Italian-Turkish War, Italian prewar uniforms: light cavalry, infantry and horse artillery (XX0102)

The Italo-Turkish War, 1911-12

Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire in September 1911 and landed in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica the following month. The war lasted just over a year, ended with the Ottoman cession of the territory that Italy would administer as Libya, and is remembered chiefly for a series of technical firsts rather than for its scale.

The First Air War

On 23 October 1911 Captain Carlo Piazza flew a reconnaissance sortie over Ottoman positions near Tripoli — the first use of an aircraft in war. On 1 November Giulio Gavotti dropped four grenades from a monoplane, the first aerial bombardment in history. The campaign also saw early use of the airship for reconnaissance and of aerial photography for mapping enemy positions.

The Course of the War

Italian forces took the coastal cities quickly, but found that control of the coast did not extend inland. Ottoman regulars withdrew and continued the war alongside Senussi forces, and Italy responded by extending the conflict to the Aegean, occupying Rhodes and the Dodecanese in 1912 and sending naval forces to the Dardanelles. The Ottoman government came to terms in October 1912 largely because the Balkan League had just declared war on it.

What It Set in Motion

The Ottoman defeat encouraged the Balkan states to attack, opening the First Balkan War within days of the peace — one link in the chain leading to 1914. Italian control of the Libyan interior was not established for another two decades, through a long counter-insurgency campaign that continued into the 1930s.

Giuseppe Rava’s Original Work

Giuseppe Rava reconstructs the Italian soldier of 1911-12 from surviving uniforms and photographs: the pre-war grey-green uniform introduced in 1909, the Carcano rifle, the colonial equipment adopted for the campaign, and the transitional appearance of an army about to enter the industrial war of 1915.

This is a limited edition fine art print, hand-signed by the artist, produced in SRA3 format on fine art paper. Ships worldwide.