Italian dirigibles bomb Turkish positions in Libya. The Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912 was the first in history in which air attacks (carried out here by dirigible airships) determined the outcome.Turkish and Italian delegations in Lausanne (1912). From left to right (seating): Pietro Bertolini, Mehmet Nabi Bey, Guido Fusinato, Rumbeyoğlu Fahreddin Bey, and Giuseppe Volpi.
The Italo-Turkish War between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire over Italian claims in Libya is ongoing. While Italian conscripts faced death in the Libyan desert, a new electoral law grants almost universal male suffrage; the electorate, below 3 million in 1909, rises to nearly 8.5 million.[1]
February 24 – Battle of Beirut: Italy launches a surprise attack on the Ottoman port of Beirut; the cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi and the gunboat Volturno bombard the harbour, killing 97 sailors and civilians. As a result of the battle all Ottoman naval forces in the region were annihilated, thus ensuring the approaches to the Suez Canal were open to the Italians. The Ottoman naval presence at Beirut was completely annihilated and casualties on the Ottoman side were heavy. The Italian navy gained complete naval dominance of the southern Mediterranean for the rest of the war.
March 6 – Italian forces are the first to use airships in war, as two dirigibles drop bombs on Turkish troops encamped at Janzur in north-western Libya, from an altitude of 6,000 feet.[2] Although Italy could extend its control to almost all of the 2,000 km of the Libyan coast between April and early August 1912, its ground forces could not venture beyond the protection of the navy's guns and were thus limited to a thin coastal strip.
July 12 – The Viterbo Trial against the Camorra reaches a verdict. After often tumultuous 17 months, the 47 defendants that included 27 leading Camorra associates were sentenced to a total of 354 years' imprisonment. Enrico Alfano, the main defendant and alleged head of the Camorra, was sentenced to 30 years.[3][4]
October 18 – With the Treaty of Lausanne in Ouchy near Lausanne the Italo-Turkish War ends. The war costs Italy 1.3 billion lire, nearly a billion more than Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti estimated before the war, ruining ten years of fiscal prudence.[5] Italy obtains control over the colonies of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, as well as the Dodecanese islands. After the withdrawal of the Ottoman army the Italians could easily extend their occupation of Libya, seizing East Tripolitania, Ghadames, the Djebel and Fezzan with Murzuk during 1913.
November 20 – The Ministry of the Colonies is established to govern the country's colonial possessions and the direction of their economies.
December 1 – Benito Mussolini, one of the leaders of the extreme left majority of the Italian Socialist Party, assumes the direction of party newspaper Avanti!.[6]
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