Italian North Africa

Italian North Africa
*Africa Settentrionale Italiana*
Italian North Africa Africa Settentrionale Italiana
1911–1943
	Flag Coat of arms
	Italian North Africa in November 1942, holding Libya, western Egypt, and Tunisia.
Status	Colony (Italy)
Capital	Tripoli
Common languages	Arabic, Italian
Religion	Islam, Roman Catholicism
History
• Established	1911
• Disestablished	1943
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	Ottoman Empire
	Kingdom of Egypt
	French protectorate of Tunisia
Cyrenaica
Kingdom of Egypt
Fezzan
Tripolitania
French protectorate of Tunisia

Italian North Africa (Africa Settentrionale Italiana, or ASI) was the aggregate of territories and colonies controlled by Italy in North Africa from 1911 until World War II. In 1939, Benito Mussolini coinced the name Fourth Shore, in Italian Quarta Sponda, to refer to Italian North Africa.

Brief history

Italian North Africa, unlike Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, or AOI) existed in two phases: from 1911 to 1934, as Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, and after 1934, as Libya. Indeed, from 1934 to 1939, Italian North Africa was then known as Libya as the North African territories were consolidated into one colony, Italian Libya.

Successively Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1939 called coastal Libya the Fourth Shore (Quarta Sponda) of Italy: it was united to metropolitan Italy. The term Fourth Shore derives from the geography of Italy being a long and narrow peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean with two principle shorelines, the First Shore on the east along the Adriatic Sea and the Second Shore on the west along the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Adriatic Sea's opposite southern Balkans shore, with Dalmatia, Montenegro, and Albania, was planned for Italian expansion as the Third Shore, with Libya on the Mediterranean Sea becoming the fourth.^[1] Thus the Fourth Shore was the southern part of Greater Italy, an early 1940s Fascist project of enlarging Italy's national borders around the Italian Mare Nostrum.

From 1940 to 1943, during World War II, Italy attempted to conquer Egypt and Tunisia to enlarge the Italian North Africa.

Indeed Axis's military advances (with Rommel) in North Africa allowed Italy to lay claim to significant portions of western Egypt: Italian fascists anticipated creating a client Kingdom of Egypt under Italian control from 1941 to 1942 and to claim Tunisia from 1942 to 1943.

After Italy's ill-fated South of France invasion, Mussolini demanded Tunisia, along with Djibouti, Corsica and Nice from France.^[2] However it wasn't until November 1942 that Italian troops seized Tunisia, with German Field Marshal Rommel's Afrika Korps troop support, from the French Vichy regime colonial administrators. Tunisia was added administratively to the existing northern Italian Libya Fourth Shore, in Mussolini's last attempt to accomplish the fascist project of Greater Italy.^[3]

Some Tunisian Italians did join the Italian Fascist Army. All legally established territory of Italian North Africa was dissolved by 1943, Tunisia remained the last de facto Italian administered territory before Tunisia fell to American and British forces. In May 1943 the Allies victorious Tunisia Campaign (1942—1943), part the Western Desert Campaign, regained all the Tunisian territory for France. The French colonial authorities then closed all Italian schools and newspapers.^[4]

Colonies and territories within Italian North Africa

From 1912 to 1927, Italian North Africa was an entity to itself, and from 1934 to 1941, Italian North Africa was united into the single colony of Italian Libya.

From 1942 to 1943 Tunisia was added, and was administered as part of the Fourth Shore of Italy.

1927-1934

1934-1941

Italian Libya

1941-1943

Italian Libya
German and Italian occupied western Egypt
German and Italian occupied Tunisia (from 17 November 1942 to 13 May 1943)

Notes

^ Moore, Martin (1940). Fourth Shore: Italy's Mass Colonization of Libya African Affairs XXXIX (CLV), p. 129-133.
^ Mussolini, Benito; Child, Richard Washburn; Ascoli, Max; Lamb, Richard (1998). Ascoli, Max (ed.). My rise and fall. Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780306808647.
^ Knox, MacGregor (1986). Mussolini Unleashed, 1939-1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Last War. Cambridge University Press. p. 138. ISBN 0521338352.
^ Watson, Bruce Allen Exit Rommel: The Tunisian Campaign, 1942-43 p. 103

[1] Moore, Martin (1940). Fourth Shore: Italy's Mass Colonization of Libya African Affairs XXXIX (CLV), p. 129-133.

[2] Mussolini, Benito; Child, Richard Washburn; Ascoli, Max; Lamb, Richard (1998). Ascoli, Max (ed.). My rise and fall. Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780306808647.

[knox-3] Knox, MacGregor (1986). Mussolini Unleashed, 1939-1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Last War. Cambridge University Press. p. 138. ISBN 0521338352.

[4] Watson, Bruce Allen Exit Rommel: The Tunisian Campaign, 1942-43 p. 103

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