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Battle Of Kufra (1941)
The Capture of Kufra (, it, Cufra) was part of the Allied Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War. Kufra is a group of oases in the Kufra District of south-eastern Cyrenaica in the Libyan Desert. In 1940, it was part of the colony of Italian Libya , which was part of (ASI), which had been established in 1934. With some early assistance from the British Long Range Desert Group, Kufra was besieged from 31 January to 1 March 1941 by Free French forces which forced the surrender of the Italian and Libyan garrison. Background Kufra, in the Libyan Desert subregion of the Sahara, was an important trade and travel centre for the nomadic desert peoples of the region, including Berbers and Senussi. The Senussi made the oasis their capital at one point against British, Italian and French designs on the region. In 1931, the Kingdom of Italy captured Kufra and incorporated it into the Italian North Africa () colonisation of the Maghreb. The Italian post at Kufra included t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Compass
Operation Compass (also it, Battaglia della Marmarica) was the first large British military operation of the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) during the Second World War. British, Empire and Commonwealth forces attacked Italian forces of the 10th Army (Marshal Rodolfo Graziani) in western Egypt and Cyrenaica, the eastern province of Libya, from December 1940 to February 1941. The Western Desert Force (WDF) ( Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor) with about advanced from Mersa Matruh in Egypt on a five-day raid against the Italian positions of the 10th Army, which had about in fortified posts around Sidi Barrani in Egypt and in Cyrenaica. The WDF swiftly defeated the Italians in their fortified posts and at Sidi Barrani and then exploited the success, forcing the rest of the 10th Army out of Egypt and capturing the ports along the Libyan coast. The 10th Army was cut off as it retreated towards Tripolitania and defeated at the Battle of Beda Fomm, the remnants being pursue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between longitudes E16 and E25, including the Kufra District. The coastal region, also known as '' Pentapolis'' ("Five Cities") in antiquity, was part of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica, later divided into ''Libya Pentapolis'' and ''Libya Sicca''. During the Islamic period, the area came to be known as ''Barqa'', after the city of Barca. Cyrenaica became an Italian colony in 1911. After the 1934 formation of Libya, the Cyrenaica province was designated as one of the three primary provinces of the country. During World War II, it fell under British military and civil administration from 1943 until 1951, and finally in the Kingdom of Libya from 1951 until 1963. The region that used to be Cyrenaica officially until 1963 has formed seve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El Tag
El Tag (; also ''Al-Tag'', ''Al-Taj'') is a village and holy site in the Kufra Oasis, within the Libyan Desert subregion of the Sahara. It is in the Kufra District in the southern Cyrenaica region of southeastern Libya. The Arabic ''el tag'' translates as "crown" in English, and derives from the position above the Kufra basin.Bertarelli (1929), p. 515. El Tag, being on a rise, is without an oasis spring and native date palm habitat. Senussi El-Tag was founded in 1895 by Muhammad El-Mahdi es-Senussi (1844–1902), after the Ottomans forced him and the Senussi Order from Jaghbub in the Cyrenaican desert to Kufra. He was the son of the founder and the supreme leader (1859-1902) of the Order. El-Mahdi founded a Zaouia (''madrassa''—school) with a mosque a low octagonal minaret tower here. He also built several tombs of the Senussi family here, which later included his own therefore making El-Tag a Senussi holy place. Italians and World War II During the colonial Italian Libya per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian East Africa
Italian East Africa ( it, Africa Orientale Italiana, AOI) was an Italian colony in the Horn of Africa. It was formed in 1936 through the merger of Italian Somalia, Italian Eritrea, and the newly occupied Ethiopian Empire, conquered in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Italian East Africa was divided into six governorates. Eritrea and Somalia, Italian possessions since the 1880s, were enlarged with captured Ethiopian territory and became the Eritrea and Somalia Governorates. The remainder of "Italian Ethiopia" consisted the Harar, Galla-Sidamo, Amhara, and Scioa Governorates. Fascist colonial policy had a divide and conquer characteristic, and favoured the Oromos, the Somalis and other Muslims in an attempt to weaken their ties to the Amharas who had been the ruling ethnic group in the Ethiopian Empire. During the Second World War, Italian East Africa was occupied by a British-led force including colonial units and Ethiopian guerrillas in November 1941. After the war, I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kufra Airport
Kufra Airport is an airport serving Al Jawf, capital of the Kufra District in southeastern Libya. The airport is just east of the city. History Kufra Airport began as Buma Airfield, built in the 1930s as a minor facility by the Italians. In early World War II, it provided an air link to Italian East Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland). It was captured by Free French units under General Leclerc on 1 March 1941 along with Kufra Oasis. In April 1942 a detachment of Squadron 16 of the South African Air Force with three Bristol Blenheim Mk. IV aircraft was ordered to Kufra under the command of Major J.L.V. de Wet to strengthen the garrison air defences. On the morning of 4 May 1942 the three aircraft took off on a familiarization mission. They became lost and landed about 150 kilometres North East of Kufra. A sandstorm thwarted ground and air search parties, and by the time the lost aircraft were located on 11 May only one of the total 12-man crew was alive. On 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, Libya, Mauritania (also considered part of West Africa), Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb also includes the disputed territory of Western Sahara (controlled mostly by Morocco and partly by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) and the Spanish cities Ceuta and Melilla.Article 143. As of 2018, the region had a population of over 100 million people. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, English sources often referred to the region as the Barbary Coast or the Barbary States, a term derived from the demonym of the Berbers. Sometimes, the region is referred to as the Land of the Atlas, referring to the Atlas Mountains, which are located within it. The Maghreb is usually defined as encompassing much of the northern part of Africa, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Septentrional
Septentrional, meaning "of the north", is a Latinate adjective sometimes used in English. It is a form of the Latin noun ''septentriones'', which refers to the seven stars of the ''Plough'' (Big Dipper), occasionally called the ''Septentrion''. In the 18th century, septentrional languages was a recognised term for the Germanic languages. Etymology and background The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' gives the etymology of ''septentrional'' as: "Septentrional" is more or less synonymous with the term "boreal", derived from Boreas, a Greek god of the North Wind. The constellation Ursa Major, containing the Big Dipper, or Plough, dominates the skies of the North. The usual antonym for ''septentrional'' is the term '' meridional'', which refers to the noonday sun. Usage The term ''septentrional'' is found on maps, mostly those made before 1700. Early maps of North America often refer to the northern- and northwesternmost unexplored areas of the continent as at the "Septentriona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian North Africa
Libya ( it, Libia; ar, ليبيا, Lībyā al-Īṭālīya) was a colony of the Fascist Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania, which had been Italian possessions since 1911. From 1911 until the establishment of a unified colony in 1934, the territory of the two colonies was sometimes referred to as "Italian Libya" or Italian North Africa (''Africa Settentrionale Italiana'', or ASI). Both names were also used after the unification, with Italian Libya becoming the official name of the newly combined colony. It had a population of around 150,000 Italians. The Italian colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were taken by Italy from the Ottoman Empire during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, and run by Italian governors. In 1923, indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order organized the Libyan resistance movement against Italian sett ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to an 1946 Italian institutional referendum, institutional referendum to abandon the monarchy and form the modern Italy, Italian Republic. The state resulted from a decades-long process, the ''Italian unification, Risorgimento'', of consolidating the different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single state. That process was influenced by the House of Savoy, Savoy-led Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered Italy's legal Succession of states, predecessor state. Italy Third Italian War of Independence, declared war on Austrian Empire, Austria in alliance with Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia in 1866 and received the region of Veneto following their victory. Italian troops Capture of Rome, entered Rome in 1870, ending Papal States, more tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France during World War II led to the formation of the Vichy government. The early days of the Third Republic were dominated by political disruptions caused by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, which the Republic continued to wage after the fall of Emperor Napoleon III in 1870. Harsh reparations exacted by the Prussians after the war resulted in the loss of the French regions of Alsace (keeping the Territoire de Belfort) and Lorraine (the northeastern part, i.e. present-day department of Moselle), social upheaval, and the establishment of the Paris Commune. The early governments of the Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but disagreement as to the nature of that monarchy and the rightful occ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Senussi
The Senusiyya, Senussi or Sanusi ( ar, السنوسية ''as-Sanūssiyya'') are a Muslim political-religious tariqa (Sufi order) and clan in colonial Libya and the Sudan region founded in Mecca in 1837 by the Grand Senussi ( ar, السنوسي الكبير ''as-Sanūssiyy al-Kabīr''), the Algerian Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi. Senussi was concerned with what he saw as both the decline of Islamic thought and spirituality and the weakening of Muslim political integrity. The movement promoted strict adherence to Qur'an and Sunna, without partisanship to the traditional legal schools of thought. It also sought a reformation of Sufism, condemning various practices such as seeking help from the dead, sacrificing for them and other rituals which they considered to be superstitions and innovations. From 1902 to 1913, the Senussi fought French colonial expansion in the Sahara and the Kingdom of Italy's colonisation of Libya beginning in 1911. In World War I, they fought the Senussi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berbers
, image = File:Berber_flag.svg , caption = The Berber ethnic flag , population = 36 million , region1 = Morocco , pop1 = 14 million to 18 million , region2 = Algeria , pop2 = 9 million to ~13 million , region3 = Mauritania , pop3 = 2.9 million , region4 = Niger , pop4 = 2.6 million, Niger: 11% of 23.6 million , region5 = France , pop5 = 2 million , region6 = Mali , pop6 = 850,000 , region7 = Libya , pop7 = 600,000 , region8 = Belgium , pop8 = 500,000 (including descendants) , region9 = Netherlands , pop9 = 467,455 (including descendants) , region10 = Burkina Faso , pop10 = 406,271, Burkina Faso: 1.9% of 21.4 million , region11 = Egypt , pop11 = 23,000 or 1,826,580 , region12 = Tunisia , pop12 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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