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The opening of the Simplon Tunnel between Italy and Switzerland
1903
State Library of Modern and Contemporary History, Rome, Italy
'The War on Trial'
Anticolonial booklet published by the Italian Socialist Party, against Italian colonial expansion in Libya
1913
Gramsci Institute Foundation, Rome, Italy
The Old Woman from Candia [Heraklion, Crete, Greece], the Only Person who Remained in Apollonia on the Day of the Occupation
An old Greek woman who was the only person remaining in the Libyan town Marsa Susa when the Italian army occupied it
1912–13(?)
Italian Institute for African and Oriental Studies, Rome, Italy
El Sayyid Muhammad Idris al-Mahdi al Senussi (1889–1983), from 1916 Chief of the Senussi Muslim order
1920
Italian Institute for African and Oriental Studies, Rome, Italy
Omar al-Mukhtar (1861–1931), leader of anticolonial resistance in Libya
Unknown (1920s?)
Italian War History Museum, Rovereto, Italy
Italian colonial ambitions in the Mediterranean and the Italo-Turkish war over Libya (1911–12)
After national unification, Italy was striving to achieve great-power status. Colonial expansion was part of this policy.
In 1881, the establishment of a French protectorate over Tunisia (where many Italian migrants lived) was considered a major political defeat by many Italian politicians. In 1882, Italy joined Germany and Austria-Hungary in the Triple Alliance and started colonial expansion in the Horn of Africa.
In 1911, Italy waged war on Turkey for the conquest of Libya. The Socialists and some liberals opposed colonial expansion, but most of the press supported it, claiming that Libya could become an outlet for Italian migration and that the Arabs would welcome Italian rule; they were wrong.
The war officially ended in 1912, but Libyan anti-colonial resistance lasted much longer. It would only be crushed 20 years later, by Fascist brutal repression.