Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World

by Philip Dwyer

  This chapter examines colonial violence as a subject, a method of colonial rule, and an interpretive lens for understanding the strategies and goals of Fascist imperialism. As Ned Blackhawk noted in his study of the early American west, violence offers ‘the clearest and at times only windows’ for understanding the relationship between empire building and dispossessed peoples. 7 Several typologies of violence—military, economic, cultural, and social—suffused the increasingly one-sided and bloody conflict between the Italian state and the tribes of Cyrenaica. The military conflict featured the atrocities of a classic guerilla war, conditioned somewhat by the semi-nomadic existence of the Bedouin resistance fighters, the guerillas’ practice of sometimes traveling with their families and livestock, and the vast expanses of desert that served as the backdrop to the war. In the economic sphere, the Italian state confiscated lands, systematically destroyed livestock and crops, prevented harvesting, and fundamentally dissolved the bases of a subsistence economy, forcibly settling various ethnic groups and channelling their economic activities into manual labour and a sedentary life. In the cultural sphere, the religious institutions that formed the bedrock of the Senussi Muslim society were confiscated, their leaders arrested and confined. Finally, in the social sphere, the entirety of these actions, which culminated in the internment of over 100,000 civilians, tens of thousands of whom perished, was the ‘ethnic reconstruction’ of Cyrenaica, the complete destruction and reordering of the economic, social, and cultural existence of the local population in order to provide Italian colonists with land and a submissive labour pool.

  Beyond strategic motives, Italian colonial violence served ideological purposes, as the imperial state framed these typologies of violence as tools for making imperial subjects. As scholars of French Algeria have noted, violence simplified a very complex society into categories of ‘colonizer and colonized’. Colonial violence constructed the very identities of the imperial colonizer and the colonized subject, and the social hierarchies of the new colonial order. 8 The larger goal, facilitated by the deportation of Bedouins to concentration camps , was not only to dispossess local people of fertile lands, but also to ‘reconstruct’ the population, transforming them from atavistic, rebellious nomads into submissive, docile colonial subjects. Violence—military, economic, cultural, social—was the method. Fascist empire building in Cyrenaica followed what Patrick Wolfe has called ‘the logic of elimination ’, whereby the goal of settler colonialism was to dispossess the native population of not just their land, but also the institutions, cultural practices, and economic activities that formed their communal identities prior to colonization. Indeed, the justifications of Italian military authorities made clear that only by eliminating natives—either physically or structurally—could ‘subjects’ be created. 9

  Cyrenaica, the Bedouins , and Italian Colonialism

  One of the central claims Italian authorities posited in support of confiscating territory was that the Bedouins of Cyrenaica did not engage in agriculture. However, the resistance of Cyrenaica to colonial rule drew its strength largely from the agricultural, pastoral, and religious practices of the Bedouin tribes. Unlike the inhabitants of coastal cities and their environs, the Bedouins of Cyrenaica, particularly those of the highlands of the Jebel Akhdar , had never submitted to Italian, or Ottoman, colonial authority. Though often referred to as ‘nomadic’, they had developed economic and social practices that were inextricably linked to the fertile land of the Jebel. Unlike most of Libya, the Jebel received sufficient rainfall during the winter, between October and April, to allow for agriculture, including cereals and transhumant animal husbandry. The Bedouins raised sheep, cows, camels, and goats. Grazing on lush vegetation, these animals produced the milk, butter, wool, and hides that provided relative wealth, not to mention political and economic independence, to the people of Cyrenaica. Common practice was for tribes to sow barley in the fall and early winter, then move their herds southwards onto the grassy steppe, and then return to the Jebel for the dry season to harvest and continue to graze their animals. By Ottoman estimates, in 1913 Cyrenaica had 713,000 sheep, 546,300 goats, 83,300 camels, 23,600 cattle, and 27,000 horses. Cyrenaica exported tens of thousands of sheep and goats, as well as butter and grain surpluses. In Evans-Pritchard’s estimation, Cyrenaica was ‘a rich country for Bedouin , a poor country for Europeans’. 10

  The Senussi , a Sufi Muslim order that settled in Cyrenaica in the nineteenth century, provided the Jebel with its central political, economic, religious, educational, and philanthropic structures. The Senussi thus were the de facto state in Cyrenaica, knitting together the various tribes. The landholdings, livestock, and buildings of the Senussi, centreed around zawiyas (shrines or lodges), generated considerable income. Additionally, the Senussi collected local taxes in the form of a tithe. 11 Economic independence, combined with a high degree of social and cultural cohesion, meant that the Bedouin of Cyrenaica had never been subjugated by the city, the tax collector, or the empire. They had successfully resisted the Ottomans in the nineteenth century and the Italians in the twentieth, at least up until the early-1930s.

  The Italian decision to pursue colonies in the Mediterranean in the first part of the twentieth century came as a result of pressure from the pro-imperialist and nationalist groups that had cropped up around the turn-of-the-century. 12 However, the choice of Libya was made on the basis of there being no other places left to colonize in North Africa. Although tens of thousands of Italians lived in Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, few lived in Libya, and Italian policy makers had very little knowledge of, or contacts with, Libya until the years just before the invasion. Even in 1911, the Italians understood little about the geography or population of the place. 13 Like Italy’s earlier attempts at entering the imperialist project in East Africa, seizing and holding territory proved difficult and costly. Already in the third week of October, Italy suffered a major setback when a combined Libyan-Ottoman force attacked Italian units, killing 600. For this, the Italians inflicted a brutal revenge, summarily executing approximately 1800 inhabitants of Tripoli and deporting thousands of men, women, and children to small penal islands off the coast of Italy. 14

  Italian incursions into Cyrenaica, and the Senussi’s recalcitrant resistance, wreaked havoc on that province’s economy and population. Three years after Italy’s invasion of Libya in 1911, the population of Cyrenaica had dropped precipitously, due less to direct casualties of the Italian military and more to the crop failures, starvation, and disease that military occupation, war, and resistance brought. Although the Ottoman Empire sued for peace and signed a treaty relinquishing Libya to Italy in 1912, the Italian military never asserted full control over Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, and major military setbacks in 1914 and 1915 led Italian authorities to lose control of all but a few coastal areas, and even those took approximately 100,000 soldiers to hold. 15 Meanwhile, notables in Tripolitania had declared a republic, which lasted officially until 1923. By the end of First World War, the Italian presence in its new colony looked very much like it did after the first weeks of the invasion of 1911. In Cyrenaica, the Senussi remained fully in control of the Jebel Akhdar .

  Fascist Libya

  While most colonial powers during the interwar period had entered a period of reorganizing and exploiting their colonies, Italy was only just beginning to expand and consolidate power in its colonial possessions. More than economic or geo-political motives, the politics of prestige motivated Italian imperialists. Italy had largely missed out on the Scramble for Africa, and the Treaty of Versailles left many Italians feeling that they had been shortchanged by the postwar settlement, both in the Balkans and in Africa. Finally, Italy’s hold on its own colonial possessions had become tenuous, largely due to the First World War. Prior to the Fascist seizure of power, a series of weak liberal governments struggled to resolve domestic problems, much less pursue a forceful foreign policy. For Italians in favour of colonial expansion—the Italian Nationalists foremost among t
hem—imperial expansion was part of a broader push to restore and enhance Italy’s standing in European international affairs.

  Fascist ideas about colonialism were often vague and unformed, but nevertheless embraced the ‘spirit of imperialism’. Mussolini had been a strident anti-imperialist, as a member of the Socialist party, as recently as 1911, and had only come around to endorsing imperial expansion a few years before becoming head of state in 1922. In The Doctrine of Fascism, which he co-wrote with philosopher Giovanni Gentile, Mussolini argued that empire was ‘an expression of vitality’. Peoples that were ‘rising, or rising again’ were always ‘imperialist’, and any renunciation of empire was a ‘sign of decay and death’. Much like Fascism itself, Mussolini viewed empire as an enterprise that demanded ‘discipline, the coordination of all forces, duty and sacrifice’. 16 Without initially developing any coherent colonial policy, Fascists nevertheless instinctually viewed imperialism as an existential matter that should take the form of a life-and-death struggle. 17

  In the colonies, then, the arrival of Mussolini to power meant a stark shift in Italian policy. Mussolini immediately appointed as Minister of the Colonies one of the chief exponents of Italian imperialism, the Nationalist Luigi Federzoni . The practices of compromising with local elites, establishing shared sovereignty over territory, and even paying homage and stipends to local elites came to an end. While some of these policies had begun under Mussolini’s predecessor, the overall style of colonial policy was quite different. At every turn, the new regime denounced Liberal Italy’s colonial policies as demeaning to the patria. Under Fascist rule, there would be no compromises, and local populations that offered Italy anything other than total subordination would face repression. From the regime’s very beginnings, Mussolini sent high-ranking Fascist bosses to the colonies, where they often drew upon their skills as organizers of irregular violence to terrorize recalcitrant populations. In Somalia beginning in 1923, for example, Fascist boss Cesare Maria De Vecchi imported tactics of squad violence and terror to extend control over the hinterland. In Libya during the 1920s, the Italian military razed villages and became one of the first European powers to drop poison gas on civilians. 18 Reflecting on these tactics, many Fascists claimed that cold-hearted violence would demonstrate the character of the Fascist ‘new man’—not only to the populations of Somalia, Eritrea, Libya, and Ethiopia, but also to other Europeans and even to Italians themselves. Fascists viewed their willingness to use violence as one of the central factors that set their imperialism apart from the failed colonialism of the Liberal era. 19

  Though the Fascist approach to empire differed from that of liberal era policies, there were continuities with earlier, more strident strains of colonial thought in Italy. Giuliano Bonacci, a pro-imperialist journalist, proclaimed in 1913 that Italian colonial policy faced a choice between ‘a policy of extermination or elimination of the indigenous populations who would, ipso facto, be replaced by our colonists’ and ‘a line of conduct based on respect for local traditions’. The matter would ultimately depend on the ‘greater and lesser resistance’ of the local population. 20 Liberal policy, while often brutal, leaned more toward ‘respect for local traditions’, while throughout the 1920s, Fascist policy moved increasingly toward ‘extermination or elimination’.

  Under Mussolini , Fascist colonial policy soon pushed for the Italian ‘re-conquest’ of Libya, though the previous liberal government had already begun military operations designed to consolidate Italian rule. Due to the setbacks of the First World War, Italian control in Libya was limited to a few coastal cities and ‘outposts’ fewer than 50 kilometres inland. There were three provinces within the Libya territory. Tripolitania , the western province, was separated from Cyrenaica, the eastern province, by 600 miles of desert, and the Fezzan, which consisted almost entirely of desert, lay to the South. Although the military was engaged in both Cyrenaica and Tripolitania during the initial stages of the ‘re-conquest’, the resistance in Tripolitania was weaker, and Italy’s conquest smoother, so that by the mid-1920s, most of the province was under Italian control.

  The Italian military’s operations in Libya were frequently presented to the Italian public as ‘policing’ and ‘restoring order’, but in fact the military was fighting a war, with full scale military campaigns. In one early action in January 1923, which gives some perspective, 9000 soldiers, mostly Eritrean askari, attacked Tarhuna, killing 1500 ‘rebels’ and wounding another 3000. Giuseppe Volpi , the Governor of Tripolitania , then confiscated all arms, camels, horses, carts, and homes of the rebels and their families. 21 Here and elsewhere in the conflict, mass executions of alleged combatants were common. 22 Thus, the Italians fought a brutal war of military skirmishes, property confiscations, and mass executions, which would ultimately include the use of poison gas against the caravans and tented settlements of the resistance fighters and their families.

  Over the course of three years, Volpi oversaw the conquest of Tripolitania , with the Italians suffering 620 dead, 1924 wounded, and 36 missing, while the Arab forces were left with 6500 dead. 23 As early as late-1924, Volpi felt confident that the province was ready for Italian settlement, reporting to the Minister of Colonies, Luigi Federzoni , that on the highlands of Tripolitania, there was work and fortune for ‘tens and tens of thousands of Italians’. 24 However, while Volpi repeatedly portrayed Tripolitania as definitively pacified, guerilla bands persistently reformed and attacked Italian units. In May 1925, during the visit of the new Italian Minister of the Colonies, Lanza di Scalea, the rebels regrouped and attacked the Italians at Bir Tarsin. One hundred twenty Italians were killed or wounded, and Volpi was subsequently replaced as Governor of Tripolitania by the Fascist Quadrumvir, General Emilio De Bono . 25 Despite this setback for the Italians, De Bono inherited a Tripolitania from Volpi that had largely been rid of armed resistance.

  The hallmark military achievement of the De Bono era occurred in 1928 with a five-month military campaign along the twenty-ninth parallel designed to deal a blow to the resistance and occupy the oases that lay between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. It was the largest military campaign since Italy’s initial invasion of Libya in 1911, and relied heavily on bombing campaigns, which included tons of poison gas (mainly phosgene), in some cases dropped on caravans of men, women, children, and livestock. 26 With the success of the military campaign, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica came under the rule of one military governor. De Bono aspired to this office, but he was recalled and replaced by a rival, General Badoglio , one of the regime’s most important military officers.

  Throughout the 1920s, the Italian military had much less success in Cyrenaica, where Omar al-Mukhtar’s resistance, and the tribes that supported it, were much more powerful and resilient. The guerilla bands, or duar , that resisted Italian incursions into Cyrenaica were embedded in society, and their activities, strengths and weaknesses were tied to the social, economic, and cultural structures of the Jebel. Attacking Italian forces in small bands, the duar were able to disappear quickly, reintegrating into civilian life. New fighters easily and quickly replaced insurgents who were killed. Unlike ‘settled’ or fixed populations, this society was highly mobile, moving or fleeing whenever the Italian military threatened to impose its will. Thus, the fighters traveled in caravans with their families and livestock. Attilio Teruzzi, a Fascist general appointed to govern Cyrenaica between 1926 and 1929, explained the problem:Thus, against 200, 500, 1,000, 2,000 rebels, dressed in picturesque rags and badly armed, often 5,000 or 10,000 of our soldiers are not sufficient, because the rebels are not tied down to anything, are not bound to any impediment, have nothing to defend or to protect, and can show themselves today in one place, tomorrow 50 kilometerrs away, and the following day 100 kilometers away, to reappear a week later, to vanish for a month, to disperse to fire from afar on an unarmed shepherd, on a patrol of inspection, or on a column which files along the edge of a wood, or at the foot of a hill. 27

  Unable to engage the duar or matc
h their stealthy peregrinations and local knowledge, Italian forces relied heavily on their overwhelming technological superiority, including trucks, armoured cars, artillery, airplanes, and poison gas . Indeed, in moments where resources were scarce and the path forward uncertain, Italian authorities sometimes relied exclusively on terror bombings of Bedouin caravans and settlements, which included incendiary bombs and poison gas. 28 In 1927, between July and September, air force bombing throughout the Jebel and highly mobile, mechanized ‘mopping-up groups’ killed 1300 men and took 250 women and children prisoners. Tens of thousands of livestock were also killed or captured. These actions led to a temporary halt to resistance activities. Yet, in this operation, the Italians recovered only 269 rifles. Omar al-Mukhtar’s duar had mostly survived the onslaught, and the majority of casualties and suffering fell upon society at large. 29

  The entire nexus of civilian society, agriculture, animal husbandry, and anti-Italian resistance was vexing to Italian military authorities. The rebels’ ability to reform after major defeats continually frustrated the generals, who over the course of the 1920s began to contemplate harsher measures, increasingly directed against the crops and livestock of tribes who supported the insurgency. In early 1926, weeks after the Italian capture of the city of Jaghbub, General Mombelli, the official responsible for military operations in Cyrenaica, ordered his troops to prevent the Bedouins of the Jebel from taking in their harvest, and to confiscate or kill all livestock, with the goal of starving the population into submission. This measure led to fierce fighting, and ultimately the destruction of both crops and animals. 30 Bombing and strafing livestock, in particular camels, also became common. Despite these seemingly fatal blows to their livelihood, the resistance continued.