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
Cuocolo 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]