 Cyrenaica the eastern province of Libya had been an Italian colony since the Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912).With Tunisia, a part of French North Africa to the west and Egypt to the east, the Italians prepared to defend both frontiers through a North Africa Supreme Headquarters, under the command of the Governor-General of Italian Libya, Marshal of the Air Force Italo Balbo.The Supreme Headquarters in Libya had the 5th Army (General Italo Gariboldi) and the 10th Army (General Mario Berti), which in mid-1940 had nine metropolitan divisions of about each, three "Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale" (Blackshirt) and two Libyan Colonial divisions with each.