The claims of Italy over Libya dated back to verbal discussions after the Congress of Berlin (1878), in which France and Great Britain had agreed for the occupation of Tunisia and Cyprus respectively, both part of the then-ailing Ottoman Empire.

However, the Italian government did little to put in practice the opportunity, and knowledge of the Libyan territory and resources remained scarce in the following years.

The CUP, through the Austrian intermediation, replied with the proposal of handing over control over Libya without warring, maintaining a merely formal Ottoman suzerainty.

The defense of Libya would be hastily prepared and fall on the shoulders of the indigenous population with a few hundred Ottoman officers providing leadership and guidance from 1911.

The first disembarkment of troops happened on 10 October, under the command of general Carlo Caneva, and soon Tripoli, Benghazi, Derna and Tobruk were occupied.

On November 2 there was a tentative counterattack by the Ottoman forces in the small battle at Tobruk, but even here the city remained under Italian occupation.

The larger Italian fire drove back the Turkish soldiers, who were surrounded by a battalion of Alpini and suffered heavy losses.

The foreign military attaches watching the conflict were amazed to note that General Caneva did not use cavalry in a war zone admirably well-suited to it and how he did not consider requesting reinforcements as soon as possible for his already-small force.

[8] On 1 November, another Italian pilot, Giulio Gavotti, dropped four 1.5 kg bombs on Ain Zara, pulling the pins with his teeth.

Meanwhile, Italy maintained total naval supremacy, and could extend its control to almost all of the 2,000 km of the Libyan coast between January and early August 1912.

To unblock the situation, Italy began operations against the Turkish possessions in the Aegean Sea, after having received approval from the other powers, which were eager to end a war that was lasting much longer than what had been foreseen.

Italy occupied 12 islands in that sea, the Dodecanese, but this raised the ire of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who feared that this could fuel the irredentism of nations such as Serbia and Greece, causing unbalance in the already fragile situation in the Balkans.

The final major military operation that took place during the summer of 1912 was an attack carried out by five Italian torpedo boats in the Dardanelles, on 18 July.

As for Libya itself, the Italian control over much of its territory remained very ineffective until the late 1920s, when forces under Generals Badoglio and Graziani waged punitive pacification campaigns which turned into terrible acts of repression.