La guerra italo-turca e i primordi dell'aeronautica militare italiana

The 1911-1912 conflict between Italy and the Ottoman Empire represents a pivotal moment in the geopolitical balance of early 20th-century Europe and the Mediterranean. The Libyan campaign accelerated the political and military decline of the Sublime Porte, setting in motion the chain of events that would lead to the Balkan Wars over the next two years and, ultimately, to the outbreak of the First World War. With the Treaty of Ouchy, signed in the wake of the First Balkan War, Italy formally secured control over Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. However, the actual conquest of these territories was far from complete. Though relatively minor in scale, the war was a colonial conflict that required significant military and financial resources. This study focuses on one of the conflict’s most critical aspects: the genesis, experimentation, and development of new technologies and military assets, in particular the airplane and the airship. The Italo-Turkish War marked the first time these innovations were deployed in combat, earning its place in history as a true “laboratory war”.