Senussi campaign
The Senussi campaign took place in North Africa from November 1915 to February 1917, during the First World War. The campaign was fought by the Kingdom of Italy and the British Empire against the Senussi, a religious order of Arabic nomads in Libya and Egypt. The Senussi were courted by the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire. Recognising French and Italian threats, the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II had twice sent his aide-de-camp Azmzade Sadik El Mueyyed to meet Sheikh Muhammed El Mehdi El Senussi to cultivate positive relations and counter the west European scramble for Africa.[1] In the summer of 1915, the Ottomans persuaded the Grand Senussi Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi to declare jihad, attack British-occupied Egypt from the west and to encourage insurrection in Egypt to divert British forces.
The Senussi crossed the Libyan–Egyptian border in November 1915 and fought a campaign along the Egyptian coast. At first British Empire forces withdrew, then defeated the Senussi in several engagements, culminating in the action of Agagia and the re-capture of the coast in March 1916. In the interior, the band of oases campaign continued until February 1917, after which a peace was negotiated and the area became a backwater for the rest of the war, patrolled by British aircraft and armoured cars.
Background[edit]
Senussi[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".[2] In the Italo-Turkish War (29 September 1911 – 18 October 1912), Italian forces occupied enclaves along the Libyan coast and the Senussi resisted from the interior, maintaining generally friendly relations with the British in Egypt. In 1913, the Italians had been defeated at the action of Etangi but in 1914 Italian reinforcements led to a revival and by January the Senussi were in south-eastern Cyrenaica. The Senussi had about 10,000 men armed with modern rifles, with ammunition from a factory which produced 1,000 rounds a day. Intermittent fighting continued between the Italians in fortified towns and the Senussi ranging through the desert. The British declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 5 November and the Ottomans encouraged the Senussi to attack Egypt from the west. The Ottomans wanted the Senussi to conduct operations against the rear of the defenders of the Suez Canal; the Ottomans had failed in previous attacks against British forces from Sinai in the east and wanted them to be distracted by attacks from the opposite direction.[3]
Prelude[edit]
Senussi–Ottoman preparations[edit]
German and Turkish officers made their headquarters at Siwa Oasis with a Senussi force of 5,000 combatants, supported by mountain guns and machine-guns, to attack Sollum, Mersa Matruh and El Dabaa on the coast and the oases further south at Bahariya, Farafra, Dakhla and Kharga. On 15 August, a British submarine commander saw people onshore near Sollum and was fired on when he went to investigate, which caused a diplomatic incident until the Senussi pretended that the party mistook the submarine for an Italian boat. Sir John Maxwell, the commander of British troops in Egypt, pretended to believe the excuse, assuming that it had been a provocation to force the Grand Senussi's hand. Soon after, the Senussi began training around Sollum with artillery and machine-guns and then Maxwell obtained documents from the Grand Senussi to Muslim leaders and journalists in Arabia and India, urging Jihad.[9]
The British continued to appease the Senussi, being in negotiations with the Sherif of Mecca and reluctant to inflame Muslim opinion. On 30 September, Snow met with the Grand Senussi and Jaafar Pasha, who discussed the undisciplined nature of desert nomads but Snow judged the Senussi forces to be potentially formidable. Soon afterwards, news arrived of another Senussi victory over the Italians near Tripoli and the capture of much weaponry and money. Senussi aggression against the British escalated in November, when German submarines torpedoed an armed steamer HMS Tara and the transport ship Moorina, then handed over the crews to the Senussi at Port Suleiman in Cyrenaica. Sayed Ahmed affected ignorance when the British complained and negotiations began to persuade the Grand Senussi to dismiss the Ottoman envoys for money but German submarine raids encouraged Senussi intransigence.[10]
On 6 November, Egyptian coastguard boats in Sollum bay were attacked by SM U-35, Abbas was sunk and Nuhr el Bahr was damaged.[11][b] On the night of 17 November, Senussi fired into the camp at Sollum, two Bedouin were murdered and the coast telegraph was cut. Next night a Zawiet (cell, monastery or hermitage) at Sidi Barrani 48 mi (77 km) east of Sollum, was occupied by 300 Muhafizia (a commander, defender or guard) Senussi regular troops. Sayed Ahmed ordered his followers to cross the Egyptian frontier by 21 November, to conduct the coastal campaign. On the night of 19/20 November, the barracks at Sollum was fired on and a coastguard was killed. Next day, a post 30 mi (48 km) south-east of Sollum was attacked and when the news arrived civil unrest began at Alexandria.[12]
Aftermath[edit]
Analysis[edit]
The affairs and actions in the Western Desert were small engagements and when the Senussi began hostilities, the garrison of Egypt had been depleted by the campaigns in Sinai and Gallipoli. Small numbers of troops on both sides ranged over great distances and the troops involved in the Gallipoli expedition returned before the conclusion of the Senussi Campaign, increasing the garrison in Egypt to 275,000 men on 2 March 1916. The total of British and Commonwealth forces was about 40,000 men but only 2,400 took part in the action of Agagia.[13] The campaign was fought using traditional methods of warfare juxtaposed with modern technology, a process begun by the Italians who had pioneered the military use of aeroplanes in the Italo-Turkish War. In 1915, the British exploited the internal combustion engine to drive on the desert and fly over it, adding a new dimension of speed and mobility to their operations, which was beyond the capacity of the Senussi to challenge. The British integrated naval operations with the air and ground campaign as well as using older methods of warfare, with camels as beasts of burden to increase the range of ground troops and by conducting espionage and sowing dissent among the Senussi leaders and their Ottoman and German sponsors.[65] Light car patrols and light armoured motor batteries made long-distance patrols and raids, collecting information and surprising the Senussi, who soon lost contact with the Nile Valley and were then isolated in the captured oases, until overrun or forced out by starvation and disease.[65] In 2001, Strachan described the hostilities in Libya as a war independent of the First World War, beginning in 1911 and ending in 1931. A colonial land-grab was resisted by the local population, which developed into a national liberation movement. The technological superiority of the British and the huge, sparsely inhabited space of the desert, were conditions for mobility and decisive action, the opposite of the effects of industrialised warfare in Europe. The equipment and methods which defeated rapidly the Senussi in 1915 and 1916 were adopted in Sinai, Palestine and Syria from 1917 to 1918.[66]
Peace[edit]
By March 1917, Senussi forces had been ordered to withdraw from Egypt into Libya. The attack by the Senussi on Egypt had not helped the Ottoman Empire to defeat the British east of the Suez Canal and the majority of the Egyptian population did not join the jihad and rise against the British. Sayed Ahmed was undermined by the defeat and his nephew, Sayyid Mohammed Idris, who had opposed the campaign, gained favour at his expense. The peace deal called the modus vivendi of Acroma between the British and the Senussi agreed on 12 April 1917, recognised Idris as Emir of Cyrenaica (who eventually became King Idris I of Libya).[68] Idris was required to hand over all British, Egyptian or Allied citizens who had been shipwrecked and to surrender or expel Ottoman officers and their allies. A force of fifty police was allowed at Jaghbub but no other military force could be allowed there, at Siwa or in Egypt. The British undertook to allow trade through Sollum and that although Jaghbub would remain Egyptian, it would be under the administration of Idris, as long as the undertaking not to allow military forces to enter Egypt was honoured. Two days later, Idris came to terms with the Italians and signed a modus vivendi, after which the Western Frontier remained calm for the rest of the war. Sayed Ahmed lingered for a year; in August 1918 he travelled to Constantinople by Austro-Hungarian submarine and conducted Pan-Islamic propaganda.[58]
Books
Journals
Websites