The Battle for Benghazi

In the previous article we followed Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ in his appointment as imam of the Zawiyat al-Qusour from 1902 onward, in his daily activities in this position, and in his gradual preparation for the coming Italian colonial invasion. This article follows the outbreak of the Italo-Turkish war in September 1911, the Italian capture of the port cities of Libya in October of that year, the Battle for Benghazi in which the Cyrenaican Senussi-Bedouin troops, with Umar al-Mukhtar’s ﵀ participation, offered resistance to the Italian advance, and the first phase of the resistance that would carry him in the following decades to his position as leader of the Cyrenaican anti-colonial resistance.

The Italian declaration of war

On 29 September 1911 Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire, whereby the principal casus belli was presented as the necessity of Italian colonial expansion in Libya for the coming national development. The declaration of war was openly celebrated in Rome, with considerable street demonstrations and with speeches by political leaders in which the coming conquest of the Fourth Shore was set forth. On 3 October 1911 an Italian expeditionary fleet of several dozens of ships sailed for Tripoli under the command of Vice-Admiral Luigi Faravelli, and on 5 October Italy undertook the first landing in the Libyan capital, a landing that would usher in the coming capture of the port cities.

Off Tripoli the Italian fleet undertook a bombardment of the Ottoman defensive positions in the port city, followed by the landing of an extensive expeditionary army of approximately thirty thousand men under the command of General Carlo Caneva. The Ottoman defence, which consisted of approximately four thousand regular troops supplemented by some thousands of local Muslim volunteers, could not hold out against the overwhelming Italian firepower, and by 10 October the Italian troops had occupied Tripoli.

The landing in Benghazi

On 19 October 1911 the Italian fleet carried out a comparable operation off Benghazi, with a bombardment of the port facilities and with the coming landing of a second Italian expeditionary army of approximately ten thousand men under the command of General Ottavio Briccola. The Ottoman defence of Benghazi unfolded in a manner comparable to that in Tripoli, with regular troops supplemented by local Muslim volunteers, and it could not hold out against the Italian firepower in the direct confrontation.

But in contrast to Tripoli, where the Italian troops could occupy the city in relative calm after the first occupation, a Cyrenaican Bedouin response took place in Benghazi in which the local Senussi brotherhood passed over directly to active resistance. Sayyid Ahmad al-Sharif al-Sanusi ﵀ proclaimed the general Senussi jihad against the Italian invasion in a formal Friday sermon in Kufra, and he gave his closest associates, among whom Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ in a central role, the instruction to organise the local Bedouin tribes for the coming armed defence.

The Senussi mobilisation

In the days after the Italian landing in Benghazi a Senussi mobilisation unfolded throughout the whole of Cyrenaica in which the local Bedouin tribes were brought together for the armed defence. Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, who stood geographically central in his position at the Zawiyat al-Qusour, carried out in these days an organisational activity in which he brought the local defence into being in its communal form. He sent messengers to the neighbouring tribal shaykhs for consultation meetings, he organised the supply of weapons from the extensive Senussi storehouses to the defensive positions, and he carried out the strategic preparation for the communal Cyrenaican defence.

In the communal defence that came into being in the following weeks, the Cyrenaican Bedouin tribes under the general Senussi leadership carried out a strategy in which, in a combination of Ottoman regular troops and local Bedouin militias, they were to hold back the Italian expansion upstream of Benghazi. For Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ personally this communal defence was a practical training in the communal conduct of war in which he would prepare himself for the general leadership that awaited him.

The terrain

The Cyrenaican terrain, in its combination of Mediterranean coastal zone, mountainous Jebel Akhdar and vast Saharan zone, formed a natural environment for the Cyrenaican resistance. The Italian troops, who in their armament and in their organisation possessed an exclusive advantage on the coastline, could scarcely make headway toward the interior without exposing themselves to Bedouin ambushes. The Cyrenaican Bedouin, in their knowledge of the local terrain and in the swift mobility of their horses, carried out a merciless guerrilla tactic that gradually exhausted the Italian troops.

In the first months of the resistance, between October 1911 and the spring of 1912, an extensive series of skirmishes unfolded in which the Cyrenaican Bedouin troops repeatedly held back the Italian advance upstream of Benghazi. The Italian troops, with their armament and their artillery, repeatedly gained the upper hand in direct field battles on the coast, but they could achieve no lasting progress toward the interior, and by the spring of 1912 they found themselves in a state of exhaustion and in an inability to achieve a definitive breakthrough.

The Italo-Turkish peace treaty

In the summer of 1912 some developments unfolded in the Italo-Turkish war that would place the Cyrenaican resistance in a new phase. The Ottoman Empire, which in these months found itself in internal difficulties owing to the coming First Balkan war that would break out in October 1912, conducted peace negotiations with Italy that would find their outcome in the Treaty of Ouchy of 18 October 1912. In the treaty the Ottoman Empire formally recognised the Italian sovereignty over Libya, and the Ottoman authorities undertook the gradual withdrawal of their regular troops from the Libyan territory.

For the Cyrenaican resistance this diplomatic development meant a strategic crisis. Without the Ottoman regular troops, which in the preceding months had functioned in communal defence with the Senussi-Bedouin militias, the resistance would have to reorient itself in a new form. Sayyid Ahmad al-Sharif al-Sanusi ﵀ received the tidings of the Ottoman peace treaty with considerable spiritual embarrassment, and he conducted discussions with his closest associates, among whom Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ in a central role, about the coming reorientation of the resistance.

The Battle of Sciara Sciat

An episode from the first phase of the resistance that acquired a place in the Italian colonial memory was the Battle of Sciara Sciat on 23 October 1911 in a suburb of Tripoli. In this confrontation, only a few days after the Italian landing, Tripolitanian Bedouin fighters carried out a surprise attack against Italian positions in the Sciara Sciat quarter, and they inflicted considerable losses on the Italian troops. The Italian reprisal measures unfolded in executions of local Bedouin civilians, an event that was mentioned in the Italian colonial historiography but that acquired a spiritual resonance in the Tripolitanian Muslim transmission.

For the Cyrenaican resistance organisation under Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ the outcome of Sciara Sciat formed a practical lesson in the coming Italian reprisal measures against civilians. He conducted discussions with his associates about the way in which the Bedouin population was to be protected against the coming Italian reprisal measures, and he imparted to the general strategic preparation a careful caution.

The continuation of the resistance

In the discussions that were conducted in the winter of 1912 into 1913 in Kufra and in the neighbouring Senussi centres, the Senussi leaders decided that the general Senussi undertaking would be continued as an independent anti-colonial resistance, despite the Ottoman capitulation. The Senussi brotherhood refused to accept the Italian colonial sovereignty over Libya, and it carried out the continuation of the resistance, in which the local Bedouin tribes would communally continue their defence against the Italian expansion.

For Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ personally this continuation formed a period of increasing responsibility in the Senussi organisation, for he was charged in increasing measure with the general leadership of the Cyrenaican resistance. In the years between 1913 and 1918, while Italy found itself in a state of colonial stabilisation and in 1915 was placed in a new geopolitical situation by the outbreak of the First World War, he carried out in his position in the Jebel Akhdar the gradual building up of the Cyrenaican resistance, a building up that would find its tragic sequel in the coming Fascist expansion after 1922.

The Italian landing

The Italian landing in Tripoli on 5 October 1911 and in Benghazi on 19 October 1911 reflected the Italian military and logistical power of its time. The expeditionary fleet comprised approximately forty ships, with among them four modern battleships, a number of cruisers and torpedo boats, and troop ships that placed the general Italian military power on the Libyan coast. The preceding artillery bombardments of the Ottoman coastal fortifications lasted for hours, in which the Ottoman defence was largely put out of action in advance of the coming landing.

For the local Cyrenaican Muslim population the Italian landing meant a shock and an immediate communal spiritual response. In the local mosques of Benghazi communal prayers took place in which the general Muslim community expressed its resistance against the Italian colonial expansion. For the Senussi brotherhood the landing meant that the gradual preparatory phase had definitively come to an end and that the coming armed defence had to be conducted in its full extent.

The role of the local Muslim collaborators

In the first days after the Italian landing, gradual negotiations unfolded in Benghazi between the Italian authorities and some local Muslim notables who were approached for colonial collaboration. These notables, chiefly members of some Cyrenaican aristocratic families who in the preceding years had stood in an understanding with the Ottoman authorities in Benghazi, received from the Italian authorities offers of colonial administrative positions in exchange for their public support of the Italian sovereignty.

For the Senussi brotherhood these negotiations formed a spiritual challenge that it laid before its community in an extensive series of Friday sermons. Sayyid Ahmad al-Sharif al-Sanusi ﵀ declared in a formal pronouncement that the acceptance of Italian colonial positions by Muslim notables constituted a pronounced form of apostasy from the Muslim community, and he directed a spiritual exhortation to the local communities to reject the Italian colonial offers.

Toward the strategy of the Green Mountains

In this article we have followed the outbreak of the Italo-Turkish war in September and October 1911, the Italian capture of the port cities of Libya, and the first phase of the Cyrenaican Senussi-Bedouin resistance with Umar al-Mukhtar’s ﵀ participation. We saw how the Italian expeditionary army with its armament managed to control the coastline but was held up in the interior by the Bedouin guerrilla campaign. We also saw how the Ottoman peace treaty in October 1912 placed the Senussi brotherhood before a strategic reorientation in which the general continuation of the anti-colonial resistance without Ottoman regular support was formulated. To the coming phase of the resistance under the Italian colonial stabilisation, and to the guerrilla strategy that in the nineteen-twenties would be brought to its full development under Umar al-Mukhtar’s ﵀ general leadership, the next article will devote its attention.

Sources

• Angelo Del Boca, Gli italiani in Libia, vol. 1: Tripoli bel suol d’amore (1860–1922), Mondadori (1986), pp. 86–168.
• Sergio Romano, La quarta sponda: La guerra di Libia 1911–1912, Bompiani (1977), pp. 68–212.
• Nicola Labanca, Oltremare: Storia dell’espansione coloniale italiana, il Mulino (2002), pp. 168–214.
• E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, Clarendon Press (1949), pp. 148–186.
• Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, The Making of Modern Libya, State University of New York Press (2009), pp. 168–198.
• Anna Baldinetti, The Origins of the Libyan Nation, Routledge (2010), pp. 168–214.
• Enzo Santarelli et al., Omar al-Mukhtar e la riconquista fascista della Libia, Marzorati (1981), pp. 214–268.
• William C. Askew, Europe and Italy’s Acquisition of Libya, 1911–1912, Duke University Press (1942), pp. 156–212.