Archeology was another important feature of the Italian presence in Tripolitania, as they focused efforts in excavations in old Roman cities.

Despite a major revolt by the Arabs, the Ottoman sultan ceded Libya to the Italians by signing the 1912 Treaty of Lausanne.

After the Italian army invaded Cyrenaica in 1913 as part of their invasion of Libya, the Senussi Order fought back against them.

[5][full citation needed] Pressured to do so by the Ottoman Empire, Ahmed had pursued armed attacks against British military forces stationed in neighbouring Egypt.

[5][full citation needed] Instead he established a tacit alliance with the British, which would last for half a century and accord his Order de facto diplomatic status.

[5] At the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire signed an armistice agreement in which they ceded their claims over Libya to Italy.

[8] Italy however was facing serious economic, social, and political problems domestically, and was not prepared to re-launch its military activities in Libya.

These brought about a compromise by which all Libyans were accorded the right to a joint Libyan-Italian citizenship while each province was to have its own parliament and governing council.

[8] The Senussi were largely happy with this arrangement and Idris visited Rome as part of the celebrations to mark the promulgation of the settlement.

As part of the Accord he was given a monthly stipend by the Italian government, who agreed to take responsibility for policing and administration of areas under Senussi control.

[8] The Accord also stipulated that Idris must fulfill the requirements of the Legge Fondamentale by disbanding the Cyrenaican military units, however he did not comply with this.

Doing so would contravene the al-Rajma Agreement and would damage relations with the Italian government, who opposed the political unification of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania as being against their interests.

[9] Following the agreement, Idris feared that Italy — under its new Fascist leader Benito Mussolini—would militarily retaliate against the Senussi Order, and so he went into exile in Egypt in December 1922.

Badoglio's successor in the field, General Rodolfo Graziani, accepted the commission from Mussolini on the condition that he was allowed to crush Libyan resistance unencumbered by the restraints of either Italian or international law.

Beginning in the first days of Italian colonization, Omar Mukhtar, a Senussi sheikh, organized and, for nearly twenty years, led Libyan resistance efforts.

The Italian Fascist Party came to power in 1922, it was agreed that fraternising with local Libyan Leaders was a failure of the previous colonial practice.

Benito Mussolini gave General Rodolfo Graziani responsibility for the pacification of Libya, due to previous success in the reoccupation of Tripolitania and Fezzan.

Arab nationalism was trending, and after several attempts at regaining power in Tripolitania Al-Suwayhil was able to create the Tripolitanian Republic in 1918 with Ahmad Al-Murayyid of Tarhuna, Abd Al-Nabi Bilkhayr of Warfalla, Sulayman Al-Baruni.

[14] Al-Suwayhil's advisor was also Abd al-Rahman Azzam Bey, an Egyptian nationalist, who later became the first secretary general of the Arab League.

[14]The Tripolitanian Republic shortly failed after disagreements among rival factions and Italian pressures, however, it showed the first attempt at a republican government in the Arab world as well as the impact of resistance.

[15] The resistance came to a stop with Umar Al-Mukhtar's capture on the 11th of September 1931, his trial ran personally by General Rodolfo Graziani.

[13] Various scholars agree that the origins of the recent regional conflicts and animosities in Libya between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica can be found in the Italian administration.

[18][13][19] The legacy of Italian colonisation has led to significant anti-western sentiments across Tripolitania and all of Libya which, some scholars argue, were crucial for Gaddafi's legitimacy.

[19][18] Ahmida states that the "pan-Islamic culture" and anti-western nature of Gaddafi's revolution in Libya can be found in the Tripolitanian Republic, which formed in order to declare independence from the Italian colonists.

[19] This anti-western sentiment, according to Ahmida, is passed down through generations across Libya with tales of the hardship and suffering endured during colonisation.

[19] In Italy the legacy of the colonisation of Tripolitania is less felt by the public, due to a phenomenon labelled "colonial amnesia".

[20][21] According to Visconti, the extent of the Italian public's understanding of colonisation in Tripolitania and the rest of Libya is either nothing at all, or that they "made the desert bloom" with their various infrastructure projects.

[26] This same letter describes how some requested the Italian government to send family members back to Tripolitania from Italy as they were split up during the war evacuations.