Allied Military Administration (Libya)

Allied administration of Libya
Occupazione alleata della Libia (in Italian) احتلال الحلفاء لليبيا (in Arabic)
Military Administration
1942–1951
Flag
The three regions of Libya during the Allied occupation: Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were British-administered, while Fezzan was French
Capital		Tripoli
Languages		English, French, Italian, Arabic
Political structure		Military Administration
History
•	British occupation of Cyrenaica	1942
•	French occupation of Fezzan	1943
•	became the Kingdom of Libya	24 December 1951
Currency		Algerian franc (Fezzan-Ghadames) Egyptian pound (Cyrenaica) Military Authority Lira (Tripolitania)
Preceded by Succeeded by Italian Libya Emirate of Cyrenaica Kingdom of Libya

The Allied administration of Libya was the control of the ex-Italian colony of Libya by the Allies from 1943 until Libyan independence was granted in 1951. It was divided into the following:

The Allied administration was done by the United Kingdom in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, and by France in Fezzan. Officially Libya remained "Italian Libya" until February 1947, when Italy signed the Peace Treaty losing all the colonies and possessions of the defeated former Italian Empire.

The British administered it as the British Military Administration of Libya.

The French forces occupied the area that was the former Italian Territorio Sahara Libico and made several requests to annex administratively their Fezzan to the French colonial Empire. The administrative personnel remained the former Italian bureaucrats.

The British administration began the training of a badly needed Libyan civil service. Italian administrators continued to be employed in Tripoli, however. The Italian legal code remained in effect for the duration of the war. In the lightly populated Fezzan region, a French military administration formed a counterpart to the British operation. With British approval, Free French forces moved north from Chad to take control of the territory in January 1943. French administration was directed by a staff stationed in Sabha, but it was largely exercised through Fezzan notables of the family of Sayf an Nasr. At the lower echelons, French troop commanders acted in both military and civil capacities according to customary French practice in the Algerian Sahara. In the west, Ghat was attached to the French military region of southern Algeria and Ghadamis to the French command of southern Tunisia--giving rise to Libyan nationalist fears that French intentions might include the ultimate detachment of Fezzan from Libya.

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