Fourth Shore

The Fourth Shore (Italian: Quarta Sponda) or Italian North Africa (Italian: Africa Settentrionale Italiana, ASI) was the name created by Benito Mussolini to refer to the Mediterranean shore of coastal colonial Italian Libya and, during World War II, Italian Tunisia in the fascist-era Kingdom of Italy, during the late Italian colonial period of Libya and the Maghreb.

The term Fourth Shore derives from the geography of Italy, a long and narrow peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean Sea with two principal shorelines, the "First Shore" on the east along the Adriatic Sea and the "Second Shore" on the west along the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Adriatic Sea's opposite Balkan shore, including Dalmatia, Montenegro, and Albania, was planned for Italian expansion as the Third Shore, with Libya on the Mediterranean Sea becoming the fourth.^[1] Thus the Fourth Shore was the southern part of Greater Italy, an early 1940s Fascist project of enlarging Italy's national borders around the Mediterranean.

One of the initial Italian objectives in Libya had been the relief of overpopulation and unemployment in Italy through emigration to the undeveloped colony. With security established, systematic "demographic colonization" was encouraged by Mussolini's government. A project initiated by Libya's governor, Italo Balbo, brought the first 20,000 settlers, the Ventimili, to Libya in a single convoy in October 1938. More settlers followed in 1939, and by 1940 there were approximately 110,000 Italians in Libya, constituting about 12 percent of the total population. Plans envisioned an Italian colony of 500,000 settlers by the 1960s. Libya's best land was allocated to the settlers to be brought under productive cultivation, primarily in olive groves. Settlement was directed by a state corporation, the Libyan Colonization Society, which undertook land reclamation and the building of model villages and offered a grubstake and credit facilities to the settlers it had sponsored.

The Italians made modern medical care available for the first time in Libya, improved sanitary conditions in the towns, and undertook to replenish the herds and flocks that had been depleted during the war.

Libya was predominantly Italianized in the late 1930s and many Italian colonists moved there to populate Italian North Africa. The Italians in Libya numbered 108,419 at the time of the 1939 census (12.37% of the total population). They were concentrated on the Mediterranean coast around the cities of Tripoli (constituting 37% of the city's population) and Benghazi (31% of the city's population). Libya was made an integral part of Italy in 1939 and the local population were granted a form of Italian citizenship.

In November 1942, Allied forces retook Cyrenaica. By February 1943, the last German and Italian soldiers were driven from Libya and the Allies began occupying Libya.

In the early post-war period, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica remained under British administration, while the French controlled Fezzan. In 1944, Emir Idris returned from exile in Cairo but declined to resume permanent residence in Cyrenaica until the 1947 removal of some aspects of foreign control. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy, which hoped to maintain the colony of Tripolitania, (and France, which wanted the Fezzan), relinquished all claims to Libya, which remained united.

Decolonization in Libya fostered an exodus of Italians, especially after Libya became independent in the 1950s. Nearly half of the original Italian colonists who had arrived in 1938 and 1939 left in the late 1940s:^[2] this first wave of refugees moved to Italy and soon most of them emigrated in the early 1950s to the Americas (mainly to Canada, Venezuela, Argentina and the United States) and to western Europe (France, Benelux, etc.).

After several years under British mandate, Libya declared its independence in 1951 as the United Kingdom of Libya (a constitutional, hereditary monarchy under King Idris). Most of the remaining Italian colonial settlers, mainly those in areas away from the main cities, left in 1952. Thousands of Italians remained, primarily farmers and craftsmen, and some attempted participation in the political life of the new Libya.^[3][4] King Idris was a relatively tolerant monarch, and generally treated the Italian population well. In 1964 there were still 27,000 Italians in Libya, of which 24,000 were living in the metropolitan area of Tripoli.

A large community of Italian Tunisians in the French protectorate of Tunisia gained critical economic and social weight in the first half of the 19th century. During the 1920s, Italian fascism initially promoted only the defense of the national and social rights of the Italians in French Tunisia against the attempts at amalgamation made by France.^[5] Mussolini opened some Italian banks in Tunisia such as the Banca Siciliana, Italian newspapers such as L'Unione, and some Italian theaters, cinemas, schools (primary and secondary), and health assistance organizations and hospitals.

In the 1926 census of French Tunisia there were 173,281 Europeans, of which 89,216 were Italians, 71,020 French and 8,396 Maltese.^[6] Regarding this relative majority, Laura Davi wrote in his 1936 Memoires italiennes en Tunisie that "Tunisia is an Italian colony administered by French managers".

However in the late 1930s the ideals of Italian irredentism, the unification of all ethnically Italian peoples, started to appear amongst the Tunisian Italians. As a consequence, mainly after 1938, fascism promoted a moderate form of Italian irredentism for the Italians of Tunisia, based on their right to remain Italians.^[7] The fascist party of Tunisia actively recruited volunteers for wars in Spain, Ethiopia, and other places. They also began promoting the idea of the Fourth Shore, aiming to legitimize wresting Tunisia from French control.

Tunisia was conquered by Italy in November 1942, and due to its large Italian community, it was added to the Fourth Shore.^[8] In the first months of 1943 Italian schools were opened in Tunis and Biserta, while 4000 Italian Tunisians volunteered for the Italian Army.^[9] Some Italian newspapers and magazines that had been closed by the French government in the late 1930s were reopened.^[10] Many Tunisian Arabs and Berbers wanted Tunisia to unite with Italy.^[11]

From December 1942 until February 1943 Tunisia and Libya were under Italian control and administered as Italian North Africa,^[12] but later the Allies conquered Tripolitania and Italian control was reduced to the Tunisian area west of the Mareth Line (where an Axis last stand was fought).

In May 1943, the Allies completed their Tunisian campaign and regained all Tunisian territory for France. The French colonial authorities then closed all Italian schools and newspapers.^[11] Resident Italians with suspected Axis loyalties were surveilled by the French. The Tunisian Italian community began to dissipate. The disappearance was escalated during the process of Tunisian independence from France (1952–1956).^[13]

In the 1946 census the Italians in French Tunisia numbered 84,935, in 1959 there were 51,702, and in 1969 less than 10,000 remained in independent Tunisia. In 2005 there were only 900 Tunisian Italian residents, mainly concentrated in the Tunis metropolitan area.