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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | British and Italians in Libya in 1943 |
Author: | Wright, John |
Year: | 1990 |
Periodical: | Maghreb Review |
Volume: | 15 |
Issue: | 1-2 |
Pages: | 31-36 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Libya Great Britain |
Subjects: | colonists Italians colonialism World War II |
Abstract: | Tripoli, the undefended capital of Italian Libya, fell to the British Eighth Army in January 1943. Some 38,000 Italians, about half the prewar Italian population of the city, had stayed in Tripoli to await their fate at the hands of the British. This article deals with the relations between the British and the Italians in Tripoli during the first year of British occupation. By 1943 it should have become clear to Italians in Libya that under the British their interests were to be subordinated to those of the native Libyans. The Italian settlers and administrators of Libya, as the British found them, were members of a conquered enemy nation and were fairly despised for that shortcoming, as for the general assumption that they were all Fascists. The native Libyans were by contrast regarded as allies who had suffered under Fascism. Nevertheless, the British found they needed the Italians for their administrative and technical expertise and as providers of fresh produce. Eventually the British and the Italians came to work well together in Libya and over Libya. Ref. |