In 1912, during the Libyan war between Italy and the Ottoman Empire, the inhabitants asked Giovanni Battista Ameglio, chief of the Italian occupation forces in Rhodes, for their island to be annexed to Italy. This was refused, and on 14 March 1913 the local population imprisoned the governor and his Ottoman garrison and proclaimed a provisional government. In August 1913, the Greek government sent from Samos a provisional governor supported by gendarmes, but in early 1914 in Florence it was decided the return of the island to the Ottoman Empire.