Hello. Hello and welcome to a history of Europe, Kibattles podcast.

This is part six on the First World War and its origins, where I focus today on the Italian-Turkish War 1911 to 1912, The Invasion of Libya, Part 2.

The Invasion of Libya in 1911

and the burning desire of Italians to possess a colony in Africa.

The obvious choice was Libya because it was so close and also not yet claimed by any other European power.

The coast of North Africa is really not far from Sicily and visible on a clear day.

From a strategic point of view, if Italy could seize Libya, it would be in a good position

to dominate this bottleneck on the Mediterranean Sea and the route between Gibraltar and the

Suez Canal. In addition, the Italians were eager to wipe out the humiliating memory of their

defeat at the Battle of Adowa in 1896 against an Ethiopian army.

When Italy's invasion of Libya was announced, it was greeted with an enormous outpourn of excitement.

For months, the nationalists had been calling for a war in North Africa from the columns of their newspaper, Lidia Nacionali,

launched on the 1st of March, the anniversary of the defeat at Adowa and a date when ancient Romans had traditionally mustered their armies.

The Catholic press was enthusiastic and heralded the invasion as a new crusade against the infidel.

The Italian poet, playwright and journalist Gabrielle de Nouncil, known for his fierce nationalistic rhetoric, celebrated the news in newspaper articles.

And another leading poet Giovanni Pascori delivered a speech that writes Christopher Duggan, became a classic text of Italian patriotism. Quote, the great proletarian nation has stirred, just 50 years after its

return to life, Italy, the great martyr among nations, has done its duty and contributed

to the advancement and civilization of the peoples,

and asserted its right not to be pending and suffocated in its own waters.

Whoever wishes to know what Italy is now, behold its army, its navy,

land, sea and sky, mountains and plains, perfectly fused, end quote.

Libya was the last remnant of the Turkish possessions that had once stretched along the

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