Name of Object:

Italian troops landing in Libya

Name in original language:

Sbarco di truppe

Location:

Rome, Italy

Holding Institution:

Italian Institute for African and Oriental Studies

Holding Institution (original language):

Istituto italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente

Date of Object:

1912

Author:

Placido Corigliano

Description:

In October 1911 the Italian government sent an expeditionary force of 34,000 men to Libya, with the goal of colonising the country. The conquest proved much more difficult than the Italian government had expected and it soon needed to send reinforcements; at the end of 1911, the Italian army in Libya had reached 103,000 men.
Many Italians supported the colonial conquest of Libya, believing that the country would provide settlement opportunities for Italian migrants (in the first decade of the 20th century, Italian migrants abroad averaged 600,000 per year). Their hopes went mostly disappointed: in 1927, barely 26,000 Italians had settled in Libya. Only in the 1930s, after crushing Libyan anti-colonial resistance by means of ruthless repression, was the Italian government able to promote Italian settlement in Libya. By 1939, the Italian population in Libya reached almost 120,000.

Type of Object

Photograph

Archival or Bibliographical Reference:

Archivio fotografico, Libia, album 13 “Placido Corigliano, Impressioni e ricordi di Bengasi 1912. Omaggio a S.E. Giolitti (Villa San Giovanni, marzo 1913)”

Citation of this web page:

"Italian troops landing in Libya" in "Sharing History", Museum With No Frontiers, 2026.
https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;AWE;it;134;en

Copyedited by: Anne Dowell

MWNF Working Number: IT1 135