Italo-Turkish Diplomacy and the War Over Libya: 1911-1912

In 1911 Italy, an aspiring Great Power, attacked Ottoman Libya. Italian diplomacy had long anticipated this attack, but Italy's military was ill-prepared for it. The Ottoman Empire, distracted by internal dissension and by the expansionist designs of its Balkan neighbours, was woefully unready. This study examines how the belligerents dealt with the military and diplomatic stalemates into which the Libyan War degenerated, stalemates which were ended only by the outbreak of the First Balkan War in 1912, when the Ottomans were obliged to make peace with Italy to face more dangerous enemies nearer home. The Italo-Turkish War was the first armed clash between the lesser Great Powers immediately before 1914, leading inexorably to the deterioration of the Balkan situation and to Sarajevo. This is the first study based on the archives of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry for the period, as well as on better-known Italian sources.