Africa and Imperialism in the 1920s

Italy had won Libya in its war against the Ottoman Turks in 1912, and now, after World War I, in Libya the Italians were facing resistance to their attempt to expand their rule. In 1922, Mussolini's Italy launched a mechanized drive into Libya's interior, using tanks and aerial bombardment. It was a war that was to last through the decade. As the Italians moved deeper into the desert, the Libyan guerrillas had greater successes against them. Mussolini was determined to succeed in Libya, and he agreed to let his military pursue his war without restraints. The Italians herded thousands of Libyan civilians into concentration camps -- the old tactic of separating guerrillas from its civilian base. According to a Libyan historian, Mohammed Ali Al-Taeb, as many as seventeen a day died of hunger, illness and depression. The Italian military responded to newspaper accounts of the suffering by starting to increase rations to the imprisoned, which was too little and too late. The Italians built a barbed wire barrier to block supplies coming to the guerrillas from Egypt. The Italians defeated the guerrilla bands one by one, and they captured the eighty-year-old rebel leader, Omar al-Moktar (the Lion of the Desert), and in 1931, in the city of Solouq, they hanged him, forcing the city's residents to watch.

Africa and Imperialism in the 1920s