The Black Man's Burden/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
The Story of Tripoli.
From 1835, until the events narrated in this chapter, Turkey held an internationally recognised suzerain power over that portion of the North African Coast line and interior roughly designated as Tripoli which at various periods in the world's history has been claimed by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Spaniards, Arabs, and the Knights of St. John. It was wrested from the latter by the Turks in the middle of the 16th century.
Tripoli is inhabited by a population of agriculturists and herdsmen, mostly nomadic in character owing to the scarcity of water. The bulk of it is Berber, Arabs coming second in number. There is, too, a large sprinkling of Negroes from West Central Africa, whose presence is due, in part to the old trans-desert Slave trade, and in part to the still existing but now much reduced trans-desert trade, with Northern Nigeria particularly, in ostrich feathers, gold and skins. Many thousands of Berbers and Arabs from Algeria fled into Tripoli to escape French rule. The phenomenon was repeated when the French occupied Tunis in 1881. Amongst these immigrants was the Algerian Sheikh, Senussi-el-Mejahiri, who founded the famous religious fraternity which bears his name, and which gradually spread all over the country, uniting Berber and Arab in a common spiritual bond. The Senussi were most numerous and influential in the province of Barca (Cyrenaica), the eastern promontory of the Tripolitan territory, whose seaport is Benghasi, near the supposed site of the Garden of the Hesperides. Although the founder himself successively moved his headquarters into regions more and more remote from contact with Europeans, the influence of the Order was paramount in Cyrenaica. The Turkish Governors of the Province recognised it themselves, and at Benghasi the dispensation of civic justice, which in all Mohammedan communities is based upon the Koran, was entrusted not to the official of the Sultan, but to the representative of the Order. The policy of the Senussi has been described as anti-European. It is so in the sense that they have done their best to get out of the European's way, and that they have preached to their adopts a voluntary exile from territory ruled by the European. But in no other. They had never pursued an aggressive policy. When the Mahdi raised the Eastern Sudan against us and invited el Majahiri to join him, the latter refused. Senussiism has been primarily an intellectual, moral and spiritual force which has spread through its numerous schools, and by the spiritual purity of its teachers, a religious, not a political movement, aiming at the centralisation of the orthodox Islamic sects in a theocracy free from secular interference. It has covered the province with monastical centres of learning and made waste places fruitful. In recent years, Mr. Hogarth, who has studied its work in Cyrenaica generally, and Mr. Vischer, in his famous journey across the desert from Tripoli to Nigeria, have testified hi its favour. The latter says:
I have seen the hungry fed and the stranger entertained, and have myself enjoyed the hospitality and assistance enjoined by the laws of the Koran. My own experiences among the Senussi lead me to respect them as men, and to like them as true friends, whose good faith helped me more than anything else to accomplish my journey. …"
These particulars were necessary to make it clear that in invading Tripoli, Italy was not only wresting from Turkey the last of her African Dependencies: she was committing an unprovoked attack upon native peoples and was additionally assaulting Islam in Africa. This serves to explain at once the fierce and prolonged resistance which Italy experienced from communities who had no particular love for the Turk; the appeals to a "Holy War," issued by certain Italian bishops, whose utterances the Vatican felt called upon to repudiate, and the anger aroused among Mohammedans all over the world, notably in India, against "this war of aggression unparalleled in the history of modern times " to quote the manifesto of the London All-India Moslem League.
The predatory imperialism of modern Europe has never been revealed with such revolting cynicism as when Italy, profiting by the acute tension between France and Germany over Morocco in the autumn of 1911, issued. like a bolt from the blue, her ultimatum to Turkey. In this document the Italian Foreign Minister, after recapitulating in the vaguest terms a list of grievances, which even if they had been well founded, were of the most trivial, indeed, puerile character, calmly announced the Italian Government's intention of occuping Tripoli and Cyrenaica by military force, and summoned Turkey within twenty-four hours to express acquiescence in this burglarious proceeding. It shocked even the most blasé of our imperialist leader writers.
The consummation of Italian unity which had awakened such generous sentiments and such high hopes, opened up avenues of the highest endeavour for the exploration of Italian statesmen. The poorest, the most heavily taxed, and, in the South, one of the most uneducated and half-fed populations in Europe constituted a paramount claim upon its rulers. But a number of Italians thought otherwise.
Italy, as soon as she is independent … will have in turn to think of that need of expansion eastwards and southwards which all Christian people feel… Whether it be to Tunis or to Tripoli, or to an Island, or to any part of the European Continent matters not.
Thus the author of Delle speranze d'Italia. In fact Italian unity had hardly been attained when the fever of imperialism seized hold of Italy's governing classes, and the country in Europe which, perhaps, could least afford it, plunged headlong into oversea adventures
The seed of the Tripoli "raid" was sown at the Berlin Congress which met in June, 1878, ostensibly to revise the Treaty of San Stefano concluded between Russia and Turkey at the close of the Russo-Turkish War. The Congress arose through the British Government's threat of war upon Russia if the Treaty were ratified, on the ground that it affected certain provisions of the general European Settlement at Paris in 1856 and must, therefore, be first submitted to a European Conference. The real reason was the fear of British diplomacy, that if the provisions of the Treaty stood, Russia, using Bulgaria as a cat's-paw, would be in a stronger position to attain the goal of her Tsars' secular ambitions—Constantinople. Everything about the Congress and its preliminaries was fraudulent. The very day after it met, indiscreet disclosures revealed that the diplomatists concerned had already made secret arrangements with one another on the issues at stake. The rôle of the Congress consisted in pronouncing a benediction upon decisions which had been reached before it met. Every Government was pursuing in characteristic fashion its own nationalistic and imperialistic designs and bluffing its home public. Every plenipotentiary was intriguing behind the backs of his associates. As Count Corti, the Italian ambassador at Constantinople, sarcastically observed: "Everybody was telling everybody else to take something which belonged to somebody else." Disraeli was the master-mummer of them all. While spending millions of national money on loudly-advertised preparations for war, he was negotiating with Russia under cover of them. He got Cyprus out of Turkey before the Congress met, in exchange for a promise to guarantee the Sultan's possessions in Asia, which promise he never had the slightest intention of carrying out. He proposed at the Congress that Austria-Hungary should occupy the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzgovina, having secretly agreed to the step beforehand. After the Congress he secretly urged France to seize Tunis, Bismarck taking the same line, and her ultimate action in doing so inaugurated the rape of North Africa.
Meantime Italian imperialism knocked vainly at the door of the Congress and retired empty and chagrined. It had largely itself to thank. In the preceding March, the British Cabinet had proposed to the Italian ambassador "an exchange of views," directed to the formation of a Mediterranean League to maintain the status quo. Italy had declined the overture, and Disraeli had no plums for her when the Congress met, although Lord Salisbury is reported by the Italian delegate to have casually remarked, in course of conversation with him at the Congress, that Italy might eventually console herself in the direction of Tripoli for the British acquisition of Cyprus, and for the Austrian occupation of Bosnia. Three years later the French Government took steps to apply the "free hand" in Tunis, which Disraeli had graciously undertaken to secure for it. On the flimsiest of pretexts the French picked a quarrel with the Bey—who was a nominal vassal of the Sultan of Turkey—invaded the country, forced a Protectorate upon it, and after a year's fighting reduced the Tunisians to submission. The ground had been well prepared, in much the same manner as it was even then being in Egypt, and was to be in Morocco twenty years later. An extravagant native ruler, encouraged in his extravagancies by European financial sharks; bondholders, whose exigencies had to be met and interests safeguarded; finally, control of the native Government's finances by European Powers. In the case of Tunis, the financial Commission of Control, which had been formed in 1869, was composed of Britain, France, and Italy; and Italian imperialism had gradually come to regard Tunis as the promised land. Italian emigration was encouraged and Italian commercial undertakings were financed. Before the Berlin Congress, the independence of Tunis was a British diplomatic interest. After the Berlin Congress it ceased to be. Thenceforth the British Government wiped Tunis off its diplomatic horizon, and when France pounced and Franco-Italian relations became strained to breaking-point, it gave Italy a pretty strong hint to keep quiet. So, "Mancini begged and entreated at Vienna and Berlin, and finally succeeded in persuading the two Empires to recognise Italy as an ally."[1] Italy joined the Teutonic group of Powers in May, 1882.
Shortly afterwards there came the turn in Egyptian affairs which ultimately brought about the British occupation. The reluctance of France to join us, led to the British Cabinet suggesting to Italy, first a triple intervention, and, in the ultimate resort, if France persisted in her refusal, direct Anglo-Italian co-operation. The French Government refused the first suggestion and getting wind of the latter, told the Italians (according to Baron Blanc, afterwards Italian Foreign Minister) that "France would look upon it as an act of hostility on the part of Italy if that Power should take in Egypt the position which belonged to France, and occupy, without France, any portion of Egyptian territory." The French Government also threatened to extend its occupation of Tunis to Tripoli. The upshot was that the Italian Government declined the British proposal, a rejection which seems to have irritated the British Cabinet, for the ensuing year it promptly vetoed Italian aspirations in New Guinea towards which, among other regions of the earth's surface, Italian imperialism had momentarily cast its gaze.
This restless hunt for overseas territory on the part of a Government whose subjects left its shores by tens and hundreds of thousands, was next directed to the independent African State of Abyssinia. Reviving a questionable claim to Assab Bay on the Somali Coast, the Italian Government successively extended its occupation to a long stretch of littoral which formed the seaboard outlet for Abyssinia. This brought it into immediate and disastrous conflict with the Abyssinians. Later, the internal affairs of Abyssinia becoming complicated, the Italian Government made a Treaty with the new ruler Menelik. Subsequently on the strength of a vaguely-worded clause about "mutual protection," it declared Abyssinia to be an Italian Protectorate. The final clash with the Abyssinians came in 1895 when an army, partly composed of Italian regulars, partly of native levies, was sanguinarily defeated by Menelik 's warriors, and Italy was compelled by Treaty to recognise Abyssinian independence. The Abyssinian adventure was to have constituted in the view of the then Italian Premier: "An indemnification, a reparation as it were, for the disappointments Italy had suffered in the Mediterranean." If from the hecatombs of dead in the Great War there should arise a new International Order and the practice of slaughtering masses of innocent men, women and children to serve the nationalistic and imperial ambitions entertained by statesmen and by a relatively minute section of the community, should become obsolete; one can imagine the kind of judgment which will be passed by a generation from whom the threat of war is removed, upon the proceedings of their forbears who sought "reparation" for wounded vanity by assaulting communities who were absolute strangers to the cause of the wound!
Abandoning its attempt upon the independence of the sturdy Abyssinians, Italian imperialism thenceforth concentrated upon Tripoli, for whose absorption it had long prepared. Very instructive and typical of the immoralities of secret diplomacy is the history of the diplomatic steps taken by Italy to effect her objects. The first accessible document which illustrates them is an Italian memorandum to Lord Salisbury dated February 12, 1887, which preceded by a few days the first renewal of the Triple Alliance. This document, together with most of the others hereinafter mentioned, form part of the fœtid secret diplomatic history of Europe which investigation of the archives of the Russian, Austrian and German Foreign Offices by the Revolutionary Governments is now bringing to light. It will be salutary for the moral purification of the world if Labour Governments in Britain and France complete the process later on, and examine their own national cesspools "high-piled with the droppings of two hundred years," and clean out "the dead pedantries, unveracities, indolent, somnolent impotencies and accumulated dung mountains there," which Carlyle truly declared seventy years ago to be "the beginning of all practical good whatsoever."
Italy's object in joining the Triple Alliance was primarily to protect herself against France. She subsequently endeavoured to use it for her own ends as a lever to pursue her general imperialistic designs. Disappointed with the results, she gradually went over to the Anglo-Franco-Russian camp, while continuing down to the very moment of the outbreak of war to remain officially a member of the "Triplice." Then, after a frantic bargaining bout with both sides, she elected not only to abandon her old Allies, but to make war upon them. This by the way.
The writer of the Italian memorandum to Lord Salisbury, Count Corti (then Italian ambassador in London), proposed an understanding based upon the preservation of the status quo in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Euxine and Agean. But he also tried to pin Lord Salisbury down to recognise a potential Italian protectorate over Tripoli. "Great Britain," runs Corti's memorandum, "on her side is prepared to support, in the case of invasions by a third Power, the action of Italy on any other part of the North African Coast line, notably in Tripoli and Cyrenaica." But while Lord Salisbury was willing to come to terms with Italy in order to check French designs on Morocco, he was not at all disposed to lend himself to Italian adventures. His policy really was the status quo. So he declined, at least in writing, to be drawn. While expressing satisfaction at the prospect of Anglo-Italian co-operation for the main purpose specified, he says nothing in his reply about Tripoli, and contents himself with the following guarded indication of his views:
If owing to some calamitous events it becomes impossible to maintain the status quo, both Powers desire that there shall be no extension of the domination of any other great Power over any portions of these coasts.
Nevertheless, on the strength of this exchange of Notes [the Notes were formally adhered to a month later by Austria-Hungary in an exchange of Notes between Count Karolyi and Lord Salisbury] Italy succeeded in getting her partners to give an extension and a new significance to the Triple Alliance quite at variance with its original character. The renewal took place on February 20, 1887. A separate agreement with Austria attached to the Treaty provided that if either Italy or Austria were compelled to modify the status quo by a temporary or permanent occupation of territory in any of the regions affected by the Treaty, they would come to a preliminary and mutual agreement "based upon reciprocal compensation." By a separate agreement with Germany, likewise attached to the Treaty, it was provided that if France should occupy Tripoli or Morocco, and if as a result of such action Italy should feel it necessary "in order to safeguard her position in the Mediterranean" to herself take action in those territories, or even in French territory, and should war result, Germany bound herself to support Italy in arms. [Article IX.]
Then Italian statesmen turned to Spain, and in an exchange of Notes on May 4 (1887) Spain undertook not to conclude with France any political arrangement affecting North Africa "aimed directly or indirectly against Italy, Germany, Austro-Hungary, or one or other of them." This agreement was renewed in May, 1891.
In the years which followed, the weathercock of Italian policy veered round more and more to the French side. Indeed, as far back as 1890, the year before the second renewal of the Triple Alliance, Crispi was apparently willing to change camps … for a consideration. Writing to the Italian Ambassador in Paris on September 2, he says:
M. Ribot's attempts to discover our intentions in regard to the renewal of the Triple Alliance are unworthy of a statesman. In politics it is impossible to foresee anything at a distance of a year and a half. … Before inquiring as to our intentions concerning the renewal of the Triple Alliance, Ribot should seek to place us in a position where we might be able to dispense with it; he should provide us with a guarantee that, our obligations to the two Empires once cancelled, France would not renew her Tunisian venture in other regions, that she would never again betray us in our own peninsula by means of the Vatican, and that she would undertake to ensure our independence. But up to the present nothing has been done to persuade us that the French people and their Government desire to become our serious and loyal friends.
Sincerity and loyalty are strange words in the mouth of an adept in a profession whence the exercise of the human virtues is rigidly excluded. A year before that letter was written, the Italian Government, fearing an attack by France, had made urgent representations to Berlin and London, and in July, 1900, Lord Salisbury, marking a considerable advance upon his attitude in 1887, had told the Italian Ambassador that Italy must occupy Tripoli, "that the Mediterranean may be prevented from becoming a French lake"—but not at that precise moment!
By 1901–2 Italy and France or rather the diplomatists of those countries had concluded their little "compensation" deal. Delcassé's plans for Morocco were maturing and Italy's benevolent neutrality was secured at the price of a free hand in Tripoli. The alliance between thieves was complete. In January 30, 1902, Italy squeezed a similar consent out of Austria in the shape of a declaration by Baron Posetti, the Austrian ambassador, that his government, "having no special interests to safeguard in Tripoli and Cyrenaica," would do nothing to prevent Italy taking such action therein as might seem to her appropriate.
Incredible as it may appear, the third renewal of the Triple Alliance, which took place five months later (June 28, 1902), contained a repetition of the same anti-French provision on Italy's behalf in the separate but attached agreement to which allusion has already been made! Through such septic processes was imperialism in North Africa promoted.
Thenceforth the ripening of the Tripoli plum was merely a matter of time and opportunity. It shaped well when the Russian Tsar and the Italian King signed a secret pact at Racconigi on October 24, 1909, the last paragraph of which reads as follows: "Italy and Russia bind themselves to adopt a benevolent attitude, the former in the interests of the Russian Straits question, the latter in the interests of the Italians in Tripoli and Cyrene (Cyrenaica)." It was judged to be rapidly approaching the right condition in the summer of 1911. It was declared fully ripe by the ultimatum of September 26. But here, too a certain amount of preparatory manuring of the soil had been found necessary. The two most important banks in Italy, the Banco di Roma and the Banco d'Italia, which enjoyed the highest connections in State and Church, found it in their interest to start operations in Tripoli, playing the politico-financial role of the Banque de Paris et des-Pays Bas in the Morocco affair, and of the Russo-Chinese Bank in Manchuria. The Banco di Roma financed a large esparto-grass mill, a sponge factory, a steamboat service, and an oil and soap factory, besides speculating in real estate. Italian archæological expeditions became increasingly numerous. Glowing reports about (non-existent) phosphate deposits and sulphur mines; about vast potential granaries and cotton fields; about fertile lands only waiting for Italian peasants to blossom like a rose; filled the Italian papers, which are mainly run by powerful private interests, or owned by trusts. "Travellers" brought back alluring reports of the brilliant future in store for Tripoli under European management. A mass of nationalistic literature sprang up like magic. Corradine's "L'ora di Tripoli" was typical of these lyrical outpourings. After insisting upon the need for Italy to preserve and increase "her position in the Mediterranean against the Powers which dominate over the same sea," it goes on to predict that: "Twenty years hence all Italy will be imperialistic and the nation should then begin an extraordinary revolutionary action against things and persons which cannot at present be named." Patriotic associations placarded the walls of Rome with devices in flaming rhetoric: "A people is great only on the condition that it accomplishes a great and saintly mission in the world." One final demonstration was required to place impending events beyond the possibility of doubt, viz.: a declaration on the part of the Italian Government that an aggression upon Turkey was remote from its thoughts. This had been duly supplied by the Marquis di San Guiliano, Italy's Foreign Minister, in June: "Our policy," he had then declared in the Chamber, "like that of the other Great Powers has for its foundation the integrity of the Ottoman Empire." By July, army contractors were working full time. By September, the Turkish papers teemed with accounts of military and naval preparations. On September 26 the ultimatum was launched. The Turks sent a, conciliatory and dignified reply on September 29. On September 30 [1911] Italy declared war.
Italy had what the French call a "bad Press" all over Europe, which pained and surprised the Italians very much. Questioned in the House of Commons as to whether the British Government was aware of Italy's intention beforehand, the spokesman for the Foreign Office declared that the Italian declaration of war was the first intimation of Italian intention which it had received. This statement was certainly untrue in substance if not in form. It is unlikely, to say the least, that th Italian Government would have taken action without advising both France and Germany. It is equally unlikely that under the circumstances of the moment France would have kept the information from the British Government, her partner in the Morocco deal. M. Lucien Wolf declared at the time that a few days after the Franco-German negotiations over Morocco began, the French ambassador at Rome was informed that if the French Protectorate over Morocco was acknowledged, Italy would occupy Tripoli. A French paper published a detailed story to the effect that the signal for Italy to move came from the British Foreign Office itself at the moment when the Franco-German negotiations had reached an acute stage. A Reuter's telegram from Rome, referring to Italian resentment at British Press criticisms, reported Italian assurances that all the European Governments were informed, "many weeks in advance" of Italy's plans. In any case, as the secret diplomatic documents referred to in this chapter bear witness, Italy's share in the rape of North Africa had been acquiesced in long before France's performance in Morocco. In the course of a bitter indictment of Europe, Ahmed Riza, the President of the Turkish Legislature, declared "Italy is not the sole culprit. The other Powers are her accomplices, as the blow that was struck had been prepared by them."
It is no longer open to doubt—remarked the Manchester Guardian on September 29th—that the Italian Government meditates the crime of making unprovoked war on a friendly Power … it is definitely shown that the Italian Government contemplates the violence, naked and unashamed, which was first attributed to it some days ago. There can surely be few parallels in history to the indifference towards the opinion and conscience of civilised States which the aggressor has shown in entering on this quarrel.
But was the aggressor more culpable than the accessories before the fact, who, for their own selfish ends, acquiesced in the "crime?"
The Daily News editorial of September 30 added prophecy to its outspokenness:
Thus opens—it said—the first war which French action in Morocco has launched upon Europe; the first, but who knows whether it will be the last?
It was the precursor of Armageddon, but when Armageddon came the Daily News forgot, and concluded that it was a holy war.
Meantime enthusiasm ran high in Italy. Patriotic demonstrations were held in many of the principal cities. Bishops issued pastoral letters declaring the war necessary to uphold the national prestige and honour. But these sentiments were not altogether universal. The Prince of Teano, Deputy of Rome, who knew more of Tripoli than any living Italian, denounced the Government's proceeding as "an act of criminal political brigandage, which would cripple the prosperity of the nation for the exclusive advantage of a few clerical capitalists." Mario Borsa, the well-known journalist, described it as a "raid pure and simple, not excused by the shadow of a pretext; it is an act of military violence." How the Italian ultimatum impressed foreigners residing in Tripoli, may be estimated from the letter which Mr. Richard Norton, the director of the American excavation party at Cyrene, wrote to the Times, in the course of which he said:
The reasons which Italy gives to show that she has suffered desperate wrongs at the hands of the Turks have been greeted in Tripoli with the ridicule they deserve… No, Sir, let the Italian Government grab Tripoli if they are able, but let them at least cease to steal the laurels of Gilbert and Sullivan by such lists of grievances as they have put before us.
In the opening days of October, the Italian fleet bombarded Tripoli town and Benghasi. At the former place practically no resistance was offered and little damage was done, the Turkish garrison retiring inland. At Benghasi the bombardment killed some three hundred civilians. The Turkish Government sent telegrams of protest to all the Parliaments of the world, to the various Peace and Arbitration Societies, to the Hague Tribunal, and to King George. In the course of the month the Italians landed some 25,000 troops in the town. From the first the Italians had been told that they had merely to set foot on shore and all resistance would collapse. The tactics of the Turks in leaving the capital as the invaders entered it, seemed to confirm the accuracy of these forecasts. But the Italians were quickly undeceived. They imagined they were only fighting a few Turkish soldiers. They found, in due course, that they were fighting the whole population, both in Tripoli proper and in Cyrenaica. Strange as it no doubt appeared to the Italians, even Arabs and Berbers object to being slaughtered for no other reason than that the country they inhabit is coveted by another party. The unexpected resistance they met with appears to have given the Italians "nerves." That is the most charitable interpretation which can be placed upon the policy they pursued after the occupation of the town. I do not propose to narrate again in detail the ghastly story of the Tripoli massacres. Those who care to refresh their memories on the subject may be referred to Mr. McCullagh's book, and to the contemporary reports which appeared in the British, Austrian, Italian, French and German Press. But the bare facts may be recalled.
On the outskirts of Tripoli town is a fertile oasis. It goes by the name of the Mechiya and is several square miles in extent. It consists, or rather consisted, of a wide and scattered belt of palm trees, among which nestled many a beautiful Arab home, where the wealthier inhabitants of the town resided, embowered in gardens, luxuriating in myrtles, oleanders, and oranges. The Italian troops, marching through this oasis on October 23, were attacked in front by the Turks and in the rear by a force of Arabs. They lost heavily. There appears to be no doubt that the Arab tribesmen who participated in the fight were not the actual residents of the oasis, but formed part of the Turkish force. It is possible that a few of their countrymen within the oasis assisted them, but this view is not, I believe, now held by Italians who, at a later date, impartially investigated the evidence. Alleging "treachery," the Italian command decreed a "purge" of the oasis. This process lasted several days and was commendably thorough, so thorough, indeed, that the Italian military authorities adopted the most drastic steps to prevent the facts from reaching the outer world.
For three days the oasis was given over to massacre in wholesale and detail. Some 4,000 men, women and children perished in the course of it—the vast bulk of whom were certainly innocent of any participation whatever in the Italian defeat. They were murdered in the streets, in their houses, farms, gardens and, according to a peculiarly horrible narrative by a British officer serving with the Turkish forces, in a mosque, where several hundred women and children had taken refuge. Thousands more were deported by sea. All the newspaper correspondents were in agreement as to the main facts. Englishmen and Americans united with Frenchmen, Austrians and Germans in indignantly censuring them. Several of them handed in their official papers to the Italian commander-in-chief by way of protest. The feelings of these eye-witnesses may be gathered by the following brief expressions culled from a copious literature:
Tripoli has been the scene of one of the reddest dramas in the history of wars. It was a week of atrocities, a mad rush of assassins, a hecatomb of aged people, women and children—executions in groups. (Correspondent of Excelsior, Paris).
A perfect nightmare of horror … a veritable carnival of carnage. (Correspondent of the Daily Express).
We must have passed the bodies of over one hundred persons on this one high road, and as similar scenes were enacted throughout the length and breadth of the oasis, some estimate of the numbers of innocent men, women, and children who were butchered, doubtless with many who were guilty of attacking the Italian troops in the rear, may be appreciated. (From the statement signed, at the request of the British Consul at Tripoli, by the representative of Reuter's Agency, of the Morning Post and of the Daily Mirror}.
The Italians having set themselves to cow the Arabs, the floodgates of blood and lust were opened. … One hardly knows to what limits the elasticity of the phrase "military exigencies" will be stretched in the 20th century. (Correspondent of the Times.)
Parties of soldiers penetrated every portion of the oasis, shooting indiscriminately all whom they met without trial, without appeal. (Reuter's Correspondent).
For three days the butchery went on… Cripples and blind beggars have been deliberately shot; sick people whose houses were burned were left on the ground and refused even a drop of water. The Arab quarter was over-run by crazy soldiers armed with revolvers, who were shooting every Arab man and woman they met. (Mr. Francis McCullagh, Correspondent for the Daily News, Westminster Gazette, and New York World).
Mr. McCullagh afterwards lectured in London, supported by some of his brother correspondents, and his book is the best and fullest account of these horrible deeds—"pacification by depopulation," as Mr. Abbott terms it. The correspondents of the Austrian and German papers expressed themselves with equal vigour. At Benghasi the Italian military authorities expelled the correspondents in a body as the result of the Figaro correspondent's protest against the bombardment of that place. The Italian Government endeavoured to minimise what had been done, and several tame correspondents were sent out from England, after the event, to whitewash the Italian command. One Italian paper, the Turin Stampa, gave its readers the truth at the time. Later on the admissions of Italian soldiers in letters to their relatives, which far exceeded in picturesque details of horror the accounts sent from the newspaper men, were collected and published by Signor Ghisleri in his pamphlet, "The Libyan War and the Law of Nations."
So far as Turkey was concerned the war went on for a year, when it was brought to an end by the Treaty of Ouchy (October 18, 1912) by the terms of which the Turkish Government undertook to withdraw its troops, leaving Italy in nominal possession. At that time Italian control did not extend more than six miles into the interior from any part of a coast-line of about 200 miles held by Italian troops; and the war was estimated to have cost forty million sterling. Several fierce engagements took place with the Senussi in 1913, and when the Great War broke out Italy's hold over Tripoli was not much more effective than when the last Turkish soldier departed two years before. According to reports which have reached me recently, the area of Italian occupation is even more restricted to-day.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
"The Life of Sir Charles Dilke." Gwynne & Tuckwell. (Murray).
"The Memoirs of Francesco Crispi." (Hodder & Stoughton).
"Géographie Universelle." (Réclus).
"The Turco-Italian War and its Problems." Barclay. (Constable).
"Italy's War for a Desert." McCullagh.
Documents extracted from the Austrian State archives [Pribram].
Documents extracted from the Tsardom's archives [Pravda].