The independence of Libya

06The independence of Libya

• The Italian invasion put most of the coast under direct control, while the Senusi order enjoyed strong influence in the interior, especially in Cyrenaica.
• After the Ottoman state entered the First World War the national movement rose, until the Arabs of Libya pledged allegiance to Muhammad Idris el-Senusi as amir of Cyrenaica and Tripoli (1922).
• This coincided with the rise of Fascism under Mussolini, who declared he was reviving the Roman Empire and that the Mediterranean was an Italian sea, and who launched attacks with every weapon against the resistance led by Omar Mukhtar.
• Massacres, trials, death sentences and the terror of the commander Graziani, together with overwhelming military superiority and the great powers' attempts to win Italy's friendship, led to the defeat of the resistance and to Omar Mukhtar being taken prisoner; the Italians publicly executed him in 1931 before his own people.
• After Ethiopia fell to Italy (1935/1936), Italy in Libya, Eritrea and Somalia became a menace hanging over the Nile Valley, and it used Libya as a base for invading Egypt in the Second World War.
• The defeat of the Axis powers liberated Libya from Italy, and Egypt's firm stand beside the Libyan national movement led to keeping the British and the French out of Libya, preventing its being split into several parts, and Libya's independence in 1951.