Senussi Campaign

Senussi Campaign
Part of the North African theatre of World War I
Area of operations, Senussi Campaign
Date January 1915 – November 1918 Location Western Desert of Egypt, eastern Libya 24°N 25°E / 24°N 25°E / 24; 25Coordinates: 24°N 25°E / 24°N 25°E / 24; 25 Result British-Italian victory
Belligerents
Senussi  Ottoman Empire  German Empire	Italy  British Empire  Australia  India  New Zealand  South Africa  United Kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Sayyid Ahmed ash-Sharif Jaafar Pasha	W.E. Peyton Alexander Wallace Henry Lukin H. W. Hodgson
Strength
10,000 (1915)	Italy: 70,000 British Empire: 40,000
Casualties and losses
by Italians: unknown by British: c. 2,000	Italian: 11,000+ British: 661+ (117 killed and 544 wounded)
Non-battle casualties not counted

 Italy
 British Empire

The Senussi Campaign took place in North Africa, from November 1915 to February 1917, during the First World War between the British Empire and the Kingdom of Italy against the Senussi. The Senussi were a religious sect resident in Libya and Egypt, who were courted by the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire. In the summer of 1915, the Ottomans persuaded the Grand Senussi Ahmed Sharif es Senussi to declare jihad, attack British-occupied Egypt from the west and encourage insurrection in Egypt, to divert British forces from an Ottoman Raid on the Suez Canal from Palestine.

The Senussi crossed the Libyan-Egyptian border in November 1915 and fought a campaign along the Egyptian coast, where British Empire forces withdrew, then defeated the Senussi in several engagements, culminating in the Action of Agagia and the re-capture of the coast in March 1916. In the interior, the band of oases campaign continued until February 1917, after which a peace was negotiated and the area became quiet for the rest of the war, except for British patrols by aircraft and armoured cars.

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