya and establishing two colonies: Italian Tripolitania and Italian Cyrenaica, later unified in the Italian Libya colony from 1934 to 1943.

The League of the Balkans was a quadruple alliance formed by a series of bilateral treaties concluded in 1912 between the Eastern Orthodox kingdoms of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, and directed against the Ottoman Empire, which still controlled much of Southeastern Europe.

The Balkans had been in a state of turmoil since the early 1900s, with years of guerrilla warfare in Macedonia followed by the Young Turk Revolution, the protracted Bosnian Crisis, and several Albanian Uprisings. The outbreak of the Italo-Turkish War in 1911 had further weakened the Ottomans and emboldened the Balkan states. Under Russian influence, Serbia and Bulgaria settled their differences and signed an alliance, which was originally directed against Austria-Hungary, on 13 March 1912, but by adding a secret chapter to it essentially redirected the alliance against the Ottoman Empire. Serbia then signed a mutual alliance with Montenegro, and Bulgaria did the same with Greece.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and statesman who was the founder of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.

Born in Salonica in the Ottoman Empire, his early military career saw him involved in the Italo-Turkish and Balkan Wars. As a member of the Committee of Union and Progress and the Young Turks, he played an important part in political events of the late Ottoman Empire, such as the Young Turk Revolution and the 31 March Incident. He rose to prominence with his role in the Defence of Gallipoli during World War I. Following the defeat of the empire after the war, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted the empire's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing the provisional "Ankara government", he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from the Turkish War of Independence. During and after the war, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Greeks from Anatolia outside of Istanbul, including the Kars region invaded by the Kemalist armies, was largely completed via large-scale massacres, flight, expulsions, and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. His government subsequently proceeded to abolish the Ottoman sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey in its place in 1923.

The Italian colonization of Libya began in 1911 and it lasted until 1943. The country, which was previously an Ottoman possession, was occupied by Italy in 1911 after the Italo-Turkish War, which resulted in the establishment of two colonies: Italian Tripolitania and Italian Cyrenaica. In 1934, the two colonies were merged into one colony which was named the colony of Italian Libya. In 1937, this colony was divided into four provinces, and in 1939, the coastal provinces became a part of metropolitan Italy as the Fourth Shore. The colonization lasted until Libya's occupation by Allied forces in 1943, but it was not until the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty that Italy officially renounced all of its claims to Libya's territory.

Italian Tripolitania was an Italian colony, located in present-day western Libya, that existed from 1911 to 1934. It was part of the territory conquered from the Ottoman Empire after the Italo-Turkish War in 1911. Italian Tripolitania included the western northern half of Libya, with Tripoli as its main city. In 1934, it was unified with Italian Cyrenaica in the colony of Italian Libya. In 1939, Tripolitania was considered a part of the Kingdom of Italy's 4th Shore.

Although resistance to the Italian colonisers was less prevalent in Tripolitania than Cyrenaica (which waged significant guerilla warfare), a resistance group did form the Tripolitanian Republic in 1918. Although it didn't succeed in setting up a republic, it demonstrated attempts to resist colonial control. The Italian colonisers set up various infrastructure projects, most notably roads and railways. Archeology was another important feature of the Italian presence in Tripolitania, as they focused efforts in excavations in old Roman cities.

Italian Cyrenaica (Italian: Cirenaica Italiana; Arabic: برقة الايطالیة) was an Italian colony, located in present-day eastern Libya, that existed from 1911 to 1934. It was part of the territory conquered from the Ottoman Empire during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911, alongside Italian Tripolitania.

The territory of the two colonies was sometimes referred to as "Italian Libya" or Italian North Africa (Africa Settentrionale Italiana, or ASI). Both names were also used after their unification, with Italian Libya becoming the official name of the newly combined colony.

The Italian colonial empire (Italian: Impero coloniale italiano), sometimes known as the Italian Empire (Impero italiano), was a colonial empire that existed between 1882 and 1960. It comprised the colonies, protectorates, concessions and dependencies of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th and 20th centuries. At its peak, between 1936 and 1941, the colonial empire in Africa included the territories of present-day Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia (the last three being officially named "Africa Orientale Italiana", AOI); outside Africa, Italy possessed the Dodecanese Islands (following the Italo-Turkish War), Albania (initially a protectorate, then in personal union from 1939 to 1943) and also had some concessions in China.

The Fascist government that came to power under the leadership of the dictator Benito Mussolini after 1922 sought to increase the size of the Italian empire and it also sought to satisfy the claims of Italian irredentists. Systematic "demographic colonization" was encouraged by the government, and by 1939, Italian settlers numbered 120,000–150,000 in Italian Libya and 165,000 in Italian East Africa.

Victor Emmanuel III (Italian: Vittorio Emanuele Ferdinando Maria Gennaro di Savoia; 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947) was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. A member of the House of Savoy, he also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 and King of the Albanians from 1939 to 1943, following the Italian invasions of Ethiopia and Albania. During his reign of nearly 46 years, which began after the assassination of his father Umberto I, the Kingdom of Italy became involved in two world wars. His reign also encompassed the birth, rise, and fall of the Fascist regime.

The first fourteen years of Victor Emmanuel's reign were dominated by prime minister Giovanni Giolitti, who focused on industrialization and passed several democratic reforms, such as the introduction of universal male suffrage. In foreign policy, Giolitti's Italy distanced itself from the fellow members of the Triple Alliance (the German Empire and Austria-Hungary) and colonized Libya following the Italo-Turkish War. Giolitti was succeeded by Antonio Salandra, Paolo Boselli, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. The First World War brought about Italian victory over the Habsburg Empire and the annexation of the Italian-speaking provinces of Trento and Trieste, completing the national unity of Italy, and the southern part of German-speaking Tyrol (South Tyrol). For this reason, Victor Emmanuel was labelled the "King of Victory". However, a part of Italian nationalists protested against the partial violation of the 1915 Treaty of London and what they defined as a "mutilated victory", demanding the annexation of Croatian-speaking territories in Dalmatia and temporarily occupying the town of Fiume without royal assent.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and statesman who was the founder of the Republic of Turkey —after the fall of its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire— and served as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He led sweeping reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism. Atatürk's personality cult and the Kemalist historiography developed around it have had significant and ongoing influences on Turkey's political culture and historical narrative.

Born in Salonica in the Ottoman Empire, his early military career saw him involved in the Italo-Turkish and Balkan Wars. As a member of the Committee of Union and Progress and the Young Turks, he played an important part in political events of the late Ottoman Empire, such as the Young Turk Revolution and the 31 March Incident. He rose to prominence with his role in the Defence of Gallipoli during World War I. Following the defeat of the empire after the war, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted the empire's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing the provisional "Ankara government", he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from the Turkish War of Independence. During and after the war, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Greeks from Anatolia outside of Istanbul, including the Kars region invaded by the Kemalist armies, was largely completed via large-scale massacres, flight, expulsions, and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. His government subsequently proceeded to abolish the Ottoman sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey in its place in 1923.