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Libya
Allied Administration
Separate British military governments were established in Cyrenaica
and in Tripolitania and continued to function until Libya achieved
independence. Each was divided into several districts governed
by civil affairs officers who reported to brigadiers at senior
headquarters in Binghazi and Tripoli. British authority was exercised
under the Hague Convention, which conveyed legislative, administrative,
and judicial power to an occupying country. It was essentially
a caretaker operation, the initial objective simply being to maintain
peace and order and facilitate the war effort. British military
officers and government emphatically stressed the nonpolitical
character of the occupation government.
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.
Data as of 1987
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