A review of the Turco-Italian war of 1911–1912 and related letters of Enver Pasha

Abstract

From the time of the 1877 Turco-Russian war till its disappearance from the stage of history in 1922, the Ottoman Empire was involved in decades of almost continuous war – in Europe, on the Russian front and in the Middle East. The conflict with Italy of 1911–1912 was an example of how powers in decline are forced into war in the face of peremptory demands from stronger neighbours. Italy's unprovoked attack on the Ottoman provinces of Libya in North Africa paved the way for the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 and indirectly also hastened the First World War. A group of Ottoman Turkish military officers along with their Arab and Berber Muslim allies in Libya made a heroic defensive stand and kept the Italian naval invasion pinned to the coastal beach-heads of Libya.