Desert Conquests: Early British Planning on the Future of the Italian Colonies, June 1940–September 1943
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 50; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00263206.2014.933424
ISSN1743-7881
Autores Tópico(s)World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
ResumoAbstractBased on British archival sources, this article re-examines early British government planning on the future of the Italian colonies during the period of Mussolini's War from June 1940 to September 1943. Notes1. The only recent monographs, based on western archival sources, are my own Cold War in the Desert. Britain, the United States and the Italian Colonies, 1945–1952 (London: Macmillan, 2000) and War and Politics in the Desert (London, 2010). There are earlier such studies by G.L. Rossi, L’Africa Italiana verso L’Independenza, 1941–49 (Rome: Guiffre, 1980), W.R. Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945–51. Arab Nationalism, the United States and Postwar Imperialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), chapter 7 and his ‘Libyan Independence, 1951: The Creation of a Client State’, in P. Gifford and W.R. Louis (eds.), Decolonization and African Independence (London: Yale U.P., 1988); W. Bowring, ‘Great Britain, the United States and the disposition of Italian East Africa’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol.20, No.1 (1992), pp.88–107; and S.L. Bills, The Libyan Arena. The United States, Britain and the Council of Foreign Ministers, 1945–1948 (London: Kent State U.P., 1995). For a study based on Russian Foreign Ministry files see S. Masov, ‘The USSR and the Former Italian Colonies, 1945–50’, Cold War History, Vol.3,No.3 (2003), pp.49–78.2. G.H. Becker, The Disposition of the Italian Colonies (Annemasse: privately printed, 1952), p.231.3. I.M. Lewis, A Modern History of Somalia. Nation and State in the Horn of Africa (Harlow: Longman, 1980), p.125.4. After Italy's conquest of Ethiopia in 1936, its older colonies of Eritrea (1890) and Somalia (1905) were incorporated into a unified structure under a viceroy, who resided in Addis Ababa.5. Sayyid Idris (head of the puritanical Sufi order of the Sanusiyya, and the leader of the Sanusi tribes of Cyrenaica), had fled to Egypt following the outbreak of the second Italo-Sanusi war in 1923 (the first war erupted after the Italian invasion of Libya in 1911 and was brought to an inconclusive end by the Bu Maryam Agreement of 1917). Following the Italian ‘pacification’ of Cyrenaica in 1932, he was joined by the surviving Sanusi shaikhs. The British military authorities had planned to use these exiles to help foment revolt in Libya in the event of war with Italy. But the actual initiative in the formation of this force had been taken by Sayyid Idris and the exiled Sanusi shaikhs themselves; see M. Khadduri, Modern Libya. A Study in Political Development (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins U.P., 1963), pp.29–33; The National Archives (TNA), Kew, Foreign Office: General Correspondence: Political, FO 371/24644/J1830/281/66, Lampson to Halifax, 23 Aug. 1940 and 14 Oct. 1940; TNA, War Office, War of 1939 to 1945, Military Headquarters Papers: Middle East Forces, WO 201/336, WO to GHQ, ME, 5 July 1940 and 8 July 1940.6. J. Connell, Wavell: Scholar and Soldier, to June 1941 (London: Collins, 1964), pp.358–63; FO 371/24645/J2211/2211/66, Beaumont-Nesbitt to Norton, 21 Nov. 1940.7. FO 371/24645/J2211/2211/66, Dixon and Nichol minutes, 2 Dec. 1940.8. Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, House of Commons, Vol.367, col.128.9. FO 371/25645/J2211/2211/66, Thompson to Beaumont-Nesbitt, 17 Dec. 1940.10. FO 371/24645/J2211/2211/66, Beaumont-Nesbitt to Norton 21 Nov. 1940; Rossi, L’Africa Italiana verso L’Independenza, pp.17–18.11. FO 371/24644/J1830/281/66, Morton to Hopkinson, 22 Aug. 1940, etc.FO 371/24645/J2211/2211/66, Norton minute, 30 Nov. 1940, Thompson to Beaumont-Nesbitt, 17 Dec. 1940.12. TNA, Cabinet Office, War Cabinet Memoranda, CAB 66/14/WP (41)5, 7 Jan. 1941; TNA, Cabinet Office, War Cabinet Minutes, CAB 65/17/WM 5(41)6, 13 Jan. 1941.13. These are glossed over in the semi-official history by Lord Rennell of Rodd, British Military Administration of Occupied Territories in Africa during the Years 1941–1947 (London: HMSO, 1948), pp.20–24, and neglected by Rossi, L’Africa Italiana verso L’Independenza, chapter 1; CAB 66/14/WP (G) (41)20, 11 Feb. 1941, WP (G) (41) 21, 1914. Rennell, British Military Administration, pp.34–9; C.C. Segre, Fourth Shore: The Italian Colonization of Libya (London: University of Chicago Press, 1974), p.167; Middle East Centre, St Antony's College, Oxford, (hereafter MEC) Longrigg Papers: ‘First Quarterly Report … On Cyrenaica’; FO 371/27571/J3102/143/66, Bateman minute, 11 March 1931.15. R. Lamb, The Ghosts of Peace, 1935–1945 (Salisbury: Michael Russell, 1987), p.179; for discussion of Free Italian Colony see FO 371/27571/27573/29924/29936/29958; CAB 66/15/WP (41) 51; CAB 65/17/WM 17 (41) 1, WM 19 (41)12, CAB 65/18/WM 28 (41) 11; MEC, Killearn Diaries (MS), 26 March 1941.16. Lamb, The Ghosts of Peace, p.153; FO 371/27454/J153/153/16, Lampson to FO, 23 Jan. 1941, FO to Lampson, 20 March 1941; FO 371/27573/J368/527/1011/368/66; Killearn Diaries (MS), 3, 7, 29 Feb. 1941; FO 371/27460/J220/220/16, Woolley to Seymour, 6 Feb. 1941.17. FO 371/27573/J874/368/66, Killearn Diaries (MS), 26 Feb. 1941., Baring minute, 11 April 1941; Killearn Diaries (MS), 26 Feb. 1941.18. This was the old colony of Eritrea. The Tigrinya-speakers south of the Mareb and Belesa rivers and the ‘Afar in the lowlands north of the Awash, which were included within Eritrea after the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-6, were returned to Ethiopia in 1941 and 1944 respectively.19. After the rallying of Djibouti to the Free French in December 1942, the British returned the northern part of the belt of Ethiopian territory, from the Ethiopian frontier with Eritrea to the southern shore of Lake Abde, to Ethiopia. They refused, however, to relinquish control of the Franco-Ethiopian railway, or to see Ethiopian rule restored over the north-east part of Harar Province, where the British Somali tribes had their grazing grounds.20. H.G. Marcus, Ethiopia, Great Britain and the United States, 1941–1974 (London: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 9–12; Rennell, British Military Administration, pp.73–4, 141–7; Great Britain, Foreign Office: Agreement and Military Convention between the United Kingdom and Ethiopia … January 31, 1942, Cmd. 6334 (London: HMSO, 1942).21. CAB 66/16/WP (41) 124, 6 June 1941; CAB 65/18/W.M. 58 (41) 4, 9 June 1941; Bodleian Library, Rhodes House, Oxford, Mitchell Diaries (MS), 9 June 1941; FO 371/27532/J508/1196/508/1; FO 371/27524/J3882/15/1, Ethiopian Committee minutes, 21 Nov. 1941; FO371/27525/J4109/4112/15/1; FO 371/50788/U2619/51/70, Mitchell memo., undated.22. The indigenous population of the old colony of Eritrea in 1943 numbered some 760,000, divided approximately equally between Coptic Christians on the Central Plateau around Asmara, and Muslims in the Western Province and Eastern Lowlands: see S. H. Longrigg, A Short History of Eritrea (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945), appendix C, p.178.23. G.K.N. Trevaskis, Eritrea. A Colony in Transition: 1941–1952 (London: RIIA, 1960), pp.18–24, 36–43; Rennell, British Military Administration, pp.97–140; Marcus, Ethiopia, p.12.24. Apart from being the ‘custodian of Abyssinian tradition’, the Coptic Church sought the return of its extensive landed estates, which had been expropriated by the Italian government and which the British refused to return, pending the peace treaty with Italy. Moreover, the Abuna Marqos had co-operated with the Italians and had been consecrated by an Italian puppet Archbishop, the Abuna Abraham, and had every reason to be zealous in the Ethiopian cause if he were to retain his see. Trevaskis, Eritrea, pp.29–36, 46–60.25. FO 371/31608/J2807/2807/1, Howe to Eden, 29 May 1942, Eden to Howe, 27 June 1942; S. Pankhurst, British Policy in Eritrea and Northern Ethiopia (Woodford Green, Essex: ‘New Times & Ethiopia News’ Books, 1945), pp.2, 10–21; Trevaskis, Eritrea, pp.57–62, 70; L. Ellingson, ‘The Emergence of Political Parties in Eritrea, 1941–1950’, Journal of African History, Vol.18, No.2 (1977), p.261.26. Lewis, A Modern History of Somalia, pp.117–19; Rennell, British Military Administration, pp.50–55, 157–60.27. Lewis, A Modern History of Somalia, pp.119–22; Rennell, British Military Administration, pp.182, 487–8.28. The idea of creating a ‘Greater Somali’ had first been mooted in 1941 by Major Erskine and Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton (two anti-Amhara officers who had been involved in fomenting revolt in Italian East Africa) and Major-General Sir Philip Mitchell. FO 371/27576/J1167/2626/964/66; FO 371/50788/U2619/51/70, Mitchell memo, undated.29. For discussion of future of Eritrea and Somalis see TNA, Colonial Office, Africa Original Correspondence, CO 847/22/20; Mackereth to Lloyd, 19 Dec. 1941; FO 371/31597/J365/1530/2843/3017/3467/66/1; TNA, Colonial Office, Somaliland Original Correspondence, CO 535/138/46219/1942, Beckett to Glenday, 30 March 1942 etc.; K.D.D. Henderson, The Making of the Modern Sudan (London: Faber, 1953), p.267,30. Khadduri, Modern Libya, pp.34–5; FO 371/27573/J2841/4031/4103/368/66.31. Rossi, L’Africa Italiana verso L’Independenza, p.32; FO 371/27573/J2841/386/66, Lyttelton memo. ‘The Sanusis’, 21 Aug. 1941; CAB 66/19/WP (41) 232, 4 Nov. 1941; CAB 65/19/WM 100 (41) 8, 6 Oct. 1941,32. Parl.Debs.,5th ser.,HofC, Vol.377, Cols 77–78.33. Khadduri, Modern Libya, pp.34–7; Parl. Debs., 5th ser. H. of C., vol.377, cols.77–8; for debate between Cairo and London on the wording of the declaration see FO 371/33226/R357/96/22.34. R. Casey, Personal Experience 1939–46 (London: Constable, 1962), pp.112–13; E.A.V. De Candole, The Life and Times of King Idris (London: privately published, 1988), pp.63–4; TNA, Air Ministry, Overseas Commands, AIR 23/1298, MEWC (42) 24, 12 May 1942, MEWC (42) 12th Mtg., Item 6, 13 May 1942, 13th Mtg. Item 5, 27 May 1942.35. Rossi, L’Africa Italiana verso L’Independenza, p.29; AIR 23/1298, MEWC (42) 12th Mtg., Item 3, 13 May 1942, 13th Mtg., Item 4, 27 May 1942; TNA, War Office, British Military Administration of African Territories, WO 230/88, Report by the Chief Political Officer of 17th of August 1942 on the Work of the Political Branch, G.H.Q., M.E.F., and the O.T.A. of Cyrenaica and Eritrea to 30 June 1942, enclosures 3 and 4; TNA, Foreign Office Administration of African Territories, FO 1015/71, Rucker to Eden, 26 May 1942, extract from MEWC (42) 21, 9 May 1942.36. During the winter of 1942/43 it was decided to adopt a uniform nomenclature for the military government of occupied territories which could be used by both the British Eighth Army and General Eisenhower's armies in French North Africa. The term ‘Civil Affairs’ was adopted and as a result the ‘Political Branches’ (e.g. in Cairo) became ‘Civil Affairs Branches’, the ‘Chief Political Officer’ became ‘Chief Civil Affairs Officer’, etc. The old terms continued to be used, however, until the spring of 1943 in correspondence between Cairo and London. Rennell, British Military Administration, pp.250–51, 317–18.37. Rennell, British Military Administration, pp.251–7; Segre, Fourth Shore, pp.167–8; Khadduri, Modern Libya, p.45; FO 1015/71, Home to WO, 27 Dec. 1942 etc.; FO 371/35660/J343/73/66, French to Mackereth, 17 Jan. 1943 etc.; FO 371/31587/J3736/5145/1528/16; WO 230/1, Hone to Cumming, 1 Dec. 1942 etc.38. See FO 1015/74, minute for VCIGS, 28 Sept. 1942; FO 371/32146/Z10201/10217/8325/17; FO 371/32147/Z10285/8325/17; United States National Archives (USNA), Record Group 59, State Department Decimal Files (hereafter RG59/SDDF) 1940-44, Box 5059, 865C.01/13, Leahy (for JCS) to Hull, 10 Dec. 1942, etc.39. TNA, War Office, Private Office Papers: Permanent-Under-Secretary, WO 258/34, Alexander to Grigg, 8 Jan. 1943, Hone to Kennedy, 9 Jan. 1943; FO 1015/71, WO to Hone, 9 Jan. 1943; CAB 66/34/W.P. (43) 84, 24 Feb. 1943; CAB 65/33/W.M. (43) 36, 1 March 1943.40. The majority of the native population of some 650,000 were of Berber origin, and 23 per cent of them were still Berber-speaking. A large proportion of the Italian population of Tripolitania had not been evacuated, some 50,000 remaining (including 18,000 in Tripoli City) out of a pre-war total of 90,000. There was a long-established Jewish community of about 26,000 concentrated mostly in Tripoli and Garian. Rennell, British Military Administration, pp.266–7, 284.41. Rennell, British Military Administration, pp.284–9, 466.42. FO 371/35660/J1196/73/66, Bovenschen to Cadogan, 10 Feb. 1943 etc.; FO 371/35661/J3346/3582/4019/4276/73/66; FO 371/35666/J440/440/66, Lampson to Eden, 11 Jan. 1943 etc.; FO 371/41511/J9/16, Anderson to FO, 17 Dec. 1943; T.G. Evans (ed.). The Killearn Diaries, 1934–1946 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1972), pp.245–6.43. FO 1015/72, Lush to Hone, 12 Jan. 1943, etc.; FO 1015/74, Nye minute, 1 Dec. 1942, etc.; FO 371/31987/Z10932/10934/221/17; FO 371/36039/Z1313/1460/1516/3782/4380/95/17; C. de Gaulle, Memoir de Guerre, l’Appel, 1940–42 (Paris: Plon, 1954), pp.249–51, L’Unite, 1942–1944 (Paris: Plon, 1956), pp.29–30, 63, 423; Lettres, Notes et Carnets, Juillet 1941–Mai 1943 (Paris: Plon, 1982), pp.401–3, 510; F. Kersaudy, Churchill and De Gaulle (London: Fontana, 1981), pp.216–17, 223–30; R.T. Thomas, Britain and Vichy. The Dilemma of Anglo-French Relations, 1940–42 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1979), pp.140–41; S. Kelly, ‘“Ce Fruit Savoureux de Desert”: Britain, France and the Fezzan, 1941–56’, The Maghreb Review, Vol.26, No.1 (2001), pp.2–21.44. Kersaudy, Churchill and De Gaulle, pp.283–84; Nuffield College, Oxford, Rennell Papers, MS. Rennell I, MS. Rennell 4, Chapter XII, p.30–31; G.E. Kirk, The Middle East in the War (London, 1953), pp.401–2; J. Wright, Libya. A Modern History (London: Croom Helm, 1981), pp.49–50; United Nations General Assembly. General A/1387, 22 Sept. 1950, pp.9–16; FO 1015/72, CCAO memo, 17 May 1943 etc.; FO 371/50792/U7102/51/70, Reid to FO, 11 Sept. 1943; FO 371/69406/J1052/277/66, FORD memo, ‘The Fezzan’, 12 Feb. 1948.45. W.R. Louis, Imperialism at Bay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp.64–5; FO 371/35414/U1860/682/70, Hood minute, 4 May 1943.46. FO 371/35414/U3575/682/70, Hood minute, 11 Aug. 1943, Mackereth minute, 16 Aug. 1943.47. Ibid.; FO 371/35407/U516/516/70, MSC/53 (Revise), 22 June 1943, ‘Record of the Meeting at the Foreign Office on 23 June, 29 June 1943; TNA, Cabinet Office, Joint Planning Staff: Files, CAB 119/65, JP (42) 1025, 20 Dec.xiii.42; J. Kent, British Imperial Strategy and the Origins of the Cold War, 1944–49 (Leicester: LEP, 1993), pp.12–13.48. FO 371/35414/U3575/682/70, Hood minute, 11 Aug. 1943; Louis, Imperialism, p.67.49. For the development of U.S State Department thinking on trusteeship, see H.A. Notter, Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, 1939–1945 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1949), and US National Archives (USNA), College Park, Maryland, RG 59/Lot 60D 224, Records of Harley A. Notter, 1939–1945, especially Boxes 54–6, 59–63, and 76, 79, and 85 which contain material on Italian Colonies.50. Kent, British Imperial Strategy, p.10; Louis, Imperialism, pp.214–16, 219, 227–9, 251, 258, 276.51. FO 371/36714/W7091/1731/48, Casey to FO, 8 May 1943, etc.; CAB 66/36/W.P. (43) 193, 4 May 1943; WO 230/168, Hone to French, 28 May 1943, etc.; FO 371/33500/E1286/148/93, Baxter to Under-Secretary of State for Air, 3 April 1943; FO 371/45288/E1270/3870/5098/78/93.52. Louis, Imperialism, pp.60–62; CAB 66/36/W.P. (43) 178, 28,iv.43; TNA, Prime Minister's Office: Confidential Papers: PREM 4/52/1, Amery to Churchill, 29 April 1943; PREM 4/52/5/Pt.2/W.P. (43) 337, 26 July 1943; TNA, Cabinet Office, War Cabinet Committees on the Middle East and Africa: CAB 95/14/P (M) (43) 29, 20 Dec. 1943; FO 371/36714/W14309/15550/1731/48; see also S. Kelly, ‘“Annexes au foyer national juif en Palestine.” Churchill, Roosevelt et la question des colonies de peuplement juives en Libye et en Erytree (1943–1944)’, Maghreb-Machrek, No.204 (Summer 2010) , pp.67–84.53. TNA, Prime Minister's Office: Operations Papers: PREM 3/247, Eden to Churchill, 21 Sept. 1943; texts of the armistice may be found in Great Britain, Foreign Office, Documents Relating to the Conditions of an Armistice with Italy (September–November 1943), Cmd. 6693 (London: HMSO, 1945); Rossi, L’Africa Italiana verso L’Independenza, pp.43–4.54. Parl. Debs, 5th ser., H. of C., Vol.399, col.102.55. Kirk, The Middle East in the War, p.403; Rossi, L’Africa Italiana verso L’Independenza, pp.47-8; FO 371/37257/R11872/131/22, Makins to Dixon, 11 Nov. 1943; de Gaulle, L’Unite, p.193; FO 371/36105/Z10848/10848/17, Makins to FO, 18 Oct. 1943.56. Rossi, L’Africa Italiana verso L’Independenza, p.4.57. Kent, British Imperial Strategy, p.11.58. For the next stage of this question, see S. Kelly, ‘The Colonial versus the Anti-Colonial: The Failure of Anglo-American Planning on the Future of the Italian Colonies, September 1943–June 1945’, in C. Baxter, M.K. Dockrill and K. Hamilton, Britain in Global Politics. Vol.1 From Gladstone to Churchill (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013), pp.261–81; also S. Kelly, ‘Britain, Libya and the Start of the Cold War’, The Maghreb Review, Vol.31, Nos.1–2 (2006), pp.42–61.
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