Military operations in North Africa during World War I
Conflicts took place in North Africa during World War I (1914–1918) between the Central Powers and the Entente and its allies. The Senussi of Libya sided with the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire against the British Empire and the Kingdom of Italy. On 14 November 1914, the Ottoman Sultan proclaimed a jihad and sought to create a diversion to draw British troops from the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. Italy wished to preserve its gains from the Italo-Turkish War. The Senussi Campaign took place in North Africa from 23 November 1915 to February 1917.
In the summer of 1915, the Ottoman Empire persuaded the Grand Senussi Ahmed Sharif to attack British-occupied Egypt from the west, raise jihad and encourage an insurrection in support of an Ottoman offensive against the Suez Canal from the east. The Senussi crossed the Libyan–Egyptian border at the coast in November 1915. British imperial forces withdrew at first and then defeated the Senussi in several engagements, including the action of Agagia. The British recaptured the territory along the coast by March 1916, with the Western Frontier Force of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, which included the 1st South African Infantry Brigade.
Further west, the inhabitants of areas recently conquered or seized by European powers from the Ottoman Empire, exploited the unsettled conditions caused by the war in Europe to regain control of their lands. Uprisings such as the Zaian War, Volta-Bani War and the Kaocen Revolt took place in Morocco and other parts of West Africa against the French colonialists, some of which lasted longer than the war. In Sudan, the Anglo-Egyptian Darfur Expedition took place against the Sultan of Darfur, who was believed to have prepared an invasion of Egypt, to be synchronised with Senussi operations on the western frontier. Operations by the British were conducted by small numbers of men equipped with motor vehicles, aircraft and wireless, which multiplied their effectiveness; the speed of their manoeuvres frequently enabled them to surprise their opponents.
Background[edit]
German and Ottoman strategy[edit]
In 1914, the Central Powers began a peripheral strategy, which had antecedents in the concept of Weltpolitik, the thinking of the Imperial German Navy in the 1900s during the Anglo-German naval arms race, and in the writings of advocates of a German colonial empire. The possibility of encouraging revolutionary warfare among the peoples of the European colonial empires; Muslims, Irish, Jews, Poles, the peoples of the Baltic littoral, Ukrainians, Georgians and eventually the Bolsheviks, had considerable appeal. The founding of a great German empire was not contemplated, but military weakness in Europe led to an attempt to turn colonial inferiority into an advantage. On 20 August 1914, Moltke wrote to the Foreign Office, demanding Islamic revolutions in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. The means to bring about change in the non-European world were limited, with little expertise, few men and little equipment to spare from Europe and exiguous overland routes to the outside world.[1]
Moltke expected diplomats to create pro-independence armies, as the Foreign Office pursued a pan-Islamic strategy, using the Ottoman Empire and its army as the means. The Ottomans entered the war to escape from European domination, rather than as a German proxy and had imperial ambitions in North Africa, Central Asia and the Near East. In October 1914, Enver Pasha devised a war plan which included a jihad and an invasion of Egypt. On 14 November 1914, Sheikh-ul-Islam declared holy war, called on all Muslims to fight the Entente and allied powers, but not Italy (which was neutral at the time), and excluded Muslims under the rule of Germany or Austria-Hungary. The Sheikh urged the peoples of the European colonial empires to join in, a message which reached North, East and West Africa. Enver ordered the Teskilat-i Mahsusa (Special Organisation) to conduct propaganda, subversion, terrorism and sabotage, based on the precedent of the war in Libya against the Italians.[2]
Allied strategy[edit]
European colonial powers had apprehensions about the possibility of jihad before 1914; Clemenceau had predicted it in 1912, if war broke out between the Great Powers. In August 1914, Charles Lutaud, the Governor of Algeria expected a rebellion and on 5 November, tried to forestall the Ottoman call to arms, by presenting the Ottomans as German puppets. The French were assisted by Royal Navy code breaking, to anticipate landings from German U-boats and negate the intriguing of the Central Powers. French prestige after the Moroccan Crises reduced the likelihood of attempts to overthrow the colonial regime and German prisoners of war, were used as forced labour in Morocco and Algeria, to display French military prowess. Most of the French regular troops were sent to France in 1914 and replaced by Territorial troops in Morocco but on the frontier of Algeria and Libya, Senussi operations against the Italian army led the French to allow the garrisons of Ghadames and Ghat to retreat into Algeria and then be rearmed to re-capture Ghadames in January 1915, as part of the French policy of drawing Italy into the war.[3]
North Africa in 1914[edit]
Before 1906, when the Senussi became involved in resistance against the French, they had been a "relatively peaceful religious sect of the Sahara Desert, opposed to fanaticism". When the Italians invaded Libya in 1911, occupying the coast, the Senussi resisted the Italians from the interior of the country. During their resistance against the Italians, the Senussi maintained generally friendly relations with the British in Egypt.[4] The region had been annexed by Italy in 1911 after the Italo-Turkish War and by France in 1912 and control had not been consolidated by the Italians when the war began in Europe. After the loss of the province of Trablusgarp to Italy in the war of 1911–1912, the local Sanusi people continued with their resistance against the Italians. Fighting was conducted by Sanusi militia under the leadership of Ahmad al-Sharif, whose followers in Fezzan (southwest Libya) and southern Tripolitania prevented Italian consolidation their hold on these regions. The Ottoman government never ceased to provide assistance to the local tribesmen in the region.[5]