When the British intelligence officers went through the papers of General Pescatori of the 2nd Libyan Division, they found much information on the organization of and plans regarding Italy’s colonial forces. Amongst these documents were studies on a proposal to raise two additional Libyan divisions regarding its technical, manpower and financial aspects. These the British authorities excerpted/summarized, copies of which were in the file I looked at the PRO.

There were real constraints on the availability of Libyan manpower for employment in military units. Of the estimated Libyan population of 786,000, there were some 100,000 men of military age. Only about 65,000 of these men of military age could likely be enrolled in the military. Political reasons (the antipathy of the population of Cyrenaica to the Italian colonial government, economic reasons (raising food) and the impossibility of getting the men of nomadic groups reduced the available manpower pool.

The war establishment of a Libyan Division consisted of a headquarters element, two groups of artillery (each with 12x 77/28 field guns), two 20 mm AA batteries (should have been 8 guns in each but there were only six in the winter of 1940/41 due to shortages), six Libyan infantry battalions organized into two raggruppamenti (equivalent to regiments in this case), a small mixed engineer battalion, and service units. At “normal distribution”, there was enough organic transport to lift almost two battalions. There was an augmented establishment provided for these divisions, which gave them the transport capacity to lift up to four of the infantry battalions.

The division was quite small, barely being over 7000 men in strength. With only 24 field guns, even though the Libyan gunners were good, these divisions did not have enough organic artillery to be rated as anything but self-supporting. Furthermore, the 1940 Ordinamento had merely ratified the provisional 1938 organizational schemes for formations in North Africa. Thus these Libyan divisions had no mortars and had only the weaker six gun AT battery found in all the North African type divisions. Simply put the Libyan divisions were short on firepower. It is clear from these documents that any additional “Libyan” division(s) would have been organized as per the establishment laid out above. The “Libyan Armoured Division” is a mirage. An additional Italian armoured division may well have been formed in Italian North Africa in 1941, but that’s another story.

The time factor was considered as well for raising these divisions. The Italian army estimated it required two full months to get Libyan troops with previous military experience functioning at a minimal acceptable level of military efficiency. With completely untrained manpower, it would take an additional three months intensive training to get them to a similar acceptable level of military efficiency. It was also estimated that it would take two months to collect the transport and draft animals necessary for these proposed divisions. This could partially overlap the period of raising the troops. No estimate was given about the time necessary to obtain the required equipment from the Italian mainland.

3rd Libyan Division (3a Divisione libica)

The 3rd Libyan Division was to be raised from existing non-divisional units (3460 Libyans), from trained men (3250 Libyans) not already called up in Italian North Africa, and a cadre of Italian officers and technical troops from the usual sources. The army in North Africa had the resources to clothe the troops, give them a rifle, provide most of the draft animals, and provide some of the other equipment. The rest would have to come from Italy. The total financial cost to the taxpayers of Italy, always an important consideration, for raising a third division was estimated at 60 million lire. My guess, not including the initial preparations of gathering equipment, provisions and draft animals, is that it would have taken four months to raise this division from the reservists and existing units..

4th Libyan Division (4a Divisione libica)

The 4th Libyan Division would have been more difficult to raise. The forming of the Third Division would have scraped the bottom of the barrel of trained reserves. There were a few thousand trained men left (3500 Libyans) could be utilized, but this was effectively the training reserve and if these were taken up then the reports state it would be impossible to provide any more replacements (complementari) for the existing formations. This factor, not surprisingly, was seen as a great obstacle to raising this division. Drawing upon the existing reserve stores would have brought down the cost of the raising of the Third Division, but the entire complement of weapons, equipment and other stores for the Fourth Division would have to have been provided by the metropolitan army in Italy. Total cost for raising this division was placed at 90 million lire. My estimate is that it would have taken nine months to a year to form this division from start to finish.

The documents have no reference to any decision having been taken whether to proceed with the raising of these extra divisions by the time disaster overthrew the Italian Tenth Army in Cyrenaica. The Italian military authorities did rebuild a significant number of the lost Libyan units in 1941/42, but only used them for garrison/security duties. The higher levels of organization: raggruppamenti and divisions were never restored.
Source: P.R.O., WO 208/4807

Could these division have been raised? Yes, especially the Third Libyan Division could have been formed sometime in 1941 if the Italians had not been annihilated in Cyrenaica. Thereafter, the Italian military authorities necessarily always gave higher priority to rebuilding of Italian units (for they had a greater potential combat strength). The Fourth Libyan Division really could not have been raised until the pool of trained manpower had been expanded, otherwise the rest of the colonial army risked being utterly unable to replace any losses. Thus it is possible the Fourth Libyan Division might have been able to formed in1942 if losses up to that date had not been too severe. Reading some of these documents, I am starting to come to the feeling that the original values assigned to Libyan units in WD may have been too generous.

The ID numbers assigned to the Libyan infantry raggruppamenti (shown below) are guesses, but well founded ones. It is possible these new divisions could have been organized in Sirtica or Cyrenaica, but the only remaining manpower and other resources necessary to form these divisions had to come from Tripolitania and therefore it is likely they would have been organized there.

MAY I 1941

Expend: 2 Lib Col RPs and 1 It Inf RP* and Place in Forming (Tripolitania Military Region):
2x 1-6 Infantry III 5 Lib, 6 Lib (Col)
1x 6* Infantry XX HQ 3 Lib (Col)

SEP I 1941

Full; Place in any City in the Tripolitania Military Region:
2x 1-6 Infantry III 5 Lib, 6 Lib (Col)
1x 6* Infantry XX HQ 3 Lib (Col)

Add to Breakdown Display:
1x 2-3-6* Infantry XX 3 Lib (Col)

JAN I 1942

Expend: 2 Lib Col RPs and 1 It Inf RP and Place in Forming (Tripolitania Military Region):
2x 1-6 Infantry III 7 Lib, 8 Lib (Col)
1x 6* Infantry XX HQ 4 Lib (Col)

SEP I 1942

Full; Place in any City in the Tripolitania Military Region:
2x 1-6 Infantry III 7 Lib, 8 Lib (Col)
1x 6* Infantry XX HQ 4 Lib (Col)

Add to Breakdown Display:
1x 2-6* Infantry XX 4 Lib (Col)

Options:

1. Increased mobility:

The Libyan divisions were always intended to become celere type formations. The 1st and 2nd Libyan
Divisions had been given sufficient additional resources by the fall of 1940 to achieve this status. It is possible that the 3rd and 4th Divisions could have been similarly enhanced.

Convert: 1x 2-3-6* Infantry XX any (Col) and: 1x SMP to:
1x 1x 2-3-8* lt Infantry XX any (Col)

Convert: 1x 2-6* Infantry XX 4 Lib (Col) and: 1x SMP to:
1x 1x 2-8* Infantry XX 4 Lib Col)

2. Increased artillery:

All Italian divisions that survived the winter of 1940/41 eventually saw their organic artillery substantially increased. This could have happened to the Libyan divisions, though the additional guns would have been less than those given to the metropolitan divisions.

Convert: 1x 1x 2-3-6* Infantry XX 3 Lib (Col) and 0.5 Italian RP to:
1x 1x 3-6 Infantry XX 3 Lib (Col)

Convert: 1x 1x 2-6* Infantry XX 4 Lib Col) and 0.5 Italian RP to:
1x 1x 2-3-6 Infantry XX 4 Lib (Col)

* At a Grand Europa level this would probably work out to something like 2.0 Libyan manpower points, 0.5 Italian manpower points, 1.0 Italian equipment point, and 0.5 Italian artillery points.