Swapna Sundari
(First Draft.)
Italian Leptis Magna 4
I was the cruel one
you, my bambino
Arabian eyes
with no choice
you may have hated me
but war and love
sometimes
dear one
you, my bambino
Arabian eyes
with no choice
you may have hated me
but war and love
sometimes
dear one
know no pity
Arabian Beauty -- Ton Peelan
In 1911, the Regno d'Italia (Kingdom of Italy) waged war on the Ottoman Empire and captured the Vilâyet-i Trâblus Gârb in north Africa. Although Italia gained no German lands in the Paris negotiations that ended World War I in 1919, the UK gave it the Jubaland region in southern Somalia and France agreed to cede some Saharan territories. In 1931 general Rodolfo Graziani brutally conquered Kufra, which had been formally ceded by the UK in 1925. The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ceded Ma'tan as-Sarra in 1934, the year governor Italo Balbo persuaded Benito Mussolini to unite the Italian colonies of Tripolitania, Cirenaica, and the Fezzan into one single country named Africa Settentrionale Italiana ("Libia") and in 1938 he recruited 20,000 Italian farmers (the “ventimilli”) to colonize Libya and founded 26 new villages for them, mainly in Cyrenaica. Between 1911-1940 the Italo-libici, who made up over 12% of the population by 1939 (31% of Benghazi’s population, 37% of Tripoli’s), did much to modernize the colony. In 1939 the colony (known as Quarta Sponda, the “Fourth Shore”) was incorporated as an integral part of Italia. Tunisia was conquered from France in 1942, but a few months later it was occupied by the Allies. In 1947 Italia formally relinquished its claims to the area.
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