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 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT
 
 ITALY'S WAR 
 FOR A DESERT 
 
 BEING SOME EXPERIENCES OF 
 A WAR-GORRESPONDENT WITH 
 THE ITALIANS IN TRIPOLI 
 BY FRANCIS McCULLAGH 
 
 Author of "With the Cossacks," "The Fall of Abd-ul-Hamld," etc. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 F. G. BROWNE & GO. 
 
 LONDON: HERBERT & DANIEL 
 
 1913
 
 
 DEDICATED TO MY 
 
 COLLEAGUES AND FELLOW-CORRESPONDENTS 
 
 BRITISH, GERMAN, AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN 
 
 RUSSIAN, AND FRENCH 
 
 WHO WERE NOT AFRAID TO TELL 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT TRIPOLI 
 
 -A. 
 
 €0 
 QZ
 
 NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS 
 
 Some photographs of the Oasis Repression taken by Mr. 
 McCullagh, and submitted to us, have been found unsuitable 
 for publication in a work intended for general circulation, 
 and have not, therefore, been reproduced in the present 
 volume. 
 
 The Publishers are not necessarily committed to the views 
 on the war expressed by the Author.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 THE GENESIS OF THE WAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IL NAZIONALISMO 
 
 Italy's sentimental claim on Tripoli — The Italian Nationalists 
 — Like the Greek jingoes — Gabriele d' Annunzio — Adowa — 
 Italia Irredenta — What Austria-Hungary may do — Italians 
 held in low esteem in Northern Africa . . . Page 3 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BANCO DI ROMA 
 
 Resembled the Russo-Chinese Bank — The Trail of the con- 
 cessionaire — The Cecil Rhodes of Tripolitania — Bank 
 enjoyed assistance of Italian Government — " Peaceful 
 penetration " — War or bankruptcy — German competition . 14 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ITALY, GERMANY, ENGLAND, AND TURKEY 
 
 The Tripoli raid a consequence of Agadir — Previous Italian 
 suspicions of France — Italians afraid of England and Ger- 
 many — Sir Edward Grey's complicity in the Tripoli raid — 
 Remarkable article in " Fortnightly Review " — Why 
 Lord Kitchener was sent to Egypt — British Government 
 and section of British Press friendly to Italy — Sir Edward 
 Grey and Italy's Declaration of War — British Foreign 
 Ofifice and Caneva's treatment of the Arab " traitors " — 
 "The Times" and the Italian defeat at Bir Tobrsis — 
 Why Mahmud Shefket Pasha left Tripoli undefended — 
 Italy's fear that Turkey would build up a navy — Turkey's 
 proposal to form territorial army in Tripolitania . . 22 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IS TRIPOLI WORTH THE TROUBLE ? 
 
 Utter uselessness of Tripolitania from agricultural and com- 
 mercial points of view — Evidence of M. de Mathuisieulx, of 
 Colonel Monteil, of M. Grossi — Jewish Territorial Organisa-
 
 viii ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 tion will not have Tripoli even as a gift — Dr. Viacher — 
 Frenchman who sank well 240 feet without finding water — 
 Railways and schools for Tripoli : nothing for Sicily — 
 Socialists make capital out of this — Italian poverty — 
 Delusion of Italian emigration to Tripoli — Same delusions 
 entertained when Italians took Eritrea and Benadir — 
 Importance of Tripolitania to Turkey — Sole point of contact 
 with African Mohammedans .... Page 37 
 
 PART II 
 THE BOMBARDMENT AND OCCUPATION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BOMBABDMENT 
 
 Forts cannot respond — Delirious enthusiasm of Italians — 
 Only four artillerists in each battery — The soldierly letters'of 
 Enver Bey ......... 47 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IN TRIPOLI TOWN 
 
 The Hotel Minerva at Tripoli — Excitement of Consuls — 
 Italians make no provision to save Christian population — 
 Consuls rely on Turks — Turkey gains from moral point of 
 view — The Ottomans are at length civilised ... 57 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Roman remains strewn all over Tripolitania — Corinthian 
 columns for camels to scratch themselves against — Arch of 
 Triumph as a cinematograph show ..... 65 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LANDING OF THE BEBSAGLIEBI 
 
 The landing of the troops — Harbour crowded with shipping — 
 Sunken Turkish vessels — Illumination at night — Ignorance 
 of sanitary precautions — Over-ripe melons and bad beer — 
 Unsuitable dress for soldiers — " The sword of the Prophet 
 and of Islam" ....... .69 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CONQUERED TURK 
 
 Old Turks left behind — Scurvily treated by victors — Mixture 
 of races in street — The hardy and desperate Touaregs — 
 " The eye of a wild beast watching its prey " , . . 74
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SIEGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Closeness of Italian line to town — Italians " massed together 
 like policemen at the end of a street " — The Desert — The 
 outpost — Soldiers do not care for war — First spy — A 
 night attack — Cholera ! . • . . . . Page 82 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ' HOW THE TURKS LEFT TRIPOLI 
 
 Italians scoff at Turks — But Turks retreated to save towns- 
 people from bombardment — Midnight conference — Two 
 Consuls beg Turks to leave quietly — Ottoman leaders deter- 
 mined to die beneath ruins of Tripoli — Consuls finally 
 persuade them to retire without fighting — What would 
 have happened to Italians in case Turks had remained . 90 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BEFORE THE ARMY CAME 
 
 Jealousy between Army and Fleet — Fleet consequently seizes 
 Tripoli before Expeditionary Army arrives — Folly of this 
 step — Bluejackets infallibly cut to pieces had Nesciat Bey 
 returned — No guards at Sharashett — Turkish soldiers enter 
 oasis nightly — An adventure in the oasis — Civilian popula- 
 tion convinced that Italians " were acting like madmen " — 
 Turkish mistakes — Why the Turks always attacked at 
 BumeUana — How Nesciat Bey might have made Tripoli 
 city quake — Arab contempt for aeroplanes and battleships 
 — A night attack at the front — Superannuated donkey 
 bombarded — A banshee ? — Unsoldierly treatment of Tvurks- 
 by Italians — Flags of truce not respected — Turkish soldiers 
 butchered — Sick Turks taken from hospital and paraded in 
 Italy as prisoners of war — Italian prisoners well treated by 
 Turks '99 
 
 PART III 
 
 THE BATTLES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARASHETT : HOW THE ARABS BROKE 
 THE ITALIAN LINE 
 
 Position of Caneva's forces — Geographical features — The 
 aeroplanes — Why aeroplanes made bad start in Tripoli — 
 Arab feint at Sultanie and Bumeliana — Real attack at 
 Sharashett — Two companies of the Borsaglieri cut to pieces 
 — Why victorious Arabs did not march on Tripoli . . 119 
 
 a 2
 
 X ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 
 
 Italian losses at Sharashett — Amateurishness of Italian Army 
 — Caneva's apathy — Casual way in which Colonel Fara 
 relieved — Arabs block relieving force — Arabs spread 
 throughout oasis — Three Arabs shot — Italians fire on inno- 
 cent Arabs — The cry of "treachery" — Unnecessary cruelty 
 on part of Italians — Prisoner bites Italian flag — Fourteen 
 Arab soldiers unjustly hanged — What an Italian jingo 
 thinks of these executions — The triimiphal music of the 
 conquerors ....... Page 135 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GREAT PANIC 
 
 In " the dining - room of the Hotel Minerva — Erroneous 
 report of town rising causes wildest excitement — Christian 
 damsels barricade themselves in their bedrooms — Refugees 
 pour into Consulates — Cavass of French Consulate fired upon 
 by Italians — French friendliness towards Italy and the 
 reasons for it — Italy's blundering seizure of French 
 steamers — Italian officer on point of sweeping market- 
 place with bullets — Caneva's neglect to police town — 
 Employs renegade Turkish gendarmes — Caneva's explana- 
 tion of the town panic . . . . . . .152 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SOME LESSONS OF THE GREAT PANIC 
 
 Turks behaved much better than Italians — Ottomans had kept 
 admirable order in Tripoli — Many lives lost under Italian 
 regime — Invaders anxious that some Italians should be 
 massacred — How Turks treated Italian sick — How Italians 
 treated Arab sick — Italian conviction that one scale of 
 treatment for Italians and another scale for Turks — 
 Journalist who would only leave " between two janis- 
 saries " — Turk has faculty of command — Italian has not — 
 How a Turkish officer squelched a panic — The ItaUan Army 
 " a casual collection of people in uniform " — Soldiers afraid 
 to look over trenches — Comparison between Italians and 
 modern Greeks — How the " pets " of Europe broke loose — 
 Soldiers too young and officers too old — Army excitable and 
 "panicky" — The mysterious blood-lust . . . . 164 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE EXECUTION OF THE GERMAN CAVASS 
 
 German Cavass accused of mvu-dering ItaHan soldier — Given 
 an imposing trial — Reason why this was done — The coolness 
 of the Cavass — Italians amazed at his bravery — Cameras, 
 cigarettes, and cinematographs — Light-hearted joking at the 
 execution — Soldiers miss at twenty paces — The Cavass's dog 176
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE OASIS OF DEATH 
 
 Tripoli panic-stricken — Criers and death-penalties — Italians 
 work themselves into condition of insanity. Nervous 
 sentinels in oasis — Around the camp-fires — Tales of Adowa 
 — How lurid legends of Abyssinian mutilations hung over 
 Tripoli expedition like ghost and contributed to oasis 
 massacres — Panic of Italian Press and people — Fables 
 regarding Arab cruelty — Natives even accused of cannibal- 
 ism — Terrible legends of the Saracens — Stories about imder- 
 ground passages — Italians naturally suspicious — The Italian 
 private's point of view — How soldiers gradually became 
 almost insane with terror and rage — Officers helpless — 
 A Hebrew Vicar of Bray ..... Page 188 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ROAD TO THE FRONT 
 
 Caneva attempted to disarm people at wrong time — The 
 lack of officers — Turkish officer gives Caneva two hours 
 to surrender — Caneva's preparations — Battle begins before 
 dawn — I go out to the east front — The horrors of the aban- 
 doned oasis — Danger from both Arabs and Italians — At 
 the extreme front. A Secret Service man, and where I 
 met him next ........ 201 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SIDI MESSRI : ARABS AGAIN BREAK 
 ITALIAN LINE 
 
 At "the house of Gemal Bey" — An attack before dawn — 
 Arabs again in the rear — How they got there — Arab craze 
 for loot — The Arab who " pinched " the boots — Stripping 
 the slain — Arabs accumulating Italian loot — Old gardener 
 runs amok — Desperate fighting in oasis — Houses blown up 
 with dynamite — Arab untruthfulness — Italian artillery 
 saves invaders — Extreme bravery of the natives — The 
 ^odds against the Arabs — How Italians behave when they 
 ,are the attacking party — A point of interest to Englishmen 
 — Difficvdty over-sea invaders have in landing heavy artillery 
 , — How that would tell against a foreign invader landing 
 in Great Britain . . . . . . . .211 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HOW THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE WAS CLOSED 
 
 Gemal Bey's house re-taken — Italians besieged there — How 
 Italian reinforcements arrived in time — Arabs, " women, 
 children, and old people," put at the head of the Italian 
 column as a shield against the bullets — Italian Press
 
 xii ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 regard3 this as " un^ idea genialiaaima " — Vitriolic contempt 
 of German military men for the officers who thus shelter 
 themselves behind women and children — How the Italians 
 " captured " " the green flag of the Prophet " — Found it, 
 after the battle, underneath a heap of Arab dead — The 
 " heirs of ancient Rome " run like rabbits — Some of them 
 climb trees — The clearing of the oasis a succession of 
 Sidney Street Sieges — Little Arab garrisons laugh at the 
 death of fire when it comes — A sniper caught — An Italian 
 " advance " — Tales of heroism and adventure — The death 
 of Captain Verri — Did he commit suicide ? — Why the losses 
 among the Italian officers are heavy — Prudence of the 
 Turkish officers — " La plus grande et la plus decisive de 
 nos victoires " — How this " decisive " victory was followed 
 by an Italian retreat — The Italians prevent Arabs from 
 succouring their wounded — This gives the Futurists and the 
 Impressionists a fine chance — How the invaders fared when 
 it was a case of man to man ..... Page 227 
 
 PART IV 
 THE MASSACRES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BURNING OF THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 
 
 Italian mistake as to the Arabs who had attacked them in the 
 rear — Italian nervousness on October 26th — Extremity of 
 terror reached when line again broken — Result of that 
 terror was general massacre of innocent oasis Arabs — An 
 English officer's testimony — What "The Times" corre- 
 spondent said — The evidence of the " Daily Chronicle " 
 correspondent — The evidence of M. Cossira — The evidence 
 of Messrs Ashmead-Bartlett, Grant, and Davis — The 
 evidence of Mr. Bennet Burleigh — What the correspondent 
 of the " Frankfurter Zeitung " saw — Italian admissions — 
 Invaders burn a Bedouin village and kill the inhabitants — 
 Women among the slain — Sick boy and sick women left to 
 die on the ground — Italians decline even to give them a 
 glass of water — My fruitless attempts to obtain assistance — 
 Manly indignation of my German colleagues^ — Von Gottberg 
 and I hand back our papers — " What a quarrel between 
 England and Germany will mean " — " There shall be 
 meetings in London, there shall be speeches of protest in 
 Parliament " — How the late Mr. W. T. Stead threw me 
 " into the deep water " — Treatment of an Arab girl — Italians 
 admit that village was burned " by way of precaution " — 
 Press controversy with Father Bevilacqua — Mr. Grant 
 defends me ......... 249
 
 CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 
 
 Regular man-hunt in the oasis — A hunter and his " bag " — 
 Count X. and his revolver — How six Arabs were shot — A lad 
 killed — " The Cross of the Merciful Christ " — Red Cross 
 doctor snapshotting — Alleged Arab atrocities — Italian 
 defence amounts to this : " We killed Arabs on Tuesday 
 because Arabs killed our men on Friday of the same week " 
 — Fifty Arabs butchered — Horrible scenes — Other murders 
 — Herr Artbauer's testimony — Otto von Gottberg's evidence 
 — Italian murderers become mad — Massacres followed by 
 famine and pestilence — How these massacres are reacting 
 on the invaders themselves — Testimony of a " Times " 
 correspondent — Impossibility of Arabs fabricating mass- 
 acre story — Arab shipping-clerk takes to the Desert — 
 Italian tactlessness — Violation of harems and wholesale 
 unveiling of women — How Italian self-complacency makes 
 the case hopeless — "The tactfulnesa of the proverbial bull 
 in a china-shop " . . . . . . . Page 274 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HASStTNA KARAMANLI 
 
 How the Italians might have avoided bloodshed — They could 
 have made Hassuna Karamanli the Bey of Tripoli — Crispi 
 and Karamanli — Italians will only have crude aggression — 
 From the beginning Karamanli fears massacre of Arabs — 
 Karamanli disgraced because of oasis " rising " — Agitation 
 to have his salary reduced — " Thrice a traitor " . . 299 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 OANEVA OVER-CAKEFUIi 
 
 Caneva over-cautions in keeping his line so near Tripoli and in 
 keeping all his soldiers at the front — Result was that Italian 
 Army lost spirits while Turks regained confidence — Deplor- 
 able effect of Italian retreat on the Arabs — Caneva too 
 careful of his own person — Never became acquainted with his 
 own troops or with biilk of his ofticers — Arabs regarded him 
 with contempt — Italians themselves not much edified — 
 Desperate preparations to defend Caneva's front door 
 while His Excellency escaped by the back door — Turks 
 nearly land a shell in the big drum .... 308 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 CAJTEVA's MISTAKE ABOUT THE " SUBMISSION " OF 
 THE ARABS 
 
 Caneva too careless — He believes Galli's ridiculous reports 
 about the friendliness of the Arabs — The danger of employ- 
 ing agents like Galli — Galli's troupe of bogus Arab chiefs —
 
 xiv ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 The chauvinism of the Italian Press — Italian journalists are 
 litterati and impressionists, " peculiarly out of touch with 
 realities " — The question of Italian cheap labour in Tripoli- 
 tania — Italians regarded along African coast as coolies — 
 Europeans rule Asiatics through prestige, and prestige lost 
 when white Sahib found sweeping streets alongside coolie — 
 This miakes Italy's position in Tripolitania difficult — Case 
 of England, France, and America — Italians think they will 
 get foreign capital for Tripoli — They believe in " a moderate 
 dose of illusion regarding the wealth of the new colony " — 
 Caneva's proclamations — Modelled on those of Napoleon in 
 EgjTpt — Caneva permits swarms of spies to examine his 
 defences — Present position of Italian Army in Tripoli — A 
 railway to run down the fleet-footed Arab, to pursue the 
 mirages of the Desert ...... Page 313 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 caneva's neglect to disarm the ababs 
 
 The disarming of the Arabs a measure of extreme importance — 
 Captain Cagni disarmed some of the town Arabs, but could 
 not attend to the oa/sis Arabs — Natives disarmed at Benghazi, 
 Tobruk and Derna, with the result that no " revolt " and 
 no " repression " in those places — General Briccola 
 searches carefully for arms at Benghazi — Caneva makes no 
 search for arms in Tripoli, though he knows that oasis 
 bursting with rifles and cartridges — He is afraid to disturb 
 the natives at their tea — Imbecile benignity followed by 
 ferocious cruelty — No trial for Arabs caught with arms in 
 their possession — Italian admissions about extraordinary 
 stores of arms and ammunition in rear of their line — 
 Stupendous carelessness on Caneva's part — How all this 
 military material came into possession of natives — Was 
 looted during interregnum after Turks left and before • 
 Italians came — How an English telegraph operator acted . 331 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 HOW THE ARABS GOT IN THE ITALIAN REAR 
 
 Italians admit that rear attack on October 23rd was made by 
 fighting Arabs from the Desert who had slipped through 
 Italian line during Caneva's " benignant period " — Caneva 
 warned beforehand — How I went outside Italian line on 
 October 22nd and found myself among Arabs who made rear 
 attack next day — Those Arabs were irregular Turkish 
 soldiers, and it was not treachery on their part to attack 
 invaders in rear — Signer Bevione admits that rear attack 
 made by Arabs who had slipped through line — Yet, owing to 
 this rear attack, peaceful oasis Arabs are accused of 
 " treachery " and massacred — All Italians now accept this 
 view .......... 347
 
 CONTENTS XV 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 
 
 Evidence for massacres comes from people who were in 
 Tripoli and were all of them eye-witnesses of the atrocities — 
 Over a dozen correspondents, British, German, Axistria- 
 Hungarian, and French — The evidence against the mass- 
 acres comes from people who were not in Tripoli at the time 
 the atrocities are said to have taken place . • Pctge 360 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 CONCLUSION : THE CHURCH, THE SOCIALISTS 
 AND THE WAR 
 
 " The man with the red flag " will eventually be the only 
 gainer by this war — He alone has kept cool, sane, and cynical 
 — He alone has maintained all along that Tripolitania is not 
 worth fighting for — On the other hand, the Monarchist and 
 ClericaUst papers have indulged in a regular revel of jingoism 
 and blood — There is sure to be a reaction against this, and 
 the Socialists and Anarchists alone will benefit by the 
 swing of the pendulimi — The attitude of the Pope — The jingo- 
 ism of many bishops and clergymen — How is it that bishops 
 and clergymen support every war, while non-Christian and 
 even anti-Christian organisations work in favour of peace ? 
 — As a result of this particular war Christianity in Italy will 
 probably suffer — The future of the war — Opinion of Marshal 
 von der Goltz Pasha — 1812 saw a great army lost in a 
 Desert of snow : shall 1912 see a great army lost in a 
 Desert of sand ? — The prominent position which the story of 
 the massacres must occupy in every history of this cam- 
 paign ......... 382 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The Cult of the Cannon," an examination of Signer 
 Marinetti's philosophy of blood and iron — Kiplingism trans- 
 planted to a Latin soil and grown to monstrous and dis- 
 gusting proportions — Ferocious militarism really a sign of 
 decadence ......... 397 
 
 Index .......... 401
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACINO PAOE 
 
 The Oasis of Death Frontispiece 
 
 Lighthouse smashed by shells of battleships (photo by the Author) 48 
 
 The Tomb of the Karamanlis ....... 51 
 
 Wretched Turkish gunboat, Hunter of the Sea .... 52 
 
 One of the Turkish " forts." Littered with Italian shells . . 54 
 
 Sunken Turkish Transport, Derna ...... 69 
 
 The Landing of the 4th and 5th companies of the 11th Ber- 
 
 saglieri, afterwards cut to pieces in the Oasis, October 23rd 71 
 
 The Bersaglieri marching from the landing-jetty ... 73 
 
 The only survivor. A street stricken by Cholera ... 89 
 
 The Landing of the Army 103 
 
 Repelling Turkish demonstration at Gargaresh .... 127 
 
 Prisoners brought in to be shot 147 
 
 Battle of Sidi Messri. Machine-gun at work in the Oasis line . 223 
 
 On the way to execution 252 
 
 Unarmed " hands-uppers " 259 
 
 Burnt Bedouin encampment. Naked woman left to die. She 
 
 was dead the next day (photo by the Author) . . . 262 
 
 Remains of burnt Arab village (photo by the Author) . -. 262 
 
 Dying Arab. Sentinels on guard (photo by the Author) . , 265 
 Soldiers jeering at dying naked Arab woman whom I found dead 
 
 at the same spot on the following day (photo by the Author) 265 
 
 Pulling about a corpse (photo by the Author) .... 266 
 
 Murdered Arab villager (photo by the Author) .... 266 
 
 Arab carrying his old mother (photo by the Author) . . . 268 
 
 Dying Arab girl (photo by the Author) 268 
 
 Murdered Arab (photo by the Author) 275 
 
 Examining a corpse to see if it needs another bullet . . . 275 
 Ai-ab women and children brought in from the Oasis over the 
 dead bodies of their own kinsfolk. At some distance in 
 front marched a little Mohammedan boy carrying an impro- 
 vised Red Cross flag 283 
 
 A pile of fifty men and boys 286 
 
 Minaret disguised with palm-fronds so as to prevent it serving 
 
 as a mark for Turkish artillery 297 
 
 The Great Panic. Soldiers lining flat roofs of houses next 
 
 General Caneva's residence 310 
 
 Joyous, but quite unprotected, Italian camp in the Oasis during 
 Caneva's benignant period in the early days of the occupa- 
 tion 337
 
 PREFACE 
 
 " What necessity is there," it may be asked, " for 
 a book on the Italian war in Tripoli ? The reports 
 of the battles — such as they are — have already been 
 given very fully in all the principal newspapers of 
 the world." 
 
 My reply to this is that though this war in Tripoli 
 has been conducted in the twentieth century, and 
 under the eyes of some forty newspaper correspond- 
 ents, no fair nor complete picture of any portion of 
 it has yet been drawn. 
 
 This lacuna is largely due to two causes, the 
 official censorship of Italy and the unofficial censor- 
 ship of the Italians who are for one reason or another 
 in favour of the war. 
 
 The Italian censorship not only prevents (and quite 
 rightly of course) the publication of all military 
 information which might be of service to the enemy, 
 but also draws the blue pencil through telegrams 
 that tend to make the Italians depressed, to indicate 
 how endless the struggle is likely to be, to show how 
 well the Turks and Arabs fight. 
 
 So merciless and sweeping is the censorship that 
 we find the whole Italian Press, headed by the 
 influential " Corriere della Sera," conducting a 
 campaign against it. Even the extremely jingoistic 
 " Giornale d' Italia " complains of the mutilazioni 
 senza pietd apportate dalla censura ai dispacci de
 
 xviii ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 nostro inviato (pitiless mutilations of our corre- 
 spondent's despatches by the Censor). 
 
 A Milan paper, of which a copy lies before me as 
 I write, begins gaily in its largest type an account 
 of a battle telephoned from Rome. At the sixth 
 line, there is a break and we find in brackets the 
 words " tagliato dalla censura " (cut off by the Censor). 
 Throughout the accounts of the battle of Sharashett 
 telephoned from Rome to the great provincial papers, 
 the words " interrotto dalla censura " occur nearly 
 as frequently as the responses in a litany. 
 
 The Government acts systematically in this matter. 
 It puts every possible obstacle in the way of inde- 
 pendent accounts being published until its own 
 optimistic, official account has been printed all over 
 the country. Naturally, these early accounts are 
 the ones which are wired abroad by foreign corre- 
 spondents and which fix themselves in the public 
 mind not only in Italy, but elsewhere. If ever there 
 was a pitiable spoon-fed Press, it is the Press of Italy 
 at the present moment. This Tripoli conflict was 
 largely journalistic in its origin, but the journalists 
 who beat the jingo drum before the war began have 
 been consistently treated as little children ever since. 
 The first account of the battle of Sharashett, on M^hich 
 they were compelled to rely, was a strongly "doctored" 
 official account which did not speak of that breaking 
 of the Italian line by two hundred and fifty brave 
 Arabs, which was the feature of the action, but 
 which did speak of the capture of a Turkish flag by 
 a bayonet charge which never took place, for the 
 flag was discovered, after the battle, under a heap 
 of Arab dead in front of the trenches. 
 
 On October 27th the " Agenzia Italiana " circu- 
 lated a semi-official note on the battle of the 26th.
 
 PREFACE xix 
 
 This note said that the battle was " almost decisive." 
 It pointed out that as a result of that victory the 
 Arabs of the interior would be terrorised by the 
 Italian name. 
 
 " And what ought to fill us with legitimate pride 
 and patriotic enthusiasm," it added, " is the dash, 
 the indomitable power of resistance, the irresis- 
 tible heroism of our soldiers ; the magnificent con- 
 duct of the war on the part of the commander-in- 
 chief and of all the officers ; the admirable military 
 organisation which we have been able to show 
 before the astonished eyes of Europe on land as 
 well as on sea." 
 
 And this after a battle in which some of the Italian 
 soldiers threw away their arms and fled before exactly 
 two hundred and fifty of the enemy, a battle so un- 
 satisfactory from General Caneva's point of view that 
 the Italians retreated next day over a mile, with the 
 result that the enemy was able to come close enough 
 to bombard the city and to drop shells even on the 
 residence of the Generalissimo himself ! But, of 
 course, I forget that this retreat was due " to the efflu- 
 vium from the corpses." So the official account said. 
 
 These are only a few out of an endless list of in- 
 stances which I could give of the Italian Govern- 
 ment's mendacity and suppression of the truth in 
 its official and semi-official bulletins regarding the 
 present war. The Japanese Press was much freer 
 during Japan's great struggle with Russia than the 
 Italian Press is during this campaign with a few 
 thousand isolated Arabs to whom Turkey can send 
 little or no assistance. The Russian commander-in- 
 chief in Manchuria was far less dictatorial in his 
 dealings with the Press than the present Italian
 
 XX ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 commander-in-chief in Tripoli city. Italian corre- 
 spondents who communicate too abruptly to their 
 newspapers the amount of the Italian losses get 
 twenty-four hours to leave the country. On October 
 31st General Caneva expelled two Italian correspon- 
 dents, Signor De Luca Aprile of the " Giornale di 
 Sicilia," and Signor Bordiga of the " Lavoro." I do 
 not know how many he has deporwd since that 
 time. 
 
 I have already pointed out that even the most 
 jingo of the Italian newspapers have protested 
 day after day against the methods of the Censor. 
 But I am doubtful if the abolition of the censorship 
 would be of any good to them. The intolerant 
 Chauvinist spirit, which they themselves called into 
 existence and carefully fostered during many years, 
 is now their master, the exacting god to whom they 
 must offer incense. If an Italian journalist told the 
 truth about the war he would be expelled from 
 Tripoli, lose his means of livelihood, run the risk of 
 being mobbed, and ultimately find that he had got 
 to fight some half-a-dozen duels with indignant 
 " patriots." As some of the leading English and 
 American newspapers were represented in Tripoli at 
 the outbreak of the war by Italian journalists who 
 also contributed to Italian newspapers, the English 
 and American Press suffered, directly or indirectly, 
 by this Chauvinist menace almost as much as the 
 Italian Press itself. And when we come to the 
 question of the oasis massacres we must particularly 
 bear this point in mind. Even when a foreign 
 newspaper was represented at the front, by one of 
 its own staff, that gentleman saw clearly that if he 
 wanted to stay with the Italian army he would have 
 to close his eyes to that army's shortcomings. Some-
 
 PREFACE xxi 
 
 times the paper for which he wrote was more prudent 
 than he, and, not wishing to lose a good corre- 
 spondent on the spot, it neglected to publish any of 
 the criticisms on the Italians which he sent. 
 
 Because Dr. Walter Weibel, of the " Frankfurter 
 Zeitung," tried to tell the truth about what was 
 happening in Tripoli it was made impossible for him 
 to live or to work there, and on November 20th he had 
 to leave. On November 26th another very able and 
 conscientious German journalist, Dr. Gottlob Adolf 
 Krause, of the " Berliner Tageblatt," was bluntly 
 told by the head of the Italian Press Bureau that he 
 would have either to write in a pro-Italian style or 
 else to quit the country. (" Entweder Sie schreiben 
 in Zukunst Italien wohlwollende Berichte, oder Sie 
 werden ausgewiesen.") Many examples of this kind 
 could be given. In fact, on this subject alone a 
 whole book could be written. The writer of such a 
 book could show how much our worship of " first 
 news " injures our Press. In some armies toadying 
 and the ignoring of unpleasant facts are essential 
 to journalistic success, and I foresee that in foreign 
 wars, foreign semi-official journalists will in course of 
 time do all our work for us, because their telegrams 
 will come first, and the " scoop "is an idol before 
 which all editors grovel. 
 
 Even here in England the wildly intolerant Chau- 
 vinism of the Italians leads to what practically 
 amounts to the establishment of a censorship in 
 this country, to a loading of the dice in every possible 
 way, to a continual misrepresentation of the state of 
 feeling here. 
 
 At the outset of the war some " patriotic " Italians 
 sent to the Italian Government a congratulatory 
 message written on National Liberal Club notepaper. 
 b
 
 xxii ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 This message was reproduced in Italy as a proof 
 that the National Liberal Club was with the brave 
 Italians in their spirited and unselfish attempt to 
 release the Arabs of Tripolitania from the intolerable 
 yoke of the Turk. 
 
 On my return from Tripoli, I was persuaded by 
 the late W. T. Stead, that noble-hearted champion 
 of the oppressed in every land, to hold a meeting in 
 a London hall with the object of telling my fellow- 
 countrymen how the war in Tripoli was being carried 
 on. That meeting was broken up by seven Italians 
 who had come there purposely to interrupt, and who 
 paid no attention to the shouts of many among the 
 audience, one of whom said : " This is an English 
 meeting. We want to hear what the speaker has to 
 say. If you don't want to hear him, go home ! " 
 
 Judging by a telegram which appears in the " Neue 
 Freie Presse " of March 18th, the same methods are 
 being employed by the Italians in Munich towards 
 the distinguished Austrian explorer Otto Artbauer, 
 who is now lecturing in Germany on the Italian 
 atrocities which he saw committed in Tripoli. But 
 I notice, by the by, that in Germany the interrupters 
 find themselves outside the door in a marvellously 
 short space of time, so that the Bavarians hear all 
 of the lecture for which they have bought tickets. 
 
 While writing the present book in an isolated 
 house on the Surrey Downs, I was interrupted one 
 day by the arrival of three gentlemen who had come 
 from London in a motor-car and wanted to speak 
 to me. 
 
 They were Signer F. T. Marinetti, who calls him- 
 self a " poet," and who said that he had just come 
 from Tripoli and was staying at the Savoy Hotel ; 
 Signor Boccioni, who is, I believe, a " futurist "
 
 PREFACE xxiii 
 
 painter ; and another gentleman who did not give 
 his name, but whom I suspect to be the London 
 correspondent of the " Giornale d' ItaHa," The 
 object of these gentlemen in motoring all the way 
 from London was to fight a duel with me, and they 
 managed to find me at home when there was nobody 
 else in the house, save a maid-servant. 
 
 This was the second invitation of the kind I have 
 had since my return from Italy. I told them that 
 I would communicate with them in due course ; 
 whereupon one of them threatened to attack me there 
 and then. A long but incorrect account of the inci- 
 dent seems to have appeared in all the Italian papers, 
 for I find it in the " Nuovo Giornale " of Florence 
 (March 12th) as being telephoned from Rome, 
 where it had evidently appeared in the " Giornale 
 d' Italia." As a matter of fact, all that happened 
 was that I promised to communicate with my 
 challenger at the Savoy Hotel, in case I ever felt 
 anxious to fight a duel with him. Then the " poet " 
 got on his legs and began an oration which lasted a 
 quarter of an hour and afforded me a good deal of 
 amusement. He told me that I had never visited the 
 trenches at Tripoli, having probably remained con- 
 cealed in some cantina inside the to^vn. He said 
 that Mr. Grant, of the " Daily Mirror," had invented 
 the atrocities so that he might be expelled, since he 
 was afraid of the cholera and his paper would not 
 recall him. All this was very amusing, and the 
 manner in which my visitor strutted about the room 
 like a hero in melodrama was more amusing still. 
 But there is a serious side to this question. Is it not 
 rather impudent of foreigners enjoying the hospi- 
 tality of this country to thus burst, armed I presume, 
 into the houses of men who criticise the conduct of
 
 xxiv ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 their troops in Tripoli ? It may practically amount 
 in some cases to the imposition of a censorship. 
 Newspaper correspondents, whose business requires 
 them to be frequently abroad and sometimes to visit 
 Italy or pass through it, will be inclined, once they 
 see the violent intolerance of the Italians with regard 
 to comments on this war, to gloss over or ignore 
 altogether anything at which these thin-skinned 
 jingoes would be likely to take offence. This is 
 especially the case when the correspondents in 
 question have no very strong feelings either way, 
 and are only concerned — in case they visit Italy or 
 Tripoli — in having a " good time " and in getting 
 their news out first. 
 
 The result of all this is that we have got a rather 
 one-sided view of this war. The news about it which 
 is allowed to reach the world is the result of a careful 
 system of selection, mostly carried on in Italy itself. 
 The Italian editors are of opinion that if they publish 
 anything calculated to jar on the minds of the jingo- 
 ists they will be inundated with protests and their 
 circulation will suffer. And they are right in think- 
 ing so. Early in the war the " Daily Graphic " 
 published a letter from an American archasologist, 
 Mr. Richard Norton, who had been excavating in 
 Cyrenaica and who denounced the Italian raid, as 
 he had a perfect right to do. The entire Press of 
 Italy immediately set upon him with a deafening 
 howl of indignation. Columns appeared daily for 
 weeks in every paper in Italy denouncing the wicked- 
 ness, the mendacity of Signor Norton, and the treason 
 of the " Graphic " in publishing his letter. All over 
 Italy subscribers to the " Graphic " stopped their 
 subscriptions on account of " le ignobili calunnie 
 del ' Graphic ' contro 1' Italia." Reading-rooms and
 
 PREFACE XXV 
 
 libraries refused to let it enter their doors. Public 
 meetings were held to denounce it. Some news- 
 papers published, day after day, lists of people who 
 had for ever renounced the " Graphic " and all its 
 works and pomps. Finally, the " Graphic " had to 
 come to terms with its infuriated Italian readers and 
 to publish an explanation. 
 
 This absurd intolerance of criticism is as noticeable 
 in the Expeditionary Army as it is in Italy. The 
 Censor at Tripoli refused to let pass a harmless 
 phrase of Mr. Bennet Burleigh's to the effect that 
 " though the disembarkation of the Italian troops 
 on October 12th had been conducted with very 
 creditable efficiency and speed, British marines could 
 probably, owing to their greater experience in such 
 matters, conduct it even better." The Censor 
 objected to its being said that the British tar was in 
 any respect better than the Italian. He wanted no 
 criticism, but only praise, praise, praise, — bucket- 
 fuls of it. 
 
 Herr von Gottberg tried to send to the " Lokal- 
 Anzeiger" a message to the effect that "the Italian 
 Press has probably given a more pessimistic view of 
 the Turkish position than the facts of the case 
 warrant." This was at the time, just after the 
 landing of the expedition, when the most vapid 
 nonsense was circulated about the extremities to 
 which the Turks were reduced, when it was asserted 
 in the Italian papers that they had no water, little 
 food, hardly any cartridges, and were hanging around 
 Bumeliana simply because they wanted to get 
 something to drink. 
 
 Nevertheless, that phrase about the Italian Press 
 had to go out. The Censor would not allow it to pass 
 on any account.
 
 xxvi ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 About the middle of October Renter's corre- 
 spondent sent an impartial and accurate summing-up 
 of the situation, in which, while bestowing very high 
 praise on the Italians, he ventured to dwell on the 
 difficulties in front of the invaders, especially the 
 difficulties of a march into the desert. " It can only 
 be said," he declared, " that the Italians have entered 
 upon a gigantic undertaking without calculating 
 sufficiently the means necessary for overcoming all 
 the obstacles which they are bound to encounter and 
 without foreseeing the enormous expenses which 
 they will have to face." 
 
 Because he dared to say this the Roman Press was 
 furious with him. The semi-official " Tribuna " 
 (October 18th) declared that the statement which I 
 have just quoted " is contrary to all that has been 
 written up to the present in the Italian Press and 
 in the foreign Press, and is also in clear contrast with 
 the evidence of facts." 
 
 The " Tribuna " published this just and moderate 
 message under the heading of " Renter's imaginings," 
 and, personally attacking Renter's agent, it hinted 
 that the difficulties he experienced in getting to 
 Tripoli had rendered him unable to hold the balance 
 even. 
 
 And here I might stop just for a moment to show 
 what the Italians want to be written, what they 
 themselves write about the Tripoli adventure. 
 
 Signor de Felice, the famous " Socialist " deputy 
 from Sicily, who also acted as a correspondent of 
 the " Messaggero " in Tripoli, wrote a letter which 
 appeared in that paper on October 19th describing 
 " the manner in which our troops are advancing into 
 the interior." The troops are going, he said, in 
 three columns, one column by Tripoli-Misura to
 
 PREFACE xxvii 
 
 Tagiura, Sidi Ben Nur and Gazr-Gefari, "an old 
 fortified castle in which there was a respectable Otto- 
 man garrison which, on hearing of the arrival of our 
 troops, fled in great haste and joined, it is said, other 
 Turkish forces which have gone in disorder towards 
 the interior." "Another column marched on Gharian, 
 which may be called the capital of the Gebel. It has 
 traversed Ghea, an oasis rich in water ; and Cars-el - 
 Azizie, a most fertile place, also abundantly supplied 
 with potable water." 
 
 But the gem of De Felice's article is the statement 
 that, by the time his letter will have appeared in 
 print, this latter column " will already have reached 
 Gharian." . . . Anche questa guarnigione probabil- 
 mente fuggird alV arrivo delle nostre truppe. (" This 
 garrison also will probably fly before our troops.") 
 This amazing deputy adds, in conclusion, that " the 
 fugitives will not delay long before surrendering." 
 
 A glance at the map of Tripolitania will show that, 
 at their present rate of progress, the Italians will take 
 about fifty years to get to Gharian — unless they go 
 as prisoners. There are already nearly one hundred 
 Italian prisoners there and in Fezzan, and the collec- 
 tion may grow. 
 
 De Felice, I might remark, is the discoverer who, 
 after having driven in a carriage out to Sidi Messri 
 and seen some blades of grass {qualche filo d" erba) and 
 a plain covered with absolutely useless scrub, rushed 
 back to Tripoli and wrote for the " Giornale di 
 Sicilia" a glowing report on the agricultural possi- 
 bilities of the new " colony," winding up with the 
 exuberant telegram : " We have visited the desert : 
 all the land most fit for cultivation." 
 
 Now, if a Socialist, Radical, Little-Italy deputy 
 talks like this, what must we expect of the extreme
 
 xxviii ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 jingoes and imperialists ? As I want to avoid as 
 much as possible the reproach of making this book 
 one of rollicking humour, I refrain from quoting the 
 imperialists on the commercial possibilities of Tripoli- 
 tania unless where it is absolutely necessary. 
 My readers would be bound to get the impression 
 that I was quoting from some wild skit on the war, 
 that I had, by some mistake, got hold of an Italian 
 political adaptation of " Alice in Wonderland." 
 
 I shall give still another instance of the incredible 
 intolerance of the Italian Press on the subject of 
 Tripoli. As his despatches from Tripoli at the time 
 of the massacres shoAv, one of the most pro-Italian of 
 the foreign correspondents with General Caneva's 
 force in October last was the war-correspondent of 
 " The Times." 
 
 I do not mean that this gentleman suppressed the 
 truth out of deference to Italian susceptibilities. I 
 mean that, as a military man himself who had 
 combated savage or half-savage tribes on the Indian 
 frontier and in other parts of the empire, his sympa- 
 thies were with the professional soldiers, the white 
 men, the Europeans, and not with the irregular and 
 possibly treacherous natives who wore no uniform 
 and whose officers had, most of them, been to no 
 recognised military school. 
 
 But occasionally this correspondent felt obliged to 
 drop a friendly word of criticism, and that word of 
 criticism made the Italians wild. 
 
 Even so well-balanced a paper as the " Corriere 
 della Sera" (October 19th) describes one of his 
 messages as " grotesque malignity." This was 
 because he had said that, in the first night attack 
 on Bumeliana, the Turks had only twenty men, 
 whereas the Italian correspondents had placed the
 
 PREFACE xxix 
 
 number at five hundred. As will be seen in the 
 following narrative, the precise number was fifteen. 
 " The Times " correspondent had, as usual, been too 
 favourable to his brethren, the professional soldiers. 
 
 When the same journalist courteously begged the 
 Italian Press not to lose its sense of proportion, since 
 the war was, after all, a small one, of no military 
 importance to the world at large, the " Ora " of 
 Palermo (October 20th) cited this statement as 
 showing " il maV animo del corrispondenti esteri verso 
 i colleghi italiani." My friend Mr. Percival Phillips 
 w^as scoffed at because he prophesied that, owing to 
 the way in which the Italian soldiers were allowed to 
 drink water from the public fountains and to eat 
 unripe fruit, cholera Avould soon make its appearance 
 in the Italian camp — as it did. 
 
 Italy is, in short, the militant suffragette of the 
 nations. She breaks diplomatic, international, 
 hygienic, and strategical laws as Miss Christabel 
 Pankhurst breaks windows, and then she raises an 
 ear-splitting, hysterical yell if anybody ventures to 
 criticise her, even if any friend and accomplice 
 attempts to tell her the right way to do it. She goes 
 cruising in the ^Egean with her fleet exactly as 
 Mrs. Pankhurst goes cruising in the Strand with 
 her hammer. By making herself a general nuisance 
 and exposing us to the risk of a Balkan war, Italy 
 wants to worry Europe into making Turkey give her 
 Tripolitania. 
 
 I must admit, however, that here and there in 
 Italy the voice of reason is sometimes heard. Signor 
 Mario Borsa, the chief editor of the " Secolo," wrote 
 on one occasion to the " Tribunali " a powerful letter 
 in which he denounced the spectacle which his country 
 presented to the world, " the petty and undignified
 
 XXX ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 spectacle of a people excitable, nervous, as incapable 
 of ignoring vulgar attacks as of tolerating judicious 
 criticism." " We are," continued the same writer, 
 " the spoilt children of praise. For fifty years the 
 world has only had caresses for us. . . . This is an 
 imperialism of a new species." " We have lost our 
 tempers," he says in another place, " on account of 
 the hostile language of the foreign Press. We have 
 grown heated to such an extent that we have only 
 made ourselves ridiculous. We have prohibited 
 foreign correspondents to go to Chiasso to send off 
 telegrams. We have censored and held back their 
 messages. . . . We have seen our ministers and our 
 generals engaged in controversies with telegraphic 
 agencies and with foreign journalists. We have read 
 in the ' Tribunali ' that our ambassadors ought to 
 take legal action against the newspapers which 
 defame us." 
 
 But these voices were few and far between ; and 
 even editors who took Signor Borsa's point of view 
 were compelled to continue feeding the Frankenstein's 
 monster, the Chauvinistic public opinion which they 
 had been " forming " for the past five years. In their 
 accounts of the bombardments of undefended villages 
 they had to employ terms of praise which would be 
 extravagant if applied to the victor of Trafal- 
 gar. In their descriptions of the timid and even 
 cowardly advances of their troops on land they 
 actually compared themselves with the Japan- 
 ese and with old Bliicher. In their selection of 
 letters from the ranks they confined themselves to 
 the reproduction of bogus or censored letters of 
 the usual ultra-patriotic type. It has always been 
 the usual soldier laddie writing to the usual white- 
 haired mother, and saying the usual things about
 
 PREFACE xxxi 
 
 dying for his country and his king. Now, the great 
 majority of the letters must be of a very different 
 kind, for the great majority of the soldiers are dis- 
 gusted with this war, and have sometimes to be kept 
 at their posts during battle by officers standing over 
 them with revolvers. 
 
 And, as a matter of fact, the " Avanti " does 
 publish some soldiers' letters which are of anything 
 but the usual stereotyped, goody-goody sort. Take 
 the following from the "Avanti " of November 24th. 
 It is an extract from a letter written to his brother 
 by a soldier who took part in the battle of Shara- 
 shett : 
 
 " Believe me when I tell thee that I have led a 
 dog's life of it for days and days. It is some ten 
 days now since we have had an attack, but to-day, 
 just as I began to write, we had one for about ten 
 minutes. I was ill for six days, but the doctor 
 said I was shamming and I had to work all the 
 same. We have no roof over our heads day or 
 night. We left Leghorn on October 2nd, and since 
 then I have not had a change of linen and have no 
 other clothes than these on my back. The Turks 
 have taken the rest. I assure thee, dear brother, 
 that it would be better for me if, instead of 
 coming to the war, I had thrown myself into the 
 sea. I have no longer any hope of returning, and 
 will surely be killed by illness or by a bullet. . . . 
 
 Sardi Dario. 11th Regiment of Bersaglieri, 
 
 " Che bruttissima cosa e la guerra ! " (" What 
 a most ugly thing is war") writes another soldier 
 from Benghazi to his mother. " In this country 
 one has to suspect everything and everybody. 
 One has to suspect the weather and the inhabit-
 
 xxxii ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 ants. As I write this note the wind of the desert 
 has been blowing for twenty-four hours. Imagine 
 a great rain of very fine sand which prevents you 
 from opening your eyes, which beats upon your 
 face with an extraordinary violence, which enters 
 into your ears and nostrils and through the open- 
 ings of your clothes and into your shoes so that 
 it pricks you like pin-points. Naturally I can put 
 nothing in my mouth while the storm lasts, for 
 the food and the bread are covered with sand. 
 Through holes in the tent which serves us as a very 
 bad place of shelter, the sand penetrates until at 
 night one's face is so covered with it that one has 
 to get up every now and then to let the sand fall 
 off. Last night the wind was so strong that it 
 blew down the tent in which I lay with four com- 
 panions, tearing loose the pegs which had fastened 
 it to the ground. You can imagine the confusion 
 into which we were then plunged. We were almost 
 completely covered by sand, and it took us all our 
 time to extricate ourselves by holding on to the 
 date-palms. In spite of all this, and much more 
 that I cannot write at this moment, my health 
 is good, but I assure thee that these fatigues, 
 this perpetual strain which I am compelled to 
 undergo here, will have indelible effects on my 
 future health and will shorten my existence. Oh ! 
 how often, finding myself alone at night with five 
 or six men under my personal responsibility, 
 [during the rainy season some weeks back] deluged 
 with water, without any resting-place, with nothing 
 but mud to lie down in, with rain pouring down 
 on me in bucketfuls — how often have I not longed 
 for that godsend which will, I hope, at length set 
 me free — a rifle-bullet through the brain ! "
 
 PREFACE xxxiii 
 
 This is hardly the spirit of Ancient Rome to which 
 the Italian Nationalists are so fond of appealing, 
 but it is the spirit of the Italian troops in Tripoli- 
 tania at the present moment. Nay, even these letters 
 do not represent the depths of their misery, gloom, 
 and disillusionment, for in the first place the worst 
 letters are not confided to the newspapers lest they 
 get the writer into trouble, and in the second place 
 even the " Avanti " is compelled to pander some- 
 what to the craze for militarism which has invaded 
 Italy. In the " patriotic " drivel which he sometimes 
 sends from the front, the Tripoli correspondent of 
 the " Avanti " is quite as bad as his Italian colleagues. 
 He would probably have been expelled from Tripoli 
 long ago as " unpatriotic" had he written in a more 
 subdued key. 
 
 I may seem in the following narrative to be anti- 
 Italian and pro-Turk, but I believe that, on the 
 whole, I am fairly impartial. I sympathise with 
 the Arabs because they are fighting very bravely 
 for their country, but, on the other hand, I am com- 
 pelled to rely for many of my facts on Italian papers, 
 either directly or indirectly. The only papers I 
 could get in Tripoli were Italian, so that in some 
 instances I may possibly do injustice to the Arabs. 
 The Italians have practically a monopoly of the 
 news about this war, for the Turks are soldiers, not 
 writers. Very few foreign correspondents care to 
 expose themselves to the fatigues and dangers in- 
 cident to a stay at the head-quarters of Nesciat Bey ; 
 and for information regarding some incidents in the 
 campaign we are compelled to rely almost entirely 
 on Italian sources. Not a single Turk or Arab of 
 the two gallant bands which twice broke the Italian 
 line ever returned to tell the tale, and all the deeds of
 
 xxxiv ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 heroism which they performed during their last 
 desperate struggles in the oasis will never be known. 
 Unknown also will be all the acts of treachery and 
 cowardice of which the Italians were guilty during 
 these oasis fights. We know some of them, but we 
 shall never know all. On the other hand, we get 
 a wealth of detail about Italian heroism ; and as 
 these narratives come from the pens of the ablest 
 journalists in Italy, they are very readable, very 
 seductive. And, of course, there was on the spot 
 the subsidised newspaper which is a usual feature 
 of such cases. In this case it was the " Eco di Tripoli," 
 a journal subsidised by the Italian Consulate in 
 order that it might " servire alia propagazione dell' 
 idea nazionale e alia conquista morale degli arabi." 
 Bravely, indeed, did the editor uphold the banner 
 of Christian civilisation among those benighted 
 Infidels. His name was Moses. 
 
 In Italy itself we have the great poet, Gabriele 
 d' Annunzio, working with all his might in order to 
 create a wholly false impression about this war. 
 Hence I say that in the following narrative I give 
 the Arabs no more than they are entitled to. 
 
 There are some classes of people to whom these 
 pages will make no appeal. They will make no 
 appeal to military men, who believe that the elastic 
 term " military exigency " covers every species of 
 crime and barbarity in time of war. 
 
 They will make no appeal to the Englishman who 
 has caught in some way or other the microbe of 
 Italian jingoism. There are some such Englishmen. 
 They live in Italy, or they write books about that 
 country, or they trade with Tripoli, or they have 
 Italian blood in their veins, but I find that so far as 
 the present war is concerned it is hopeless to argue
 
 PREFACE XXXV 
 
 with them. They are as bhnded as the " Giornale 
 d' ItaHa " itself. 
 
 I do not address this book to those cold-blooded 
 calculators the statesmen and publicists who want 
 to detach Italy from the Triple Alliance, or to help 
 France to do so, who want to make the Italian 
 Dreadnoughts neutralise the Austrian Dreadnoughts, 
 and who therefore think it better that we should all 
 keep silent in this country about Italian doings in 
 Tripolitania. When they look out on the continent 
 of Europe these gentlemen can only see one nation 
 there — Germany. They can take account of nothing 
 else. They do not remember that Russia was the 
 bugbear to exactly the same extent only ten years 
 ago, that, previous to that, the bugbear was France. 
 They do not realise that Germany may be our ally 
 to-morrow. Then, there are people who think that 
 we should keep a politic silence, and get Italy to pay 
 for it by conceding us some advantages in Egypt. 
 There are people who helped in the unification of 
 Italy, and who are therefore loath to believe that 
 unified Italy can do wrong. There are people who 
 are dazzled by Italy's literature and art, by her old 
 cities, her superb twilights, the bewitching beauty of 
 her hills and coasts, the irresistible charm of her 
 people, by her tremendous past. There are Catholics 
 who object to any criticism of the Italian soldier 
 because many of the expeditionary troops went to 
 the Sacraments before they embarked at Naples, 
 and because the army in Tripolitania is well provided 
 with Franciscan chaplains. Again, there are people 
 in England who believe that the Turk is fair prey, 
 that there is no harm in driving him out of Europe 
 and Africa, and that, in the course of driving him 
 out, no atrocity can possibly be committed. Lastly,
 
 xxxvi ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 there are people who favour the ItaHans now, because 
 the Itahans favoured us in the South African war. 
 Lord Roberts seems to be one of these ; on no other 
 grounds can I explain his pronouncement last Novem- 
 ber on a question about which he had no direct 
 knowledge. This distinguished soldier must have 
 been unconsciously biased by the fact that his own 
 proceedings in the Transvaal, so much criticised at 
 the time by a certain section of English opinion, 
 were defended by Italians. 
 
 To all these classes of my countrymen I make no 
 appeal. This book is not written for them. 
 
 Happily, however, they comprise only a very 
 small proportion of the British nation. They do not 
 form one per cent of the great mass of fair-minded, 
 impartial men and women who say to me : " Don't 
 mind in the least whether Italy was with us or not 
 in the South African war, whether she will leave the 
 Triplice or stay in it, whether she will make us more 
 secure or not at Cairo. Just tell us what happened 
 in Tripoli in October 1911." 
 
 And that is what I shall try to do. 
 
 Despite my denunciation of the Italian papers, 
 I must thank them for much of the non-contro- 
 versial material contained in the following pages. 
 I must also thank the " Daily Mirror " for allowing 
 me to use its excellent photographs. And I must 
 express my acknowledgments to the " New York 
 World," the " Westminster Gazette," and the " Daily 
 News " for permission to use material contributed 
 by me to their columns.
 
 PART I
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IL NAZIONALISMO 
 
 To most Englishmen, there are two surprising things 
 in the present Tiirko-Itahan conflict. The first is 
 why this conflict should have taken place at all. We 
 cannot understand the state of mind which made 
 not only possible, but even popular in Italy, this war 
 which seems to us in England one of the worst cases 
 of international highway robbery that have occurred 
 during the last fifty years. In the second place, we 
 cannot fully understand the state of mind in the 
 Italian expeditionary army which made possible the 
 awful events of October 23rd-28th last. 
 
 These explanations I shall endeavour to give in the 
 following pages, and though they may render this 
 book somewhat dull, they will, I hope, throw some 
 light at the same time on a dark and intricate subject. 
 
 To begin with the state of mind in Italy itself, 
 which made this war in Tripoli possible. 
 
 In the first place, Italy has nursed a sentimental 
 claim on this Turkish vilayet for more than a gener- 
 ation. This claim was based on the fact that Tripoli 
 is only a day's sail from Sicily, and that it was 
 formerly a Roman province. I need not point out 
 that these reasons are thin enough, for England was 
 also a Roman province, and the English colony of 
 Malta is nearer to Tripoli than any part of Sicily. 
 
 But, of course, there were other causes. Almost
 
 4 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 unobserved, a new Chauvinist party has been growing 
 up during the last few decades in Italy, The members 
 of this party call themselves Nationalists. Their 
 opponents call them the Young Turks of Italy, but 
 they do not deserve the name. The men who over- 
 threw Abd-ul-Hamid are made of far sterner stuff. 
 The Nationalists are jingoists of an extreme and 
 candid type. They believe in war for war's sake. 
 They believe that the shedding of blood makes a 
 nation virile, unifies it, intensifies the patriotism of 
 its inhabitants. Their motto is : "If you feel 
 decadent, go out and murder somebody." They 
 preach this extraordinary doctrine without any 
 attempt at excuse or palliation.^ 
 
 It is difficult to understand this sudden craze for 
 brute force on the part of the weakest of the Powers 
 — a nation which is only, indeed, regarded as one of 
 the Great Powers by international courtesy ; a nation 
 which owes its unity not to its own exertions, but 
 to the sentimentality of Europe ; in short, a petted 
 and artificial nation which is very much in the same 
 position as modern Greece. It is extraordinary to 
 find the one nation in Europe whose claims to respect 
 
 1 " We wish to glorify war, — the only health-giver of the world," 
 yells Signor Marinetti, one of the many minor poets who are now 
 thumping the jingo drum. " [We wish to glorify] militarism, patriot- 
 ism, the destructive arm of the Anarchist, the beautiful ideas that 
 kill, the contempt for woman." 
 
 In the Golden Legend we are told of a rich Prince to whom Satan 
 suggested that the blood of a young maiden would cure his disease. 
 So has Lucifer suggested to Italy that a blood-bath will rejuvenate 
 her. In really rich and powerful empires with great armies or vast 
 colonial possessions an imperialistic group has its uses, but Italy can 
 derive no possible benefit from the hysterical poetasters and un- 
 balanced officers who are largely accountable for this war. Of their 
 own windy " patriotism " I am more than doubtful. To-day they are 
 chasing Arabs with poems and revolvers. To-morrow they may be 
 after Victor Emmanuel with bombs. And once the foolishness of 
 their present propaganda is exposed, there will be an inevitable 
 reaction in Italy against even sane and moderate patriotism.
 
 IL NAZIONALISMO 5 
 
 are based wholly on its artistic and literary achieve- 
 ments suddenly and of its own accord " rattling into 
 barbarism." One feels sincerely sorry to see delicate 
 and gifted Italy abasing herself so gratuitously before 
 the brazen idol of militarism. The light and gentle 
 Ariel prefers to be the heavy-handed Caliban. The 
 graceful stag wants to be fat and strong like the bull. 
 
 " Italy," says one English publicist, " Italy the 
 flower of our western world, whom we so loved and 
 pitied fifty years ago. It is well that we should be 
 reminded of our folly in that we believed in her tears 
 and thought that liberty would be a cure for her 
 secular griefs. Her tears are dry enough now, and 
 she stands before us hard-eyed, brazen-cheeked, the 
 harlot of Europe boasting with loud tongue her 
 shamelessness." 
 
 And not only has she made the world dislike her. 
 Worse than that, she has made the w^orld laugh at 
 her. Her newspapers use the most inflated language 
 about her military and naval prowess. Her generals 
 refer in their proclamations to the ancient Roman 
 Empire. But at the same time her armies manifest 
 a ludicrous timidity in the face of an enemy much 
 inferior to them in numbers and handicapped in 
 every way. 
 
 The whole mistake is due to the fact that the clever 
 young litterateurs and the enthusiastic young officers 
 at the head of the Nationalist movement have de- 
 ceived themselves. They imagined that Italy had 
 only to make an effort in order to transform herself 
 into ancient Rome. But, unfortunately for them, 
 there is a wide gap on this point between them and 
 the soldiers whom they command. These soldiers, 
 on whom of course the success of the Tripolitan ad- 
 venture entirely depends, knew nothing of Scipio
 
 6 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Africanus or Hadrian, and have no wish whatever 
 to distinguish themselves in futile battles against 
 the Libyan sands. One of them wants to be left in 
 peace on his Sicilian vineyard. Another wants to 
 eventually join his brother who has a barber's shop 
 in New York and is earning " good money." A third 
 who has been in Chicago wants to return again. The 
 Nationalists refuse to face the fact that many things 
 have happened since the time of Julius Csesar, that 
 America, for example, has been discovered. 
 
 The modern Greek jingoists made the same mistake 
 when they insisted on waging war on Turkey. A 
 handful of unbalanced young officers and poets had 
 got heated by reading of the conquests of the ancient 
 people from whom they believed (mistakenly) that 
 they were descended. They remembered Alexander 
 the Great and Xenophon, but forgot about the long 
 Byzantine degradation that interposes between those 
 great figures and the Greece of to-day. Far be it 
 from me to condemn all such revivals. I warmly 
 approve of them whenever they do not lead merely 
 to the copying of the worst features of ancient civil- 
 izations. Rienzi was a noble and sympathetic figure 
 because he attempted to restore the better features 
 of ancient Rome ; but I have no sympathy with 
 those who think that they are walking in the foot- 
 steps of great men when they are only copying those 
 men's worst defects. They remind me of Dostoiev- 
 sky's hero, the weak-minded Russian student Ras- 
 kolnikoff, who, for the sake of a little money, battered 
 out the brains of a poor old woman. He always 
 acted on the principle of " doing as Napoleon would 
 have done," and thought that in this case Napoleon 
 would have acted with vigour, decision, and ruth- 
 lessness.
 
 IL NAZIONALISMO 7 
 
 Giollitian Italy is the Raskolnikoff of modem his- 
 tory. She attacks a poor little isolated community 
 of Arabs and batters them with cannon because she 
 thinks that Ancient Rome would have done the 
 same. The Nationalists were convinced that the 
 brutality of the war would increase the vigour of 
 the nation. On this point I shall allow an Italian 
 to speak, that sturdy old revolutionary, Hamilcar 
 Cipriani. 
 
 " They want a great victory," he said, in reply 
 to an interviewer, " but how can they possibly 
 win a great victory in Tripolitania when we know 
 that Turkey cannot send an army thither owing 
 to the fact that she has no fleet ? The Italian jingo 
 Press has been flooding the country with effeminate 
 twaddle, with silly and imbecile gush in which they 
 magnify the most insignificant skirmishes into 
 great victories, in which they characterise as 
 colossal triumphs combats which end in the Italians 
 prudently retiring within the range of their naval 
 guns. This has rendered us a laughing-stock in 
 the eyes of all the world. We are to-day the stock 
 joke of international humour, which represents 
 us as so many Tartarins hunting lions." 
 
 The joke would not have been complete, however, 
 without its jingo poet. And a jingo poet this tragic 
 jest has got in the shape of Gabriele d' iVnnunzio. 
 For some time past this writer has been rapidly 
 developing into a sort of Italian Kipling — and a Kip- 
 ing, I need hardly say, is out of place in any but a 
 very great empire. He wrote some years ago a book 
 called " The Ship," of which the burden was im- 
 perialism, expansion, the acquisition of colonies, 
 the taking up of the White Man's burden. Since
 
 8 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the war began he has written a whole volume of 
 poems in praise of it. Imagine writing heroic poetry 
 about the " victories " of General Caneva ! The latest 
 news is that D' Annunzio is personally going to 
 Tripolitania, as Mr. Rudyard Kipling went person- 
 ally to South Africa. 
 
 Why the Italian Government went over, bag and 
 baggage, to the Nationalists, and even surpassed 
 the worst of them in flamboyancy of language, is 
 not difficult to explain. Ever since Italy was united 
 her rulers have been determined to really cenient the 
 various communities of which the country is com- 
 posed by means of an aggressive war. This is evident 
 in everything they did, in the ugly barracks with 
 which they disfigured many a beautiful landscape, 
 even in the aggressive monument to Victor Em- 
 manuel at Rome. That tasteless production was 
 admittedly intended to be " il monumento della terza 
 Italia"; and travellers must have noticed that its 
 plinth is all carved into warlike emblems. What a 
 much nobler inspiration the creators of " the third 
 Italy " might have drawn from the ara pads of 
 Augustus, now in great part exhumed ! With what 
 simplicity of artistic means and with what tasteful 
 use of symbolical figures did not the Rome of 
 Augustus embody the idea of confident and pros- 
 perous peace ! 
 
 Though Cavour said that " Italia fara da se," 
 he was historically wrong. It was France, and to 
 some extent England and Prussia, which made 
 Italian unity, but it was not Italy. It was Magenta 
 and Solferino, and not the battles of Garibaldi. 
 Italy therefore felt herself in much the same position 
 as Greece. She had started her career with the fatal 
 disadvantage of having won her independence at
 
 IL NAZIONALISxMO 9 
 
 the hands of another people. For the last forty 
 years, therefore, it has been the great aim of Italian 
 statesmen to atone for this defect as much as possible 
 by providing her with a Sedan, with some victory 
 which would lead to " the Re-Unification of Italy " 
 as Mr, Richard Bagot calls it, which would weld 
 Romans, Genoese, Florentines, Venetians, Neapoli- 
 tans, and Sicilians together by the cement of common 
 danger, by the blood and iron of war, and lead to a 
 union very much more intimate than the artificial 
 union of 1870. Hence the scheme to take Tunis and 
 the projected raid on Albania. Hence the unfortunate 
 Abyssinian adventure. Hence the plans of Crispi to 
 seize Tripolitania, plans which would probably have 
 been carried out had that statesman's last Premier- 
 ship lasted a few months longer. 
 
 Another reason predisposed the Italian Govern- 
 ment to adopt the Nationalist programme. That 
 reason was — Adowa. It was necessary, thought the 
 Government, to wipe out the shame of Adowa. 
 " We must make amends before all the world," 
 says Scipio Sighele in his recently published 
 book " II Nazionalismo," " for our cowardice after 
 Adowa." 
 
 Reasoning on the same lines, France might attack 
 Switzerland in order to erase the memory of Sedan ; 
 but in everything connected with this African raid 
 the Italian Government and the Italian Nationalists 
 have a style of reasoning peculiar to themselves. 
 Moreover, they never seem to think that other 
 nations have as much right to attack them as they 
 have to attack Tripoli. If, seized by an imperialistic 
 frenzy, Austria-Hungary pushes down the Dalmatian 
 coast from Cattaro and makes the Adriatic an 
 Austrian lake, she can justify herself by arguments
 
 10 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 innumerable culled from Italian Nationalist poems, 
 books and leading articles. 
 
 And it is not at all impossible that Austria-Hun- 
 gary may think this the very best time for under- 
 taking such an advance. With a large Italian army 
 locked up indefinitely in northern Africa, the cir- 
 cumstances could not well be more favourable. And 
 for Austria-Hungary it might be a measure of self- 
 protection. The Italian Nationalists who preached 
 the Tripoli crusade have preached with much greater 
 vehemence, and for a much longer time, a war for 
 the recovery of Italia Irredenta. In his recent book 
 on Nationalism, that high priest of the cult, Scipio 
 Sighele, says that " irredentismo " is " not only an 
 indestructible sentiment, but a necessity and a duty 
 imposed on us by historical rights, by economic 
 interests, by strategical considerations." There is 
 now accredited to General Caneva's army an Italian 
 correspondent from Trieste who loudly proclaims 
 that the attack on Tripoli is only a rehearsal for an 
 attack on Trieste, and, ludicrous as this boast seems 
 to be under the circumstances, it certainly expresses 
 the sentiments of all the Italian Nationalists. 
 
 Italy's foolishness in adopting the " big-stick " 
 policy is all the greater owing to the fact that she 
 herself is one of the nations most likely to suffer 
 from an all-round adoption of that policy by the 
 European Powers. 
 
 If there is any nation in Europe that should cling 
 to the Garibaldian tradition of always fighting against 
 oppressors wherever they are found, of always 
 assisting the weak against the strong, that nation is 
 Italy. Even from a moral and educational point 
 of view Italy will lose much when she loses the old 
 tradition.
 
 IL NAZIONALISMO 11 
 
 On this subject I shall again quote Cipriani. 
 
 " The greatest infamy," says that old revolu- 
 tionist, " the most un^^ardonable crime which the 
 monarchy has committed by means of this pirate- 
 raid on Tripoli is that it throws to the dogs, tramples 
 in a sea of mud and blood, our beautiful Italian 
 tradition, the Garibaldian tradition which makes 
 us shoulder our rifles and fight whenever there is 
 an oppressor to combat, a right to vindicate, a 
 good cause to defend, even outside the confines 
 of our own country, too narrow for our thirst for 
 justice. We were once the knights-errant of the 
 ideal, the heroic Don Quixotes of the nations, and 
 our Dulcinea was called Justice. From the plains 
 of the Rio Grande and Montevideo to Poland, 
 Greece, the Vosges, Candia, Cuba, Albania, in every 
 part of the world, the gentle Latin blood had 
 watered the earth with a beneficent rain of gene- 
 rosity, in the beauty of a sacrifice which asked for 
 no reward. 
 
 " This is the true, the great, the noble, the 
 holy Italian Nationalism to which we should have 
 always clung. Six months ago we had the superb 
 pride of being able to say : ' We have never 
 oppressed anybody. On the contrary, we have 
 given the flower of our youth to break the chains 
 of the oppressor in other lands.' 
 
 " And now we kill, we rob, we murder, like the 
 worst of them. We applaud a rapacious conquest, 
 an iniquity which masks itself in the name of 
 patriotism." 
 
 With the " fatalita storica " claim of Signor 
 Giolitti I need not deal. A more serious reason for 
 the adventure, though it is seldom mentioned, was
 
 12 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the low esteem in which the Italians are held by 
 the natives all over northern Africa. The warlike 
 Nationalist newspaper correspondents who vi'^ited 
 Tripolitania before the war wrote violent letters 
 home about the scant courtesy with which they were 
 treated. One of them complains that at the Custom- 
 house, at the Castello, and in all the public offices, 
 the Italian was made to wait last. The Englishman, 
 the German, and the Frenchman were always attended 
 to first, while " the descendants of the Scipios " were 
 actually classed with the Greeks, the Spaniards, 
 and the South Americans. It is quite possible 
 that this was one of the unutterable griefs which 
 finally forced Giolitti to take the field. He would 
 make the insolent Arab tremble at the name of 
 Rome. 
 
 But why did Italy approve of the Giolittian pro- 
 gramme ? A variety of reasons might be given. 
 All the so-called " Progressive " parties had grown 
 stale and wearisome to the nation, and had entered 
 upon a process of slow decay. The war quickened 
 this process, and the people cheered the war because 
 it had come as a relief to them after ten years of 
 class friction and general strikes and sectional legis- 
 lation. 
 
 It must be admitted that in most nations we find 
 the same phenomenon. There is a swing of the 
 pendulum from peace to war, from Gladstone to 
 Joseph Chamberlain, from Joseph Chamberlain to 
 Lloyd George. And, moreover, artistic nations, 
 which are regarded by the world as nothing more 
 than picture galleries and playgrounds for jaded 
 tourists, have moments of revolt. They are over- 
 mastered from time to time by a fierce desire to show 
 mankind that they are not all born to be Cook's
 
 IL NAZIONALISMO 13 
 
 guides. It was a rebellious mood of this kind that 
 drove Japan into the Russian War. But (and this 
 is a much more apposite example) it was also such a 
 mood that drove Greece into her last ludicrous war 
 with Turkey.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BANCO DI ROMA 
 
 I MUST admit that behind this conflict are a great 
 many interests. It is not the work of a cHque. Or, 
 perhaps, I should say that it is the work of one cHque 
 which has " roped in " a great number of other 
 cHques. It may even be called a national war. There 
 was a general disposition among civilians to make the 
 Government employ the fleet and army in some 
 brilliant way. The great economic and financial 
 prosperity of northern Italy since 1900 made a large 
 section of the nation anxious for the Government 
 to assert itself. Thus Italy may be said to have been 
 ripe for an adventure. And in Tripoli, the conditions 
 for a successful and not too dangerous adventure 
 seemed ideal. In Tripoli, too, the Italian Govern- 
 ment had at its disposal a financial institution cor- 
 responding to the Russo-Chinese Bank in Manchuria 
 and the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas in Morocco. 
 Here, as elsewhere, financial interests supply the 
 key to the situation. Here, as elsewhere, we come 
 on the trail of the concessionaire and the financier, 
 so familiar in all recent wars. 
 
 The institution to which I refer was of course the 
 Banco di Roma, a vast credit concern with a paid- 
 up capital of over £4,000,000, to which a further 
 £2,000,000 are soon to be added by the absorption 
 of a Ligurian Bank. For many years past the Banco 
 
 14
 
 THE BANCO DI ROMA 15 
 
 di Roma has been pacifically penetrating Tripoli. 
 It acquired enormous tracts of land ; it established 
 or financed corn mills and other industrial under- 
 takings ; it prospected for phosphates and minerals. 
 The director of the Bank was a very able business 
 man, — Signor Pacelli, a friend of Baron Sonnino, the 
 well-known Conservative leader and proprietor of 
 an ultra-Catholic and ultra-jingoistic newspaper, the 
 " Giornale d' Italia." Signor Pacelli has friends in 
 every camp. He has friends even in the Govern- 
 ment, for some members of the present Cabinet are 
 financially interested in the Bank. The Italians 
 bitterly complained of the obstacles thrown in its 
 way by the Turks, but personally I cannot sympathise 
 very much with the Italians in this matter, since the 
 object of the Bank was undoubtedly to sap Turkish 
 rule in Tripolitania and pave the way for the entry 
 of the Italians. 
 
 The Cecil Rhodes of Tripolitania was, however, a 
 subordinate of Signor Pacelli. He was a banker called 
 Bresciani, whom we first meet with in Massaua. 
 Having failed to make a fortune in Italy's only 
 colony, Bresciani returned to Rome, where he was 
 warmly recommended to the Banco di Roma as a 
 suitable person for establishing new branches in 
 Tunisia and Tripolitania. Signor Bresciani visited 
 both countries and brought back a report to the 
 directors of the Bank, who at once entrusted him 
 with the work of opening a branch in Tripoli. Bres- 
 ciani therefore returned to Tripoli, and having 
 obtained the permission of the Vali, he did open the 
 establishment which has been to some extent the 
 cause of the present war. Though the Turks could 
 not prevent the bank from being opened, they were 
 not favourable to it, as they were aware from the
 
 16 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 first that it was only an instrument of " peaceful 
 penetration," and would be followed in due course 
 by battleships and Bersaglieri. Signor Bresciani did 
 little or no business, but, at all events, he bought 
 off all his enemies among the Turks and Arabs by 
 means of monthly salaries and promises of em- 
 ployment, when he had once got started. To the 
 unpaid, impoverished Turkish functionary of Hami- 
 dian days the Bank came as a veritable godsend, 
 but it was rather a source of expense to Italy. 
 
 There is no doubt that it enjoyed the assistance of 
 the Italian Government. When he was Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs, Signor Tittoni had frequently denied 
 that he had any interest in the Bank or any intention 
 to acquire Tripolitania, but one assertion was prob- 
 ably as false as the other. Tittoni's own brother is 
 Vice-President of the Bank, and if that institution 
 had had only its own resources to draw upon, it 
 would have been bankrupt long ago. But the 
 Government, that is, the unfortunate, overtaxed 
 Italian people, were behind it. 
 
 Various scandals indicated clearly the connection 
 between the Bank and the Government. One was 
 the granting to the Benghazi and Tripoli branches of 
 the privilege of issuing postal orders in competition 
 with the local Italian post-ofRces ! 
 
 It was decidedly lucky for the Banco di Roma that 
 it had the Italian Treasury behind it, for all its 
 business speculations turned out badly, and in this 
 way it must have lost several millions. Then, the 
 imprensa diplomatica di penetrazione (diplomatic work 
 of penetration) cost an enormous amount of money, 
 but this was directly met, of course, by the Govern- 
 ment. However, " work of penetration " is an 
 elastic term, and I dare say many people feathered
 
 THE BANCO DI ROMA 17 
 
 their nests by means of it and at the expense of the 
 Italian taxpayer. 
 
 Meanwhile the fact that it was a kind of Govern- 
 ment department instead of a commercial house made 
 the place impossible from a business point of view. 
 If you went thither to get a draft cashed or to get a 
 bank-note changed, you found yourself in the pre- 
 sence, not of ordinary bank clerks, but of budding 
 diplomatists who seemed to consider it necessary 
 to keep you waiting a considerable time before they 
 condescended to notice your presence at all. And, 
 naturally, the Bank suffered on its business side. 
 Its solicitor is said to have once confessed that " the 
 books were in such a state of confusion that he defied 
 the best book-keeper in the world to make head or 
 tail of them." 
 
 Some shareholders, afraid that the institution 
 would go to pieces, insisted from time to time on a 
 reorganisation of the personnel in Tripoli. As a 
 result of these complaints, the inspectors-general of 
 the Bank came from Rome in May, 1911, in order 
 to investigate matters ; but just at that time Tripoli 
 happened to be also invaded by a party of jingoist 
 Italian journalists come yer intraprendere la campagna 
 in favore delV occupazione (to open the campaign in 
 favour of the occupation). The local director of the 
 Bank accordingly made his excuses to the inspectors, 
 saying that he really had to attend to the newspaper- 
 men first. The inspectors acknowledged the justice 
 of his excuse and returned to Rome without having 
 examined his books. 
 
 How the Bank of Rome in Tripoli distributed the 
 money which it spent in the work of " peaceful 
 penetration " it is not easy to see. It has not many 
 " bought " Arab chiefs to show for its huge ex-
 
 18 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 penditure. Prince Hassuna Karamanli is practically 
 its only acquisition, and he went comparatively cheap 
 — 4000 lire a month. 
 
 Of course, it made a pretence of employing itself 
 very diligently in legitimate business. It bought 
 skins, ostrich feathers, eggs ; but it knew so little 
 about affairs that it often sold those articles at a 
 lower price than it had paid for them. For example, 
 it purchased horses for 40,000 lire, and sold them 
 in Italy for 25,000. 
 
 It owns an enormous Esparto Grass mill, the most 
 colossal building in all Tripolitania. It is part-pro- 
 prietor with a Signor Baldari of an oil and soap 
 factory, and if this does pay, its success is solely due 
 to the activity of Baldari. It is proprietor of a 
 sponge factory, which flooded the market with 
 sponges, but had a formidable competitor in an 
 English Sponge Trust. Now that Tripolitania is 
 part of Italy, 1 however, there will probably be 
 protection for Signor Bresciani's sponges, and the 
 intruding English article will be kept out by a tariff 
 barrier. It has also an ice factory, but the local 
 demand for ice is so small that the enterprise is not a 
 success. It established electric light works, but the 
 Turks would not let it import dynamos, because they 
 were, or pretended to be, convinced that dynamo 
 was only an abbreviation of the word dynamite. It 
 started a steamship line with two vessels, for which 
 it got a Government subsidy of 190,000 lire a year. 
 
 Then the Bank lost an immense amount of money 
 on the building of a flour-mill near Benghazi at a 
 cost of 1,800,000 lire. The building operations should, 
 at most, have cost no more than 300,000 lire. 
 
 Beginning work with a plethora of employees^ 
 the mill found that it had no more than five or six 
 ^ Vide General Caneva's proclamations passim.
 
 THE BANCO DI ROMA 19 
 
 bags of wheat to grind per day. Recommencing, 
 moreover, its old policy of playing off one nation 
 against another, the Sublime Porte had granted to 
 a young German farming expert, Herr von Lochow, 
 a large tract of land near Benghazi, and somehow or 
 other, this concession proved very detrimental to 
 the Bank's expensive flour-mill. 
 
 No wonder that Signor Bresciani began to long 
 for war and to move heaven and earth in order to 
 bring it speedily. For the Bank it was a question 
 of war or bankruptcy ; and now that war has come 
 the mill is very busy of course, as it grinds all the 
 flour used by the soldiers. This, however, is a tran- 
 sitory business and the time will probably come when 
 it will have to revert to its five or six bags a day. 
 
 A deputy, Signor Caetani, has even expressed a 
 doubt in the Chamber as to whether those five or 
 six bags will come in future from Tripolitania. 
 He thinks that they will come from Odessa ! But 
 surely this mill might just as well have been built 
 in Apulia or Calabria where it would at least have 
 given employment to Italians. 
 
 The Banco di Roma was much displeased with 
 the Ottoman Government because that Government 
 refused to grant it any monopolist concessions. To 
 crown all, a German financial syndicate, headed by 
 Herren Weickert and Encke, established in Tripoli 
 a banking concern whose operations within a short 
 time exceeded even those of the Banco di Roma. 
 Signor Pacelli found himself very soon in difficulties. 
 Clearly it was time to act. It was time for Signor» 
 Giolitti to declare that " civilization " must be ex- 
 tended to Tripolitania. 
 
 The last straw so far as Italy's patience was con- 
 cerned, was the Banco di Roma's ruinous speculations
 
 20 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 in real estate. Always believing that the Italian 
 occupation was at hand, the Bank had, since the 
 beginning, bought up vast tracts of land in Tripoli- 
 tania and in Cyrenaica, but especially in Cyrenaica. 
 For this land it always paid at a very high rate. 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1911, when serious 
 doubts were entertained of the conquest ever coming 
 off, a large portion of the Bank's Cyrenaica land, 
 bought at 10 lire, was sold at the ridiculous price of 
 2 lire. The loss, of course, was heavy. 
 
 The occupation saved the Bank from a disaster 
 which could not have been otherwise delayed, and 
 since it has in its possession nearly all the reclaimable 
 land in Tripoli it is evident that its gains will be 
 colossal and that those gains will save the situation 
 so far as it is concerned. 
 
 The famous Caneva decree, which seemed to be 
 intended to protect the natives against vampire 
 land speculators, is only a fiction. It is well known 
 in Tripoli that the Banco di Roma purchased years ago 
 the greater part of the reclaimable land in Tripolitania. 
 By sanctioning those acquisitions, the Caneva decree 
 will enable the Bank to compel the Government to 
 buy in the near future, and at whatever price and on 
 whatever conditions the Bank demands, the lands 
 which private speculators will wish to get rid of 
 owing to the fact that they are unsuitable for culti- 
 vation. At first sight the decree has the appearance 
 of being directed against speculators, but it is not 
 so directed. To those living in Tripoli it is not diffi- 
 cult to discover the real aim and scope of this edict. 
 
 I have told how Signor Bresciani succeeded in the 
 greajt work which the Bank entrusted him with when 
 it originally sent him to open a branch in Tripolitania. 
 That work was to drag Italy into the vilayet, so that
 
 THE BANCO DI ROMA 21 
 
 the Italian name should serve as the instrument of 
 his speculations, that the Italian flag should be his 
 best commercial asset, and that any Italian who 
 criticised his enterprise would only expose himself 
 to the danger of being mobbed, spat upon, and 
 denounced as " unpatriotic." 
 
 Bresciani was the promoter of the Tripoli enter- 
 prise. At present he is practically the autocrat of 
 the situation. The handful of his countrymen who 
 supported him in his business operations now enjoy 
 an unlimited credit at the Bank. Prominent among 
 those lucky ones are Signores Baldari and Belli. 
 Hence the common saying in Tripoli that Tripolitania 
 is ruled by the three B's — Bresciani, Baldari, and Belli. 
 
 These men, or the Bank which they represent, have 
 had a monopoly of all Governmental work since the 
 war began. They supplied the rafts and bridges used 
 for the disembarkation of the troops, the animals, 
 the food, the war material. They constructed 
 barracks for the soldiers. 
 
 To them or to the Bank every kind of contract is 
 given — contracts for the supply of furniture, meat, 
 flour, wheat, ice ; in short, for all the innumerable 
 things required by an enormous number of soldiers, 
 45,000 of whom are in Tripoli alone. 
 
 Several independent Italian business men offered 
 to do the work, but were refused, and the refusal 
 was accompanied by the explicit statement that the 
 Banco di Roma supplied everything which the army 
 or navy or the civil Government required. They 
 repeated their offer, pointing out, at the same time, 
 that they would undertake to do the work cheaper. 
 The answer was always the same : " No7i importa. 
 Cid non ci commuove " (No matter. That won't have 
 any influence on us).
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ITALY, GERMANY, ENGLAND AND TURKEY 
 
 It now seems clear that the Itahan swoop on TripoU 
 was partly due to a fear that in possible re-arrange- 
 ments of African colonies due to the Franco-German 
 discussions regarding Morocco, France might have 
 cheerfully invited Germany to compensate herself 
 for her failure to get Agadir by the simple process 
 of annexing Tripoli. Tripolitania was not, of course, 
 France's to give, but really great Powers have some- 
 times this off-hand and generous way with them 
 when other people's property is in question. 
 
 It must, indeed, be admitted that during the 
 Hamidian regime Tripoli was regarded by the Powers 
 almost as a sort of No Man's Land which anybody 
 was entitled to annex, and that each of them was 
 jealous of the others on account of it. Until the 
 Anglo-French entente was concluded France dreaded 
 an English seizure of Tripoli ; and at the same time 
 Italy suspected France of planning an eastward 
 march from Tunisia. 
 
 French books and newspaper articles were full 
 of references to England's dishonourable intentions 
 with regard to the Gulf of Bomba, a Tripolitan port 
 within a day's journey of the Egyptian frontier and 
 evidently intended by nature for a great naval station, 
 an off-set to Bizerta, a half-way house between Malta 
 and Alexandria. It was stated again and again by 
 
 22
 
 ITALY, GERMANY, ENGLAND, TURKEY 23 
 
 responsible French writers that the British Fleet 
 had already contracted the habit of using the Gulf 
 of Bomba as a convenient station for months at a 
 time. 
 
 The Entente Cordiale put an end to all the French 
 suspicions of Albion, so that nothing was left save 
 the Italian suspicions of France. Italy felt sure that 
 the conquerors of Tunis would also attempt to 
 conquer Tripoli. Consequently she made desperate 
 efforts to exclude from Tripolitania all commerce 
 which was not Italian. She did not want any people 
 save the Italians to sell the Tripolitan Turks or 
 Arabs anything at all. She was even opposed to 
 any but Italian missionaries trying to convert the 
 natives of Tripoli. The French Catholic mission 
 schools, which were subsidised by the Quai d'Orsay, 
 excited her darkest suspicions, and she tried to drive 
 out the French Marist Brothers and the French 
 Sisters of St. Joseph. Had she possessed any influence 
 with the Vatican she would have tried to make the 
 Pope " move on " these Religious to some other 
 part of the world, but not possessing any such handle 
 she erected some years ago a great laical scuola for 
 boys which cost her an enormous sum of money to 
 start with, and the upkeep of which has since cost 
 her 80,000 francs a year. The work of the Alliance 
 Fran^aise also made the Italians suspicious. To 
 counteract it, the Italian professors taught their 
 pupils not only to love the Italian language and the 
 Roman history, but also to hate France and the 
 French. Italian teachers at Homs made it a rule 
 to pour contempt on an\i;hing written in the French 
 language. In the anti-French campaign the Italians 
 had a great advantage, for the only foreign language 
 understood in Tripolitania is the Italian language.
 
 24 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 and Italian newspapers are practically the only news- 
 papers which are read in the vilayet. Now, these 
 Italian, and particularly the Sicilian, papers have 
 distinguished themselves by a particular animosity 
 against anything that looked like French encroach- 
 ment on Tripoli. They even attacked French archae- 
 ologists who had obtained permission to examine the 
 Roman ruins scattered throughout the vilayet. They 
 feared that those archaeologists were military agents, 
 precursors of a Gallic invasion — spies, in short. 
 They feared that, because they knew that all their 
 own " scientific," " archaeological," and " commercial" 
 missions were made up of spies. 
 
 But Italy was afraid not only of France. She was 
 also afraid of the English. At least, she feared that 
 we were about to obtain in the vilayet some com- 
 mercial interests which would make us inclined — not, 
 of course, to take the country ; that was out of the 
 question — but to oppose any disturbance of the 
 status quo. Some British subjects had on foot quite 
 recently a scheme for constructing a harbour in 
 Tripoli ; the Turks were, for obvious reasons, ex- 
 tremely favourable to that scheme ; but the Italians 
 were not inclined to wait until it had matured. In- 
 deed, the " Mattino " of Naples actually attacked 
 England some weeks ago, and declared that she, 
 England, criticised the Italian army in Tripoli be- 
 cause she had wanted to " grab " the vilayet herself. 
 
 But, of course, it was Germany who was the great 
 bugbear. It has been said, in fact, and with a good 
 deal of truth, that Germany's abrupt despatch of 
 the Panther to Agadir led directly to Italy's abrupt 
 descent on Tripoli. In the chapter dealing with the 
 Banco di Roma I have pointed out how the Sublime 
 Porte showed especial favour to German enterprises ;
 
 ITALY, GERMANY, ENGLAND, TURKEY 25 
 
 how it granted to Herr von Lochow one large tract 
 of land near Benghazi and another large tract near 
 Tripoli ; how one of those concessions proved very 
 detrimental to an Italian flour-mill ; how a German 
 financial syndicate headed by Herren Weickert and 
 Encke established in Tripoli a banking concern whose 
 operations exceeded, within a short time, even those 
 of the Banco di Roma itself. 
 
 Whether Italy was really afraid of a German coup, 
 or whether she only pretended to be afraid of it in 
 order to work on that morbid dread of Germany 
 which has been the distinguishing feature of Sir 
 Edward Grey's foreign policy, this will not be know^n 
 for a long time, will perhaps never be known. But 
 even the Socialist "Avanti" admits that "at that 
 moment (September, 1911) somebody circulated a 
 rumour of possible action by another Power at 
 Marsa-Tobruk ; and it was indubitably Italy's fear 
 of such action being taken that precipitated events 
 and hastened our disembarkation on that coast. 
 Indeed the very first troops sent from Genoa were 
 destined for Tobruk." 
 
 I do not believe, however, that Germany ever 
 nursed any designs on Tripolitania or on any part of 
 it. Her acquisition of a port there, so near Tunis and 
 Egypt, w^ould be a casus belli with both France and 
 England. That the Germans afterwards manifested 
 a good deal of dislike for the Italians was not because 
 of thwarted territorial ambitions. It was because of 
 the false position in which Germany was placed vis- 
 a-vis of her Ottoman protege owing to the hasty action 
 of Italy. And it was also, I know, because of sincere 
 and manly indignation with the Sicilians for their 
 slaughter of the innocent oasis Arabs towards the 
 end of October. Von Gottberg, the " Lokal-Anzeiger "
 
 26 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 correspondent, began at first to write in a pro- 
 Italian vein, but a few weeks' experience of Italian 
 methods of warfare made him first criticise, and then 
 hand back his papers. 
 
 I am doubtful if even Italy herself seriously 
 believed that Germany would attempt to seize Tobruk. 
 But it is not at all impossible that Italy succeeded 
 in frightening Sir Edward Grey with this bogey and 
 in thus securing his assent to the Italian raid. In 
 the March number of the " Fortnightly Review " 
 there is an evidently inspired article on " Lord 
 Kitchener in Egypt," wherein we are told how Sir 
 Edward Grey was hoodwinked. 
 
 " When events in Morocco," says the writer of 
 the article, " were beginning (last summer) to 
 point to Germany's failure to obtain any footing 
 in that country, there was some reason to suppose 
 that the Kaiser would turn his attention to Tripoli. 
 The Italians therefore felt that if the desired 
 territory was not to slip from their grasp they 
 must seize upon it without delay. 
 
 " Preparations for war were hurriedly made, 
 and already in the early summer of last year the 
 plans were formulated. The events of July showed 
 the Italian statesmen very clearly that the strong 
 policy of England and France would require all 
 the attention of Austria and Germany for the next 
 few months, and that the moment was thus op- 
 portune for a European interference. Neither 
 France nor Germany were likely to worry them. 
 England, however, had to be reckoned with, for 
 though our attention was fully occupied in Europe, 
 it lay in our power to make the Tripoli expedition 
 a most hazardous affair simply by permitting the
 
 ITALY, GERMANY, ENGLAND, TURKEY 27 
 
 Turks to march through Egypt to the seat of 
 hostihties. Before the projected expedition could 
 be launched, therefore, it was necessary for Italy 
 to ascertain the attitude of England and to obtain 
 her promise to hold Egypt neutral. This promise 
 however, could not be lightly given, for it might 
 lead to grave complications with the Porte. Egypt 
 is a vassal of Turkey, and is under the obligation 
 to provide the suzerain State with an unlimited 
 number of troops should she require them ; and 
 had the British not been the occupying Power, 
 the Nile Valley would certainly have formed the 
 Turkish base, England, therefore, had to be 
 consulted with regard to Tripoli, and her attitude 
 to Italy recognised as absolutely friendly before 
 war could be declared." 
 
 The writer puts this as an inference from what 
 happened immediately afterwards, but it looks un- 
 commonly like an admission of Sir Edward Grey's 
 complicity in the Tripoli raid. 
 
 " No public statement," the same writer pro- 
 ceeds, " has yet been made which would indicate 
 that the British Government made any agreement 
 with Italy last summer ; but there is very little 
 doubt that some sort of understanding was arrived 
 at. England, it would seem probable, consented 
 to prevent Turkish troops from entering Tripoli 
 via Egypt, and so far as possible to put a stop to 
 all gun-running or other belligerent enterprises. 
 She appears to have undertaken to keep Egypt 
 absolutely neutral and to allow the Porte no 
 assistance from its vassal. The granting of these 
 concessions to Italy is clearly indicated by our 
 present actions in Egypt, which, as will be related
 
 28 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 below, are of a very deliberate nature ; while the 
 despatch of Lord Kitchener to Cairo and the out- 
 break of hostilities as soon as he had arrived in 
 his new abode can hardly be attributed to mere 
 coincidence. It seems quite evident that our 
 attitude to Italy was as follows : ' Since it appears 
 to be inevitable,' said we, ' that some European 
 Power will pounce upon Tripoli, we in Egypt 
 much prefer you as our neighbours to, say, the 
 Germans ; and though we do not wish to offend 
 Turkey by actively taking your part, we will show 
 our friendliness to you by holding Egypt neutral. 
 To do this, however, we shall require to send a 
 very strong man to Cairo, and you must promise 
 not to declare war until he has arrived there. In 
 return for our kindness we shall expect you to 
 play a friendly part towards us in the event of a 
 European conflagration.' " 
 
 Lord Kitchener's business in Cairo was therefore 
 to prevent any passage of Ottoman troops through 
 Egypt, or any assistance being given by the Moham- 
 medans on the Nile to the Mohammedans in Tri- 
 politania. 
 
 Lord Kitchener's first work was to erect a series 
 of forts along the Eastern desert line of the Suez 
 Canal to deal with the possible danger of an Ottoman 
 army demanding passage through the Nile Valley 
 on its way to Cyrenaica. 
 
 The writer of the article cannot refrain from 
 boasting of the successive tricks played by his hero 
 on the credulity of Moslem opinion at Cairo and 
 elsewhere among those he was sent to cajole into 
 an acceptance of the wholly unwelcome neutrality. 
 According to him, Lord Kitchener on his arrival
 
 ITALY, GERMANY, ENGLAND, TURKEY 29 
 
 posed not only as the friend of Islam, but also of 
 the Turks, sympathised with the patriotic plans of 
 assisting them with men and money, but found each 
 attempt in turn beset with so many difficulties as to 
 amount to impossibility. Where cajolery would not 
 serve, hints were thrown out of a severer nature, of 
 the possible necessity imposed on him by his Govern- 
 ment in case of non-compliance with British policy 
 of increasing the army of occupation, perhaps even 
 of annexation. As a first measure the independent 
 Press was at once gagged, and the Nationalist organ, 
 the " Alam," which persisted in giving frontier news 
 and inciting to a disregard of the neutrality, found its 
 doors closed. 
 
 It is true that Sir Edward Grey denied in the 
 House of Commons that he knew of " the declaration 
 of war " until just before it was made. But it seems 
 impossible that he knew nothing, through the British 
 Ambassador in Rome, of the Italian plans to invade 
 and seize the North African vilayet. Besides, his 
 amiability towards Italy is rather suspicious. When 
 one member of the Triplice annexed two Turkish 
 provinces which she had long administered, and 
 which had practically become part of her territory, 
 Sir Edward Grey raised a furious protest and nearly 
 brought about a European war. When another 
 member of the Triplice suddenly invaded an African 
 vilayet to which she had no claim whatever. Sir 
 Edward Grey made no protest. Our Foreign Office 
 seems, indeed, to be actually friendly towards the 
 Italians, for, when questioned in the House of Commons, 
 as to the right of General Caneva to treat the oasis 
 Arabs as traitors, it declared that the Italian reprisals 
 were covered by the acknowledged rules of civilised 
 war — a statement contrary to fact and contrary (as 
 
 ■^'
 
 30 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Mr. E. N. Bennett points out in his book on Tripoli) 
 to the declaration of Lord Derby at the Brussels 
 Conference on the Rules of Military Warfare, in 1874. 
 The Italians admit that the British Foreign Office has 
 been most friendly to them all along, and the best- 
 informed Italian newspapers published in October 
 last a statement to the effect that, in a communication 
 to the home Government, Lord Kitchener deplored 
 the critical attitude of the British Press towards 
 the Italians in Tripolitania owing to its unsettling 
 effect on the minds of the Egyptians. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the friendliness of the British 
 Government towards the Tripoli raid has had an 
 effect on certain sections of the British Press, more 
 or less in touch with the Foreign Office. Take, for 
 instance, " The Times," in its reference to the crushing 
 Italian defeat at Bir Tobras. Discussing that dis- 
 astrous retreat and the failure of another forward 
 movement on the part of General Caneva, " The 
 Times " correspondent says : 
 
 " The Arab sees all this, sees that the Italian 
 positions are no further advanced than they were a 
 month ago, and that Italian troops have twice 
 retired upon their base after making a temporary 
 forward movement. He does not see that the 
 Italians are being cautious and leisurely of set 
 purpose." 
 
 This last sentence betrays, of course, an evident 
 bias, for Colonel Fara lost his way in the desert, and 
 his retreat from Bir Tobras ended in a complete 
 debacle, the desert being strewn with the arms and 
 equipment of his runaway Bersaglieri. It is to this 
 bias that we must look for an explanation of " The 
 Times' " pose of coolness, moderation, and im-
 
 ITALY, GERMANY, ENGLAND, TURKEY 31 
 
 partiality with regard to the oasis massacres of 
 October 23rd-27th. 
 
 The British Government and, to some extent, a 
 portion of the British Press seem to have been 
 petrified into silence by a bogey-man story of German 
 designs. The Nationalist and financial elements 
 interested in the war seem to have been frightened 
 by the same story. Whether a Machiavellian Govern- 
 ment invented it and then circulated it adroitly 
 among these elements so as to prepare the proper 
 atmosphere for the adventure, or whether the 
 Nationalists and financiers first evolved the story 
 and then believed it themselves, is a matter which 
 I shall leave to the future historian. 
 
 I shall now say a few words on the position of 
 Turkey in this matter. 
 
 In Abd-ul-Hamid's time nobody seems, when the 
 question of Tripoli was discussed, to have regarded 
 Turkey at all. She had only held the province for a 
 quarter of a century. Unable to develop it, she had 
 hermetically sealed it ; and, owing to its distance 
 from Turkey, to its isolation between European 
 possessions, and to Turkey's lack of a navy, this last 
 African vilayet of the Sublime Porte was regarded as 
 already, for all practical purposes, lost to Constanti- 
 nople. The only question seemed to be — who was 
 going to get it ? 
 
 The Young Turk Revolution in Constantinople 
 did not improve matters so far as the Turks were 
 concerned. If anything it made them worse. The 
 liberal peoples of Europe became sympathetic, but 
 the Chancelleries were anything but enthusiastic. 
 
 The Powers felt as justly irritated with the Sick 
 Man of Europe as greedy heirs might feel with a rich 
 uncle who, after making a will in their favour, going
 
 82 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 mad, and falling sick to the point of death, suddenly 
 recovered his health and the use of his reason. If 
 Abd-ul-Hamid had remained supreme, the break-up 
 of Turkey was so certain that her heirs could await 
 with patience that cheerful event. But once she 
 showed signs of rejuvenation, and wanted to re- 
 organise her army and navy, the Powers got visibly 
 distressed. Austria-Hungary grabbed Bosnia-Herze- 
 govina ; Bulgaria seized a Turkish railway and 
 proclaimed her independence ; Greece tried to collar 
 Crete ; Italy became more and more insistent about 
 her " claims " in Tripoli. 
 
 Why Italy did not act when Austria-Hungary 
 acted needs some explaining. Did Sir Edward Grey 
 tell her that her doing so would take the edge off his 
 attack on Baron von Aehrenthal ? Or had she mis- 
 calculated, expecting that the Stamboul Revolution 
 would end in the dismemberment of the Ottoman 
 Empire ? If she took the latter point of view she 
 quickly saw her mistake, for it soon became apparent 
 that, under the new regi?ne, Turkey was likely to get 
 stronger rather than weaker. An able and well- 
 educated soldier, Mahmud Shefket Pasha, was 
 rapidly reorganising the army and re-arming her 
 fortresses. He had first to begin with Constantinople. 
 Then he went on to Albania and Arabia. In a short 
 time he would come to Tripoli, and once he had filled 
 that vilayet with good Turkish troops and organised 
 some scheme of harbour defence, Italy's chances 
 would be gone forever. 
 
 Mahmud Shefket Pasha has been bitterly criticised 
 for not having taken some steps to protect Tripoli 
 against the Italian attack which had so often been 
 spoken of. Perhaps it would have been difficult for 
 him to have put the vilayet in a thoroughly good
 
 ITALY, GERMANY, ENGLAND, TURKEY 33 
 
 state of defence in the limited time at his disposal, 
 for he had first of all to protect Constantinople itself 
 against an attack by the Bulgarians. He had only a 
 very limited amount of money to spend, and all this 
 money was required for the reorganisation of the 
 European army of the Sultan, for the purchase of 
 arms and ammunition, and for the buying of new 
 guns, mines, etc., for the Dardanelles and the 
 IBosphorus. The troubles in Albania and Arabia and 
 the expenses which their suppression entailed post- 
 poned still further the military reorganisation of 
 Tripolitania. The thing could not be done. Time, 
 money, men were all lacking. 
 
 But if Shefket Pasha could not do anything to 
 strengthen Tripoli, he might, at all events, have 
 omitted to weaken that vilayet. He did weaken it, 
 however, by withdrawing the bulk of the Tripoli 
 garrison for service in Arabia. His object in taking 
 the Tripoli soldiers in preference to the soldiers of 
 Constantinople or Adrianople was because the Tripoli 
 troops spoke Arabic and would be better able to 
 campaign, therefore, in Arabia. Not only did he do 
 this, but he withdrew further detachments of troops 
 from Tripoli to fill up certain cadres in the European 
 garrisons. 
 
 Before taking these fatal steps he asked the 
 Premier, Hakki Bey, if he could guarantee the 
 absence of any hostile design against Tripoli on the 
 part of Italy. Now, Hakki Bey is a soft, pleasant, 
 very sociable man who, among many other languages, 
 speaks Italian, French, and English. He had been 
 in Italy as ambassador, was very fond of the Italians, 
 and had been quite captivated by Signor Tittoni. 
 His wife is an Italian, he has many personal friends 
 in Italy, and until September last he had been firmly
 
 84 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 persuaded that Italy would never attack Tripoli. 
 He accordingly gave the Minister for War the fatal 
 guarantee, and the troops were withdrawn. The 
 result was that in October last, when the Italian raid 
 took place, the strength of the garrison in Tripoli was 
 lower than it had been even during the worst days 
 of Abd-ul-Hamid, lower than it had ever been since 
 the Turkish conquest. 
 
 Not only were the soldiers removed. A good 
 military leader was also recalled. This was the Vali, 
 a strong and brave man, Marshal Ibrahim Pasha, 
 who would undoubtedly be an ugly customer to 
 tackle. Signor Galli, the Italian Consul, intrigued 
 to have this stubborn old soldier removed at all 
 costs. Galli had no difficulty in exciting against the 
 Vali all the local Consuls, mainly a weak-minded 
 crew of diplomatic derelicts, who were originally sent 
 to Tripoli as to a quiet backwater out of harm's way 
 by their respective Governments. Galli also intrigued 
 against Ibrahim Pasha both at Rome and Constanti- 
 nople, and finally this strong man was recalled. In 
 his place was left Munir Pasha, a feeble old gentleman 
 with no military knowledge whatever. Had Ibrahim 
 remained, it is almost certain that he would have 
 re-entered the town between the bombardment on 
 October 3rd and the arrival of the army on October 
 11th, in which case he could probably have cut to 
 pieces the 1800 sailors who held the outpost line on 
 the fringe of the oasis. 
 
 Other reasons induced Italy to strike when she did. 
 Turkey had concluded in England a contract for the 
 construction of a powerful fleet, and had engaged a 
 British Admiral for the reorganisation of her navy. 
 In the eyes of Italy these were very serious matters, 
 for, even with a small navy, a few torpedo-boats, and
 
 ITALY, GERMANY, ENGLAND, TURKEY 35 
 
 a few hundred well-trained naval officers Turkey 
 might be able to do fearful damage to Italian com- 
 merce in case of war. From Preveza, which is at the 
 south of Epirus and within sight of Italy, a few good 
 Turkish torpedo-boats could hold up all the Italian 
 merchantmen in the Adriatic ; while Italy's colony 
 on the western side of the Red Sea could easily be 
 raided from Arabia on the east. Let us remember 
 that it took Italy three and a half weeks after the 
 delivery of the ultimatum before she had completed 
 the disembarkation of all her troops in Tripoli. Let 
 us remember how slowly and timidly the transports 
 crept south in complete darkness and in such a state 
 of " nerves " that there were panics among the 
 soldiers several times. When we remember these 
 things we can well understand how fearful the 
 Italians were of the Ottoman fleet being increased 
 by the addition of a single unit. 
 
 All these things, taken in conjunction with the 
 Morocco negotiations — negotiations which might 
 easily end in Germany getting a foothold in Tripoli- 
 tania by way of compensation for fancied losses 
 elsewhere — all these things decided Italy to take the 
 brusque course which she actually took. That she 
 did not act too quickly from her own point of view 
 is shown by the fact that on the very day after 
 hostilities were declared, several Turkish torpedo- 
 boats had been completed in English ship-building 
 yards. Had the war been postponed, these boats 
 would have now been in the hands of the Turks. As 
 it is, the British authorities have temporarily taken 
 possession of them. 
 
 Another thing that alarmed Italy was a Turkish 
 proposal to form a sort of great territorial army among 
 the Arab tribes in Tripolitania. Italy had evidently
 
 86 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 got to strike before this measure was carried into 
 execution, but it was rather inconsistent of her after- 
 wards to say that she had only come to take the 
 Turkish yoke off the necks of the Arabs. 
 
 Why Italy ever coveted Tripoli at all is difficult 
 to explain. Her " claims " were that, owing to the 
 proximity of the vilayet to her southern coast, she 
 would be seriously weakened and menaced from a 
 naval point of view in case Tripoli fell into the hands 
 of some other Power. 
 
 Her sentimental claim on the vilayet because it is 
 filled with Roman remains and she is the heir of the 
 Scipios need not be taken seriously, for there are 
 Roman remains in many parts of Europe. It must 
 be admitted that Italy has all the exiguous foreign 
 trade of the vilayet ; that most of the Europeans 
 there are Italian subjects ; and that, next to Arabic, 
 the Italian language is the most spoken in Tripoli- 
 tania — in fact, it is the only European language 
 spoken there. Still other reasons are the desire of 
 the army chiefs to wipe out the shame of Adowa, the 
 desire of the monarchists to raise the prestige of the 
 ruling dynasty by some great conquest, the desire 
 of the Government to turn the attention of Italians 
 away from troublesome questions of domestic politics.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IS TRIPOLI WORTH THE TROUBLE? 
 
 I HAVE endeavoured to show the skill with which 
 the Italians attained their object. By a wonderful 
 series of intrigues and calculations they succeeded in 
 their immediate aim, that is in attacking Tripoli 
 when the garrison there was at its weakest, and in 
 bamboozling the Powers and especially England into 
 keeping silent. In Italy itself the literati, the jour- 
 nalists, the military men, the financiers, the Con- 
 servatives, were all " roped in." Even the Socialists 
 were, many of them, gained over by the introduction 
 of a Universal Suffrage Bill. The Socialists did not 
 want to embarrass the Government, as if that Govern- 
 ment fell it would be succeeded by a Conservative 
 Government and the Suffrage Bill would be lost. 
 The Italian Socialists were thus to some extent in 
 the position of the Liberals, and even of the Irish 
 Nationalists, in the British Parliament last October. 
 They were too anxious not to embarrass the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 From the point of view of high international 
 morality, we need not speak of this raid. Inter- 
 national morality was bad enough before, but Italy's 
 action in Tripoli has made it worse, and Europe may 
 yet have good cause to deplore this cynical breach of 
 all the diplomatic conventions. 
 
 But even from the purely material point of view, 
 
 37
 
 88 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 this raid was a mistake. Practically all the impartial 
 authorities who have examined Tripolitania say that 
 it is not worth the expenditure of a single ten-inch 
 shell. Were I to quote all that has been said on 
 this subject, I should never finish this chapter. 
 But I shall briefly say that if Tripoli were very 
 valuable, the French, who have examined it care- 
 fully, would long ago have been anxious to secure it. 
 
 M. de Mathuisieulx, a French explorer, thinks that 
 even in the time of the Romans, Tripoli cannot have 
 been much more than it is to-day, an enormous 
 waste of bare rock and sand. 
 
 Colonel Monteil, another French explorer, said in 
 1893, that Tripolitania will be of little use to the 
 Italians, and that if they get it, they will be sadly 
 disillusioned. 
 
 M. Grossi, a professor at the Diplomatic School 
 attached to the University of Rome, published in 
 1905 a pamphlet entitled " Tripolitania and Italy," 
 in which he said that from an agricultural point of 
 view Tripolitania is useless and, from a commercial 
 point of view, very nearly useless owing to the fact 
 that the few caravans which it used to get from 
 Lake Tchad have now been diverted to Egypt and 
 Tunis. 
 
 But the best proof I can give that Tripolitania is 
 useless, is the fact that when the Jewish Territorial 
 Organization was granted permission to settle in 
 the province they declined the offer with thanks, 
 after a most careful investigation of the whole vilayet. 
 Dr. Gregory was one of the five gentlemen who con- 
 ducted the investigation. Among the others were 
 Mr. M. B, Duff, an engineer with an expert know- 
 ledge of water supply, and Dr. Trotter, a graduate in 
 agriculture at Edinburgh who had farmed in the
 
 IS TRIPOLI WORTH THE TROUBLE ? 39 
 
 Sudan. The results of the investigation were very 
 disappointing. " Though Cyrenaica," says Dr. 
 Gregory, " is doubtless the most fertile province of 
 Tripoli, we had reluctantly to report that the country, 
 owing to its large area of useless land and its insuf- 
 ficient and uncertain water-supply, was quite un- 
 suitable for extensive agricultural colonies." 
 
 Dr. Adolph Vischer is equally pessimistic. He 
 says that calculations based on the mineral wealth 
 of the soil have no solid basis, and he quotes Professor 
 Gregory and M. Pervinquiere as being definitively 
 incredulous on the question of mineral deposits 
 either in Tripolitania or in Cyrenaica. He does not 
 think that artesian wells would be much good. When 
 he was in Tripoli last year he met a Frenchman who 
 had got a concession for the construction of an 
 artesian well beyond the Meshia (desert), but who 
 abandoned the work after sinking the shaft to a 
 depth of 240 feet without finding any trace of water. 
 
 Naturally, however, the Italians are very opti- 
 mistic about the future of Tripoli. They assert 
 that in the time of the Romans Tripolitania was 
 very fertile, and think that, with an intelligent system 
 of public works and colonisation, this fertility can 
 be restored. But there are in Tripolitania only three 
 zones that have been cultivated, firstly the string 
 of maritime oases stretching a hundred miles or so 
 along the coast ; secondly the sporadic patches of 
 olive plantations which are to be found in the valleys 
 on the northern fringe of the mountains and the high 
 plateaux. Finally, very far in the interior and 
 separated from the coast by interminable rocky 
 solitudes are some tracts of stony land in the valleys 
 of the Soffedjia, Ghirza, Merdoum and Nefed. 
 
 The Romans did cultivate these three zones, but
 
 40 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 beyond them we find no trace of ancient remains, 
 and an examination of the Roman ruins shows that 
 the level of the land is much the same now as it 
 always was. On this point the testimony of M. de 
 Mathuisieulx leaves no room for doubt and effectually 
 disposes of the theory that a fertile country is covered 
 with a layer of sand which has only to be cleared 
 away in order to restore the land to its former pros- 
 perity. 
 
 And even if Italy were able, at immense expense, 
 to reclaim some portions of the desert, would it not 
 be better for her to spend that money at home ? 
 The preamble of the Annexation Bill sets forth 
 harbours, schools, hospitals, roads and railways as 
 already in course of construction at Tripoli. Would 
 it not have been better to begin with the inhabitants 
 of Sicily, Sardinia and the Basilicata ? 
 
 The Socialists in Italy are already calling attention 
 to this matter. The "Avanti" asks why Tripoli should 
 get railways before large districts in Italy itself which 
 have been patiently waiting fifty years for them. 
 When the imperialist fever has passed, the deputies 
 for these districts may have trouble in getting re- 
 elected, after all their promises about railway facilities 
 for their constituencies. 
 
 In Apulia the peasants are so poor that they 
 cannot buy barrels for their wine, and must actually 
 put it in a hole in the ground-floor, the inner surface 
 of the hole being, of course, treated so as to render 
 it waterproof. Italy has little wealth to fall back on. 
 Her population is too heavily taxed already. In 
 the south she has millions who are as ill-fed and as 
 ill-educated as the Bedouins of Tripolitania. She 
 has a vast population to whom bread and salt are 
 luxuries. She has whole provinces where the illiterates
 
 IS TRIPOLI WORTH THE TROUBLE ? 41 
 
 number 70 per cent of the population. In the villages 
 south of Venice drinking-water is brought in boats 
 owing to the neglect of the authorities to provide 
 water-works. And yet a good irrigation system in 
 that country would cost little and produce good 
 results. In Tripolitania it would cost much and 
 perhaps not succeed. 
 
 The Italians think that Tripoli will be a good outlet 
 for their emigrants. But no Italian emigrant will 
 go to Tripoli so long as New York, San Francisco 
 and the Argentine Republic are open to him. The 
 jingoists say that Tripolitania can be made as pros- 
 perous as Tunisia, but they forget that though close 
 to one another the two regions are as different as 
 chalk is from cheese, Tunis with Algeria and Morocco 
 being placed by zoological geographers in the same 
 region as Europe, and Tripolitania in the Saharan 
 region. When the Italians took Eritrea and Benadir 
 we heard the same prophecies about those places 
 attracting Italian emigrants. We heard of Italy 
 pouring into those places the " exuberance " of her 
 population. We were to see " il grandioso fenomeno 
 di una nuova Italia issuing slowly from the flanks of 
 the great common Mother." 
 
 Yet the deputy Luigi Luzzatti now admits that 
 neither Eritrea nor Benadir can ever attract Italian 
 emigrants, " cosa che molti, anche uomini competenti, 
 immaginavano nelle prime ore delV entusiasmo e della 
 illusione" (a thing which even many competent men 
 imagined in the first hours of enthusiasm and 
 illusion). 
 
 It will be the same thing with Tripoli. No Italian 
 emigrant will go thither, so long as there is such a 
 place as Chicago. 
 
 Why Turkey should feel so " cut up " about the
 
 42 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 loss of Tripoli is not at first sight very evident. The 
 vilayet is a drain on her none too abundant resources. 
 Some of the Turkish governors have planted olive 
 trees in the favoured spots, but in spite of this, the 
 Sublime Porte knows perfectly well that there is no 
 future for this country, which the Arab devastations 
 and the parched winds of the desert have for ever 
 ruined from the agricultural and commercial points 
 of view. Despite all this the Turks are intensely 
 sensitive about the possession of Tripoli because this 
 last of their African colonies is their only fulcrum 
 for using on the vast populations of Northern and 
 Central Africa the great lever of religious fanaticism. 
 Formerly the Crescent of Islam floated on all the 
 Kasbahs of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea 
 Then Algeria and Tunisia became French. Morocco 
 became practically French, Egypt practically Eng- 
 lish. In order to maintain his influence over the 
 innumerable Mohammedan tribes of the Dark Con- 
 tinent, there remained to the Grand Turk only one 
 solitary port of entry, Tripolitania. And whatever 
 the peoples of Europe may think, the Foreign Ministers 
 are most of them pleased that Turkey has lost at any 
 rate the coast-line of Tripolitania. Sir Edward Grey 
 is probably as pleased as Signor Giolitti, for he has 
 been told by his permanent officials of certain under- 
 hand tricks which Abd-ul-Hamid was accused of 
 having played in Egypt during the time of Arabi 
 Pasha, and of the manner in which during the 
 Sudanese wars, the Mahdi was able to hypnotise 
 millions of fanatics. 
 
 In Central Africa the religion of Mohammed has 
 been spreading like wildfire during the last few 
 decades. It is strongly established in Central Africa, 
 from the Nile to the Niger, from the Atlas to the
 
 IS TRIPOLI WORTH THE TROUBLE ? 43 
 
 Congo. And on all these newly-made believers the 
 Sultan of Stamboul has impressed the fact that he 
 is also the Khalifa, the representative of the Prophet, 
 the religious chief of Islam. Herein, so thought the 
 Foreign Minister of more than one Great Power — 
 herein lay an element of danger for France, England 
 and the other Powers which have colonies in Africa. 
 The loss of Tripoli by the Turks would, in their 
 opinion, considerably reduce that danger. 
 
 But, as Marshal von der Goltz Pasha pointed out 
 in the "Neue Freie Presse " of March 10, the Sultan 
 cannot afford to abandon Tripoli, as if he did so, he 
 would be regarded as a traitor to Islam by all the 
 Arabs. And the diplomatists of France and England 
 had not considered the effect which an Italian defeat 
 in Tripoli would have on their Mohammedan proteges^ 
 not only in the adjoining territories but all over the 
 world.
 
 PART II 
 THE BOMBARDMENT AND OCCUPATION
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BOMBARDMENT 
 
 On October 3rd the Italian fleet, under the command 
 of Admiral Faravelli, began, at 3.35 p.m., the bom- 
 bardment of Tripoli. The bombardment continued 
 on the 4th, when the Sultanie and Hamidie batteries 
 were destroyed, and at midday on October 5th the 
 Italian flag was hoisted on Fort Sultanie, the Turkish 
 troops having retired into the interior. 
 
 The principal ships which took part in the action 
 were the Re Umberto, the Sicilia, the Sardegna, the 
 Brin, the Emanuele Filiberto and the Carlo Alberto. 
 They were divided into two groups, two divisions of 
 three ships each. The first and strongest group was 
 composed of the Re Umberto, the Sardegna and the 
 Sicilia. On the first-mentioned flew the flag of 
 Admiral Borea-Ricci, commander of the division. 
 The second group was composed mostly of inferior 
 vessels — the Brin, the Ernanuele Filiberto and the 
 Carlo Alberto. On the Brin was Admiral Faravelli, 
 commander-in-chief of the fleet assembled off Tripoli. 
 
 The forts which these vessels were supposed to 
 bombard can be seen by a glance at the map. On 
 the east in the oasis is Fort Hamidie. On the west 
 in the desert is Fort Sultanie. In the centre, that 
 is in the city itself, there is a battery beside the light- 
 house, another on the mole, and also one on the north- 
 west bastion. The Brin division was to destroy the 
 
 47
 
 48 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 central fortifications. The Re TJmberto division was 
 to destroy the Sultanie battery. The Garibaldi and 
 the Ferruccio dismantled the Hamidie battery. 
 
 Now as for the strength of the various forts. The 
 mole battery had two Krupp guns of 240 millimetres 
 and five cannon of 320-400 millimetres besides thir- 
 teen minor cannon and five howitzers. The north- 
 west bastion contained one Krupp gun of 150-170 
 and another of 190-210 millimetres. The Light- 
 house battery had one Krupp gun of 210 and two 
 others of 170. The Fort Sultanie had five Krupp 
 guns ranging in dimensions from 150 to 240 milli- 
 metres. 
 
 The central forts were attacked first and the first 
 shot was fired at the red fort on the mole at exactly 
 3.35 p.m. It was fired by the Brin and it hit the 
 exterior surface of the fort, but injured nobody. The 
 second shot was also fired by the Brin. When a third 
 shot was fired the lighthouse battery answered for 
 the first time, but the shot did not reach half-way 
 to the ship for which it was intended. 
 
 This bombardment — for it cannot be called a duel 
 — was carried on at a distance of only three or four 
 miles and was the tamest affair imaginable. The 
 Italians were so close that they could hardly have 
 missed if they had tried. Consequently they did great 
 damage, knocking down the lighthouse, overturning 
 the guns, and converting the fort into a heap of ruins. 
 The central bastion was quite blown to pieces, the 
 great cupola of reinforced concrete which protected 
 the 240-millimetre guns had disappeared. The lower 
 portion of the masonry in this fort had been painted 
 red, and on this red surface there now showed about 
 half a dozen huge white marks caused by shells. The 
 Turkish transport Derna was sunk by the Turks them-
 
 LiGHTHorSK SMASHED ]5Y SHELLS OF BATTLESHIPS. 
 To face /. 4S. Photo, by Author.
 
 THE BOMBARDMENT 49 
 
 selves, who opened the Kingston valve. A wretched 
 little Turkish gunboat called the Hunter of the Sea 
 was also sunk by its own crew after they had removed 
 the one or two antiquated little pop-guns which the 
 vessel carried. A number of little sailing-vessels in 
 the harbour were beaten into matchwood by a hail- 
 storm of shells, which might well, one would think, 
 have been saved up for a rainy day. 
 
 Until the mole was silenced the Carlo Alberto and 
 the Emanuele Filiberto made no remark, as they had 
 been told to keep out of range of a certain big gun 
 on the mole which was supposed to be capable of 
 reaching them under favourable circumstances. When 
 the mole ceased to reply these two vessels came into 
 action and rained shells on the north-west bastion 
 and the lighthouse battery, but without eliciting any 
 response. 
 
 The Re Umberto division next proceeded to pound 
 Fort Sultanie. The flagship itself opened fire at a 
 distance of four miles with enormous 522-kilogramme 
 shells. It was followed by the Sardegna and the 
 Sicilia. For a quarter of an hour the fort did not 
 reply. When it did, the projectile which it sent in the 
 direction of the Italians did not reach half-way to 
 them. The ships fired every minute, raining shells on 
 the forts and moving at a speed of three miles an 
 hour, so that they should not by any chance be hit. 
 But this precaution was unnecessary. The fort could 
 not reach them, though it replied bravely every ten 
 minutes or so until, after being pounded out of shape 
 for half an hour, it ceased to fire. For another half- 
 hour the division defiled slowly in front of the dis- 
 mantled fort, pouring shells into it, in the hope of 
 eliciting some sort of response. The ships even went 
 to within three thousand yards of the fort, but it
 
 50 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 failed to send them any kind of greeting. Neverthe- 
 less it was not until six o'clock in the evening that 
 the Re Umberto ceased pounding it. Next morning 
 the debris of this fort was found to be on fire. So 
 ended the first day's work. Not a single Turkish shot 
 had reached its destination. There had been very 
 few of them and all had fallen short. 
 
 Next day the Garibaldi, the Varese and the Ferruc- 
 cio continued the dismantlement of Fort Hamidie, a 
 work which they had begun but not completed the 
 day before. An enormous number of expensive shells 
 were poured uselessly and needlessly into this ruined 
 and abandoned battery during the space of half an 
 hour. At the end of that time the fort had ceased 
 to have any resemblance to an artificial work and was 
 simply a heap of battered sand with, here and there, 
 a pathetic gun sticking up out of the wreck as if it 
 wanted to fire at an aeroplane. Then the Garibaldi 
 sent ashore two officers and two men to destroy the 
 torpedo-station and any guns that might still have 
 remained intact in the fort. 
 
 At this time there was not a Turk in the battery 
 nor ten Turks within a mile of it, nevertheless this 
 sending ashore of a few men was regarded by the 
 Italians as one of the greatest naval feats that had 
 ever been performed, as on a par with Hobson's 
 attempt to bottle up Admiral Cervera's squadron, 
 or the Japanese attempts to bottle up the Russian 
 ships at Port Arthur. One writer calls it "an auda- 
 cious coup," " a febbrile work," " an intrepid act," 
 {intrepido alto), a " coup de main,'' and assures us 
 that it was carried out " con una freddezza ed un 
 coraggio incredibili " (with incredible coolness and 
 courage). One of the two officers entrusted with 
 this tremendous business was Captain Verri, who had
 
 \- 
 
 V
 
 THE BOMBARDMENT 51 
 
 been living in Tripoli before the bombardment under 
 an assumed name and pretending to be an Italian 
 Postal inspector. Being an artillery specialist, he 
 soon rendered the guns useless, secured the sights, 
 and returned safely to the Garibaldi. That vessel 
 and the torpedo-boat Albatross had, all the time, 
 been sending torrents of shell over his head so as to 
 prevent any attack being made on him by the Turks. 
 One of those shells smashed the tomb of the Kara- 
 manli family close by, and exposed the coffins inside. 
 Another shell destroyed a little white marabout 
 among the palm-trees. Verri had found the fort 
 totally wrecked. Amid the ruins lay the mutilated 
 bodies of three Turkish soldiers. As we shall see 
 later, there had been only four soldiers in the fort 
 during the bombardment. Nesciat Bey had sent 
 them there to die and three of them had died. 
 
 The Re Umberto division steamed down to Fort 
 Sultanie to see if that ruin gave any signs of life. Of 
 course it gave none, though the flagship approached 
 as near as the depth of the water permitted — about 
 a thousand yards. It was still on fire, and, later on, 
 when the flames reached the powder-magazine, it 
 blew up. 
 
 On October 5th, the marines landed. First, how- 
 ever, two " expeditions," as the Italians called them, 
 were sent out — one to the half-submerged Derna, 
 another to the Hamidie battery in order to blow it 
 up. The latter expedition was pretty strong and it 
 ran no danger as the Turks were all about ten miles 
 off by this time, nevertheless the Italians had the 
 usual fit of hysterical patriotism. One writer who 
 was on the Varese tells us that he and his companions 
 could not take their eyes off the fort. " Our hearts 
 were with our brave comrades." The blowing up of
 
 52 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the fort was accomplished in the usual way, by 
 means of an electric wire. Unfortunately the landing- 
 party lost their bearings in the cloud of smoke raised 
 by the explosion and the whole fleet was in a terrible 
 state of excitement about them. " That impene- 
 trable smoke," says one author, who was aboard a 
 ship at the time, " that impenetrable smoke seemed 
 to us — though we did not wish to confess it — to be 
 the winding-sheet of our heroes." 
 
 But luckily the wind blew the smoke away, where- 
 upon " un grido di vittoria " (a cry of victory) rang 
 across the intervening sea. " Sono salvi tutti " (All 
 are safe). When this little band of desperate men 
 returned to their vessel, the whole crew welcomed 
 them " con evviva entusiastica.'' 
 
 Throughout the following narrative the reader will 
 notice, again and again, these same characteristics 
 in the conduct of the Italians. In playing with their 
 army and fleet they are like children playing with a 
 new toy. They are enchanted, ravished, by the 
 simplest effects The firing of a ten-inch gun from a 
 ship, four miles out, at a deserted fort situated on 
 the seashore and provided with guns whose range is 
 only one mile, fills them with ecstasy, and they re- 
 produce the photograph of the gunner in their news- 
 papers as that of a " hero." 
 
 Unfortunately this childish sensibility and naivete 
 are sometimes, as we shall see later, accompanied by 
 an amazing carelessness and callousness where human 
 life is concerned. 
 
 At 4.30 in the afternoon the sailors landed in two 
 bodies, one party at Fort Sultanie, the other between 
 Fort Sultanie and the city. At five o'clock the 
 Italian tricolour was hoisted over the castle of the 
 Vali in Tripoli itself. There was not the least re-
 
 I. "r I 
 
 tt 
 
 '1
 
 THE BOMBARDMENT 53 
 
 sistance any^vhere. The Italians themselves are lost 
 in admiration at the daring and seamanship which 
 they displayed in this attack on Tripoli. 
 
 " The bombardment," cries Signor Bevione, one 
 of their leading writers, " was a marvel of manoeu- 
 vring and of shooting. The plan, which was 
 elaborated by the Admiral and which results 
 proved to be the best possible plan, was translated 
 into action in a manner that could not have been 
 improved upon. The three divisions manoeuvred 
 and fired for three hours before the forts, while 
 mathematically preserving their formation as in a 
 naval review. The accuracy of the shooting is 
 already famous. . . . This record is enough to 
 convince all of the extraordinary efficiency of our 
 fleet." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " This is a day which all should bless because it 
 proves the efficiency of the fleet to defend the 
 rights and interests of the country, because it 
 opens the door of Tripolitania, and because it will 
 remain memorable among the natives as a proof 
 of our strength and as the first basis of our 
 prestige." 
 
 The descriptions of the bombardment which have 
 appeared in the Italian Press would be extravagant 
 even if applied to Tsushima or to the terrible naval 
 attacks of the Japanese on Port Arthur. The corre- 
 spondent of the " Stampa," who was on board one of 
 the battleships, declared that " the entry into action 
 of the Re JJmherto division was one of the most solemn 
 spectacles that I have ever seen." 
 
 Now, the ludicrousness of all this will be manifest
 
 54 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 when I remind the reader of the following interesting 
 facts : 
 
 (1) There were no Turks in the town. They had 
 
 all left. 
 
 (2) There were only four artillery-men in each 
 
 battery, and their duty was to " save the 
 face " of the departed garrison and make a 
 sort of purely formal protest by firing a few 
 shots. 
 
 (3) The forts were, from every point of view, use- 
 
 less. A single vessel could have shelled 
 them from below the horizon. The Italian 
 fleet might have remained invisible while 
 bombarding the wretched place. 
 
 Military men of many nations have seen the Tripoli 
 forts, and all of them — all of them, at least, who were 
 non-Italian — laughed loud and long at the sight. 
 M. de Mathuisieulx, a French officer, says of them : 
 
 " I do not know what idea can have been in the 
 head of the military engineer who established his 
 forts in a place so open to the sea that one hostile 
 cruiser could pulverize them without being him- 
 self perceived." 
 
 The German Lieutenant-General von dem Borne, 
 who shows the greatest care not to offend the Italians, 
 cannot, nevertheless, refrain from saying (" Der 
 italienisch-tiirkische Krieg") that the forts were, 
 when the war broke out, in a " sehr mangelhaften 
 Zustande " (very defective condition). 
 
 As for the firing, I have just quoted Signor Bevione 
 as saying that it is already world-famous. 
 
 " The city," he declares, " has not been touched
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 f .
 
 THE BOMBARDMENT 55 
 
 by one shrapnel bullet. The shooting of our ships 
 has been of a miraculous precision." 
 
 Now, a naval gunner who cannot hit a fort at a 
 distance of three miles is not much good, especially 
 if he is allowed to waste hundreds of shells. For the 
 Italians did waste hundreds of shells — all sorts of 
 shells : shrapnel, armour-piercing, and percussion. 
 
 And, despite what Signor Bevione says, many of 
 these shells flew wide of the mark and killed innocent 
 people in the city. One shell went through the roof 
 of the dragoman to the German Consulate, and, 
 narrowly missing the Consul, who was staying in the 
 house at the time, killed the young wife and two 
 children of the dragoman. So much for the precisione 
 miracolosa of the shooting. 
 
 It would be more correct to say that the bad 
 shooting of the Italians is world-famous. Mr. E. N. 
 Bennett tells us how he himself saw two Italian war- 
 ships fire sixty-three shots from a distance of 2500 
 yards at Bou-Kamesch, an old fort near the Tunisian 
 border, on December 31st, without hitting it once, 
 though they tried hard for half an hour. But, of 
 course, the usual lie was wired from Tripoli. It was 
 said that the Turks had fled. As a matter of fact, 
 they had been all the time seated inside the fort 
 laughing at Italian marksmanship. 
 
 What a world of difference is there not between 
 this inflated nonsense of the Italian chroniclers and 
 the hard, brief, soldierly letters of Enver Bey, a 
 selection of which is published in the " Lokal- 
 Anzeiger " for January 28th. This brave young 
 man tells us in one letter how he travelled for 
 nine hours at a stretch on a camel, partly 
 through a district which the Italians thought to
 
 56 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 be favourable to them. " But they soon greeted 
 me," says Enver Bey, " as the son-in-law of the 
 Khalifa. They accompanied me, and told me how 
 the}^ also had fought against the Infidel. They 
 spoke of the timid soldiers of the enemy, and I could 
 not help laughing at the delusion under which the 
 Italians laboured that they had these people on 
 their side. If I had money I could do much, but it is 
 my boast that I am forming an army without having 
 a farthing in my pocket." And he succeeded in 
 forming an army, for in a subsequent letter he says : 
 " I found 900 desert warriors when I came here, and 
 now I have under me 16,000 trained soldiers." 
 
 He is amusing when he tells us how well this little 
 army managed to live on the enemy. On one occa- 
 sion it took " 2 machine-guns, 250 rifles, 2 cannon, 
 30,000 cartridges, 25 chests of shrapnel, which will 
 be useful to us, and 10 mules which I have harnessed 
 to my guns. Among the dead whom the enemy was 
 unable to remove were 1 major, 1 captain, 5 lieu- 
 tenants, and 200 men. We wanted to let one soldier 
 whom we had captured run away again, but he 
 seemed to be very pleased at having been captured, 
 and now makes himself useful by cleaning the guns." 
 
 Commenting on these letters, the German military 
 critic who edited them for the press, says : 
 
 " Der Mann, der das schreibt, der dem Gegner 
 die Waffen nimmt, mit denen er ihn schlagt, mag 
 den titel Major oder Pascha fuhren, aber ist, bei 
 Allah, von Gottes Gnaden — General ! " 
 
 (The man who writes this, who captures weapons 
 from the enemy and then fights him with those 
 weapons, may bear the title of Major or Pasha, but 
 he is, by Allah, by God's grace — General !)
 
 CHAPTER II 
 IN TRIPOLI TOWN 
 
 Tripoli, October 7th. 
 
 The panic among the Europeans in Tripoli on 
 the occasion of the bombardment was not such 
 as to raise them very much in the estimation of 
 the Turks. The proprietor of the local " Waldorf 
 Astoria " was among the first who ran. His name 
 is Julius Caesar Aquilina. He is a Maltese, de- 
 scended on one side (so he admits) from Julius 
 Csesar, and on the other from the Knights of 
 Malta. He and all his numerous sons style them- 
 selves Chevalier, and are, like all the Maltese, more 
 Italian than the Italians themselves. Before the 
 bombardment the whole family left after having 
 hastily entrusted the keys of the hotel to the forty 
 Italian journalists who had elected to remain there 
 (but who had reckoned without the Turks, who soon 
 moved them on). I returned with one of the family, 
 a son who had been living in Sfax, Tunisia, and 
 who was the first of the House of Aquilina to put in 
 an appearance on the scene. He found his hotel in 
 possession of a number of people who were paying no 
 rent. The key of the door had been lost, and the 
 house was open day and night. Weary Willies who 
 wanted rooms, strolled in and selected a suite, after 
 helping themselves to the choicest wines in the 
 
 57
 
 58 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 cellars. There was no way of getting them out, for 
 they were all armed to the teeth ; and there was no 
 way of " getting the law on them," for there was no 
 law. Turkish rule had ceased, Italian civil rule had 
 not yet been inaugurated, and the military authorities 
 were too much afraid of being evicted themselves 
 to bother about " moving on " impecunious lodgers 
 who would not pay. 
 
 Consequently, Tripoli of Barbary became for the 
 moment an ideal happy hunting-ground for sharks, 
 unemployables. Tired Tims, and tramps of every 
 possible variety. The great heart of Italy was moved 
 by the news, and there was such an agitation in the 
 Italian workhouses that the Government had to 
 issue a notice stating that it would issue no passports 
 to Tripoli until that country was settled. It also 
 refused to let any Italians come to the new colony 
 unless they proved to the satisfaction of the military 
 authorities that they had great and important in- 
 terests there. This order saved us from a deluge of 
 " hobos," but the inundation has only been tempor- 
 arily stayed. The place is bound to be flooded very 
 soon with ex-bandits, Camorri, Carbonari, and officials 
 of the Black Hand. Then we shall be told that Italy 
 is introducing civilisation into the Dark Continent. 
 Already she has introduced one barrel-organ which 
 for stridency of tone and complete absence of harmony 
 beats any hurdy-gurdy which I ever heard on the 
 boulevards of Little Italy, New York. It is a money- 
 making concern this barrel-organ, for there is nobody 
 here so callous to the charms of music that his hand 
 does not, as soon as he hears it, dive into his pockets 
 to get either a revolver or a coin with which to make 
 the organ-grinder get out of ear-shot. 
 
 For some days Chevalier Aquilina, junior, tried to
 
 IN TRIPOLI TOWN 59 
 
 evolve order out of chaos. He developed photographs, 
 blacked boots, cooked, made the beds, acted as 
 waiter, porter, and in half a dozen other capacities. 
 Then his parents and half a dozen of his brothers and 
 sisters came, and the situation was saved. At 
 least, it was possible to get a hard-boiled egg now 
 and then. If ever this meets the eye of the Chevalier 
 Aquilina, I trust he will not think that I am trying to 
 be sarcastic at his expense. The old man had every 
 right to bolt. He was not in business in order that 
 an Italian shell should drop on top of him. And I 
 admire the way in which he manages to run his 
 little hotel, despite the fact that it contains ten 
 times more guests than it was ever intended to 
 accommodate, and that it is difficult to buy a piece 
 of meat anywhere in town, and impossible to obtain 
 such necessaries of life as cigarettes, wine, and mineral 
 water. I wish him every success under Italian 
 auspices. Indifferent as his hostel is, he has got the 
 start by a long way, and is pretty sure to keep it. 
 
 The leading nations are represented by good Con- 
 suls in Tripoli, but some of the smaller nations have 
 got local men, principally Maltese, who seem to work 
 not for money, but for glory. Some of these were 
 in a state of collapse when the Italian ultimatum 
 was issued. The bombardment, it will be remembered, 
 began on October 3rd. The day before, the Spanish 
 Vice-Consul was seized with the delusion that there 
 was going to be a general massacre of Europeans 
 that night. 
 
 Half-crazy with excitement, he summoned a meet- 
 ing of his colleagues. It was a strange gathering. 
 One Consul is described to me as staggering as if he 
 were drunk and loudly asserting that he was " a 
 moral wreck." There was no necessitv for him to
 
 60 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 insist on the point. It was perfectly clear to every- 
 body who took the trouble to look at him. 
 
 The meeting had before it a communication from 
 the Italian Admiral announcing that there would be 
 a bombardment in twenty-four hours, and inviting 
 everybody to take refuge on board the battleships. 
 This order was one of the many wild things which 
 the Italians have done since this Tripoli affair began. 
 How would it be possible for the consuls to get 
 several thousand foreigners on board the vessels of 
 the fleet inside such a short space of time ? Many 
 of them were ill, many of them were women reduced 
 to an hysterical condition through fright, many of 
 them were children. It would need days to get all 
 these people out of the town, and there were only a 
 few Arab boats in which to take them. The Arab 
 boatmen refused to help, and the Italian sailors 
 stood serenely aloof. They had created chaos in 
 the port, and they took no steps to save even their 
 own countrymen from it. They denounced Turkish 
 barbarism, but they calmly left thousands of Euro- 
 pean women and children to the mercy of the " bar- 
 barians." Events showed that they had sufficient 
 transports to carry off the whole population, but 
 those transports were in Italy being filled up with 
 troops. The Italian Government should at least 
 have chartered vessels for the conveyance of the 
 refugees, but it did not like to spend the money. 
 The Admiral simply confined himself to warning the 
 Europeans that he would bombard the town next day. 
 He seems to have fancied that there his duty ended. 
 
 To unspeakable Stamboul the Consuls — or such 
 of them as remained sane — then proceeded to pay a 
 very remarkable tribute. In a reply to the Admiral 
 they refused to leave the town, and asserted that
 
 IN TRIPOLI TOWN 61 
 
 they relied with confidence on the protection of the 
 Turkish authorities. They felt sure that the Ottoman 
 police would keep order. And as a matter of fact 
 the Ottoman police did keep perfect order. They 
 even remained behind in order that the Europeans 
 should not be molested during the interregnum. 
 Thus the Turks voluntarily deprived themselves of 
 a valuable section of their military force. They did 
 this for the sake of the Christians just at the moment 
 when Italian shells were crashing through roofs and 
 killing innocent women and children. 
 
 It was Mr. Wood, the American Consul, who drew 
 up the reply to the Admiral, saying that the consuls 
 and their nationals had sufficient confidence in the 
 Turkish authorities, and would therefore remain. 
 This document was dashed off by Mr. Wood in 
 English. The French Vice-Consul translated it into 
 French, and everybody signed. It was a wise docu- 
 ment, for had the Consuls fled the Turks and Arabs 
 would have felt themselves abandoned by Christi- 
 anity. The natives would have looked on the war 
 as one between Christianity and Islam, and con- 
 sequently they could hardly have been prevented 
 from butchering, in their desperation, such of the 
 poorer Christians as had not succeeded in getting 
 away. The authoritative consular declaration made 
 it clear to all, however, that the war was only between 
 Italy and Turkey, not between the followers of Christ 
 and the followers of Mohammed. 
 
 After this document was signed some of the consuls 
 made their last call on the Turkish officials. One of 
 them, the American Consul, afterwards described to 
 me what happened. He directed his steps towards 
 the military head-quarters, and found there Colonel 
 Nesciat Bey, who commands the troops. The Colonel
 
 62 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 is a powerfully-built, medium-sized man, in the 
 prime of life, that is, between forty-two and forty- 
 five years of age. He wears a black moustache, but 
 is otherwise clean-shaven. He is a man of jovial 
 disposition and very fond of children. On the present 
 occasion he looked depressed. With him was 
 General Munir Pasha. 
 
 The Defterdar, or Financial Agent, was present 
 too. So was the Political Agent, a very well- 
 dressed young Turkish diplomatist of the most 
 polished Parisian school. All were silent, depressed, 
 but very busy signing papers and issuing orders. 
 The Political Agent, whose business it was to do with 
 the foreign consuls and keep them in good humour, 
 spoke first to the visitor, who expressed his sorrow 
 at what had occurred and his hope that the difficulty 
 would end in a manner satisfactory to all parties. 
 The Political Agent complained bitterly of the 
 Italian raid. Such a thing, he said, might have been 
 all right five hundred years ago. In this, the twen- 
 tieth century, it was certainly a surprising relic of 
 primitive barbarism. It was curious thus to hear 
 a Turk denouncing with crushing logic and in irre- 
 proachable French the piratical Christian nation 
 wherein the Pope is a guest. 
 
 Finally, the Consul took his leave. He pressed 
 the hand of the Political Agent. He pressed in 
 silence the hand of Colonel Nesciat Bey and of the 
 other functionaries and officers. Then he passed 
 hastily out. Mr. Wood is a Christian, of course, but 
 he admits that he could hardly repress tears as he 
 took leave of these brave men, victims of a cruel 
 and unjustifiable aggression, placed by circumstances 
 in as unpleasant a position as men can find them- 
 selves in.
 
 IN TRIPOLI TOWN 63 
 
 Next morning this same Consul walked through 
 the town without being molested by anybody. He 
 called again on some Turkish friends at ten o'clock 
 in the morning. The bombardment began only six 
 hours later, but there was no extraordinary excite- 
 ment, and the Turkish officers whom he met saluted 
 him punctiliously. They were worried, however, 
 about the fate of their wives and daughters, whom 
 they were forced to leave behind while they them- 
 selves retired into the desert. We are accustomed 
 to think it an awful thing for Christian women to be 
 left to the mercy of the Turk. On the present oc- 
 casion there were hundreds of Christian women at 
 his mercy, and not one of them was molested. On 
 the other hand, the Turk knows from experience 
 stretching back to the time of the Crusades that it is 
 not quite safe to leave the women of his harem to the 
 tender mercies of the Christian. 
 
 But when Nesciat Bey left Tripoli a great many 
 Turkish ladies, wives of officers and functionaries, 
 had thus to be abandoned. 
 
 From a military and an imperial point of view 
 Turkey has lost by this Tripoli raid, but from a 
 moral point of view she has gained. For the first 
 time in history Christian women and children have 
 been entrusted by European consuls to the keeping 
 of her soldiers, and she has justified the trust reposed 
 in her. From the beginning of these Tripoli negotia- 
 tions Turkey's attitude has been remarkably correct 
 and creditable. There have been no massacres. 
 There has been no inhumanity. On the contrary, 
 there have been mercy, forethought, restraint. The 
 loss of Tripoli has been a dreadful experience to the 
 Ottoman Empire, but it has proved that Turkey has 
 at length become civilised. There are Italian mis-
 
 64 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 sionaries scattered all over the Ottoman Empire, 
 and in some cases these missionaries celebrated the 
 attack on Tripoli with rejoicings. Ten years ago 
 the Turks would have massacred them all. On the 
 present occasion they confined themselves to lodging 
 with the Papal Nuncio in Constantinople a most polite 
 complaint written in the best French. That com- 
 plaint was at once transmitted to the Pope, who 
 immediately replied to it.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE ROMANS ^ 
 
 Hotel Minerva, Tripoli, 
 
 October 13th. 
 
 At Tripoli of Barbary the sua is going down, 
 The shadows of a southern eve are falling on the town, 
 The voice of the muezzin sounds from the minaret, 
 Tlie Faithful bend, below, in prayer : " Allah ! be with us yet ! " 
 The turban'd Berbers scowl upon the strangers in the forts. 
 And women's prayers unceasingly rise from the lattic'd courts. 
 But vain the curses, prayers and tears, the angry looks and black. 
 In thunder speak yon battleships I " The Romans have come 
 back ! " 
 
 You marvelled at their cities a-buried in your sands, 
 
 You laughed at men who said those works were built by human 
 
 hands ; 
 Across your deserts, by the sea, still runs the Roman way, — 
 The sons of those who made it are in your streets to-day ! 
 Before them, slowly back into the darkness whence they came, 
 The Osmanli ride sullenly, never to come again. 
 There's wailing on the Bosphorus, there's grief in Arabie, 
 For Christian dogs have landed on the coast of Barbaric. 
 
 Aye, truly have they landed. Rome has come back again. 
 Inland from the Spanish fort march twenty thousand men, 
 
 ^ This and the four following chapters appeared originally in the 
 " Westminster Gazette." I reprint them here in order to show that 
 instead of coming to Tripoli prejudiced against the Italians, I was 
 actually prejudiced in their favour. I did not then know that this 
 " proud appellation" of " Roman " which Gibbon regarded as having 
 been " profaned -by the successors of Constantine" is still more pro- 
 faned by the present Brummagem Kingdom which pretends to carry 
 on the tradition of the Can sars. 
 
 F 65
 
 66 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Horse, foot, and artillery. Hark to the songs they sing ! 
 Libya wakes at the beating of the Roman Eagle's wing. 
 Memorials of dead Csesars emit mysterious light, 
 Mars with a blood-red radiance hangs in the sky at night, 
 f'allen Corinthian columns gleam in the sands like snow, 
 White limbs of broken statues glow with a mystic glow. 
 Columns of great proconsuls, graves of the Roman dead. 
 Echo, after a thousand years, a Roman legion's tread. 
 Tombs of the old Centurions 'mid the oasis grass 
 Ring with hollow murmur as the Roman banners pass. 
 Far down the coast at Leptis, fishermen 'mid the foam 
 Whisper again to each other the mighty name of Rome. 
 
 I WAS drinking coffee in a little Turkish military 
 club on the sea-front when the great news came. 
 The garden of this club is filled with magnificent 
 Roman statues dug up in various parts of Tripoli- 
 tania, but all of them had, of course, been beheaded 
 owing to Moslem prejudices on the subject of graven 
 images. I was watching these statues closely. At 
 the back of my mind was a sort of odd, superstitious 
 expectation that they would raise their mutilated 
 arms or make some other sign. Surely these marble 
 captives will welcome their countrymen back ! 
 
 For a thousand years and more the Romans were 
 here. The Doric and Corinthian columns of their 
 jora and of their villas, the splendid, square-cut 
 stones of their temples, have furnished the parasitical 
 Turk and Arab with plenty of material for their 
 mosques, their citadels, their forts, even for their 
 huts. I have seen splendid Roman capitals built 
 into the corners of the most wretched lanes in Tripoli. 
 You can hardly walk a hundred yards in any direction 
 without finding a Roman column lying on the ground 
 for Arabs to sit upon. Sometimes they are planted 
 upright so as to enable camels to scratch themselves. 
 Near the French Consulate is a magnificent arch of 
 triumph, half buried in the ground and shockingly
 
 THE RETURN OF THE ROMANS 67 
 
 mutilated. Out of the four arcades of this edifice, 
 three have been walled over. The interior has been 
 converted into a tenth-rate cinematograph show, 
 which has been for months past in a state of bank- 
 ruptcy and suspended animation. Lemaire, who 
 saw this arch in the time of Louis XIV, describes it 
 as covered with medallions of Roman consuls, and 
 ornamented in high relief with an Alexander, two 
 Sphinxes and troops of slaves. All these artistic 
 treasures have now disappeared. 
 
 Nevertheless, impressive even in its degradation, 
 this old arch of Marcus Aurelius towers above the 
 Arab hovels around it as blind Samson towered over 
 the Philistines. It would be difficult even at Rome 
 to find a triumphal arch composed of such gigantic 
 blocks of marble, which are all the more striking 
 because there exists in this country no quarry from 
 which this stone could have been taken. Another 
 very surprising thing about this arch is the fact that 
 the stones are not bound together by any cement. 
 Invisible bands of iron have for over eighteen hundred 
 years kept this edifice intact. Inside, the spherical 
 ceiling is bordered with delightful reliefs. 
 
 For over a thousand years Tripoli was the principal 
 grain emporium of Rome. Magnificent roads, shaded 
 all the way with trees, ran along the coast from city 
 to city. Far beneath the waves at Lebda or Leptis, 
 one can still see the broken private jetties opposite 
 what once were the villas of Roman proconsuls. 
 Just peeping above the sand in Leptis, Sabratha, and 
 other places are parts of invaluable inscriptions 
 which the Turks insolently refused to let any dog of 
 an Unbeliever uncover, to the extent even of a 
 finger' s-breadth of sand, so that he could read the 
 whole inscription. And meanwhile the archaeologist
 
 68 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 was maddened by the sight of Arabs freely carting 
 away from the ruins masses of marble which they 
 wanted to convert into lime or building material ! 
 An exception was recently made in favour of an 
 American mission working in Cyrenaica, but only on 
 condition that any art treasures discovered must be 
 handed over to the gentle keeping of the Turk. This 
 meant, of course, that, moved by religious considera- 
 tions, some Mohammedan fanatic was certain, sooner 
 or later, to smash the nose of a beautiful Venus, or 
 Diana, or Apollo. History and art have probably 
 sustained irreparable losses during the reign of the 
 Turk in Tripoli. What a pity that, in their ultimatum, 
 the Roman Government did not insist on the im- 
 possibility of civilisation allowing such iconoclasts as 
 the Osmanli to remain any longer in possession of 
 a land so rich in buried historical treasures as is 
 Tripolitania ! A long list of Turkish outrages on 
 beautiful statues could have been added (I could 
 have given some myself), and where, then, is the 
 heart that would not have gone out to Italy in her 
 new crusade ?
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LANDING OF THE BERSAGLIERI 
 
 Hotel Minerva, Tripoli, 
 
 October 13th. 
 
 I HURRY from the Turkish Club to see the Romans 
 land. It is an historic sight. There are twenty 
 Transatlantic and other Italian liners lying off the 
 land, besides half a dozen men-o'-war and a number 
 of torpedo-boats. This harbour, three weeks ago the 
 most deserted of the great African ports, is now the 
 busiest. The appearance in the roadstead of more 
 than three or four steamers at a time was sufficient to 
 excite astonishment. Now the horizon is hardly 
 visible for the long line of shipping. Some of the 
 Transatlantic liners bulk up as large almost as 
 Cunarders. The sea is alive with small craft of all 
 descriptions — pinnaces, gigs, motor launches, two 
 Press steamers (one English, one American), row- 
 boats, sailing-vessels. There are some dozens of 
 picturesque fruit-vessels from Sicily. And through 
 the midst of these smaller craft come, like huge sea- 
 serpents, strings of boats crammed with soldiers and 
 drawn along by powerful destroyers. Long, slender, 
 sharp-nosed torpedo-boats, greyhounds of the sea, 
 cut the water in all directions. The slate-coloured 
 vessels of war, with their hard, fierce outline, are in 
 strong contrast to the gay Sicilian sailing-ships and 
 to the liners with their promenade decks, their light- 
 
 69
 
 ro ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 coloured funnels, and their general appeal to the 
 comfort-loving tourist. 
 
 In the foreground, close in to the shore, lies the 
 unhappy Derna, the steamer which brought the last 
 consignment of ammunition to the Turks. It was 
 sunk by the Turks themselves, and though it has a 
 big list to starboard, it will soon, I am sure, be afloat 
 again. Shattered also by a shell is the ludicrous 
 little Turkish gunboat which bore the high-sounding 
 name of Hunter of the Sea, and which now lies near 
 the Custom-house pier, wrecked, rusty, half-full of 
 water, despoiled of its guns and of everything port- 
 able. The masts of several other vessels are sticking 
 up above the surface of the water, inside the reefs. 
 They are evidently small sailing-vessels, and it is 
 difficult to see why they should have all been sunk. 
 
 At night the illumination at sea makes the harbour 
 look like Southampton as seen from the deck of an 
 incoming South American, with this difference, how- 
 ever, that while in Southampton most of the lights 
 are on land, in Tripoli they are nearly all on the sea. 
 The oil-lamp and tallow-candle illumination ashore is 
 nothing in comparison with the blaze of electricity 
 and incandescent light on the water. The great liners 
 are a dazzling mass of brilliancies. Light pours in 
 floods from every port-hole, and is reflected upwards, 
 brokenly, from the rolling, uneasy waves. The 
 search-lights of the battleships swing backwards and 
 forwards like the long, grey, luminous tentacles of 
 monstrous sea-serpents. They brighten up the 
 Sicilian schooners until they look like a fairy fleet in 
 a Drury Lane pantomime. One battleship keeps its 
 search-light fixed permanently, like a gigantic eye, 
 on a dangerous point on the desert coast. Beneath 
 its brilliant rays the white sand shines as at midday.
 
 ' % 
 
 u. ■■'■• 
 
 y. '^ 
 
 I 1^
 
 LANDING OF THE BERSAGLIERI 71 
 
 But no dark figure crosses that luminous belt of sea- 
 sand. It is apparently as uninhabited as a lunar 
 mountain. The Re Umberto is signalling with flash- 
 lights : " dot — dash — dot — dot — dot — dash (pause) 
 — dash — dash — dash — dash — dot." Another war- 
 ship is signalling by means of twinkling lights at the 
 mast-heads. The sea-front is crowded until a late 
 hour every night with petrified Arabs from the 
 Desert. They gaze, thunder - stricken, while some 
 invisible, gigantic hand writes with lightning rapidity 
 those characters of fire on the vast, sombre wall of 
 night, hastily blots them out, and as hastily re-writes 
 them. " Allah ! the Merciful, the Compassionate, 
 what black magic is this ? Does Satan in person 
 hover over the dark thunder-fleet of his worshippers ? 
 Has Hell finally triumphed over the People of God ? 
 No ! No ! No ! There is no God but God, and 
 Mohammed is the Prophet of God ! " 
 
 But I am anticipating. It is still daylight and the 
 Bersaglieri are landing. Few of them are the dark, 
 swarthy-faced people whom we are accustomed to 
 regard, in England, as typical Italians. The majority 
 are fair, square-built, healthy-looking young men. 
 They come from Florence and Siena, and were never 
 before, in most cases, outside their native village. The 
 surprise in their wide-open eyes is the surprise of the 
 Cockney schoolboy who has been suddenly caught 
 up in Hyde Park by an aeroplane and landed in 
 Timbuctoo. It is easy to see that the mosques, the 
 Arab dresses, and the camels fill them with unspeak- 
 able astonishment. And their officers, up to the 
 very War Office itself, are as ignorant of local condi- 
 tions as they are. Cholera is raging in the town, 
 nevertheless the officers eat over-ripe melons and
 
 72 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 drink water from the street fountains. Both officers 
 and men "fill up " on beer, a fatal drink in a hot 
 climate — especially when the beer is bad. Nobody 
 seems to have ever heard of such a thing as a cholera- 
 belt. The water-bottle of the French soldier in 
 Algiers always holds two litres. The water-bottle of 
 the Italian soldier here does not hold half a litre. 
 But the supreme, the crowning, the inexplicable 
 blunder, is the dress of the officers and men. It is a 
 thick, grey, heavy material, quite hot enough for 
 St. Petersburg at this time of year, but absurdly, 
 criminally, out of place here. It closely resembles 
 the stuff used in Ulster for making heavy overcoats. 
 Out at the front I have seen whole regiments digging 
 trenches in the blazing sand. They still wore these 
 clothes (the very sight of which made me perspire), 
 and they had not evidently received permission to 
 take off their coats. It was not in such a uniform 
 that the old Romans conquered this country. In- 
 deed, the present Arab dress is supposed to have 
 been adapted from that of the Romans. 
 
 Up the main street, along the sea-front, march the 
 Bersaglieri, their plumes dancing in the wind, their 
 bands playing the Italian anthem, their regimental 
 flags fluttering in the breeze. I watch them as they 
 swing out of the Custom-house. Close by is a little 
 mosque with a verse from the Koran engraven on a 
 slab of marble over the door. Inside, an intense 
 silence, a religious hush which contrasts vividly with 
 the shouting of the captains outside, with the regular 
 tramp, tramp, tramp of the heavily-laden marching 
 men, with the shrill, ear-splitting, nerve-racking 
 clamour of some Italian civilians talking all at the 
 same time and all at the top of their voices about 
 nothing in particular.
 
 LANDING OF THE BERSAGLIERI 73 
 
 The only worshipper in the temple is (with the 
 possible exception of a dove perched inside the open 
 window) an old, grey-bearded Arab. His motion- 
 lessness and his long, voluminous, snow-white 
 draperies give him the air of a Roman statue. He is 
 facing towards Mecca, and his set face is that of a 
 man in an ecstasy. His lips move, but no sound is 
 heard. When he kneels, prostrates himself, and 
 touches the matted floor with his forehead, his move- 
 ments are replete with calm, dignity, devotion — even 
 with majesty. He looks like a Roman senator on 
 the Capitol when the Gauls had taken the city and 
 all was lost. Strangely enough, he reminds me more 
 of Rome than do the Romans themselves outside. 
 A Biblical Patriarch who had walked with God 
 could not have worshipped with more solemnity and 
 impressiveness. There is an unconscious grace and 
 harmony in every movement. 
 
 For what is this benignant old man praying so 
 fervently to Allah ? Most probably for famine, 
 pestilence, and universal war, for red ruin and the 
 breaking-up of laws. Mild-looking and feeble as is 
 this ancient, he represents the greatest danger 
 against which the Italians have to guard. He is the 
 incarnation of Moslem fanaticism, the most warlike 
 fanaticism in the world, and nowhere so violent as 
 here. He is the Sword of the Prophet and of Islam.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE CONQUERED TURK 
 
 Tripoli, October 15th, 
 
 The procession of the Bersaglieri passes Turkish 
 cafes. The habitues of these cafes used to sit on the 
 sea-front, slowly sipping their Turkish coffee, smoking 
 their Ottoman cigarettes, slowly enjoying the delicious 
 sight of the blue sea and of the snow-white line of surf 
 breaking against the base of the old Spanish fort, 
 slowly enjoying the delicious coolness of the salt, 
 Mediterranean breeze. There was little traffic in 
 those days, and even if a dog of an Unbeliever did 
 happen to come along in a carriage, the driver would 
 think twice before he disturbed the Turkish coffee- 
 drinkers. Now the narrow sea-front is crowded, and 
 the Turks must sip their coffee at the corners of the 
 side streets and narrow, arched lanes running upwards 
 and inland. And they must sip their coffee without 
 the accompaniment of Turkish cigarettes, for all 
 the cigarettes of the Regie have been bought up by 
 the invading hordes, and, of course, no more can be 
 imported from Constantinople. They are all old 
 men, these fezzed and bearded coffee-drinkers. 
 Evidently they could not follow their younger 
 countrymen into the desert. Their tottering limbs, 
 their feeble steps, betray that fact when they get up 
 to hobble off v/ith the aid of a stick. In their moist 
 
 74
 
 THE CONQUERED TURK 75 
 
 eyes there is infinite sadness ; but their manner is 
 grave, dignified, and not in the least subservient. 
 They must know that the glory of Islam is gone for- 
 ever, that the Turkish Empire is already doomed. 
 They must know that the Crescent is now banished 
 forever from the continent of Africa. The Sultan 
 of Stamboul may continue to style himself master 
 of the three Continents and the four Seas. Only a 
 few centuries ago he had good reason to do so, for 
 he was a power of the first magnitude in Europe, 
 Asia, and Africa. His flag flew from Mecca to 
 Algiers. His last league of African sea-coast is now 
 gone, and the Carthaginians have as much chance 
 of coming back to the coast-line of Tripoli as the 
 Turks. 
 
 The rule of the Turk and the Karamanli Sultans 
 has been an unbroken horror, nevertheless I cannot 
 help pitying these sad, feeble, despairing old servants 
 of the Sublime Porte, meet representatives of the 
 crumbling Empire of the Ottomans. They have not 
 even the physical strength to ride out into the desert 
 and die there with arms in their hands. Theirs is 
 the most wretched fate of all. They must drag out 
 the tail-end of a miserable existence sitting in obscure 
 cafSs, watching the rough foreign soldiers march past, 
 afraid to cross the street lest a transport-waggon or a 
 field-battery suddenly tear round the corner. Curious, 
 how close the resemblance between these weary old 
 men and the dying Turkish Empire. It is so curious 
 that I cannot help reverting to it. For all the young 
 and active Turks, all the women and children, have 
 gone away or do not show themselves. Only these 
 decayed and impotent elders remain. 
 
 They are despised and contemned by the Jews and 
 negroes Avho fawned on them only a short month ago.
 
 76 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Yesterday I saw two Europeans signal a passing 
 carriage which they had supposed to be empty, but 
 which really contained an old Turkish gentleman in a 
 fez. The young Arab driver stopped immediately, 
 ejected his decrepit co-religionist, and bowed the 
 Europeans in. The old Turk then produced a little 
 red cloth bag evidently containing a few mejidieh 
 and feebly began, in a quavering treble, to haggle 
 about the fare, after the immemorial custom of the 
 East. With palsied fingers he finally deposited a 
 few piastres in the outstretched palm of the im- 
 patient Arab. But the latter was now accustomed 
 to have ten times as much tossed to him by Italian 
 officers, and with a quick, contemptuous motion of 
 his arm he jerked the few, pathetic coppers into the 
 old Turk's palms and drove recklessly on with his 
 load of Infidels. 
 
 Meanwhile the Turks are being scurvily treated by 
 the victors. Turkish officials who had house property 
 in the town have been forced to sell their houses, 
 which went for one-sixth of their value. It was bad 
 business for those ill-paid officials, but it was good 
 business for the Banco di Roma. 
 
 Past the Pasha's Palace the Bersaglieri march, 
 their brazen trumpets echoing and re-echoing in the 
 archways of Charles the Fifth's crumbling citadel. 
 They encounter long strings of disdainful camels 
 with sad, pendulous under-lips like those of old 
 women in a huff, and one ear moving briskly to keep 
 off the flies. The hide of some of these beasts is so 
 frayed and worn that it is hard to distinguish it from 
 the pile of rags and sacking which seems to form 
 the usual burden of this melancholy ruminant. On 
 top of this bag of rags sits sometimes a half-naked 
 Arab boy regarding events with Buddhistic im-
 
 THE CONQUERED TURK 77 
 
 mobility, sometimes a veiled Mohammedan woman. 
 Out of this perambulating rag-bag issues, in front, 
 a long tubular neck looking like a boa-constrictor 
 with a sheep's head. The camels and the great 
 majority of the natives regard the proceedings of 
 the Italians with an eye of philosophic calm. Wrapped 
 in their sole garment, a piece of sacking which had 
 evidently contained fodder, some natives are actually 
 sleeping on the roadside. As a rule, they are the 
 Bedouins, the gypsies of the desert. A few dates 
 and a drink of water suffice for them. Their idea of 
 the simple life is probably more comprehensive than 
 that of ex-President Roosevelt. The fall of empires 
 does not matter much to them. They keep out of 
 politics. 
 
 What a mixture of races ! Berbers, Jews, negroes, 
 Maltese, Italians, Turks are mingled together in the 
 crowds which watch the Italians pass. A little 
 apart stand two Touaregs with veiled faces. The 
 black eyes of these untamable desert tribesmen are 
 alone visible. They glitter with something of that 
 fixed, phosphorescent glitter which one sees in the 
 eye of a wild beast watching its prey. They are 
 watching the Italians, the happy, ingenuous, open- 
 faced soldier-lads from Florence. Even to one 
 another they make no remark. They are silent as 
 their own camels, now squatted oi> the ground close 
 by, soon perhaps to be crossing the desert on their way 
 to the Turkish camp. It was as a masked Touareg, 
 they say, that Fethi Bey succeeded in crossing the 
 Tunisian frontier, and in joining the army which he 
 now commands. May not some of these veiled men 
 be Turkish officers ? 
 
 Of all races of men these Touaregs, these hardy 
 and desperate marauders of the Sahara, are the most
 
 78 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 untamable and fierce. Even in paying friendly visits 
 they are as reluctant to part with their arms as 
 a very short-sighted man would be to part with 
 his glasses. A number of them once called on the 
 British Consul here to solicit some favour, but it 
 took the consular staff a full half-hour to persuade 
 the visitors to leave their arms behind in an ante- 
 chamber. The Touaregs finally gave way on con- 
 dition that one of them should remain behind to 
 watch over the rifles of his companions ! 
 
 Nearly as wild and lawless as the Touaregs are the 
 Ir'reh, or Wandering Arabs who left Tunisia at the 
 time of the French conquest sooner than submit to 
 foreign rule. They look like tigers brought to bay. 
 And they are brought to bay. The hated foreigner 
 has tracked them to their last lair. 
 
 Onward thunders the triumphal procession of the 
 Bersaglieri. Smooth-faced black eunuchs look timidly 
 at the rough soldiers. Women peep fearfully at them 
 through barred windows. The street children enjoy 
 the show with all their hearts. Little brown, dusty 
 Arabs run, almost naked, after the soldiers and cut 
 wild, fantastic capers in the air when they hear the 
 band. They beg for coppers, they black boots. 
 Already they have picked up a few words of Italian. 
 They race after carriages and hang on to the rear 
 like monkeys. It is clear that they have no cares of 
 State on their minds. They imagine that for some 
 reason or other an unusually large number of Cook's 
 tourists have come ashore. That is all. As yet they 
 do not understand. They wonder vaguely at the 
 sad faces of the old Turks sipping coffee on the 
 side-paths. 
 
 Rub-a-dub-dub go the drums. They echo un- 
 cannily in the empty houses, for not one house in
 
 THE CONQUERED TURK 79 
 
 forty is occupied and open. The streets are still a 
 long line of shuttered shops and padlocked doors. 
 
 Rub-a-dub-dub go the drums through the Jewish 
 quarter. The Jews are all there, not one of them is 
 absent. They stand in no fear of the Italians. They 
 started to plunder the citadel as soon as the warships 
 began to bombard the town. In the Italian language 
 they hail the soldiers with friendly, patronising cries. 
 For some reason or other the Tripolitan Jews regard 
 this expedition as their " show." The local Italian 
 newspaper is edited by a Hebrew, and the Italian 
 occupation of Tripoli will result in the creation of 
 about a score of Tripolitan Jewish millionaires, just 
 as the French occupation of Morocco will surely result 
 in the creation of a score of Morocco Jewish million- 
 aires. In Tripoli, as in Morocco, the wily Jew will 
 be sure to benefit by the change of masters, no matter 
 who loses. If the Italians want to improve the harbour 
 and the town they must do business with the Jews, 
 and, despite their high-pressure patriotism, the Jews 
 are not likely to let them off cheap. 
 
 The Ottoman Greeks are indifferent. It is all the 
 same to them. They won't starve, no matter who 
 comes. The woolly, shining negroes take the whole 
 thing with the greatest good humour. Their good- 
 natured faces are wreathed in perpetual smiles. 
 Their long, flexible, india-rubber lips, resembling in 
 the matter of size a pair of bicycle tyres, are stretched 
 in a pleasant, inoffensive, perpetual grin which 
 reaches from ear to ear. The bronzed and bony 
 Berber draws his faded baracan closer around him 
 as he looks. It is as if the invaders from the north 
 brought with them an icy, Alpine blast. The Arab, 
 lighter in hue, is a miracle of picturesqueness in his 
 gracious, ample, flowing robes of snowy white. The
 
 80 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 effeminate city Arabs leave half-open their trans- 
 parent burnous, so that their embroidered vests and 
 their silk pantaloons may be better seen. If the 
 trousers are very ample and the turban green, the 
 wearer is a wealthy Jew. If not, he is the descendant 
 of one of the eleventh-century conquerors. 
 
 Amid the crowd are travellers from regions of the 
 Dark Continent as far apart as London and Tripoli. 
 The slim negroes whom you see squatting over there 
 on the ground come from the Niger. These massive 
 and heavy tribesmen are from the Nile. You can 
 recognise the Fezzanis by their powerful frames and 
 well-developed muscles. The shoulder attains in 
 some of them a formidable development, fitting them 
 to pose for statues of Hercules or to enter the ring 
 against Johnson the boxer. These peoples from 
 widely separated parts of Africa have no more chance 
 of understanding one another's language than 
 Japanese and Patagonian peasants would have if 
 they happened to meet in a Wapping boarding- 
 house. 
 
 In some of the streets the shopkeepers used, under 
 the old regime, to be so fanatical that they slammed 
 their doors whenever they saw a Christian dog 
 approach. To-day there is no such sign of religious 
 intolerance. A European could enter a mosque if he 
 had a mind to do so. Before, it would have meant 
 death. The Italians will, however, safeguard the 
 sanctity of the mosques as the French did in Tunis. 
 But they may make one exception. There is a 
 mosque here, the Pasha's mosque, which was once 
 an old Spanish church. It was converted by the 
 Karamanli Sultans, first into a necropolis and then 
 into a mosque. The wooden doors are richly carved. 
 The roof is made up of a number of little cupolas
 
 THE CONQUERED TURK 81 
 
 resting on wooden columns taken from the timbers 
 of a captured Christian ship. Under Italian auspices 
 this mosque may again be used for purposes of Chris- 
 tian worship. But it would be a wiser policy to leave 
 it alone.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SIEGE OF THE DESERT 
 
 Minerva Hotel, Tripoli, 
 
 October 16th. 
 
 The first step in the Tripoli adventure was a bom- 
 bardment. The second is a siege. The Italians are 
 besieging the desert. They have sat down before it 
 and called upon it to surrender. The desolate wail 
 of the Saharan night-wind, the nightly crackle of 
 Turkish rifles far out among the sand-hills, are, so 
 far, the only reply they have received. 
 
 The lines of the besiegers begin only half an hour's 
 walk from the place where they landed. What a 
 difference from the state of things in Manchuria, 
 where the base was always a good day's journey on 
 horseback from the positions ! Here the war- 
 correspondent can reach the Italian firing-line on 
 the edge of the desert in a quarter of an hour by 
 carriage. 
 
 In Manchuria the gaps between one army corps 
 and another were so great that one could not see 
 across them even with field-glasses ; and in the 
 intervals between the armies on either side, one felt 
 sometimes as if he were in some unexplored, un- 
 occupied part of China ! And yet no attempt was 
 ever made to rush these treacherous open spaces. 
 If Kuroki had suddenly dashed between Rennen- 
 kampf and Linievitch, those Russian generals would 
 
 82
 
 THE SIEGE OF THE DESERT 83 
 
 have closed on him hke a pair of gigantic pincers. 
 If Mischenko and his Cossacks had ridden in between 
 Nogi and Oku they would never have ridden back 
 again. 
 
 But in Tripoli it is different. The town of Tripoli 
 is situated on a little peninsula. The Italians hold 
 that little peninsula and practically nothing more. 
 Their troops stand shoulder-to-shoulder in trenches 
 from one side of this peninsula almost to the other, 
 in a semicircle round the town. This arrangement 
 is prehistoric. It belongs to the Stone Age. I 
 wonder if Caneva adopted it because he knew the 
 timidity of his soldiers, because he knew that he 
 could not trust them to hold various strong positions 
 out in the desert, far away from the town. In the 
 present age generals defending towns hold various 
 strong positions round about them and keep a large 
 reserve somewhere in the centre. If an English 
 general were holding London against an invader 
 advancing from the south, he would have a powerful 
 entrenched force at Caterham, where, as a matter of 
 fact, the last Conservative Government did buy 
 land with a view to constructing forts on it. He 
 would not entrench himself at Streatham, and thus 
 leave the enemy free to drop shells in Trafalgar 
 Square and on Buckingham Palace. In Tripoli, 
 however, the Italians are massed together like 
 policemen at the end of a street. They have practi- 
 cally no scouts and no outposts. The Turks ride up 
 and pepper them regularly. The Italians have to rely 
 on the humanity of the Ottoman to spare Tripoli the 
 terrors of a bombardment. With his field artillery 
 Nesciat Bey could drop shells on the citadel as often 
 as he liked, for, so far, there is no artillery on land 
 that could prevent him. When the roles were re-
 
 84 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 versed, and the town was Turkish, the Itahans had 
 no compunction in shelling the town and killing 
 many innocent people. But what is the good of 
 being Christian unless you enjoy a certain privilege 
 in these matters ? When the Turk does them there 
 is, naturally, a roar. 
 
 I have never in war seen anything more striking 
 than this Tripolitan battle-front. The oasis ends 
 abruptly like a green carpet spread upon sand. On 
 one side vegetation, date-palms, gardens, wells, 
 houses, life. On the other, sand, aridity, the desert, 
 death. At a certain well-defined line the oasis ends 
 and there begins another element, almost as different 
 from the arable land as is the sea itself. It is the 
 blindingly white, sandy, thirsty, illimitable waste. 
 Search it as you will with field-glasses, you find it 
 endless, boundless, uninhabited, uninhabitable, every- 
 where the same. Looking at it is like looking at the 
 ocean for the first time. It is an event in one's life. 
 And the desert is even more impressive than the 
 ocean, for it moves not, it supports no life, animal or 
 vegetable. It is dead. With its innumerable dunes, 
 it looks like a stormy ocean suddenly turned to sand. 
 There are ripples in it. There are billows. There 
 are very high waves from whose sharp curved crests 
 the fine white sand is blown like foam. But, unlike 
 the ocean, it reflects not the moon nor the stars. Its 
 face shines in the starlight with something of that 
 dull, grey pallor which you see on the face of a corpse 
 in the dark. Stray dogs, howling at a great distance, 
 fill it with a mournful baying like the wail of lost 
 souls. 
 
 The Italians are besieging the desert. They are 
 constructing trenches in front of it. They have en- 
 compassed it round about with a mud-wall. They
 
 THE SIEGE OF THE DESERT 85 
 
 have loop-holed and crenellated this mud-wall. They 
 sleep behind it. They have pointed batteries of 
 mountain-guns, machine-guns, naval guns at that 
 inscrutable, grim, grey. Sphinx-like face which has 
 seen so many empires pass. All day long the soldiers 
 gaze into that Saharan furnace. Sand, sand, nothing 
 but sand ! A withered fig-tree ! A land condemned 
 by Allah to eternal desolation yet tinged by the 
 mysterious sanctity attaching to things afflicted by 
 the Hand of God ! 
 
 About half a mile out in this sea of sand, just 
 south of Bumeliana, is a hillock with a sharp edge on 
 top and with very steep sides, a hillock exactly re- 
 sembling a wave about to break. On top of that 
 hillock is an outpost consisting of six or seven soldiers. 
 This is the ultimate Italian outpost. There is nothing 
 between it and the enemy's outpost of 500 Turks in 
 the little oasis of Senit Beni-Adam (" Garden of Sons 
 of Men "). The men converse with me affably. One 
 of them was a barber in New York, another a fruit- 
 seller in Whitechapel : both speak English of sorts. 
 They do not seem to be particularly fond of war and 
 are sorry, I dare say, that they did not take out 
 English or American papers when they were abroad. 
 
 No soldiers whom I ever encountered cared for 
 war, and least enthusiastic of all were the fierce, 
 legendary Cossacks of the Tsar with whom I lived 
 in Manchuria. I am beginning to suspect that the 
 only warlike classes in any country are the ferocious 
 folk who spout from jingo platforms and write in 
 blood-and-thunder newspapers. These dull Italian 
 peasants, barbers, and ice-cream vendors, shade 
 their eyes from the sun as they peer into the mys- 
 terious, the inscrutable desert into which, as into a 
 safe fortress, their unseen enemy has fled. They do
 
 86 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 not even know the name of the people with whom 
 they are fighting. The word " Turk " being evidently 
 unknown to them, they surmount the difficulty by 
 means of a circumlocution. They speak of the enemy 
 as " the people of this country with whom we are at 
 war," just as the Russian soldier always speaks of 
 the enemy as Ony — " they." 
 
 On my way back from the outpost on the sand-hill 
 and before I reach the Italian lines, I pass over the 
 site of a Turkish encampment. It had evidently 
 been occupied by a few hundred men, and is littered 
 with old tin cans, broken bottles, Turkish documents, 
 and empty Turkish cartridges of which I collect 
 scores. Close by is an unloaded shell from an Italian 
 warship, which shows that the bombarding fleet was 
 well informed as to the position of the enemy and 
 had got the range very accurately. The pots and 
 pans and odds and ends which the Turks left behind 
 show that their equipment is very primitive, and that 
 their tents will hardly keep out the rain. They 
 seem to be well supplied with ammunition, however, 
 for they left several hundred boxes of machine-gun 
 cartridges behind them in the cavalry barrack which 
 now forms the Italian left flank. 
 
 On returning to the lines, I meet the first captured 
 Turkish spy. He is a spare, medium-sized, black- 
 bearded, very sunburnt man dressed in a dirty Arab 
 costume, but though he evidently wears this dress 
 for purposes of disguise, there is no possibility of 
 disguising the strong, resolute face and drilled figure 
 of the trained soldier. He came in from the desert, but 
 was stopped by an Italian sentry and searched. That 
 search brought to light a large Mauser pistol, wooden 
 frame and all complete. One of the half-dozen armed 
 soldiers who accompany him carries this damning
 
 THE SIEGE OF THE DESERT 87 
 
 piece of evidence, which must have been hung over 
 the prisoner's shoulder inside his djellaha by means 
 of a twisted band of Hnen cloth. 
 
 At night the curse which lies upon this void seems 
 to exhale from the ground, and wander to and fro in 
 the shape of demons. Sentinels in lonely places 
 almost go mad with fright. After peering for hours 
 into the grey, mysterious " ghoud," their wits some- 
 times wander. They see dark, moving shapes which 
 are not of this earth. They fire and rouse the whole 
 weary camp. Sometimes donkeys, mules, dogs, and 
 other animals lost or abandoned by the Turks are 
 guided by instinct towards the oasis where their ap- 
 pearance, in the night-time, frequently gives rise to 
 false alarms, to furious firing. The strain of these 
 nightly frights is beginning to tell on the nerves of 
 these young and inexperienced officers and men. It 
 is a pleasure to them when the attack is real. In 
 such cases the story is always the same. " The 
 Turks attacked at between one and two o'clock in 
 the morning. They had horsemen with them. They 
 approached to within a distance of three hundred 
 yards, firing very heavily. In the morning the corpses 
 of two Turkish soldiers were found out in the Meshya." 
 • • I > I « 
 
 Rp-rp-rp-rp-rp-rp-rp-rp-rp ! go the Italian rifles. 
 It is two in the morning and the desert lies grey and 
 corpse-like beneath the brilliant stars. Another 
 alarm, a real alarm this time. Red rockets soar into 
 the air from half a dozen different points along the 
 Italian line. The battleships sweep the desert with 
 their search-lights. 
 
 Yes, it is a real alarm, for there is an answering
 
 88 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 volley and the dead, sombre void leaps suddenly to 
 vicious life and brilliancy with vivid flashes out 
 among the sand-hills two miles away. With rifle- 
 bullets, with shell from mountain batteries the 
 Italians sweep the cruel, treacherous waste, no 
 longer silent, no longer dead. They all face the 
 Enemy, the desert. Ten-inch shells from the battle- 
 ships burst amid the dunes with vivid flashes and 
 clouds of sand twenty feet high. The Turks are in- 
 visible. The search-lights do not betray their presence. 
 They are hidden somewhere in the hollows. . . . 
 And lo ! while the Italians are concentrating all 
 their attention on the desert, I fancy that I see a 
 gigantic figure rise suddenly from the dark town 
 behind and grin at them with fleshless, skeleton 
 jaws. Another enemy has appeared upon the scene, 
 an enemy more formidable than the Turks, more 
 terrible than the desert — Cholera ! 
 
 • •»■•• 
 
 As I write these lines I am almost deafened by the 
 funeral shrieks of a Jewish family on the other side 
 of the narrow lane. By leaning out of my window I 
 could almost touch the house of death with my hand. 
 A member of the family has been carried off by 
 cholera. It is the second death in that house inside 
 of a week. Two Mohammedan cholera victims were 
 carried past my window yesterday. In the first 
 three days there were thirty deaths. So far the 
 number of victims has been exactly doubled each 
 day. The officials are now becoming reticent, how- 
 ever, and the merchants are combining with them 
 to hush up the appalling truth, for fear of injury to 
 commercial and military interests. An Arab died at 
 one of the outposts last night. They say (officially)
 
 THE SIEGE OF THE DESERT 89 
 
 that he died of hunger. Thousands of people are 
 starving. The dining-room window of the Hotel 
 Minerva, at which I am staying, is on the ground 
 floor and opens out on the street. At meal-time 
 every day a frightful procession passes in front of it, 
 and presses emaciated faces, white sightless eyeballs, 
 horribly distorted limbs against the window-bars, a 
 foot from the jovial dining-room table. Objects 
 which would in England have been mercifully hidden 
 away in some Home for Incurables parade here in 
 the full light of day. Half a dozen diseases from 
 typhoid to incipient cholera hold on to the window- 
 bars. They would fall back into the street if they 
 did not do so. Their pallid hands are clutched in a 
 corpse-like clutch on the iron railings. 
 
 Italy has got a nice handful. Like Dead Sea fruit, 
 Tripoli has turned to dust and ashes in her grasp. 
 She wanted to annex territory. She has annexed 
 sand, poverty, rags, misery, cholera, and corruption. 
 
 Was it necessary for her to go abroad ? Has she 
 not got enough of these commodities at home ?
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 HOW THE TURKS LEFT TRIPOLI 
 
 "Night clos'd around the conqueror's way. 
 And lightnings show'd the distant hill, 
 Where those who lost that dreadful day. 
 Stood few and faint, but fearless still." 
 
 Let us say a good word for the conquered ! Let us 
 tell the true story of how the Turks left Tripoli ! It 
 is not meet that an Irishman should join in this chorus 
 of contempt and ridicule that is being addressed by 
 all the world to brave men who failed through no fault 
 of their own. 
 
 I was talking to-day to a young officer at the front 
 who twice made a painfully bad impression on me. 
 First he showed me a number of religious medals 
 which his mother had given him : a medal of the 
 Immaculate Conception, a medal of St. Joseph, a 
 medal of St. Aloysius de Gonzaga, a medal of St. 
 Anthony of Padua, a medal of St. Francis of Assisi. 
 Then he openly scoffed at them and alluded jeeringly 
 to the weak-mindedness of women on religious matters. 
 I did not honour him any the more for scoffing at his 
 mother's humble gifts or for laughing at his religion. 
 Even if he were a Mohammedan I would esteem him 
 more for believing in the religion which he professed 
 than for jeering at it. I changed the subject. I 
 talked about the Turks. This young officer loudly 
 asserted that the Turks had fled like madmen when 
 
 90
 
 HOW THE TURKS LEFT TRIPOLI 91 
 
 they heard the big guns of the warships. This remark 
 stung me, and I could see that it grated unpleasantly 
 on my companion, Herr von Gottberg, who is a 
 German officer of a very Chauvinist sort, but who 
 never in my hearing spoke of the French army or of 
 any other brave opponents save in terms of high 
 and courtly praise. I almost felt inclined to remind 
 my young Italian officer that on a hundred battle- 
 fields the Turks have shown the world that no troops 
 in Europe fear the roar of big guns as little as they. 
 No Austrian, no Russian, no nation which ever 
 measured swords with the Turk on fair field of 
 battle would ever speak of them like this. The remark 
 was a glaring breach of military etiquette. It was 
 unchivalrous and it was untrue. Moreover, it came 
 with rather an ill grace from the one and only Euro- 
 pean army which ever showed twenty thousand 
 clean pairs of heels to niggers. 
 
 But ignoring my companion's impatience and my 
 own silence, the young officer rattled on. He showed 
 me Italian newspapers in which it was clearly demon- 
 strated that " the legend of Turkish valour is now 
 destroyed." One writer declared that the Tripoli 
 forts could easily have made a more stubborn defence. 
 This writer had visited the Sultanie Fort, and he dwelt 
 long on the damage which it might have inflicted on a 
 hostile fleet had it only been in proper hands — he 
 meant, I presume, in Italian hands. 
 
 At this point my patience gave way, and I pointed 
 out that this was ridiculous. The forts were worse 
 than useless. They were death-traps. All the foreign 
 military men who had ever seen them admitted it. 
 
 But my Italian officer would not agree to this. 
 He showed me another article in which the Turks 
 were roundly accused of cowardice. This writer
 
 92 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 proved at great length and to his own satisfaction 
 that Constitutionalism had had a dissolvent effect 
 on the religious fanaticism, and consequently on the 
 fighting capacity of the Turk. 
 
 That the Turks retreated, practically without 
 firing a shot, is due, not to their inefficiency, but to 
 their humanity. This statement may seem incredible, 
 but I have it on the best authority. Like a Byronic 
 hero, the Tripolitan Turk has left a Corsair's name 
 to other times, linked with one virtue, and a 
 thousand crimes. The one virtue came at the last 
 moment, but it was nevertheless a virtue Two 
 of the Consuls — the German Consul, Dr. Alfred Tilger, 
 who is also Dean of the Consular Corps, and the 
 French Vice-Consul, M. Theuillet, arranged that in 
 the dead of night a dozen of the leading Turkish 
 officers and functionaries should assemble secretly 
 in the German Consulate. 
 
 This house is situated outside the town, in the 
 oasis, and is surrounded by palm gardens and by 
 the villas of the Turkish military leaders. These 
 two Consuls were acting without the knowledge 
 of their colleagues, for if they had waited till the 
 others approved of the step they wished to take 
 they would be waiting still. For, as frequently 
 happens in very much out-of-the-way places abroad, 
 the Consular body in Tripoli was torn by internal 
 Jealousies and dissensions. You find the same 
 pleasant state of things prevailing in some Persian, 
 Siamese, Anatolian, Moroccan, and Chinese towns. 
 There are little, forgotten places in India where 
 there are not a dozen Europeans, yet where every 
 one of that dozen is at daggers drawn with all the 
 rest. Isolation, accompanied by extreme heat or 
 extreme cold, and aggravated by the-same-old-faces-
 
 HOW THE TURKS LEFT TRIPOLI 93 
 
 every-day grievance, leads to the bitterest enmities 
 it is possible to imagine, I am told that the most 
 poisonous hatreds are engendered in Polar expeditions 
 where a number of men are confined for six months 
 to the one ice-house. Moreover, in the present 
 instance the Italian Consul would have had the 
 right to take part in any general representation made 
 by the Consular Corps, while some of the Consuls 
 representing the smaller nations were quite capable of 
 selling the Turkish plans to the Italians. 
 
 Among the Turkish officers and functionaries who 
 came was the Defterdar ; General Munir Pasha ; the 
 Political Agent ; and Colonel Nesciat Bey, The faces of 
 the Ottoman leaders wore a strangely grim and deter- 
 mined expression. It was clear that they had just 
 arrived at some desperate decision. And, in fact, it 
 was because they had heard of that desperate decision 
 that the two Consuls had summoned this extra- 
 ordinary meeting. As no time was to be lost, the 
 Consuls plunged at once into the subject which was 
 uppermost in the minds of all by begging Nesciat 
 Bey to leave quietly for the sake of the women and 
 children, and thus spare the to\Mi the horrors of a 
 prolonged bombardment. The Ottoman general 
 was grimly determined, however, to dispute every 
 inch of ground and to perish with his men beneath 
 the ruins of Tripoli. In this desperate resolv^e he 
 was supported by all his officers, eleven of whom were 
 present at this conference. Any one who knows the 
 Turkish soldier, any one who has read the heroic 
 story of Plevna and Silistria, will readily admit that 
 Osmanli soldiers were quite capable of this heroism. 
 The Consuls recognised with horror that they stood 
 in the presence of men who had already passed 
 through the terrors which guard the gate of death
 
 94 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 and keep most of us as far as we can get from that 
 awful portal. They begged the Ottoman leader to 
 change his mind. They pointed out how thousands 
 of innocent lives would inevitably be sacrificed if he did 
 not do so. They argued, begged, implored, but it was 
 all in vain. The Turks remained firm. And their plan 
 was not a bad one. Not more than a thousand sailors 
 could land. The sea was not smooth, and they could 
 be picked off as they came ashore by the Turkish 
 sharpshooters. Now, the battleships could not shell 
 these riflemen, for a projectile from a vessel four 
 miles off cannot be guided to the eighth of an inch, 
 and there would be extreme danger of the explosives 
 falling among the Italian sailors. That danger 
 would be worse in case the bluejackets got into the 
 town and there was hand-to-hand fighting in the 
 streets. The battleships would not know where to 
 fire. And in the excessively narrow and tortuous 
 lanes of the town the Turks would have a splendid 
 chance of polishing off one landing - party after 
 another until Italy had got tired of having her blue- 
 jackets thus disposed of piecemeal. 
 
 What put it in the power of the Turks to carry out 
 some incredibly desperate coup, to strike some blow 
 which would astonish the world, was the fact that 
 there were stored in the town very large supplies of 
 powder and projectiles of every kind. " Besides the 
 full powder-magazines," says an Italian writer, 
 " there were in the forts two great stores of powder 
 which might have lasted throughout a long war." 
 
 In the chapter headed " Caneva's Neglect to 
 disarm the Arabs " the reader will find a more com- 
 plete account of the amount of explosives which the 
 Turks left behind in Tripoli. 
 
 Since they could not take these explosives away
 
 HOW THE TURKS LEFT TRIPOLI 95 
 
 with them, why should they not utilise them for 
 mines ? Why should they not blow up the soldiers 
 when they installed themselves in the barracks, blow 
 up Admiral Borea-Ricci as soon as he had made 
 himself at home in the Palace ? The mysterious old 
 dungeons of that building are known to few. The 
 most sequestered of them could easily have been 
 filled to the door with most powerful explosives, and 
 hundreds of Arabs would have been glad to be en- 
 trusted with the duty of crouching in the gloom until 
 they got the signal that the time had come to apply 
 the fatal spark. 
 
 Even at this time there were three thousand well- 
 armed Arabs with the Turks, and nothing would have 
 pleased those Arabs better than to be thus let loose, 
 not only on the hated giaour, but also on an illimitable 
 quantity of loot. The two greatest passions of the Arab 
 would be appealed to — his passion for blood and his 
 passion for money. The advantage which the natives 
 enjoyed later, during the fighting in the oasis, was as 
 nothing to the advantage they would have enjoyed 
 in that labyrinth of streets and blind alleys. As the 
 lanes are joined overhead by very many arches, 
 after the usual Oriental bazaar style, Arabs driven 
 out of one house could take refuge in the houses 
 on the opposite side of the street. Without burning 
 down the town and sacrificing many thousands of 
 innocent lives it would have been impossible for 
 the Italians to have driven them out. In fact, 
 Captain Cagni could not have driven them out. His 
 repulse and the loss of perhaps all of his men would 
 have been practically certain, and Admiral Faravelli 
 would have had to wait seven days more for the 
 transports. 
 
 Even if the Turks and Arabs were driven out of
 
 96 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the town, they could in the environs find excellent 
 cover every dozen yards or so behind walls and houses 
 and clumps of earth and palm trees. After the Italians 
 had been studying the ground for a fortnight the 
 Arabs, as General Caneva admits, derived infinite 
 advantage from their superior knowledge of it. 
 How vastly greater would not this advantage be 
 if the Italians had been attacked while entering the 
 oasis for the first time ! 
 
 This scheme of defence could only end in one way 
 — in the recall to the ships of such bluejackets as 
 managed to remain alive and in a prolonged and 
 dreadful bombardment of the town by the Italian 
 fleet, in a rain of fire and iron which would not leave 
 a house intact or an inhabitant alive. This the two 
 Consuls saw clearly, and hence their anxiety that the 
 Turks should leave without a fight. 
 
 The Consuls were not, of course, thinking of 
 themselves alone. They were thinking of the Euro- 
 peans, men, women, and children, who had been 
 unable to leave Tripoli, not because they had elected 
 to remain, but because the Arab boatmen had refused 
 to take them out to the fleet. Those boatmen had 
 families of their own, and they knew that if all the 
 Europeans left, the Italians would have no com- 
 punction in smashing the town to powder, with 
 everybody in it. They also suspected that the 
 Consuls would not be so very particular about 
 whether the town was bombarded or not, if there 
 were no foreigners left in it to be injured by the 
 bombardment. 
 
 The Turkish plan was therefore a good one, but a 
 most desperate one. It was worthy of the Turk ! 
 They preferred to die in the Tripolitan metropolis, to 
 die bravely with arms in their hands, rather than
 
 HOW THE TURKS LEFT TRIPOLI 97 
 
 starve gradually, like stray mules, out in the waterless 
 steppes. 
 
 The two Consuls found it very hard to shake the 
 Turkish officers in their resolve. They dwelt again and 
 again on the inevitable loss of innocent life, on the 
 certain destruction of the women and children. In 
 the name of humanity, they urged the Osmanli 
 leaders to abandon their insane, their desperate 
 project. 
 
 " Humanity ! " commented a Turkish officer bit- 
 terly. " You are fond of using the word humanity 
 when you wish to save Christian life. You never 
 mention it when Turkish lives are in peril." 
 
 Munir Pasha had been much impressed, however, 
 by the insinuation that he was sheltering himself 
 behind women and children ; and finally he gave 
 way, and induced his companions to do the same. 
 There were bitter tears in the eyes of some. One of 
 them, Reschid Effendi, said : " We shall leave after 
 a few shots from the batteries, after little more than 
 a formal protest against the Italian landing. But 
 we know," he bitterly added, " that the Italians 
 will misrepresent our action and impute it to cowar- 
 dice." 
 
 As I have already shown, this is exactly what the 
 chivalrous Italians have done. 
 
 When I heard this story I thought of the young 
 Italian officer at Bumeliana, the officer who had dis- 
 missed the Turks with a contemptuous wave of his 
 hand and said that they had run away like madmen 
 on hearing the roar of the Italian guns. 
 
 Having now regarded with amazement and con- 
 tempt for the last six months the almost incredible 
 timidity and incapacity of the enemy. Colonel 
 Nesciat Bey and his friends are more than ever 
 
 H
 
 98 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 convinced that they made a mistake in yielding to 
 Consular entreaties and leaving Tripoli without strik- 
 ing a blow. But like Ottoman gentlemen of the best 
 type, they throw no blame on the Consuls, and have 
 consistently refrained from saying a word about that 
 midnight conference just before the bombardment. 
 The Italians, on the other hand, have described their 
 " conquest " of Tripoli in the wildest strain of boast- 
 fulness. As a matter of fact, they took Tripoli and 
 most of the other places which they have occupied 
 on the coast, not because the Turks could not hold 
 them, but because the Turks did not want to expose 
 the Christian populations of those places to bombard- 
 ment.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BEFORE THE ARMY CAME 
 
 " What the Italian navy did in Tripoli from October 
 5th to October 11th," says Signor Bevione, " has no 
 precedent in history, and should fill us with pride. 
 It disembarked seventeen hundred men in a city 
 which had in its barracks, a week before, four thou- 
 sand soldiers, a city armed with rifles and ammuni- 
 tion landed from the Derna, a Mussulman city whose 
 sentiments towards us were not precisely known and 
 which might, out of veneration for the Khalifa and 
 out of hate for the Infidel, have sided with the Turks 
 and begun a Holy War. It landed, it occupied and 
 pacified the city. 
 
 " Now that all this is past history, and that all 
 has ended happily, it must be said, however, that 
 the navy attempted a diabolically audacious stroke, 
 but attempted it with such superb aplomb that all 
 the probabilities were for success. It was a gigantic 
 bluff." 
 
 But it was also a gigantic folly. It exposed the 
 peaceful inhabitants of Tripoli to terrible things. If, 
 only a fortnight later, the Turks broke the Italian 
 line twice, forced Caneva and his twenty thousand 
 to retreat despite their trenches, their bomb-proofs, 
 their artillery, their barbed wire and their aero- 
 planes, and spread panic among the Italian soldiers, 
 what earthly chance would Cagni and his seventeen 
 
 99
 
 100 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 hundred have had, were the Turks to attack before 
 the expedition landed ? 
 
 The ItaHan poHcy throughout all this campaign 
 has been a mixture of excessive fool-hardiness and 
 excessive caution. There has never been any medium. 
 Now, this occupation of the town by a handful of 
 marines was a case of excessive fool-hardiness. The 
 weakest spot in all the line, the oasis, was not guarded 
 at all. I landed soon after the bombardment, and 
 went into the oasis the same night with two English 
 colleagues, Mr. Percival Phillips and Mr. Thomas E. 
 Grant. We walked eastward till we were tired, but 
 found no Italian guards between us and the Turks. 
 We reached the spot where the Bersaglieri were 
 afterwards cut to pieces. It seemed foredoomed to 
 be the scene of some great disaster. The dogs were 
 barking in the profundity of the oasis. The vivid 
 white flash of the naval search-lights made the palm 
 trees throw jet-black shadows. There was a deep 
 impression of solitude. 
 
 As it seemed dangerous to go any further, we re- 
 traced our steps and went towards Bumeliana, the 
 famous well which furnishes Tripoli with water, and 
 which is situated on the border of the desert, three 
 kilometres from the city, on the great Gharian road. 
 At a gendarmerie guard-house, still occupied by 
 armed Turkish zaptie or policemen whose services 
 the invaders had foolishly accepted, we had our first 
 experience of that liability to panic on the part of 
 the Italians which afterwards led to such terrible 
 excesses in this very oasis. We were walking in the 
 shadow of the guard-house, and in front of us was an 
 open square all flooded with moonlight. All around 
 were latticed Turkish houses, silent as tombs. 
 Suddenly, from the darkness beyond, in the direction
 
 BEFORE THE ARMY CAME 101 
 
 of Bumeliana, rushed a group of Italian civilians 
 armed to the teeth, but in the most abject state of 
 terror. One of them had a military rifle, and as he 
 had his finger on the trigger and kept the weapon 
 pointed our way I must admit that I was seriously 
 alarmed. All the others had revolvers which they 
 flourished over their heads, their fingers also on the 
 triggers. Some special Providence (or perhaps it 
 was the sight of Mr. Phillips' typical American outfit) 
 saved all three of us from being shot as we suddenly 
 emerged out of the shadow into the moonlight and 
 confronted this terror-stricken gang. 
 
 After much laborious effort we managed to calm 
 them, and then they explained to us that they had 
 been out in the oasis and had seen scores of Turkish 
 soldiers creeping along amid the palm trees. 
 
 Their story may have been true or it may not. I 
 must say, however, that many people assured me at 
 this time that groups of Turkish soldiers did enter 
 the oasis every night far in the rear of the Italians. 
 I suppose they made little purchases of coffee and 
 tobacco, visited friends, had tea with them, learned 
 the latest news, and then went out into the desert 
 again. 
 
 What I do know to be true is that at the dangerous 
 point in the oasis which I first visited there was not 
 even a sentinel. Now, as I shall show later, a great 
 number of Arabs managed to slip through the Italian 
 lines at this part of the oasis on October 22nd, when 
 there was a large number of soldiers there. Could 
 they not have slipped past still more easily when 
 there were no soldiers ? And if they had slipped 
 past, entered the town, and taken in the rear the 
 handful of sleepy and exhausted bluejackets, who 
 were supposed to be " holding " Bumeliana, what
 
 102 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 resistance could those bluejackets have offered ? 
 And what would have been the fate of the city ? 
 The Turkish commander could not have restrained 
 his wild Arab levies from murdering, plundering, 
 and burning, and the fleet would have probably 
 added to the horrors of the scene by doing what an 
 Italian field battery actually did on the 26th — shell- 
 ing friend and foe alike. 
 
 The Italians themselves did not realise the full 
 seriousness of the situation, but the foreign merchants 
 in town did. Early in October I spoke to some of 
 the most responsible of them on this subject, and 
 they made no secret of their conviction that the 
 Italians were acting like madmen. 
 
 " Were Ibrahim Pasha now in command of the 
 Turks," said a local banker to me, " the town 
 would have been blazing over our heads last 
 night and not one of the bluejackets at Bumeliana 
 would ever again sail upon the sea." 
 
 He was referring to Ibrahim Pasha, the strong and 
 capable Vali whose recall the Italian Consul had 
 brought about a short time previous (so that the 
 command of the Turkish forces should be, as it was, 
 in the very feeble hands of old Munir Pasha, when the 
 coup was made). 
 
 The Italians landed when they did, long before 
 the expedition was ready, because there is jealousy 
 between the army and the navy, and the latter wished 
 to win all the laurels. But the army soon had its 
 revenge. Captain Cagni discovered, too late, that 
 he had done a foolish thing. His bluejackets knew 
 as little about scouting and other details of land war- 
 fare as a camel knows about the Higher Criticism. 
 The sailors had no time for sleep, and the night attacks
 
 y 
 
 '1
 
 BEFORE THE ARMY CAME 103 
 
 of the Turks, futile and unsystematic as they were, 
 worried them beyond endurance. When relieved by 
 the troops, some of them had had no sleep for three 
 days and were hardly able to walk through fatigue. 
 All of them were very close to the breaking-point, 
 and no one realised better than Commandant Cagni 
 that if the Turks had conducted their attacks with any 
 system or advanced in earnest, he would have had to 
 retreat to his ships. 
 
 On October 8th, Admiral Faravelli wired to Rome 
 representing how desperate his situation was and 
 asking that troops should be sent at once. " Do not 
 wait," he implored, " till the whole expedition is 
 ready. Send even a few regiments." Meanwhile 
 he himself despatched a cruiser northward under full 
 steam in order to hurry up any transports that might 
 be lying in the Sicilian ports or lagging on the way. 
 At the same time two swift ocean liners were imme- 
 diately despatched from Naples with troops, which 
 were disembarked on the morning of the 11th and 
 at once hurried to the front. On October 12th, the 
 rest of the Armada appeared and the danger ceased 
 to be acute. 
 
 Then, and not till then, did the Italians admit 
 the recklessness of their proceedings. Admit it ? 
 Nay, they gloried in it. But all this had its effect 
 on the Turks and Arabs later, and that effect was not 
 to the advantage of the " Army of Occupation." 
 
 While the danger lasted, no news of it was, of 
 course, permitted to leave the country, for on what- 
 ever matters the Italians have shown laxity and 
 carelessness, they have always been very careful 
 about the Press, the telegraphs, and even the post 
 office. The Italian commanders became desperately 
 afraid that any tidings regarding their condition
 
 104 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 should reach the Turks through Press cablegrams 
 from Tripoli published in the European newspapers, 
 transmitted to Constantinople, and thence forwarded 
 via Tunisia to the Turkish commander in the Tri- 
 politan hinterland. An order consequently went 
 forth to the effect that all telegrams, Press or private, 
 must go to Rome for a second dose of censorship. 
 This meant, of course, that they would be " held up " 
 indefinitely, that they would reach their destination 
 some time after the end of the war. But as several 
 patient and optimistic correspondents continued to 
 correspond, even under these circumstances, the 
 telegraph line was entirely taken over by the Italian 
 authorities, under the pretext that it was wanted 
 for official business. Even commerical houses were 
 not allowed to wire about anything in code or in plain 
 language, lest they should convey circuitously to the 
 Turkish leader in the interior the news of the desperate 
 position in which the Italian landing-party found 
 itself. 
 
 On the first night after the landing the Italians 
 contented themselves with guarding the old walls 
 of the town, but next day they found it necessary to 
 extend their line to Bumeliana, owing to the fact 
 that at Bumeliana was the well from which the town 
 was supplied with drinking-water. To prevent the 
 Turks from cutting the water-supply and causing a 
 water-famine in Tripoli the bluejackets had to be 
 sent to garrison Bumeliana. 
 
 And now we come to the mistakes of the Turks. 
 During this critical period their attacks were always 
 directed against Bumeliana. It is hard to explain 
 why they did not attack through the oasis as they did, 
 so successfully, later. 
 
 Probably the reasons are as follows. They had
 
 BEFORE THE ARMY CAME 105 
 
 not at this time many Arabs with them. They did 
 not know what poor soldiers the ItaHans are. They 
 attributed to the Itahan leaders far greater military 
 skill than those gentlemen actually possessed ; in 
 other words, they feared that some trap would be 
 sprung on them if they attacked under cover and not 
 out in the open desert where they could see for many 
 miles on every side of them. They also attributed 
 too much importance to the fire of the battleships 
 lying off Sharashett. They feared that if they 
 attacked via Sharashett the Sicilia would blow them 
 to smithereens. Perhaps they also feared that landing- 
 parties from the ships, acting in conjunction with the 
 Bumeliana detachment, would cut off their retreat 
 if they attacked Sharashett, or would catch them 
 between Sharashett and the sea. And it would not 
 be difficult for an efficient invader to do so, as, east 
 of Sharashett, there are marshes which might con- 
 stitute disastrous impediments in the retreat of a 
 Turkish force which had been beaten back in an attack 
 on the city. 
 
 On the other hand, Bumeliana, being almost due 
 south, was further removed from the action of the 
 Italian fleet than any other part of the Italian line. 
 Besides, being open desert, it gave the invaders less 
 opportunity to cut off the Turks when they ap- 
 proached. 
 
 It is easy, of course, to be wise after the event, 
 but there can be no doubt that the Turks lost a great 
 chance at this time by keeping pegging away night 
 after night at Bumeliana when, by turning the Italian 
 flank through the oasis, they might easily have cap- 
 tured all Commander Cagni's garrison and inflicted 
 on the Italians a blow from which they would 
 never have recovered. The reason why Nesciat
 
 106 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Bey did not take advantage of this unequalled 
 opportunity is probably this. He had not yet suc- 
 ceeded in rousing the Arabs. Orientals are notori- 
 ously apathetic and slow, and it was a week at least 
 before the Turkish commander was able to convince 
 the Arab chiefs that the Italians were in the country 
 and intended to stay there. This also accounts for 
 his failure to make any considerable number of the 
 Arabs rally round him before the bombardment. 
 They had seen those naval demonstrations of the 
 Italians before and knew that nothing had ever come 
 of them. They believed that this one would be like 
 the others. Moreover, Nesciat Bey himself was badly 
 served by Constantinople. Without instructions 
 from the Sublime Porte, he could not arm the natives 
 on October 2nd, and the telegrams from his Govern- 
 ment were very much delayed. The cable announcing 
 that war was declared and giving him a free hand 
 arrived only six hours before the bombardment. 
 
 I shall not say that the Turks made a mistake in 
 not arranging that the outer attack and the revolt 
 in the town on October 23rd should both take pluce 
 at night and at the same moment. For, as I shall 
 show later, there was no revolt in the town, though 
 there was a panic there. But I think Nesciat Bey 
 should have provoked a panic on a very large scale 
 in Tripoli city, say, at midnight on October 22nd, 
 and should have at the same instant attacked Shara- 
 shett. If the Turkish leader had been really bent on 
 making Tripoli city quake, he had all the materials 
 for doing so ready to his hand. He had scores of 
 Arab fanatics who were positively clamouring for 
 a chance of throwing away their lives on some 
 desperate venture. Nesciat Bey might have sent 
 some of these men to fire shots into the powder-
 
 BEFORE THE ARMY CAME 107 
 
 magazines, others to set fire to the city in a hundred 
 different places, others to entrench themselves with 
 good Mausers and plenty of ammunition in corner- 
 houses, and thus convert every narrow lane into an 
 Oriental Sidney Street. But I am anticipating. 
 
 I have blamed Nesciat Bey for his persistency in 
 attacking only Bumeliana. On the other hand, this 
 very persistency led, in turn, to the Italians com- 
 mitting the blunder of devoting all their attention 
 to Bumeliana and practically leaving the oasis line 
 to take care of itself. General Caneva had evidently 
 set it down as an axiom that, owing to the presence 
 of the cruisers at the extremities of his right and left 
 flanks, the Turks would never attack those flanks, 
 but would confine themselves to an attempt to carry 
 Bumeliana by a coup de main. He reckoned without 
 the incredible fearlessness of the Arab, who is not 
 scared even by the aeroplane, and whose contempt 
 for the battleship is so great that he actually attacks 
 it with his rifle ! At Azilat the Arab villagers, poor 
 devils ! rushed up to their waists in the sea to get 
 a nearer shot at an Italian man-o'-war which was 
 shelling that unprotected little village. And towards 
 the end of November there was quite a fusillade from 
 beyond Fort Hamidie at the Dardo, the Partenope, 
 and the Carlo Alberto. The search-light of the latter 
 vessel was smashed by a rifle-ball, a gunner on the 
 same vessel was wounded, and a bullet passed through 
 the clothes of the captain of the corvette Cacace. 
 And, as we shall soon see, it was exactly on their 
 extreme left, where they thought themselves most 
 secure, that the Italians were first to learn the meaning 
 of that phrase which had not at Sharashett quite 
 the same flippant meaning which is sometimes at- 
 tached to it at St Stephen's — a rush of Dervishes.
 
 108 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 On October 12th, therefore, the situation was 
 saved and the whole Itahan Press gave one great 
 sigh of relief. With the landing of the Bersaglieri, 
 wired Luigi Barzini, " the most critical period of 
 the occupation of Tripoli must be regarded as at an 
 end. For seven days and seven most long nights 
 {sette giorni e seiie lunghissime notti) eighteen hundred 
 marines audaciously held the city. . . . Those days 
 of glory and of anxiety are passed." 
 
 At Bumeliana, during those days of glory, there 
 were only two companies of bluejackets, one company 
 from the Brin under Captain Bonelli, one from the 
 Sardegna under First-lieutenant Pertusio — two hun- 
 dred men in all. There was an attack on Bumeliana 
 the night after I landed, and all the newspaper men 
 in the city were there or at some other part of the 
 front. The non-Italians who were present could 
 hardly persuade themselves that the proceedings at 
 which they were assisting constituted real war, and 
 not comic opera or some Christmas pantomime of 
 an excruciatingly funny sort. 
 
 Here was an invading army supposed to be in 
 possession of a city, yet with the enemy turning up 
 punctually every night at 10.30, and spitting on 
 them, so to speak, as they lay hidden behind a little 
 mud- wall, afraid to look over it (I speak of the common 
 seamen) lest they should see something dreadful. 
 
 Five Italian journalists were up a tree, which 
 palpitated visibly with their anxiety. Something 
 dark, dread, and menacing advanced out of the desert. 
 The bluejackets blazed away at it for all they were 
 worth, but as they were afraid to look over the wall 
 and take aim, their shots went far too high. Finally, 
 with shambling tread a superannuated donkey made 
 its appearance, solemn and uninjured. It had prob-
 
 BEFORE THE ARMY CAME 109 
 
 ably been left behind by the Turks, and some in- 
 stinct had guided it back over the sand to the oasis. 
 It began to nibble hungrily at the grass, the 
 bluejackets meanwhile watching it with obvious 
 suspicion. They were not sure about the brute at 
 all. 
 
 The next fright came in the shape of a dismal 
 moaning and wailing at the rear. The voice was 
 that of an old native woman. " Surely to heavens," 
 said an Irish spectator to himself, " surely to heavens 
 she cannot be a banshee — seeing that she wails and 
 laments in Arabic." A diligent search led to the 
 discovery that the old woman was not a banshee, but 
 merely a resident of a lazarette for the famine- 
 stricken which the Turks had established at Bume- 
 liana. She had come outside and was sitting on the 
 ground. Probably she had not had anything to eat 
 since the Turks left. 
 
 Another pause, and at length the officers declared 
 that they could see something which looked like a 
 dense mass of men on the edge of a sand-hill. And, 
 sure enough, there was a sudden dot of flame away 
 out in the waste, a shot rang out, and a bullet whistled 
 through the fronds of a palm tree overhead. 
 
 Immediately there was dreadful confusion. 
 Rockets went up asking the fleet to help. The 
 Filiberto and the Sardegna bombarded the desert 
 with every variety of shell they had on board 
 — shrapnel, percussion shell, twelve-inch, and all the 
 others. The uproar continued for half - an - hour. 
 The search-lights of the Sardegna swept the desert, 
 but no enemy was to be seen. Some officers with 
 their ears to the ground declared that they could 
 hear the distant galloping of cavalry. 
 
 Meanwhile reinforcements were sent for. Those
 
 110 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 reinforcements numbered exactly one hundred 
 marines and that one hundred constituted the entire 
 reserve in the town. 
 
 " Ma che importa ? " says an Itahan, who probably 
 felt some excuse to be due for the appalling paucity 
 of the reserves. " / nostri uomini si sentono capaci 
 di qualunque audacia." (" What does it matter ? 
 Our men feel themselves equal to any audacity.") 
 
 [Very true, my excited journalistic friend, but you 
 must remember that this is not a huge joke which you 
 are perpetrating. You are responsible not only for the 
 lives of your sailors ashore, but also for the lives of 
 some forty thousand peaceful people, most of them 
 women and children. If you have come here only 
 in order to overturn the Government which has kept 
 some sort of order and then to run out again, leaving 
 the place in a state of chaos, I do think that you 
 might have postponed your visit until you were ready 
 to come with a sufficiently strong force.] 
 
 In the morning four Turks were found lying in the 
 desert. Three were dead, one wounded. They had 
 all been struck down by rifle-bullets, so that the 
 terrific bombardment by the ships had been entirely 
 useless. The donkey was also dead, but as it was not 
 considered necessary to hold a post-mortem, it will 
 never perhaps be known whether it was killed by a 
 stray Turkish bullet or assassinated by some of the 
 sailors. 
 
 Next day the Italian correspondents spent hun- 
 dreds of pounds cabling home word-pictures of this 
 sanguinary engagement. Signor Barzini called it 
 " our baptism of fire." The number of the Turks 
 was given at various figures from five hundred to 
 five thousand. I cannot say what number is right, 
 but Mr. Reginald Kahn, a well-known French war-
 
 BEFORE THE ARMY CAME 111 
 
 correspondent, assures me that the number was — 
 fifteen ! 
 
 I have already pointed out that the ItaHans took 
 the whole adventure pretty lightly. They said that 
 the Turks were in desperate want of drinking- 
 water, and that it was the pangs of thirst which had 
 forced them to attack the Bumeliana well. Mr. 
 Barzini wired to the " Corriere della Sera " a cordial 
 invitation to the Turks to come in with a white flag, 
 assuring them at the same time that Commander 
 Cagni would let them have as much water and as 
 much food as they wished for. 
 
 It was apparently a generous offer, but, if accepted, 
 it would probably have been followed by an act of 
 treachery on the part of the Italians. For never 
 has one army behaved so scurvily towards a brave 
 enemy as the Italian army has behaved towards the 
 Turks in Tripoli. On October 18th, a Turkish doctor 
 with a Red Crescent Badge on his arm presented 
 himself at Bumeliana under a flag of truce and begged 
 for some lint and antiseptics for the wounded. He 
 was immediately arrested, carried in great triumph 
 through the city, and finally conducted to the General 
 Staff, where he was questioned for hours about the 
 state of the Turkish army, the positions which they 
 occupied and the attitude of the Arabs. 
 
 Then he was sent, still under arrest, to the Hotel 
 Minerva, in order that he might be further " pumped " 
 by the Italian journalists resident there. But he 
 certainly hoodwinked those correspondents badly, 
 for he persuaded them that the Turks lacked food, 
 could not obtain ammunition, and had failed to 
 find any Arab allies owing to the scarcity of the date 
 crop the previous year. This, it will be remembered, 
 was four days before the great Turko-Arab attack
 
 112 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 of October 23rd. This doctor was afterwards sent 
 as a prisoner to Syracuse. In almost every case 
 subsequently in which the Arabs tried to communi- 
 cate with General Caneva under cover of a flag of 
 truce, the Italians indignantly arrested the messenger 
 and sent him as a prisoner of war to Syracuse. The 
 only occasion on which a Turkish messenger escaped 
 was on the morning of the 26th, when an Ottoman 
 officer rode in and asked Colonel Fara to deliver up 
 the city within twenty-four hours. The Colonel was 
 so aghast at the proposition that the man escaped. 
 
 General Caneva is reported to have said : " These 
 are only brigands. I cannot respect their white 
 flags." On this principle he consistently acted. It 
 was an insult, in his opinion, for any Turk to regard 
 himself as entitled to treat on equal terms with 
 Lieutenant-General Carlo Caneva, Governor of Tripoli 
 and Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Army of 
 Occupation. His attitude in this respect reminded 
 me of that of my friend Colonel Artemieff, the editor 
 of the official " Novi Krai " in Port Arthur, on the 
 eve of the Russo-Japanese War. 
 
 When asked by Renter's correspondent in my 
 presence if it was true that Japan had sent an ulti- 
 matum, the Colonel swelled visibly, drew himself 
 up, and replied that so great an Empire as Russia 
 could not receive an ultimatum from a little nation 
 like Japan. If Japan did send what she regarded as 
 an ultimatum, well, Russia would simply smile, and 
 say : " Take it away now, and be sensible." In 
 Colonel Artemieff's opinion the case was very much 
 like that of an elephant being attacked by an angry 
 frog. There could not, in the nature of things, be 
 a contest. It was out of the question. 
 
 General Caneva consequently felt himself entitled
 
 BEFORE THE ARMY CAME 113 
 
 to disregard all the rules of war, and to shoot all 
 prisoners taken, whether Turkish or Arabic. Signor 
 G. De Felice Giuffrida tells in the " Secolo " (October 
 31st) how, after the battle of the 26th, he saw a 
 Turkish soldier {un soldato turco) lying bound in 
 a hole in the ground. " He is awaiting perhaps his 
 last hour," remarked the Italian lightly, and passed 
 on. 
 
 The whole quotation is as follows : 
 
 " In una buca profonda trovasi un soldato 
 turco prigioniero, legato, impossibilitato a scap- 
 pare. Attende forse la sua ultima ora con quella 
 rassegnazione fanatica rasentante la incoscienza, 
 che spinge le turbe arabe nel fanatismo contro gli 
 infedeli." 
 
 Now, why should Signor Giuffrida expect this 
 Turkish soldier to be butchered unless it was the rule 
 with the Italians to butcher all the prisoners whom 
 they made, whether they were Turkish prisoners in 
 uniform or Arab prisoners in native dress, whether 
 they had been captured in the oasis or out in the 
 desert, whether they had fallen into the hands of 
 the enemy through lack of ammunition or through 
 fatigue induced by over-exertion or by loss of blood ? 
 
 In Gharian there w^ere at the end of last year five 
 Italian soldiers who had been captured in November 
 during a disastrous attempt (of which the Italians 
 took good care, by the way, not to let the world 
 know anything) made by the 93rd Regiment to land 
 east of Tripoli. These men are well fed and well 
 treated. They are allowed to write to their friends 
 in Italy, and even to wire to them at the expense 
 of the Ottoman Administration. Nearly one hundred 
 Italian prisoners had previously been despatched
 
 114 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 under escort to Fezzan, which is still further south ; 
 and many more captures have probably been made 
 since. 
 
 So much for the manner in which the unmention- 
 able Turk treats his captives. We have already seen 
 the manner in which civilised Italy treats hers. At 
 Syracuse and in various parts of Sicily she has many 
 Turkish prisoners, but not one of them was taken in 
 battle. They are all included in the following cate- 
 gories : (1) Arrested in Turkish merchant steamers 
 at sea ; (2) soldiers who had been left behind sick in 
 the hospital at Tripoli, but whom the Italians de- 
 clared to be shamming and arrested ; (3) messengers 
 who came in under a flag of truce, but who were im- 
 mediately seized and bound at the instance of General 
 Caneva, who refused to treat the enemy as regular 
 combatants and insisted on regarding them as 
 burglars. 
 
 The Turks and Arabs have been consistently 
 treated in this war as brave men caught at a dis- 
 advantage are generally treated by cowards, as a 
 brave Goth or Celt made prisoner by some act of 
 treachery would be treated by the last decadent 
 Potentates of Imperial Rome. Shortly after the 
 Italians landed, all the Turkish soldiers in the hospitals 
 were made prisoners, placed on board a vessel, and 
 sent to Italy, where, doubtless, they were afterwards 
 paraded in public as men who had been captured 
 in battle. An Austrian correspondent happened to 
 be on the same vessel (see Hermann Wendel's 
 " Tripoli-Raub und Weltkrieg "), and he tells what 
 was done to them : 
 
 " Every evening, at six o'clock, all the prisoners 
 were put in irons. Each of these sick, broken
 
 BEFORE THE ARMY CAME 115 
 
 soldiers phlegmatically held out his left arm and 
 left leg, which were chained together. From six 
 o'clock in the evening till six o'clock next morning 
 we heard the frightful music of the iron fetters 
 clanking continuously as the men turned in their 
 sleep." 
 
 Suitable music, indeed, for the " civilisation " 
 which Italy has brought to Africa !
 
 PART III 
 THE BATTLES
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARASHETT : HOW THE 
 ARABS BROKE THE ITALIAN LINE 
 
 The fighting around Tripoli city towards the end 
 of last year was really all one long battle, lasting 
 from October 6th till December 4th, when the Italians 
 reached Ain Zara, or, properly speaking, until the 
 present day, for the invaders are still besieged in 
 Tripoli. This battle should be known as the battle 
 of Tripoli. Sharashett and Sidi Messri were merely 
 prominent episodes of that conflict, critical moments 
 when the Arab attack was pressed home with more 
 than usual energy and success. 
 
 I shall confine myself, however, to a description of 
 Sharashett and Sidi Messri, as the other attacks were 
 similar, but more uninteresting and on a smaller scale. 
 
 In order to understand these battles as well as the 
 terrible repressive measures by which they were 
 followed, it is necessary to realise the position of 
 General Caneva's forces in Tripoli at the middle of 
 October. At that time the Italian line was drawn 
 like a semicircle round the landward side of Tripoli 
 city. The city was in the centre, the radius, measur- 
 ing from the old Castello in which the Commander- 
 in-chief resided, was about three miles. The semicircle 
 terminated right and left on the sea, on the right or 
 west at Gargaresh, on the left or east at Sharashett. 
 To the south was Bumeliana. Between Bumeliana 
 
 119
 
 120 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 and Sharashett were the Cavalry Barracks, the 
 Marabout or Saint's tomb of Sidi Messri, Fort Messri, 
 and Henni. All these places will be mentioned 
 very frequently in my account of the fighting. 
 
 And here it would be well again to remind the 
 reader of the geographical features of the district, 
 since they are of great importance from a military 
 point of view. Tripoli and its oasis resemble a comet 
 and its tail. Tripoli is the head of the comet ; the 
 tail runs eastward down the coast and close to the 
 sea for some six or seven miles. 
 
 This oasis or strip of moisture-retentive soil had an 
 average depth of about a mile and was one immense 
 palm grove, filled not only with date-palms, but also 
 with cacti, fig trees, and olive trees. All through the 
 oasis swarmed the little flat-roofed, mud-walled 
 villages of the Arabs. Each villager had his own 
 patch of garden, enclosed by walls of reddish mud, 
 and by bewildering labyrinths of cactus hedge. 
 Among the villages were Moslem graveyards also 
 surrounded by mud-walls, so as to save them from 
 the streams formed during the torrential rains of 
 the winter. 
 
 The Italians did not occupy all of the Tripoli 
 oasis. Evidently they did not consider themselves 
 strong enough to do so. Accordingly, from Fort 
 Messri to Sharashett their line cut through the oasis, 
 and as the Bersaglieri did not (save at one point, 
 Henni,) entrench themselves here, did not cut down 
 the palm trees and cacti, did not level the innumerable 
 mud-walls and mud-cabins, it is easy to understand 
 why the Turko-Arab force delivered its greatest 
 attacks and gained its greatest successes at this part of 
 the line. Along the Fort Messri-Sharashett line the 
 Italians had in front of them houses, palms, olives,
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARASHETT 121 
 
 clay walls, and impenetrable thickets. They did not 
 clear a fire-zone in front of their rifles, so that when 
 the Arabs appeared in this quarter before dawn on 
 October 23rd they were near enough to shake hands 
 with the Bersaglieri if they had been disposed to do so. 
 Save at Henni, as I have already pointed out, there 
 were no trenches, no cannon, no serious defensive 
 works. 
 
 It was different in the other part of the line, from 
 Henni west to Gargaresh, though here no elaborate 
 defences were needed, since the Turks would have 
 had to advance over the bare desert, while the 
 Italians entrenched on the edge of the oasis could 
 easily shoot them down without once exposing 
 themselves to the enemy's fire. But all the way 
 from Fort Messri to Gargaresh ran deep trenches in 
 which the Italians must have been quite invisible to 
 the enemy. In front of these trenches stood, some- 
 times, loop-holed mud-walls, barbed wire fences, and 
 pits with spikes at the bottom. At Gargaresh, 
 Bumeliana, and the Cavalry Barracks were mountain 
 and field batteries of the best kind. Bumeliana was 
 especially well defended for two reasons. In the 
 first place, being well to the south it was further 
 removed than any other part of the line from the 
 protective influence of the guns on the battleships. 
 In the second place, up to this time the Turks had 
 always made their night attacks at Bumeliana, and 
 thus given the Italians the idea that they would 
 always continue to attack there and would endeavour 
 to carry this place by storm. 
 
 I shall now proceed to describe the battle. 
 
 The battle of Sharashett, on October 23rd, was the 
 first serious fight of the Turko-Italian War, and the 
 first conflict in which the Arabs fought side by side
 
 122 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 with the Turks, thus dissipating very rudely all 
 Italian illusions on the subject of an Arab Alliance. 
 The previous attacks of the enemy had been confined 
 to one portion of the Italian line, namely Bume- 
 liana, and showed little military skill and little 
 common sense. On October 23rd the attack em- 
 braced the whole Italian line from the seashore at 
 Gargaresh to Bumeliana, from Bumeliana to the 
 Cavalry Barracks, from the Cavalry Barracks to Fort 
 Messri, from Fort Messri to Henni, from Henni to 
 Sharashett, on the sea-coast east of Tripoli. From 
 Sharashett the battle takes its name owing to the fact 
 that at this point the Italian line was broken and the 
 4th and 5th companies of the llth Bersaglieri were 
 almost cut to pieces. But perhaps the most striking 
 feature of this battle was the Arab attack on the rear 
 of the Bersaglieri at Sharashett. 
 
 I rose early in the morning of this day and climbed 
 to the fiat roof of the Hotel Minerva. The darkness 
 of night was struggling with the on-coming day. 
 The stars were still burning brightly in the west ; the 
 street lamps were still alight in the streets below ; 
 and in the east a pale, cold, mystic light bathed the 
 grey, corpse-like face of the desert. The unwearied 
 search-lights of the Sicilia and the Carlo Alberto lit 
 up the white shore of Gargaresh, swung backwards 
 and forwards, caressing the beach, like the long white 
 tentacles of some gigantic monster of the sea. A 
 strange humming noise overhead attracted my 
 attention. It came from a monster of the air, from 
 the motor of Captain Piazza's " Bleriot." 
 
 Perfectly even, perfectly under control, the aero- 
 plane glided gracefully aloft like a gigantic dragon-fly. 
 It was soon joined by the " Neuport " machine of 
 Captain Moizo. Up to that time the wonderful aerial
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARASHETT 123 
 
 invention, which is bound to revolutionise war, had 
 a bad start in Tripoli. Essentially the weapon of the 
 swift aggressor, it was here at the disposal of a 
 cautious general who was in command of a timid 
 army. Moreover, it could not have been tried on a 
 worse field of operations, for, as a rule, the bombs 
 discharged from it bury themselves harmlessly in the 
 sand. The Arabs have no barracks or permanent 
 works which can be injured ; and as they now scatter 
 whenever they see an aeroplane approaching, practi- 
 cally no loss is ever inflicted on them by the grenades. 
 The women and children in the villages are practically 
 the only victims, and this fact excites the anger of 
 the Arabs, who are unaware, of course, that while 
 the Hague Convention frowns on their occasional use 
 of Dum-dum bullets, it does not prohibit the throwing 
 of aerial bombs whose jagged pieces cause most 
 terrible wounds. 
 
 In a European war the aeroplane would, of course, 
 play a far more important role. The movements 
 of the enemy could be watched, while battleships, 
 powder-magazines, forts, and all kinds of permanent 
 works could be injured. 
 
 The Italians imagined that the aeroplanes would 
 have on the Arabs the same effect as Pizarro's 
 cavalry had on the Incas, that mollah, dervish, sheikh, 
 and marabout would unanimously fall down and 
 worship. Consequently one always found the 
 intensely self-conscious Italians putting themselves 
 mentally in the benighted native's place and mar- 
 velling at the power of the god-like stranger. " La 
 commozione degli indigeni e intensa " (the commotion 
 among the natives is intense), says one observer, who 
 also talks of the roar of the multitude " thunder- 
 struck by the prodigy."
 
 124 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, the Arabs of Tripoli, like 
 the Moors of Morocco, are very little scared by the 
 sight of an aeroplane. They look up in astonishment 
 and praise Allah for all his wondrous works, but their 
 respect for the European is not in the least heightened. 
 
 At first the Italian aeroplanes were employed, not 
 in scouting, but in petrifying the natives of the city. 
 The machines confined themselves entirely to the 
 air directly above Tripoli and its suburbs. On the 
 present occasion I thought that I was going to see 
 nothing but the usual flight over the tops of the 
 houses, but in this I was mistaken, for, after a few 
 turns over the city and the shipping, the aeroplanes 
 sailed south towards Bumeliana. They passed Bume- 
 liana, passed the first sand-dunes, and, after hover- 
 ing about there for a time, flew still further south 
 until they became mere specks in the sky. In less 
 than half-an-hour they returned and alighted grace- 
 fully near the military hangar outside the walls. 
 One would not have suspected that they had had 
 time to see much, but they reported to the General 
 Staff that they had seen four Turkish encampments, 
 the nearest of them three miles from the Italian 
 outposts, the furthest, five or six miles. In the 
 largest of the encampments, which was situated in a 
 small oasis or group of palm trees called Agedzia, 
 there was a huge tent, evidently that of a general or 
 colonel. 
 
 To an enterprising commander, such information 
 would have been invaluable, but, for all the use he 
 made of it, General Caneva might as well have been 
 without aeroplanes at all. He made no effort to 
 attack the Arabs in detail before they had joined 
 forces, and the disposition of his troops remained the 
 same. The Italian soldiers were still standing
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARASHETT 125 
 
 shoulder to shoulder in a semicircle south of the town, 
 and no one portion could be strengthened to any 
 appreciable extent in case of danger, because there 
 were practically no reserves in the city. 
 
 It must be admitted, moreover, that the aeroplanes 
 did not afterwards keep very well in touch with 
 these Arabs as cavalry would have done ; for in the 
 course of the morning the bulk of the enemy seems 
 to have worked round to the oasis on the east without 
 being perceived. 
 
 In any case the aeroplanes could not have observed 
 the approach of the Turkish main body which entered 
 the eastern end of the oasis and marched in the shade 
 of the palm trees all the way to Sharashett. I am 
 therefore at a loss to see in what consists the brilliancy 
 of the brillante esplorazione by the aeroplanes whereof 
 the Italians boasted so much on this occasion. At all 
 events the practical utility of the reconnaissance is 
 very hard to see. 
 
 First, the Turks and Arabs made demonstrations 
 along the whole front of the Italian line, beginning 
 at the western extremity. In the desert just south 
 of the Sultanie battery and a few miles distant from the 
 Italian lines is the oasis of Gurgi, where a German 
 subject called Von Lochow had a concession and a 
 house. The house, over which floated the German 
 flag, was truculently new ; and the more one looked 
 at it the more was one surprised to see such a fine 
 modern edifice — it looked like the bungalow of a 
 well-to-do Indian planter — standing intact and even 
 self-satisfied in the dangerous no-man's land between 
 two hostile armies. Still stranger was the fact that 
 the young farming expert, Yon Lochow, continued 
 to live in it. Von Lochow was violently anti-Italian. 
 Before the bombardment he had had rows with Vice-
 
 126 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Consul Galli, and with the Italian correspondents, 
 and, after the bombardment, he was believed to hold 
 nightly conferences in his house with agents of the 
 enemy. It was certainly a fact that, before the 
 Italian occupation. Von Lochow had been on the 
 friendliest terms with the Turkish military authorities. 
 It was also a fact that his house was full of food and 
 drink, that it had been stocked as if for a siege ; yet 
 though, according to Italian accounts, the Turks 
 were in a desperate state for want of eatables, they 
 never entered Von Lochow' s open door or disturbed 
 the concessionaire of Gurgi at his biological researches. 
 I do not believe that this young German was a spy ; 
 but his enemies were confirmed in their worst sus- 
 picions when, about 8 o'clock on the morning of 
 October 2Srd, they saw the Arabs appear in the 
 vicinity of his bungalow, which they evidently used 
 as a base of operations. They had reached it from 
 Senit Beni-Adam on the south, having crawled north- 
 wards within shelter of the sand-dunes and the 
 dried-up beds of torrents. Soon they showed them- 
 selves clearly on the edges of the hills. In front rode 
 horsemen ; behind marched a large body of infantry. 
 The ample turbans and white flowing robes of the 
 horsemen and of many of the infantrymen showed 
 that the Arabs had at length joined the Turks. For 
 there were many Turks present also in their dark-blue 
 European uniform. It was a strange and ominous 
 combination of East and West — Eastern fanaticism 
 led by Western science. The infantrymen were 
 carrying something which sharp-eyed people with 
 good telescopes recognised as the Turkish flag. 
 
 The Arab horsemen in front advanced fearlessly, 
 brandishing their rifles and firing on the gallop. One 
 of them carried a flag. They came to within five
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARASHETT 127 
 
 hundred yards of the ItaHan trenches. White puffs 
 of sand were raised by the hoofs of their horses. 
 Suddenly there was a distant report and overhead 
 appeared a white puff of cloud with an aluminium 
 flash in the middle of it. It was the bursting shrapnel 
 shell of an Italian mountain battery. At the same 
 instant the 40th Italian Regiment began to fire from 
 the safe shelter of their trenches. The dry, incessant 
 hiccough of the mitrailleuse was heard ; the mountain 
 battery (which had been hurriedly summoned from 
 Fort Sultanie) came barking into action ; and finally 
 the Sicilians big guns drowned all other noises. Tons 
 of earth seemed to be thrown into the air each time 
 a ten-inch shell from the battleship struck the sand. 
 
 In face of all this stormy protest the Arabs did 
 not insist. As a matter of fact they had never 
 intended to insist : the whole advance was a demon- 
 stration meant to prevent Caneva from sending 
 reinforcements from his right wing to his extreme 
 left, where the Turks did mean business. 
 
 Where the Arab cavaliers had been there was now 
 a white figure left lying on the ground. Close by was 
 a wounded horse trying ineffectually to rise. Further 
 off was a dark heap which may have been a Turk. 
 Still further south was a flying crowd of horsemen 
 and infantry disappearing behind a sand-hill. For 
 some time the enemy continued firing at the Italian 
 trenches, where two soldiers were hit. 
 
 Later on, the officers on board the Sicilia saw some 
 of the Turks retiring along the Zanzur road, and fired 
 about half-a-dozen shells to speed the parting guest. 
 Once again the great ten-inch guns uplifted a tre- 
 mendous voice, and the exploding missiles raised enor- 
 mous black clouds of smoke, like Japanese Shimose. 
 
 A Jewish boy on his way home from Zanzur to
 
 128 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Tripoli was caught between the two fires and nearly 
 driven mad with fright. First he lay down flat in a 
 hollow of the ground, the best thing he could have 
 done under the circumstances, then he got up again 
 and ran wildly towards the Italians. He dropped 
 exhausted near the Italian trenches, but was picked 
 up and given some refreshments. When questioned as 
 to the Arab losses he said that they were very heavy, 
 but obviously his testimony could not be relied upon. 
 The Turko-Arabs probably lost no more than a dozen 
 men killed and wounded and several horses killed. 
 Now, as always, the Italian shooting was very bad. 
 At 9.30 the Turks slipped away, and at 10.15 the 
 Italian firing ceased. At 11 o'clock two companies 
 of the 84th advanced very cautiously in skirmishing 
 order. A large number of them entered Von Lochov/'s 
 house after crawling slowly towards it with extreme 
 deliberation, for they evidently feared an ambush. I 
 watched to see if they would haul down the German 
 flag, but they did not do so. 
 
 Other soldiers returned laden with spolia opima, 
 to wit, item one Turkish cavalry saddle — the stirrups 
 dripping with blood, perhaps the horse's blood — ditto 
 one bit, ditto one pair riding-reins (much the worse 
 for wear), ditto one blood-stained suit of uniform — the 
 uniform of a Turkish private, ditto one sword, ditto 
 three or four carabines, and ditto about half-a-dozen 
 f ezzes. A wounded horse was also brought in, a very ill- 
 fed and sorry-looking beast indeed. The magnificent 
 Lodi cavalry should have been able to trample such 
 horses like mud beneath their hoofs. But the reputa- 
 tion of the Arab for desperate valour protected him 
 like a charm. It was worth ten sotnya of Cossacks to 
 him. The perspiring cavalrymen of Lodi kept a most 
 respectful distance.
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARASHETT 129 
 
 So did the small parties of Italian infantry which 
 now crawled in fear and trembling towards the crests 
 of the nearest sand-hills, and remained there as out- 
 posts. Everywhere, at a distance of some three or 
 four miles, they saw mounted vedettes of the enemy, 
 sitting erect in their saddles on the edge of other 
 sand-hills, immobile, on the watch. But the invaders 
 refrained very carefully from disturbing those fierce 
 nomads. 
 
 The Italians thought that the enemy had had enough 
 of it and was retreating to Suni Ben-Adam. But, 
 behind that veil of silent, desert horsemen, the Turks 
 were circling round towards Bumeliana and Shara- 
 shett. For, as I have already pointed out, it was at 
 Sharashett that Nesciat Bey meant to strike in 
 earnest. His plan showed masterly skill. When, 
 three days afterwards, the nature of this plan began 
 to dawn on the Italians the " Giornale d' Italia" de- 
 nounced it as didbolico, and reproached the Turks 
 for having prepared it con raffinata scaltrezza (with 
 extreme cunning) " several days earlier, perhaps even 
 before the arrival of the Italian soldiers." Perhaps 
 the " Giornale " referred exclusively, however, to what 
 it fancied to be the treacherous rear attack of the 
 " friendlies." 
 
 The attack on Bumeliana, which was now the 
 Quartier-General, was almost an exact replica of that 
 on Gargaresh. First a number of Arab horsemen 
 appeared on the edge of a sand-dune and galloped 
 towards the well. They wheeled round and round, 
 their long garments streaming behind them. With- 
 out ever stopping, they fired repeatedly from the 
 saddle, but nobody was ever hit. It was the same 
 picturesque display of horsemanship of which the 
 Arabs in Tripoli are as fond as are their cousins in
 
 130 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Morocco. It was certainly a very dangerous amuse- 
 ment so far as the Arabs were concerned, for Bume- 
 liana was the most strongly fortified part of the 
 Italian line : it literally bristled with rifles and cannon. 
 
 The soldiers of the 84th Regiment lined the trenches 
 and with them were some sailors from the Carlo 
 Alberto, for, despite their enormous numerical superi- 
 ority over their opponents, the Italians continually 
 landed bluejackets and sent them to critical points. 
 They used the fleet as a military reserve, and it was 
 their sole support, for there were no reserves in town. 
 The danger of this policy was twofold. If the sea 
 were rough all communication with the vessels in 
 harbour might be cut off, as it sometimes is for a 
 whole week at a time. And, secondly, it was some- 
 what of a risk to leave a newly occupied city almost 
 entirely under the control of Arab policemen who 
 had been in the Turkish service only a month before. 
 
 Captain Savino had charge of the naval battery at 
 Bumeliana, and he opened fire on the Arab cavaliers 
 as soon as the latter had come to within five hundred 
 yards of the trenches. On the right of the Bumeliana 
 well was the 40th Regiment with several field and 
 mountain batteries. On the left were other field 
 batteries, as well as machine-gun sections. 
 
 An irresistible fire was soon brought to bear on the 
 Arab horsemen, who were entirely unsupported by 
 infantry ; and finally they turned and disappeared 
 behind the nearest sand-hill. They carried off some 
 wounded with them, but their losses seemed to be 
 astonishingly small. After their disappearance two 
 squadrons of Italian cavalry rode up to Bumeliana. 
 They had been telephoned for, but, fearing an ambuSh, 
 they did not follow the Arabs into the desert. 
 
 The next attack took place at the Cavalry Barracks.
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARASHETT 131 
 
 It was carried out, as at Gargaresh, by white-robed 
 Arab riders and foot soldiers mingled with khaki-clad 
 Turkish infantrymen. Here, as elsewhere, the 
 assailants were driven back by artillery fire, but, 
 though invisible behind the sand-hills, they con- 
 tinued firing for a long time. 
 
 At ten o'clock all was calm again at the cavalry 
 barracks ; but meanwhile a terrible fight, the only 
 real fight of the day, was going on in the oasis. The 
 oasis line from the Cavalry Barracks to Sharashett 
 was held by the 11th Bersaglieri. The 5th company 
 was on the seashore at the extreme left, and next 
 to it was the 4th company. Manillo Giovanni was 
 at the head of one half of the 5th company on the 
 extreme left between the road which runs along the 
 sea and the caravan road to Tagiura. To his right 
 was the other half of the same company under the 
 command of Captain Punzio. The force holding the 
 oasis — the weakest part of the whole Italian line — 
 was too small, not entrenched, unprovided with 
 artillery, and not in touch with the rest of the 
 army. 
 
 Evangelista Salvatore, a Sicilian soldier from Rava- 
 nusa, and one of the few Bersaglieri who escaped from 
 Sharashett, told next day a very graphic story of the 
 attack. 
 
 He was awakened just before dawn by the furious 
 barking of the native dogs throughout all that part 
 of the oasis and especially outside the Italian line. 
 The animals had probably been disturbed by the 
 stealthy approach of a great mass of armed men. The 
 sentinels who were supposed to be on the look-out 
 seem to have been aroused from their slumbers by 
 the same sinister sounds, which I can declare from 
 personal experience to be the most doleful, uncanny,
 
 132 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 and unnerving noises that one can possibly hear in 
 the TripoH oasis at night. 
 
 But neither the sentinels nor the soldiers profited 
 by the warning, and they were all alike unprepared 
 when, a few moments later, the Saraceni (Saracens), 
 as Evangelista called them, poured in a murderous 
 fire. 
 
 The assailants were largely Arabs stiffened by the 
 8th Turkish Infantry Regiment. They had entered 
 the oasis at its eastern extremity, and the umbrageous 
 crests of the date-palms had shielded them from 
 observation by the aeroplanes. Moreover, the 
 Bersaglieri had thrown out no scouts, and had even, 
 as I have already pointed out, neglected the ele- 
 mentary precaution of clearing a fire-zone in front of 
 their line. 
 
 The 4th and 5th companies never recovered from 
 this surprise, and, to add to their difficulties, Arabs 
 who had previously slipped through the Italian lines 
 began to attack them in the rear. " The Saraceni 
 seemed to rise out of the earth on every side of us," 
 said Evangelista. 
 
 At 8 o'clock Captain Punzio found that he had 
 lost touch with the 4th company on his right. That 
 company had, in fact, been isolated and surrounded 
 on three sides. In other words the Italian line was 
 broken. Captain Brucchi took refuge with a hand- 
 ful of men in a native house. He then attempted a 
 bayonet charge, but was overwhelmed by numbers 
 and killed. Only one or two of his men escaped. 
 The survivors of the four hundred men composing the 
 4th and 5th companies of the boasted Bersaglieri 
 ran like deer. 
 
 Through the breach poured a flood of fanatical 
 Arabs and of hardly less fanatical Turks. Some of
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARASHETT 133 
 
 the Bersaglieri who seem to have learned a little 
 Arabic, threw themselves on their knees and yelled 
 out the phrase which constitutes acceptance of the 
 Mohammedan creed, " La ilaha illa-llahu Mohammed 
 rasulu 'llah " (There is no God but God, and Moham- 
 med is the Prophet of God). But the Arabs did not 
 happen to be in the missionary line just then. They 
 were " out " for vengeance and for loot, not for 
 converts ; and the apostates died with the renuncia- 
 tion of Christianity on their lips. 
 
 Truly, truly the Italians have disgraced us. Not 
 only have they lowered the military prestige of 
 Europe in the eyes of Africa, they have soiled the 
 name of Christianity in the presence of Islam. One, 
 at least, of the Italian prisoners in Gharian amuses 
 his Turkish captors by the most lurid denunciation 
 of King Victor, the Pope, Christianity, and even the 
 Banco di Roma itself ! 
 
 The Turks w^heeled to the left in order to attack 
 the Avhite castle of the Kaimakan at Henni, where 
 Colonel Fara of the 11th Bersaglieri was well en- 
 trenched and fortified. Henni was the only strong 
 position on the Messri-Sharashett line — betweenHenni 
 and the sea at Sharashett there were no trenches — 
 and it saved the situation, for the Turks were unable 
 to take it. 
 
 This was not only on account of its strength, but 
 also on account of the numerical weakness of the 
 enemy. The whole Turko-Arab force w^as much too 
 weak, in any case, to march on Tripoli and cut off 
 the Italian forces at Bumeliana and Gargaresh ; but 
 it became too weak even to take Henni owing to the 
 fact that, as soon as Fara's line was broken, the Arab 
 section of the joint force scattered through the oasis 
 on the hunt for loot. They hunted singly or in small
 
 134 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 groups. Some of them proceeded to strip the corpses of 
 the Italian dead, to seize the rifles and ammunition 
 of the fallen, to plunder the regimental stores. Some of 
 them penetrated nearly as far as the town. Some 
 of them climbed trees and houses from which they 
 " sniped " at every Italian soldier who passed. It 
 took the invaders several days to shoot down these 
 intruders, whom General Caneva described as "rebels," 
 because he regarded them, mistakenly, as natives of 
 the Italian oasis who had " treacherously " risen in 
 his rear. 
 
 About a hundred natives of the Italian oasis did 
 rise just as, even yet, some Francophile natives of 
 Alsace-Lorraine might rise if, in the event of a Franco- 
 German war, they found victorious French troops 
 amongst them. But the majority of the alleged 
 rebels whose " treachery " led to the subsequent 
 massacre of many innocent oasis Arabs were either 
 Arabs who had come through the gap at Sharashett, 
 or Arabs who had slipped through the Italian lines at 
 an earlier date. In both cases they were fighting 
 Arabs from the desert and they owed no sort of 
 allegiance to King Victor Emmanuel of Savoy. 
 
 This fact is now admitted by every Italian writer 
 of authority who has dealt with this subject, but in 
 view of its importance in connection with the 
 lamentable " purging " of the oasis which followed, 
 I shall deal with it at greater length in a later chapter. 
 
 Any explanation of this point must necessarily be 
 long and thorough, and a long explanation at this 
 juncture would interfere with the course of my 
 narrative.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 
 
 I DESCRIBED in my last chapter how the 4th and 5th 
 companies of the 11th BersagHeri were scattered. 
 They threw down their arms and fled in all directions. 
 Some fled towards the sea and escaped. Some sur- 
 rendered and were taken prisoners to Amruss, where 
 they were afterwards put to death, however, on 
 their captors' learning of the slaughter of innocent 
 Arabs which the Italians had carried out in their 
 portion of the oasis. Some committed suicide. 
 Basilio Derin, a corporal of the Bersaglieri, tells how 
 a captain of his regiment, on finding himself almost 
 alone, nearly all his men having been killed or 
 wounded, blew his own brains out. 
 
 The 6th company of the Bersaglieri had been 
 stationed as a reserve at a house called the Maltese 
 Inn (Osteria Maltese), at some distance behind the 
 4th and 5th companies, but when the fight began it 
 came to the assistance of the well-entrenched troops 
 at Henni and left the 4th and 5th to their fate. Out 
 of the 400 men in these two companies, only 57 were 
 left at nightfall. General Caneva knew exactly the 
 loss he had sustained, but in his official report he said 
 that " the losses (of the Bersaglieri) are not yet 
 accurately known." Next day he announced that 
 he could not ascertain the number of casualties 
 owing to the fact that the troops were engaged in 
 
 1 35
 
 136 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 disarming the natives. I do not know if he has yet 
 owned up to the loss the Italians sustained on thi« 
 day. But I do know that he was very prompt in 
 expelling Italian correspondents who did own up. 
 The representative of the " Giornale di Sicilia " put 
 the number of casualties at 600, I think, whereupon 
 General Caneva ordered his expulsion within twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 On the other hand the " New York Herald " 
 correspondent, an Italian whose eulogies of his own 
 army were reproduced in all the Italian papers as 
 the transports of an intelligent and impartial foreigner, 
 and whose practical denial of the oasis massacres 
 was afterwards regarded even in England as the 
 denial of an unbiased American correspondent, 
 wired his paper on this occasion that the total Italian 
 loss was — five men killed ! ^ 
 
 The defence of Colonel Fara at Henni is regarded 
 by the Italians as one of the greatest feats of military 
 history. Colonel Fara has been decorated and dined 
 and belauded. But as a matter of fact he held on to 
 Henni because he could not let go. He was surrounded, 
 and had he ventured out into the oasis he would have 
 lost his own life and the lives of all his men. 
 
 What this fight at Henni and Sharashett brought 
 out in a particularly vivid light was the newness and 
 amateurishness of the Italian army, the inability of 
 its different parts to work harmoniously together, 
 and the failure of the Commander-in-chief to keep 
 in touch with all sections of his force. Considering 
 the compactness of the expeditionary army and the 
 fact that one could ride round the whole line in a few 
 
 ^ Giolitti afterwards telegraphed to General Caneva expressing his 
 satisfaction with "the serene and impartial news service of the 
 ' New York Herald ' and with its sympathetic attitude towards 
 Italy."
 
 THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 137 
 
 hours, this state of things is almost inexplicable. 
 When the Bersaglieri were being cut to pieces at 
 Sharashett, nobody at Bumeliana or at the General 
 Head-quarters in Tripoli seemed to know anything 
 about it. They heard furious firing from the direc- 
 tion of the oasis, but there was also furious firing from 
 Gargaresh and the Cavalry Barracks ; and heavy 
 firing at a handful of evanescent, jack-in-the-box 
 Arabs on the sky-line had for weeks been a pleasing 
 and familiar feature of Tripolitan life. 
 
 It is not surprising that when, a month and a 
 half later, the authorities began giving out the truth 
 in small doses to the poor, censored, spoon-fed people 
 of Italy, inquisitive folk began to ask incon- 
 venient questions about this affair of October 23rd. 
 According to a telephone message from Rome, which 
 appeared on December 8th in a Milanese paper : 
 
 " We are only now beginning to know the truth 
 about the terrible day of October 23rd, and there are 
 violent complaints made with regard to General 
 Caneva. Though General Caneva had under his 
 command on that day about 20,000 men, he 
 allowed the Arabs to surround and cut to pieces 
 (two companies of) the battalion of Bersaglieri, 
 not only without taking precautions to prevent 
 this being done, but also without making a counter- 
 attack, which might, after the first most disgraceful 
 surprise, have prevented the slow and barbarous 
 martyrdom which the Arabs inflicted on the 
 Bersaglieri who remained in their hands on the 
 Henni positions. 
 
 " There are people who maintain that the story 
 of the oasis revolt is doubtful, as the greater number 
 of the Arabs who fought in the oasis had previously
 
 138 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 forced our lines. But it has been remarked at the 
 Ministry that, even admitting the unexpectedness 
 of the Arab revolt in the interior of the oasis, 
 nothing can excuse the inaction of the Commander- 
 in-chief all day long, inaction which made possible 
 the permanent occupation by the enemy's troops 
 of positions which had been held up to that moment 
 by the Italians." 
 
 It is anticipating a little, but I might here say 
 that, according to the same message, it was then 
 decided in the Ministry of War at Rome not to 
 " have recourse to the extreme step of recalling 
 General Caneva " — that would look too much like 
 giving way to the agitation in foreign newspapers, 
 and would amount practically to a confirmation of 
 the massacre charges — but " to surround him by 
 such influences as would remove all fear of his 
 remaining inactive under similar circumstances in 
 future." The " influences " in question were pre- 
 sumably General Frugoni and the other military 
 leaders who were hastily despatched to Tripoli early 
 in November. 
 
 While the fighting at Henni was still going on, 
 a single company of the 82nd Infantry wandered 
 out in a casual sort of way to the assistance of Colonel 
 Fara, who, having then been fighting without a break 
 for eight hours, presumably had had enough of it. 
 Whoever sent such a small force on such a serious 
 mission must have been mad. The English officer 
 who describes this action in " Blackwood's Magazine " 
 (December) remarks very sarcastically that " some 
 one suggested to the Colonel " in command of the 
 82nd that he should act. As for General Caneva, we 
 do not hear of him at all at this critical juncture.
 
 THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 139 
 
 He had had his benevolent period. He was soon to 
 have his vindictive period. But this was evidently 
 his dormant period. At all events one company of 
 the 82nd did move, but it was stopped on the way 
 by the Arab " snipers," who now swarmed in the 
 oasis. It was stopped at the Feshlum mosque, 
 from the summit of which an Arab displayed a 
 Turkish flag. He was at once shot down, but the 
 fighting around the mosque went on till evening. 
 By that time the rest of the 82nd had come up, and, 
 after having had one company cut to pieces, the 
 rest of the regiment was able to join Colonel Fara 
 at Henni, owing to the fact that the enemy had 
 retired. 
 
 Meanwhile the Arabs who had invaded the oasis 
 had kept up a continual fire on the rear of the Italian 
 line, and on every body of Italian troops which 
 moved through the palm groves. They fired from 
 behind the large uprights of wells, from the tops of 
 palm trees, from the roofs and windows of houses, 
 from behind cacti and olives. General Caneva 
 explains that they knew the ground so much better 
 than the Bersaglieri, but surely the latter ought, 
 after twelve days, to have known thoroughly every 
 date-palm in the exiguous piece of oasis which they 
 had occupied. Most of the Arabs, moreover, were 
 strangers to those parts, having come from Tagiura 
 and still more distant places. 
 
 General Caneva has declared that all these Arabs 
 who invaded the oasis were armed with " good 
 Mauser rifles." As a matter of fact some of their 
 fire-arms were antiques, nearly useless in open fight 
 against the Italian rifles. I afterwards found the 
 ground littered with powder-flasks which would have 
 been considered out of date at the battle of Vinegar
 
 140 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Hill, and which showed that some of the Arabs used 
 muzzle-loaders. On these flasks I found printed 
 the familiar word " London " below the name of 
 an English firm which flourished in Fleet Street 
 probably in the time of Dr. Johnson.^ 
 
 It is no wonder that under these circumstances 
 the ammunition of the Arabs was soon exhausted. 
 Then it became quite easy for the Italians to perform 
 those " prodigies of valour " about which General 
 Caneva makes such frequent mention. The men in 
 the palm trees were first of all shot down. The great 
 clusters of golden-brown dates were reddened with 
 their blood before they fell heavily to the ground. 
 
 Quarter was never of course given nor asked for. 
 And the Italians did not clear the oasis without 
 paying for it heavily. For the enemy were amazingly 
 mobile. Crushed in one place, they immediately 
 appeared in another. The bare-footed Bedouins 
 bounded, in their light attire, like deer ; or, lying 
 flat on the ground, they glided through the under- 
 wood " like snakes " — to use an Italian comparison. 
 
 A group of Arabs was concealed in a Moslem 
 cemetery. From behind the gravestones they kept 
 up an uninterrupted fire on the Italians. Other 
 Arabs fired from behind a small, domed Saint's tomb. 
 The Italians advanced against them in loose skir- 
 mishing order and gradually succeeded in dislodging 
 them. The better rifles and the heavier fire told and 
 soon silenced the fire of the Arabs. From behind 
 walls, tree-trunks, tombstones and houses the Moham- 
 medans ran, some throwing away their weapons, 
 
 ^ It is a common error to suppose that the Arabs were all armed 
 with good Mausers. Enver Bey says in one of his letters : •' It made 
 me feel proud that though armed with old rifles of various makes, we 
 had repelled in a nine-hour fight the attack of an enemy overwhelm- 
 ingly superior to us in numbers and in equipment."
 
 THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 141 
 
 some being caught with smoking rifles in their hands. 
 Two old men and a youth had been firing on the 
 Bersagheri from behind a mud-wall. Their shooting 
 was bad, they took a long time to load, and, being 
 in a fairly open position, they were soon surrounded. 
 The youth threw away his rifle as half-a-dozen Italian 
 soldiers jumped on top of him. In an instant all 
 three were dragged forward and tied together by the 
 hands. The old men, one of whom was wounded, 
 offered their wrists in silence to be bound. The 
 youth resisted, more through terror than through 
 obstinacy, but a big Italian soldier kicked him 
 brutally in the stomach, while two other soldiers 
 seized his hands and bound them tightly to those 
 of his aged companions. The Colonel was on horse- 
 back behind a wall. His sentence was brief and to 
 the point : " Shoot them ! " The prisoners were 
 given a few moments' grace, however, in order to 
 prepare for death, and they all three sat down on 
 a sandy knoll, while soldiers surrounded them with 
 fixed bayonets. The old men looked out towards 
 the desert with a perfectly calm and unwavering 
 glance and their lips did not move. The young man 
 hung his head and mumbled something rapidly all 
 the time. When the moment came for them to rise, 
 a sergeant kicked the youth in the back so brutally 
 that the Arab suddenly sprang to his feet, but 
 suddenly fell back again owing to the fact that his 
 hands were tied to those of his companions. The 
 soldiers then took all three by the arms and helped 
 them to their feet. It was now seen that there was 
 a pool of blood on the ground Avhere the wounded 
 man had sat, and that he had become very pale. 
 Evidently his life was ebbing fast, and a tingle of 
 pain must have shot through him as he stood up.
 
 142 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 for he made a sudden involuntary grimace and then 
 smiled grimly with white, drawn lips. The soldiers 
 hustled the group along towards the desert and the 
 old men instantly obeyed, the unwounded supporting 
 the wounded man, whose steps had become tottering 
 and over whose eyes a glazy film was gathering fast. 
 The youth alone held back and begged piteously for 
 life. By way of reply one of the soldiers struck him 
 a frightful blow in the face. The unfortunate Arab 
 could not protect himself, for his hands were tied. 
 Blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils, and as 
 he walked forward with his companions he spat out 
 several teeth. The soldiers laughed, and one of them 
 was preparing to bestow another buffet on the 
 prisoner, when an officer interfered, driving the soldier 
 off and rating him in violent language. 
 
 The Turkish fire had by this time ceased and the 
 enemy had disappeared. The Desert was absolutely 
 a Desert. In it there was not a single living thing. 
 Twelve soldiers took their places in the trenches and 
 leant their rifles on the sand-bags. A group of other 
 soldiers hustled the three doomed men out into the 
 waste. A sergeant gave them a final rude shove, and 
 said " Barra ! " " Barra " is a vulgar Arab word 
 
 meaning something like " Go to h 1 ! " or " Go 
 
 and be d d to you ! " and it is generally the first 
 
 native expression which a European learns on coming 
 to Tripoli. I must admit, however, that he often 
 learns it in self-defence against the hordes of beggars 
 who pester him. 
 
 The two old men walked steadily into the Desert, 
 their eyes fixed on the distant sky-line. The wounded 
 man was now near his last gasp. His steps were 
 marked with blood, but there was a triumphant 
 smile on his face. The youth alone turned his eyes
 
 THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 143 
 
 towards his enemies. He still begged for mercy, but 
 he could not turn his body right round on account of 
 his hands being bound to those of his companions. 
 The soldiers hurled rough jokes and taunts after him 
 as he looked over his shoulder at them. Suddenly 
 their flippant clamour was broken in upon by a 
 stern, abrupt, staccato order, as curt, menacing, and 
 hard as the fall of an iron bar. " Fuoco ! " It was 
 the order to fire. The condemned men were now 
 about a dozen feet off. The twelve soldiers had 
 them covered beyond all possibility of escape. 
 Twelve shots rang out, and instantly all three 
 prisoners fell in a heap together on the sand. Their 
 limbs twitched, but not a moan escaped them. A 
 European photographer walked over to them and, 
 finding that the youth was still alive, though un- 
 conscious and dreadfully wounded, he told the 
 Italians. Then a soldier approached the blood- 
 stained heap on the ground, put his rifle to the youth's 
 temple, and blew out his brains. Portions of grey 
 matter, flesh, bone, and fragments of skin with the 
 hair still attached were scattered over the legs of the 
 soldier's trousers. He looked like a butcher. Mean- 
 while, the red blood gushed out of the open head as 
 out of a fountain. The white sand drank it eagerly 
 up. The thirsty Desert likewise drank the blood of 
 the two old men, one of whom lay on his back, 
 staring straight up, the smile of triumph still on his 
 lips, and in his eyes the glad look of a Moslem martyr 
 who sees at last the Glory of the Prophet of God. 
 The other old man lay, face downwards, underneath 
 his companion. 
 
 The Desert whence they came had drunk their 
 life-blood. The Desert, their great mother, will 
 avenge them.
 
 144 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 The repulse of the Arabs was followed by the 
 awakening of a frightful blood-lust among the Italians, 
 who were convinced that the natives who had given 
 them such trouble in the oasis were, all of them, 
 " friendlies " who had been living close to the town, 
 and on good terms with them up to this time. 
 
 Signor Giuseppe Bevione wrote in the " Stampa " 
 that " there was a violent reaction among our men, 
 once they were convinced that there had been 
 treachery. They fired without pity on all Arabs who 
 approached them in a suspicious manner." 
 
 This meant, of course, that they fired on all Arabs 
 whatsoever : on small shopkeepers coming back 
 from Tripoli, on local muleteers, gardeners, and 
 Avorkmen ; all of whom were dressed exactly as the 
 fighting Arabs had been dressed. But this mistake 
 was natural, and I could excuse it if it had not gone 
 on for days without the slightest effort being made 
 by General Caneva to put a stop to it, until, three 
 days after, it attained monstrous dimensions. 
 
 There is no cry which an army that has sustained 
 a reverse through its own fault, is so apt to take up 
 as the cry of " treachery ! " And probably a Latin 
 army is liable to take up that cry with greater con- 
 viction than any other. In the present instance the 
 Italian soldiers were convinced that they had been 
 betrayed. General Caneva, who certainly should 
 have known better, did not enlighten them, did not 
 make the slightest effort to save the peaceful Arabs 
 from the consequences of that terrible cry. The 
 Nationalist firebrands themselves, now (April, 1912) 
 accuse Caneva of " senility," and demand his recall. 
 Senility is, I suppose, the most charitable explana- 
 tion of the Italian commander's apathy on this 
 occasion.
 
 THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 145 
 
 The clearing of the suburban part of the oasis after 
 the Itahan Une had closed again was not very difficult, 
 and it was then that gli episodi di valore (to use the 
 phrase of an Italian who describes the scene) on the 
 Italian side, furono innumerevoli. Captains and colonels 
 and men-at-arms burst with the greatest bravery into 
 peaceful Arab houses where the harmless and un- 
 armed inhabitants were cooking their humble koosh- 
 koosh for the evening, and, flourishing sabres and 
 revolvers, yelled " Arrendetevi ! (Surrender !) Viva 
 V Italia ! " Doors were battered down. Shots were 
 fired. Bearded officers frowned and snorted and 
 stamped up and down like despots in melodrama. 
 The old Arab women were naturally terrified by 
 these manifestations, and the little brown naked 
 children began to cry. It is probably to this part of 
 the battle that General Caneva refers when he praises 
 the coolness, the bravery, and the spirit of initiative 
 displayed by his men. 
 
 As a rule the officers and men were unnecessarily 
 cruel towards the Arabs whom they had condemned 
 to death. The soldiers continually beat their prisoners 
 about the face, and Mr. Magee of the "Daily Mirror" 
 tells me that he saw an officer prodding a prisoner 
 furiously in the groin with his scabbard. And all 
 the time there poured from the lips of the execu- 
 tioners a torrent of invective ; which I presume, 
 however, the condemned men did not understand. 
 
 It was the same next day. It has been the same 
 ever since. This ill-treatment of natives, guilty and 
 innocent, is as much a feature of Tripolitan street- 
 life as the brutal ill-treatment of horses is a feature 
 of Neapolitan street-life. 
 
 In the city of Tripoli I have seen soldiers dash to 
 the ground a humble tray of matches and sweet-
 
 146 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 meats which an Arab child was carrying around in 
 order to earn a few pence by peddling its little wares 
 to the frequenters of the cafes. I heard that child 
 cry as if his heart would break on seeing all his little 
 capital gone ; but one thing I have never seen, I 
 have never seen an officer, or a civilian, take a child's 
 part. On the Italian steamer by which I left Tripoli 
 a Turkish family also left, and a Moslem man-servant 
 carried their trunks aboard. Some officious little 
 Neapolitan clerk or counter-jumper who happened 
 to be a passenger took a sudden violent dislike to 
 this man-servant, raised a terrific hullabaloo about 
 him, had him arrested there and then, had him 
 dragged into the smoking-saloon, stripped, and 
 searched. If a knife had been found on that un- 
 fortunate Turk he would have been sent ashore and 
 shot, but luckily nothing was found and he was 
 dismissed without any apology being offered him 
 for the disgraceful treatment to w^hich he had been 
 subjected. And yet the Italians wonder why the 
 Arabs do not love them ! 
 
 All the houses were searched and wrecked, the 
 inhabitants being collected together in batches and 
 sent into the city. More wretched aggregations of 
 humanity I have seldom seen, the men being in rags, 
 and their hands tied behind their backs. In some 
 of their houses old muzzle-loaders, or cartridges, or 
 antiquated revolvers had been found, but, as I shall 
 afterwards show, this was no proof of their owners' 
 guilt. Many Arabs were seized because they had 
 knives, or razors, or empty cartridges in their posses- 
 sion, and against a great number there was no charge 
 save that they were Arabs. I shall deal, however, 
 with this question later on. 
 
 One house where arms were found was a tavern.
 
 THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 147 
 
 The words " Vino e Liquori " were carved on a 
 stone over the Hntel of the door, and from a Uttle 
 balcony hung an ItaHan flag. Another Itahan flag 
 flew from the roof of the house. The carabinieri 
 seized a good deal of money in this house and seques- 
 trated it. They also found, or pretended to find, 
 arms. Two Arabs inside were arrested. The Italian 
 flag was taken from the balcony and jokingly offered 
 to the younger of the Arabs that he might kiss it. 
 Instead of kissing it, he bit it, and attempted to tear 
 it with his teeth. That action led, of course, to his 
 immediate imprisonment. What happened to him 
 afterwards I do not know, but I would not care to 
 bet much on the probability of his being still in the 
 flesh. 
 
 Every man had his hands tied behind his back. 
 The pure Arab type predominated in the crowd, but 
 there were also full-blooded negroes and a variety of 
 gradations between those two extremes. Quite a 
 number of young Arab boys marched among the 
 prisoners, and were afterwards put to death with 
 them. Each gang was guarded by Italian soldiers 
 with fixed bayonets. 
 
 In the evening the Arabs who had fallen in the 
 oasis were denounced in cafe and barrack and public 
 place by frothy Italian orators as " rebels " and 
 " traitors." 
 
 That is one view of the matter, but I must say 
 that it is not my view. On the evening of the 23rd, 
 I sat down and wrote what I thought on this subject. 
 I wrote it for a respectable American newspaper 
 which had sent me to Tripoli in order, I suspect, 
 that I might send it pleasing pen-pictures of the
 
 148 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Italian operations ; articles (illustrated, of course) 
 such as would gratify the Italian colony in New 
 York, a colony whose advertisements and subscrip- 
 tions are not to be despised even by the managers 
 of colossal American dailies (the Bedouin of the 
 Desert does not advertise, and is therefore a negligible 
 quantity from the managerial point of view). 
 
 What I wrote did not appear, but I give it now. 
 I said : 
 
 " The Italians denounce as ' traitors ' all the 
 Arabs who attacked them to-day. Now, I would 
 not apply that term even to the peaceful oasis 
 Arabs who took down their rifles from the thatch 
 and boldly fired on the Bersaglieri. I regard 
 them, on the contrary, as heroes, heroes as great 
 as Brescia, or Mazzini, or Garibaldi, or Washing- 
 ton, or William Tell. They had a perfect right to 
 shoot down the Italians from behind hedges, or 
 mud-walls, or tombstones, or palm trees, or any- 
 thing else that took their fancy. The Italians did 
 not come here as their guests. The Arabs violated 
 no law of their traditional hospitality by shooting 
 down the land-grabbers as they would shoot down 
 rabid dogs." 
 
 I shall anticipate a little in order to tell how some 
 of the Arab survivors of this battle were treated. 
 Fourteen Arab soldiers who had broken into the 
 oasis and been wounded there, managed to crawl 
 into town and take refuge in a jondak or native inn. 
 A treacherous Jew who happened to hear about 
 them promptly sold them to the Italians, whereupon 
 they were arrested, tried, and hanged in the open as 
 " spies and rebels." The sentence was carried out 
 with every circumstance of pomp, and a Franciscan
 
 THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 149 
 
 friar was provided with a chair in a prominent 
 position — why, it is not easy to say. Pinned to the 
 breast of each corpse was a statement to the effect 
 that he had been put to death for firing treacherously 
 on the Itahan rear on October 23rd, though this 
 point had never been proved, and though the men 
 were undoubtedly Arab soldiers from the desert who 
 had broken through the Italian line. 
 
 The sentence was so unjust that it disgusted even 
 some jingo Italians. Nobody, for instance, sup- 
 ported the war in the beginning with more enthusiasm 
 than the Sicilian deputy De Felice, but, after seeing 
 this hanging and examining the evidence on which 
 the death-sentence was based, that gentleman wrote 
 to the following effect in the " Secolo " of Milan : ^ 
 
 " I supported the war because I thought it was 
 a work of civilisation. But I now see that this 
 work is carried on by means of the gallows. The 
 sentence which handed over those fourteen persons 
 to the hangman violated the fundamental regula- 
 tions of our penal code, which does not permit of 
 the death penalty. Even if, in time of war, that 
 code does allow the death penalty to be inflicted 
 in extreme cases, it does not allow hanging. More- 
 over, the sentences to which I object are grounded 
 on a blind prejudice which makes those condemned 
 men answerable for the cruelties of October 23rd. 
 I have studied the protocols of the trial, and con- 
 vinced myself that no sure and positive grounds 
 for this assertion have been stated. 
 
 " The most important witness for the prosecution 
 was Lieutenant Altina, who, according to his own 
 
 ^ I condense his remarks, not directly from the Italian, but in- 
 directly from a German summary given in the " Vossische Zeitung " 
 of December 12, 1911.
 
 150 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 account, has lived among the Arabs for seventeen 
 years, and possesses an intimate knowledge of the 
 Arab character. Lieutenant Altina thought these 
 Arabs were guilty because of their manner of 
 answering his questions, and because of their 
 demeanour, which was sometimes stupid, some- 
 times crafty. 'Furthermore,' said this officer, 
 ' when a Moslem swears on the Koran, he does not 
 tremble if he is innocent. If he trembles, he is 
 certainly guilty.' 
 
 " So much for the evidence of Lieutenant Altina. 
 I intend to write very soon a full account of this 
 unfortunate day's work, and to make clear that 
 the responsibility for the blood spilt on this occa- 
 sion is on the heads of higher personages than 
 Lieutenant Altina. I desire for conquered peoples 
 the observance of the laws of nations and not the 
 wrath of the conquerors. ... If Italy has gone 
 to Tripoli in the name of civilisation, she must be 
 the messenger of justice. If she is not, if she 
 busies herself with erecting gibbets and not with 
 extending the realms of Justice, then I would not 
 hesitate for a moment to declare that Italy only 
 does harm to the cause for which we have fought, 
 and that the zeal for the advancement of civilisa- 
 tion by which the Government professes to be 
 animated is nothing but a most disgraceful and 
 unrighteous lie." 
 
 The Italian Government tried to make its own 
 soldiers believe that the Tripoli adventure was a 
 Crusade, that the mission of General Caneva was to 
 plant the Cross in a heathen land. Instead of that 
 he is busily planting brothels and grog-shops, gibbets 
 and jails. And the triumphal music of the con-
 
 THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 151 
 
 querors is the clank of chains, not the chains of 
 prisoners captured in fair fight, but the chains of 
 sick Turkish soldiers dragged from the Tripolitan 
 hospitals and sent to Italy " to make a Roman 
 holiday."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GREAT PANIC 
 
 It was towards midday on October 23rd ; and, after 
 a morning's hard work signing official documents, 
 General Caneva was comfortably drawing his legs 
 under his well-provided table at the Castello, in 
 happy ignorance that anything out of the ordinary 
 had taken place at Sharashett. But in some mys- 
 terious way the native population of Tripoli had 
 learned that the Italian line was broken and that the 
 Turks were in the oasis. There was consequently an 
 outburst of panic in the midst of which the Italian 
 officers, soldiers, and camp-followers completely lost 
 their heads. I shall describe the whole tragi-comedy 
 somewhat in detail, as it has a direct bearing on the 
 massacres which followed. It shows how liable to 
 foolish panic is the Italian army. And it was in a fit 
 of foolish panic that the " purging " of the oasis was 
 carried out. 
 
 At about one o'clock on that day, I was sitting 
 down to lunch in the Hotel Minerva when there was 
 a wild rush down the street. First a carriage tore 
 past. Then a soldier was carried by with his face 
 bleeding. 
 
 Now, both the carriage and the soldier had dis- 
 appeared before we could question them ; but from 
 some mysterious source — probably from one of our 
 waiters who had just been conversing with the cook 
 
 152
 
 THE GREAT PANIC 153 
 
 — an astounding explanation proceeded, propagated 
 itself, and was accepted. It was to the effect that 
 (1) the carriage was full of Arabs who were firing 
 right and left ; and (2) the soldier had been fired 
 upon out of a window close by. In other words the 
 city had revolted. " The town Arabs have risen ! 
 There is an insurrection in the city ! They are 
 potting Europeans from the windows ! " Such was 
 the refreshing piece of news which somebody in the 
 corridor conveyed to us at the top of his voice. 
 
 Immediately the crowded dining-room rose like 
 one man and made for the door. In fact, I might 
 say without exaggeration that the guests scattered 
 as if a bomb had fallen amongst them. 
 
 My German friend and I, the only two non-Italians 
 present, remained seated ; partly because we had 
 witnessed those alarums and excursions among the 
 Italians before, partly because we were very hungry. 
 
 Meanwhile there was a wild helter-skelter of 
 terror - stricken people past the street window. 
 Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat went a magazine pistol just out- 
 side. Inside the hotel, officers tore upstairs for 
 something and tumbled downstairs again, clutching 
 revolvers which they flourished so wildly that I 
 began to get seriously alarmed about my personal 
 safety. The officers tore out into the street, and I 
 tried to get a bit of dinner. I might as well have 
 tried to raise the dead, for the Maltese waiters were 
 all outside gesticulating furiously. At a table oppo- 
 site me had sat an Italian civilian — a newspaper 
 proprietor, I think — with an impassive face and a 
 monocle. He suddenly vanished, and when I looked 
 through the window out into the street I saw him in 
 the midst of a dense crowd of Italians, bounding like 
 a bear on hot irons. He must have jumped three feet
 
 154 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 high each time. His arms and legs were circulating 
 like windmills — and the monocle was still in his eye ! 
 Close by, the arms of the hotel proprietor were beat- 
 ing the air like flails. 
 
 Bang ! bang ! bang ! Were these infernal machines 
 going off, or merely pistol shots ? 
 
 They were neither. They were simply doors and 
 windows shutting all down the street. Some shop- 
 keepers not only locked their doors, but also nailed 
 them up so that they had afterwards to open them 
 with crowbars. Wild-faced Maltese women shut 
 their bedroom windows and piled up the furniture 
 against the doors. One could hear them dragging 
 beds, sofas, and other heavy objects about their 
 rooms. 
 
 The average Italian is not at any time a gentle- 
 voiced person. In Tripoli, at least, he seemed to 
 have been provided by nature with a voice like a 
 fog-horn. On distant ships at sea those voices might 
 be useful if not melodious ; but when a score of them 
 shriek all together in a small dining-room the effect 
 is apt to be overpowering. On the present occasion 
 the uproar was so terrific that I had to put my fingers 
 in my ears, and even then I could hear the shrill 
 wild-Indian whoop of the Christian damsels barri- 
 cading themselves in their bedrooms. " The Turk ! 
 The Turk ! The Turk ! " This was the dreadful 
 cry that resounded on all sides, and in every grada- 
 tion of tone, from the thin wail of the infant to the 
 hoarse bass of the man. The impression evidently 
 was that the Osmanli had broken the Italian line 
 and entered the city, while their Arab allies were 
 lending a hand by shooting from their roof-tops and 
 their windows. What a terror the Turk must have 
 been in his time when, even in his decay, his very
 
 THE GREAT PANIC 155 
 
 name can excite such a panic ! As a wooer of Chris- 
 tian maidens his manner must, indeed, have been 
 somewhat peremptory. 
 
 Having reluctantly given up all attempts to get 
 a little soup, I bagged some bread and cheese and 
 sallied into the street. But I was almost carried off 
 my feet by an insane rush of people past the hotel 
 door. The street was a wild welter of Levantine 
 humanity amid which I could distinguish fezzes, 
 solar helmets, turbans, straw hats, and fistfuls of 
 hair ! The space in front of the hotel seemed to be 
 inhabited by a collection of the most violent lunatics 
 in existence. Such gesticulating, roaring, and pranc- 
 ing I never saw in my life before. 
 
 A crowd of men, women, and children were col- 
 lected in front of the French Consulate hammering 
 wildly at the door and imploring admittance. Among 
 them were Maltese, Italians, French subjects from 
 Tunis and Algeria, Turks, Arabs, but especially 
 Jews. Hundreds had already swarmed into the 
 Consulate through the windows, over the neighbour- 
 ing roofs, and from adjacent balconies. 
 
 Suddenly the door of the Consulate was thrown 
 open, and M. Seon, a spare, white-haired old gentle- 
 man, appeared on the threshold. The crowd drew 
 back not only because he was the Consul, but also 
 because he carried a revolver in his hand. 
 
 " What do you want ? " he asked. 
 
 " Refuge ! Refuge ! Refuge ! The Turks ! The 
 Turks ! " was the universal cry. The Consul turned 
 to his gorgeously dressed Arab cavass. " Open the 
 inner doors," said he, " and give shelter to all these 
 people. When you have done that, hoist the flag on 
 the flag-staff." 
 
 This hoisting of the flag is, I need hardly say,
 
 156 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 carried out by all Consulates and Legations in times 
 of dire emergency, as, for example, when a city is 
 stormed by an invading and infuriated army. The 
 cavass wore the French livery. Nevertheless, as 
 soon as he appeared on the roof in order to hoist the 
 tricolour he was fired on by a group of soldiers on 
 top of the Italian school close by. Those soldiers, 
 amongst whom were some Franciscan friars, had 
 evidently supposed that the cavass was a wild Arab 
 who had come out on the roof for the purpose of 
 potting people passing in the streets below. This 
 incident is characteristic of the happy-go-lucky way 
 in which the Italian soldiers used their rifles, and 
 prepares us for their wholesale murder of innocent 
 Arabs on the 26th. 
 
 The cavass escaped without injury, but the Consul 
 complained to General Caneva ; whereupon the 
 latter apologised and promised that this sort of 
 thing should not occur again. And here I might say 
 that the French Government has shown, throughout 
 all this war, extraordinary forbearance with the 
 Italians. Few French journalists spoke at all of the 
 massacres of October 23rd-27th. Some of the 
 French correspondents in Tripoli not only closed 
 their eyes to what was going on, but denied that it 
 was going on. It was evident from the first that 
 Paris was doing its best to make all Frenchmen 
 Italophile, so that its policy of detaching Italy from 
 the Triplice might be successful. 
 
 With one or two exceptions, the Frenchmen in 
 Tripoli did not care a straw for murdered Arabs. 
 They thought only of Alsace-Lorraine ; and the anti- 
 Italian movement among the Germans made them 
 rub their hands with joy and declare themselves 
 more pro-Italian than ever. Why, under the circum-
 
 THE GREAT PANIC 157 
 
 stances, the Italians should have afterwards held up 
 French steamers is incomprehensible save on the 
 ground that, as Rome has blundered and muddled 
 ever since this war began, so it blundered and muddled 
 here. For the French could easily have avenged 
 themselves by conniving at the importation by the 
 Turks across the Tunisian frontier of ammunition, 
 arms, and recruits. They did not do so, however. 
 On the contrary, they held up even food supplies 
 while allowing shiploads of food to go from Tunis to 
 Tripoli city, and while even manufacturing aero- 
 planes for the Italian Government. 
 
 The English Consulate was filled with even more 
 refugees than the French Consulate, and in the 
 Jewish quarter around it there was terrible excite- 
 ment. In the narrow bazaars opposite the Citadel 
 the street-firing by the Italians was heaviest. The 
 roof of the Castello and the roofs of the adjoining 
 houses were lined with troops. There was a terrible 
 stampede for refuge into the mosques, synagogues, 
 and Christian churches, and even into the boats in 
 the harbour. Meanwhile, a machine-gun rattled 
 persistently down in the large market by the sea- 
 shore, and there was firing in other parts of the city. 
 All this fusillade was caused by panic-stricken 
 Italians. Orderlies and hospital guards, soldiers 
 working at the wharves and soldiers stationed in the 
 various public buildings, rushed into the streets, un- 
 slung their rifles, and in some cases fired right and 
 left without having the faintest idea of what had 
 happened or why they themselves had thus run 
 amok. 
 
 Their bandaged heads dripping with blood, Sicilian 
 Bersaglieri staggered through the streets saying that 
 they had been treacherously fired on at the front,
 
 158 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 and imploring their fellow-islanders to take vendetta 
 for them on the Arabs. Whereupon their comrades 
 from Syracuse and Palermo would snatch up their 
 arms with many a " Sacramento ! " and rush out to 
 kill some native. The war had suddenly become 
 transformed into a huge Sicilian blood-feud. General 
 Caneva was not " in " the thing at all. He might 
 as well have been with Captain Scott in the South 
 Polar regions, so far as any indication of his existence 
 went. His dormant period had not yet come to an 
 end. 
 
 The streets were filled with a disordered crowd of 
 Italians, Arabs, Armenians, and Jews, each in his 
 national costume. The Jews, who are very pro- 
 Italian, were especially terrified at the prospect of. 
 the Turks coming back. Thinking that I was an 
 Italian, some of the Jewish women threw themselves 
 at my feet to beg my protection, and, trying hard to 
 look as patriarchal as possible, I did my best to re- 
 assure them. Meanwhile, some of them set upon 
 and beat an innocent Arab boy employed by my 
 colleague. Colonel Pavloff, of the "Novoe Vremya." 
 Armed soldiers tore past in all directions, and it was 
 impossible to stop them or to get any information 
 out of them. 
 
 To still further augment the confusion, a number 
 of camel-drivers employed by the Italians drove 
 their animals from the Market Square into the narrow 
 alleys of the city, with the result that in many places 
 the streets were completely blocked, and the panic 
 increased tenfold. 
 
 A battalion of infantry marched down to the bread- 
 market, which was filled with the usual impassive 
 crowd of Arabs, some asleep on the ground, some 
 eating. This tale is told by the Italian deputy De
 
 THE GREAT PANIC 159 
 
 Felice in the " Messaggero " of Rome, October 28th ; 
 and, as the legislator in question was then strongly 
 in favour of the war, I presume that his story is 
 true. 
 
 The Italian Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of the 
 party ordered his men to take aim at the Arabs. His 
 first impulse had probably been to massacre every 
 Arab on the spot. But he was somewhat taken 
 aback by the utter indifference of the natives to their 
 danger. "La morte non interessa gli Arabi'' (Death 
 does not interest the Arabs), concluded the Honour- 
 able De Felice, who goes on to tell us that " a young 
 Arab seated on his hunkers at the edge of a fountain 
 still continued smiling, while an old man who had 
 been dozing on the sand at the youth's feet still 
 continued to doze." 
 
 Astonished at this indifference to death, the Italian 
 commander made his men lower their rifles, and sent 
 some soldiers to tell the natives that they must leave 
 the market-place at once. The Arabs went off slowly 
 into a blind alley near by ; whereupon, seized by 
 another happy inspiration, the Lieutenant-Colonel 
 placed a sentinel on guard at the entrance to the 
 alley, with orders to let none of the Arabs out again. 
 I am not sure what was afterwards done to those 
 poor people. They may have been exiled, and it is 
 even possible that, during the delirium of the next 
 three days, they may have all been taken out and 
 butchered. But there was absolutely no charge 
 against them. They had been simply buying and 
 selling there as they had always been accustomed to 
 do, and they were unarmed. 
 
 When some degree of calm had been restored in 
 the city, the Italian soldiers advanced into the 
 bazaars as into an enemy's country. Then began
 
 160 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the work of surrounding and searching suspected 
 houses. 
 
 The soldiers suddenly suspected a house, situated 
 in a narrow blind alley near the British Consulate, of 
 harbouring rebels, and in an instant they had closed 
 the street and surrounded the building. Some men 
 went inside with revolvers in their hands. Others 
 prepared to shoot down anybody who showed him- 
 self on the roof. In this particular instance I do not 
 believe that there was any loss of life, for the house 
 contained no rebel ; but elsewhere throughout the 
 city loss of innocent life did, I am afraid, take place. 
 
 All this disorder in the streets could have been 
 prevented if the Commander-in-chief had taken care 
 to police the city after his arrival. But he placed all 
 his men in the firing line and had no reserves in the 
 city at all. I often walked for hours in the streets 
 without once seeing an Italian soldier. The only 
 armed men about were Turkish zaptie, or policemen, 
 whom the invaders had foolishly taken into their 
 service. General Caneva used to gratify his vanity 
 by making half-a-dozen of these wild fellows always 
 ride after his carriage whenever he drove in state 
 through the streets. He must have imagined him- 
 self a Roman conqueror on a sort of triumphal pro- 
 cession followed by conquered enemies. But on 
 October 23rd, the General heard una notizia gra- 
 vissima (a most serious piece of news), which froze 
 the marrow in his bones. It was to the effect that 
 two of his native escort were plotting to kill him. 
 He was never afterwards seen with his procession of 
 equestrian zaptie. 
 
 During the greater part of the 23rd, however, 
 these renegade policemen of the Sultan were en- 
 trusted with the guard of most parts of the city, and
 
 THE GREAT PANIC 161 
 
 I met them frequently sitting in the narrow lanes, 
 their rifles between their knees. If the Moslems had 
 gained the ascendancy, there would be very little 
 doubt as to the side on which these policemen would 
 fight. 
 
 This extraordinary panic might very easily have 
 had grave consequences, especially if the demoralised 
 troops on the Italian left had got the idea that the 
 city in their rear had also revolted and was in the 
 hands of the enemy. It is not pleasant to think of 
 what would almost certainly have taken place had 
 it occurred at night, and in conjunction with a 
 desperate attack from the outside. 
 
 Speaking about this " momento d' alarme in cittd,'* 
 General Caneva says that it would have become 
 more serious had it not been for " il sangue freddo 
 dei nostri." 
 
 But I have already shown that it was the Italians 
 who lost their heads most of all. General Caneva's 
 own residence and the roofs of all the neighbouring 
 houses were covered with soldiers, who lay down flat 
 with their rifles pointed at the street below and their 
 fingers on the triggers. Every doorway and gateway 
 in or near the castle was blocked with sand-bags 
 behind which soldiers lay, as if they were in the 
 firing-line. This was hardly an exhibition of " sangue 
 freddo" (cold blood) ; an American would have been 
 disposed to call it, rather, an exhibition of " cold 
 feet." It certainly had a deplorable effect on the 
 city. And yet, in his official telegram describing 
 this panic, General Caneva says that it all arose out 
 of the following ridiculous incident : 
 
 " A doctor who was bringing a wounded officer 
 into town ordered the soldier who accompanied him 
 to drive back the Arab sight-seers who were crowd-
 
 162 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 ing around the carriage. The orderly executed the 
 command, and the crowd in falHng back gave rise to 
 confusion, and hence to a universal flight."^ 
 
 I traversed the town during the panic, and could 
 nowhere find evidence that the urban Arabs had 
 fired a shot. Some shots from the front had reached 
 the market - place ; some soldiers wounded in the 
 oasis had been carried into the city ; the story of the 
 rising of a few " friendlies " had been narrated in the 
 bazaars — and had become more and more fantastic 
 as it passed from mouth to mouth. These and similar 
 trifles had caused the whole scare, and created a state 
 of mind which made the massacres in the oasis 
 possible a few days later. 
 
 I repeat that I went through the town on this day 
 and out into the oasis, and it is my firm conviction 
 that the oasis Arabs, generally speaking, did not rise 
 at all. The firing, which was supposed to come from 
 the " friendly " Arabs, came really from hostile 
 fighting Arabs, who had, as I have already pointed 
 out, slipped through the lines. I have also admitted 
 that a hundred oasis Arabs at the very most had 
 joined themselves on to these. My opinion is con- 
 firmed by the statement of Mr. Magee, a London 
 correspondent, who was a private in the South 
 African War. Mr. Magee was with the Italians on 
 the south-east when they were fired on, but he re- 
 garded the matter as trifling. Nobody was hit. The 
 
 ^ This was Caneva's story for the ItaUan Press. He had an 
 absolutely contradictory story for England. In an interview with 
 Mr. Bennet Burleigh, which probably appeared anonymously in the 
 "Daily Telegraph," but which I find signed in the "Roma" of 
 November 6th and in all the Italian papers, he spoke of "a deliberate 
 revolt in the city "and declared that "the green flag of the Prophet 
 was displayed in the streets ; our soldiers were fired on from the roofs 
 and the windows. They were assailed and stabbed in the houses and 
 in the middle of the streets."
 
 THE GREAT PANIC 163 
 
 Arabs in the rear were quickly captured and shot. 
 Mr. Magee came into town with his photographs. 
 Now, he could not have come through the oasis if it 
 was, as the Italians represent it to have been, swept 
 in all directions by rebel bullets. In short, there was 
 no general rising in the oasis, and great numbers of 
 the oasis Arabs were butchered from this day on- 
 wards, not because they had rebelled, but simply 
 because General Caneva did not like to have in his 
 rear a large body of men who might possibly rebel. 
 The rules of war give very wide latitude to a General, 
 but I do not believe that they allow him to go as far 
 as this.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SOME LESSONS OF THE GREAT PANIC 
 
 The worst feature of this great panic was, in my 
 opinion, the apathy and uselessness of the ItaHan 
 leaders. On similar occasions the Turks had behaved 
 much better. Ever since the beginning of the war, 
 indeed, it was " unspeakable Stamboul " which had 
 been prudent, careful of life, merciful ; it was Holy 
 and Royal Rome which had been addle-headed and 
 inhumane. 
 
 Towards the end of September last it was con- 
 fidently predicted in the English Press that the 
 Turks would poison the wells along their line of 
 retreat, and thus make it impossible for the Italians 
 to follow them. They did no such thing. They did 
 not even cut the water-supply at Bumeliana nor 
 burn the town behind them, though they might very 
 easily have done both. Seldom, indeed, in modern 
 times has a retreating army shown so much con- 
 sideration for the civilian population, and even for 
 the enemy, as the army of Nesciat Bey exhibited on 
 its evacuation of Tripoli in October last. 
 
 I have already said something on this subject, 
 but I shall here, at the risk of repeating myself, refer 
 to it again, so as to contrast Turkish efficiency in 
 moments of crisis with Italian inefficiency. 
 
 Before the bombardment on October 3rd and 4th, 
 Nesciat Bey and Munir Pasha had kept order most 
 
 164
 
 LESSONS OF THE GREAT PANIC 165 
 
 admirably in town. The Englishmen who lived in 
 Tripoli during these critical days assure me that the 
 Turkish authorities behaved on that occasion with 
 a self-possession, an energy, and a capacity which 
 surpass all praise. A general massacre of Europeans 
 was feared, whereupon the acting Vali issued an 
 edict prescribing the punishment of death for any one 
 who even " drew blood from the nose " of a European. 
 The foreign consulates, houses, and churches were well 
 guarded. The large community of Maltese British 
 subjects had to be looked after by the Turks, owing 
 to the fact that the Italians had not kept their 
 promise to the British Consul of providing two trans- 
 ports on which to carry off all British refugees. 
 During those days of alarm not a single Maltese was 
 killed. Since the Italians have taken charge seven 
 or eight Maltese have been shot, owing to their not 
 having given the password or for some other reason. 
 Many Italian subjects had also to be protected, for 
 Italy had left her nationals strewn all over Tripoli- 
 tania and Cyrenaica. She had done so in the hope, 
 perhaps, that some of the missionaries, at least, 
 would have had the enterprise to get massacred, and 
 thus give her some sort of casus belli. 
 
 If so, the wish was father to the thought, for at 
 the beginning of the war the Italian papers were 
 continually reporting massacres of Italians by the 
 Turks in Tripoli — probably in the wild hope that 
 some of these massacres would really come off. First, 
 we had the massacre of some Franciscans at Benghazi. 
 It was announced and deplored — but it did not 
 happen. Then we heard of the massacre of an 
 Italian " scientific " mission, which had been probably 
 spying out the land in the interior. With a deplor- 
 able lack of patriotism this mission also failed to get
 
 166 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 massacred. Then the Italian Consul at Derna was in 
 difficulties. The Arabs wanted to murder him and 
 all the rest of the local Italian colony, but the Turks 
 prevented a single life being lost, and eventually, 
 after guarding them for four days, handed the Consul 
 and his party over to the commander of an Italian 
 gunboat. Naturally, on reaching Augusta, the 
 Consul used the vilest language about the very Turks 
 who had saved his life, and left it to be understood 
 that he had terrorised the whole Derna garrison with 
 his revolver. 
 
 During the bombardment of Tripoli, on October 
 3rd and 4th, some Franciscan friars, some nuns, and a 
 number of sick people in the hospital remained 
 behind in the town. The Turks did not molest the 
 sick people, nor the Franciscans, nor the nuns ; they 
 did not even put foot in the church. When their 
 turn came to show mercy, the Italians burned Arab 
 villages, butchered the strong, and threw out the sick 
 people to die like dogs in the street. They seemed to 
 imagine that nothing was to be permitted to the 
 Turks and everything to " the third Italy," to the 
 race which has, in the words of the latest threatening 
 letter which I have received from an Italian, " detto 
 per tre volte civiltd al Mondo " (thrice civilised the 
 world). 
 
 This conviction, that there should be one scale of 
 treatment for the Italians and another and different 
 scale for the Turks, seems to be deeply implanted 
 in the Italian mind. When the Turks asked the 
 Italians to leave Tripoli, just before the bombard- 
 ment, so that they should not run the risk of being 
 massacred, one of the journalists declined to " move 
 on," defied the Ottoman authorities, and said that he 
 would not leave unless between two " janissaries."
 
 LESSONS OF THE GREAT PANIC 167 
 
 He wanted to see the bombardment from the town 
 itself, and though I must admit that he was brave 
 and even reckless, I must also say that his behaviour 
 on that occasion was like that of a naughty child 
 which is being sent to bed. How would the Italians 
 have behaved towards a Turkish journalist who 
 acted in the same way and refused, for instance, to 
 leave the oasis on October 23rd ? That question can 
 be easily answered. Whenever Turkish spies were 
 killed by the Italians, it was only just. Whenever an 
 Italian spy was killed by the Arabs, the Peninsular 
 papers declared that he had been barbaramente 
 trucidato (barbarously butchered). 
 
 The highest tribute has been paid by all the 
 Italian correspondents to the manner in which 
 Munir Pasha kept Tripoli quiet and prevented an 
 anti-Italian outburst on October 2nd. And on that 
 occasion the difficulties of the Turks were enormous. 
 They had had no orders from Stamboul, and could 
 not get any answer to their telegrams. They had to 
 attend to (1) the unloading of the Derna ; (2) the 
 calling up of the reserves ; (3) the organisation of 
 caravans laden with arms and provisions ; (4) the 
 evacuation of the town ; and (5) the protection of the 
 Christian population. 
 
 How they were able to accomplish the two last- 
 mentioned tasks at one and the same time is some- 
 what of a mystery, for if they evacuated the town they 
 could not very well leave there enough troops to 
 maintain order. But they succeeded. With all his 
 faults, the Turk is born to rule. He has the incom- 
 municable faculty of commanding men, and keeping 
 some rough sort of law and order among the most 
 variegated and insubordinate populations that can 
 be found in the world. This habit of command comes
 
 168 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 naturally to the Ottoman, just as it comes naturally 
 to the English soldier or administrator in wild parts 
 of the earth. 
 
 The Turkish commandant at Zouara is Major 
 Mahomed Moussa Bey, and when a terrible panic 
 broke out among the townspeople on the occasion of 
 the first Italian bombardment he drew his revolver 
 and shot the two chief panic-mongers dead, with the 
 result that the scare suddenly ceased. If General 
 Caneva or any of his officers had had an equal 
 capacity for controlling men and meeting emergencies, 
 the great Tripoli panic of the 23rd would not have 
 lasted half-an-hour, and the subsequent oasis mas- 
 sacres would have come to an abrupt conclusion 
 with the public execution of the first soldier caught 
 shooting innocent natives. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be confessed that not 
 only were General Caneva and his officers unac- 
 customed to deal with subject races ; the soldiers 
 under their command were also unaccustomed to 
 do so. The Italian army is very young, raw, and 
 inexperienced. Being composed mostly of Southern 
 Italians, the Tripolitan Expeditionary Force was 
 peculiarly liable to sudden blasts of panic. Its 
 leader's aloofness, absence, and want of energy made 
 it still more liable. 
 
 The Expeditionary Army in Tripolitania is only a 
 casual collection of people in uniform ; it cannot, 
 properly speaking, be called an army at all. The 
 English, Russian, German, French, and Japanese 
 armies are on quite a different plane. It is like a 
 motor-car which has been put together by amateurs 
 and which, though it looks all right from the outside, 
 cannot move of itself, owing to a defective co- 
 ordination of the parts inside, and must be drawn
 
 LESSONS OF THE GREAT PANIC 169 
 
 by horses. The officers are very brave, and have 
 nearly all been affected by the jingo propaganda 
 of the Nationalists ; but the soldiers have not the 
 faintest interest in the war and not the faintest desire 
 to fight. 1 
 
 During battle many of them do not look over the 
 trenches, for fear of exposing their faces to a possible 
 bullet. Hence the infinitesimal losses of the enemy 
 during all their demonstrations before Bumeliana 
 and Gargaresh. Hence the fact that, contrary to 
 the usual custom in war, a large proportion of the 
 casualties among the Turks is due to artillery fire, 
 a comparatively small proportion to rifle fire. 
 
 A peculiarity of this war is, on the one hand, the 
 extremely violent and sanguinary language of the 
 officers and the journalists and, on the other hand, 
 the very modest results accomplished by the army. 
 Some of us may have noticed this same peculiarity 
 not many years ago in the case of another Eastern 
 European race, the Greeks. In Athens we had also, 
 before the Graeco-Turkish war, a tremendous out- 
 burst of Chauvinism. Every house was to be a 
 fortress. Ancient Greece had come to life again. 
 There were frequent demonstrations in front of the 
 
 ^ The real explanation of the Italian inactivity for over half a year, 
 despite the fact that there are no less than twenty -four Italian generals 
 in Tripolitania, is this — the Italian soldier is a poltroon. When not a 
 poltroon he is an Anarchist or a mutineer. In November last two 
 Anarchist soldiers ran amok, took refuge in the French Consulate, 
 and fired out of the windows at their comrades. There are now five 
 houses in Tripoli filled with soldiers charged with mutiny. Guarino, 
 the Tripoli correspondent of the "Avanti" (quoted by the " Neue 
 Freie Presse" of April 10th) tells an ominous story of the discontent 
 among the time-expired men and of their anxiety to get home again. 
 To every palm-tree they affixed notices saying that "The 18S8-j^ear 
 soldiers want to go home." When the 23rd and 37th regiments and 
 the engineers were ordered to march to an unknown destination on 
 the sea-coast in order to take part in a military operation, those 
 soldiers were " in a state of indescribable excitement. They wept, 
 they sang outrageous songs, and their officers had to put up with it 
 alL" "With such .soldiers,"' adds Guarino, "a war is impossible."
 
 170 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 palace, and it was clear that the King must either 
 declare war or vacate his throne. The inflated 
 language of the Athenian newspapers was exactly- 
 like the inflated language of the Roman newspapers 
 to-day. 
 
 The extreme impatience of the Greek Chauvinists 
 with the mildest and most judicious criticism has its 
 exact counterpart in the extreme impatience of any 
 criticism which is now manifested by the Italian 
 Chauvinists. In both cases any one who counselled 
 prudence was denounced as cowardly, anti-patriotic, 
 sold to the enemy. In the first case the result was — 
 Larissa. The result in the second case is already bad 
 enough, and may possibly be worse. 
 
 I had not been a week among the Italian soldiers 
 before I began to notice what an extraordinary re- 
 semblance there was between them and the modern 
 Greeks. And, as a matter of fact, the Sicilian and 
 Southern Italian is, on the whole, indistinguishable 
 almost from the Greek. In both you find the same 
 excitability, the same readiness with the knife, the 
 same recklessness in the individual, the same useless- 
 ness of the mass for military purposes requiring 
 steady courage, patience, and staying power. 
 
 The same similarity has struck almost every 
 foreign observer who has seen the Italian Expedition- 
 ary Army in Tripoli. It has particularly struck 
 the Turkish Commander-in-chief, Fethi Bey. In a 
 conversation with a correspondent of the Vossische 
 Zeitung some weeks ago, that Ottoman officer said 
 that, taking everything into consideration, he regarded 
 General Caneva's soldiers as inferior to the Greek 
 soldiers whom he had fought at Larissa. And he 
 went on to tell how readily whole regiments of 
 Italians throw away rifles, knapsacks, everything
 
 LESSONS OF THE GREAT PANIC 171 
 
 — and bolt for it. If the Italians had to face the 
 entire Turkish army as the Greeks had to do, the 
 Cross of Savoy would undoubtedly have gone do^\Ti 
 ere now before the Crescent of Stamboul. 
 
 Like the adventure out of which the Greeks emerged 
 with such a sorry mien, this Italian adventure is an 
 unreal, literary, poetical, journalistic, archaeological 
 production. This war is "run" by crazy Futurists 
 and Impressionists. In his "Bataille de Tripoli," 
 Signor F. T. Marinetti boasts that the Italian Govern- 
 ment is "devenu futuriste," that the artillerymen 
 are "truly Futurists," that the aviators are also 
 "Futurists." God help them all ! Enthusiastic Greek 
 journalists clamoured for war because they had read 
 of Salamis and Marathon. Enthusiastic Italian jour- 
 nalists clamoured for war because they had read of 
 Julius Caesar. 
 
 In both cases " pets " of Europe had broken 
 loose and become excited by the idea that they 
 could emulate the exploits of their forbears. Italy 
 would not be a united kingdom, and Greece would 
 not be independent at all, were it not for England, 
 France, and Prussia. But now, if any criticism 
 comes from the countries which set modern Italy 
 on her feet and started her in business, so to speak, 
 there is a violent response to the effect that it was 
 Italy which made us. In the minatory and denuncia- 
 tory Italian letters of which I now possess a collection 
 I am always reminded that Italy has " thrice civil- 
 ised the world." 
 
 At the risk of receiving more of those communica- 
 tions, I must repeat (for it is necessary to thoroughly 
 grasp this fact in order to understand what follows) 
 that the Italian army in Tripoli is extremely raw 
 and inexperienced.
 
 172 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Even " Punch," which is fond of poking fun at 
 our own Territorials, would regard some of the things 
 done by the Italian officers as too much even for 
 caricature. About the middle of October I visited 
 the positions west of the town along with the American 
 Consul and two English correspondents. We saw 
 through our glasses a suspicious-looking column of 
 smoke rising from a part of the desert which we 
 believed to be unoccupied, but none of the officers 
 noticed it until we drew their attention to it. Later 
 on, the whole line fell back when some camels and 
 natives appeared on the edge of the horizon, and 
 we heard an officer asking his men how much am- 
 munition they had got ! 
 
 The Italian army, then, is very raw indeed. More- 
 over, being a conscript army, it is not at all as fitted 
 to operate abroad as the British army or the French 
 colonial troops. These things had their effect in 
 producing the panic of October 23rd and the slaughter 
 that followed. Some importance must also be 
 attached to the fact that, like General Caneva, the 
 majority of the higher officers seem much too old 
 and fatigued ; while, on the other hand, the soldiers 
 are, as a rule, very young. During the killing of the 
 natives on October 26th and on the following day 
 I never saw any officer of higher rank than lieutenant 
 in charge of the parties of soldiers who carried out 
 this work. Once I saw an Italian civilian leading 
 one of these squads. Sometimes I saw private soldiers 
 out hunting for Arabs on their own account. All 
 this was to some extent due to the absence of super- 
 vision, to the rawness and inexperience of the army, 
 and to the advanced age of the senior officers. Some 
 killing of innocent people is undoubtedly indulged in 
 by the French, German, Russian, and even English
 
 LESSONS OF THE GREAT PANIC 173 
 
 armies when they are engaged in savage warfare, 
 but in such warfare the higher officers keep a par- 
 ticularly tight rein, not only on their soldiers, but on 
 the subordinate officers as well. During the march 
 on Peking at the time of the Boxer troubles the 
 Russian soldiers frequently got out of hand, but 
 on some occasions their own officers placed unruly 
 men against a wall and had them shot. That is 
 what General Caneva should have done with the 
 soldiers who began butchering innocent Arabs on 
 October 26th, supposing, of course, that it was not 
 General Caneva himself who ordered the butchery.^ 
 
 I have already pointed out how very excitable 
 and " panicky " is the Expeditionary Army in 
 Tripolitania. This may have been partly due to 
 inexperience and partly to a vague feeling that things 
 were not all right at the top. For as a horse soon 
 knows what kind of a rider he has on his back, so 
 an army, down to the youngest drummer-boy, soon 
 
 ^ A point that must not be overlooked in this connection is Italy's 
 colossal pre-eminence in assassination as compared with other coun- 
 tries. Her murders average 81 '2 for every million inhabitants, while 
 the corresponding figure for England is only 3'1. The greatest inter- 
 national assassins of our time have been Italians — Santo, GoUi, 
 Luccheni, Sipido, Orsini, Bresci. 
 
 Another point is the mysterious, violent emotion, almost akin to 
 drunkenness, which the sight of blood causes in all men, and more 
 especially in Southern Europeans. Undoubtedly the tiger sleeps in 
 most of us, and nothing awakes that wild beast so surely and so 
 quickly as the sight of human blood spurting from hundreds of 
 arteries cut by bullets or by bayonets. On this point the reader 
 should see my chapters on "The Burning of the Bedouin Village" 
 and "The 'Purging' of the Oasis." First there is a disagreeable 
 sensation, then exquisite shudderings, then a fascination, finally a 
 distinct and horrible pleasure in witnessing pain. All history, and 
 especially the histories of the Roman emperors and of the Turkish 
 sultans, bears witness to the awful and humiliating fact that we have 
 within us a blood-lust which probably comes from savage, perhaps 
 even from cannibal, ancestors, and which soon masters us if allowed a 
 little indulgence. Every one who has read of the Roman amphitheatre, 
 or who has witnessed even a Spanish bull-fight, will understand what 
 I mean. This horrible and mysterious weakness of mankind has been 
 recently touched upon by Sir E. Ray Lankester, k.c.b., f.r.s.
 
 174 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 knows what kind of a Commander-in-chief it has 
 got. But this " panicky " feeling was principally- 
 due to temperament, the greater proportion of the 
 troops being drawn from the excitable population 
 of Sicily and Southern Italy. Here, again, you have 
 another cause contributing to a state of things which 
 made the sad events of October 26th possible. To 
 give you an idea of how "jumpy " the Italian soldiers 
 are, I need only mention the fact that there is an 
 alarm every night along the fringe of the Desert. 
 Sentinels fire at dogs, at bats, and at wholly imaginary 
 objects until they rouse the whole camp, and firing 
 goes on for hours. Once, when a number of Italian 
 officers went out into the Desert towards nightfall, 
 their men blazed away at them under the impression 
 that they were Arabs ; and the officers had to remain 
 out in the Desert all night, lying flat on the sand. 
 In order to prevent this incessant waste of ammuni- 
 tion and this deprivation of sleep for the soldiers, 
 the Italians had to place powerful naval search- 
 lights along the edge of the Desert. Each light is 
 kept swinging backwards and forwards, and if it is 
 kept too long at any one point the sentinels at some 
 other point which is left in darkness are sure to begin 
 firing at some bogey or other. Then the light is 
 swung round to the threatened point, and the sentinels 
 there are as happy as a nervous child, frightened of 
 the dark, when, in order to still its shrieking, mother 
 brings a lighted candle into the room. This nervous- 
 ness is sometimes a more serious matter. On October 
 26th I saw one party of soldiers who were marching 
 along the Bumeliana road, fire on another party of 
 Italian soldiers who were hunting for Arabs in a 
 palm-garden far inside the lines, and whom the party 
 on the road mistook for the enemy. The firing con-
 
 LESSONS OF THE GREAT PANIC 175 
 
 tinned for a long time ; there were no officers of 
 higher rank than Heutenant on the spot, and I feared 
 very much that the men at the front, thinking the 
 enemy had got in their rear, would rush back into 
 the town and that an awful catastrophe would 
 occur.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE EXECUTION OF THE GERMAN CAVASS 
 
 During the height of the panic on October 23rd, a 
 soldier of the 5th Artillery was attacked near the 
 German Consulate by a group of Arabs. He fell 
 beneath their blows and, while he lay on the ground 
 somebody stabbed him. The news soon spread, and 
 two carabinieri who happened to be in the vicinity 
 rushed to the spot. They made inquiries of the 
 Arabs in the square, and some time afterwards they 
 arrested a young Arab called Hussein, second cavass 
 of the German Consul, Dr. von Tilger. Hussein was 
 a Fezzani and as the Fezzanis are Mussulmans of a 
 peculiarly fierce breed, this fact told against him 
 from the outset. 
 
 First the Italian authorities had the Consulate 
 surrounded by troops. On learning that Dr. Tilger, 
 the Consul, was not at home but on board a German 
 ship leaving with Turkish refugees, mostly women, for 
 Constantinople, the officer in charge of the party 
 applied to Signor Galli, formerly Italian Vice-Consul 
 in Tripoli, now head of the Civil Government. Signor 
 Galli informed Dr. Tilger of what had occurred, 
 whereupon the Consul came ashore and, after a 
 hurried investigation, handed over Hussein to the 
 Italian authorities. Dr. Tilger and Consul Galli had 
 long been enemies and the Italian, who knew how 
 deeply attached his colleague was to all his servants, 
 
 176
 
 EXECUTION OF THE GERMAN CAVASS 177 
 
 remarked with a bitter laugh as he left the Consulate : 
 " To-morrow, doctor, I shall send you a death 
 certificate." 
 
 The principal witnesses against the cavass were — 
 
 (1) His own brother, who had seen him in the 
 crowd when the artillery-man was struck down ; 
 
 (2) A native child who had seen him bending over 
 the prostrate body of the soldier ; and 
 
 (3) A dagger which was found concealed in the 
 coal-cellar. There was no blood on the dagger. 
 The cavass said that it belonged to him, but stoutly 
 maintained his innocence. No blood was found on 
 the cavass's clothes. 
 
 Some German correspondents have publicly ac- 
 cused their Consul of feebleness in this matter and 
 declared that the trial was a farce. They say that 
 the judgment of the Italians was unbalanced owing 
 to their panic and their thirst for blood, that the 
 Consul should have tried the case himself. As to 
 Hussein's innocence or guilt, I cannot venture to 
 express an opinion. Nor can I say whether the 
 Consul could, during the prevalence of martial law, 
 have insisted on exercising his extraterritorial rights. 
 
 Owing, however, to the fact that Hussein had 
 been an employee of the German Empire and had 
 worn the German Eagle on his fez, the Italians made 
 his trial a very imposing affair. It was held in the 
 public street on October 24th, and was conducted 
 with the utmost pomp and circumstance. The 
 Italian photographers took many photographs of it, 
 and I have since seen those photographs reproduced 
 in the notorious " New York American " as proof 
 that there was no massacre of Arabs in Tripoli, that 
 all the Arabs were tried with the greatest care. As 
 a matter of fact, this was almost the only case in 
 
 N
 
 178 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 which there was any serious pretence at a regular 
 trial. Probably, the millionaire proprietor of the 
 " American " has an eye on getting the Italian vote 
 when he next stands jfor the Governorship of New 
 York. In any case, the Bedouins of the Desert do 
 not advertise in the " American " and do not even 
 subscribe to it, while the Italian Colony in New York 
 does both. 
 
 To return, however, to the case of Hussein. At 
 half-past four in the afternoon he was brought before 
 a military court which sat in the public street between 
 the Gendarmery Office and the old citadel of Charles 
 the Fifth, close to the sea. A table and two chairs had 
 been placed in the street. On the table were an 
 inkpot, pens, and large sheets of legal-looking paper, 
 partly written over and with wide margins on the left. 
 On the chairs sat two high officers, elderly men with 
 grey moustaches and well-fitting uniforms covered 
 with brilliant lace. Small bars of blue, yellow, and 
 green cloth, sewn horizontally to the breasts of 
 their tunics on the left-hand side, indicated that 
 they were entitled, if they pleased, to wear various 
 decorations. They wore their hats and swords as 
 they sat ; they also wore the calmly assured and 
 superior air of persons who represent civilisation, 
 human society, the established order of things here 
 below, not to speak of a Higher Power above. One 
 would never have suspected from the dignified and 
 deliberate movements of those cultured, well-pre- 
 served, highly respectable old gentlemen that they 
 were the murderers, the buccaneers, that there on 
 the sands of Northern Africa they represented nothing 
 but the gin-shop, the brothel, the gambling-hell, 
 and the devil. 
 
 Around them stood a battalion of the 1st Regiment
 
 EXECUTION OF THE GERMAN CAVASS 179 
 
 of Engineers. Those soldiers formed a hollow square, 
 and in the centre of that square were the prisoners, 
 each standing between two armed men. They were 
 six or seven in all, and foremost among them was 
 Hussein. He was a beardless youth of eighteen 
 years of age, dark-complexioned as befitted a Fezzani 
 Arab, but with a pleasing and almost handsome face. 
 His features were regular and perfectly European, 
 his eye very bright and dark. Unlike the majority 
 of the Fezzani Arabs, he was only about five feet 
 five in height and as slimly built as a girl. He was 
 draped from head to foot in a snow-white djellaba. 
 The hood went over his head, concealing his red fez 
 and his hair. 
 
 The young man looked his " judges " in the face 
 with a perfectly composed and fearless air, and he 
 made no confession and no comment on the judicial 
 proceedings that went on before him. Once or twice 
 he even smiled, and the smile disclosed two rows of 
 small, even teeth, very white. 
 
 The evidence against him was translated piece- 
 meal by the interpreter. Hussein listened, and 
 always replied : "I have understood, but it is not so." 
 
 The atto d' istruzione was read and the declarations 
 of the witnesses. Then the accused was questioned. 
 He said that he had only left the Consulate out of 
 curiosity in order to see what the tumult was about. 
 
 In short, he denied everything, " but," says an 
 unfriendly writer who describes the scene, " he de- 
 nied without protesting, in few phrases, and with a 
 collected, almost dignified bearing." 
 
 Then the witnesses were called. One of them was 
 an Arab girl of thirteen years old. After that. 
 Captain Chiappiroli, the advocate for the Prosecution, 
 said a few words. Captain Senator Carafa d' Andria,
 
 180 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the advocate for the defence, also made a few banal 
 remarks. 
 
 The prisoner had now been standing erect before 
 his judges for a full hour. He had stood all that 
 time without a muscle twitching in his face, without 
 his betraying any symptom of fatigue, of fear, or 
 even of interest. When the sentence was read to him 
 he said, " I have understood, but it is not just." 
 
 The judge was sparing of words. 
 
 " Death ! Remove the prisoner ! " 
 
 To the surprise of the Italians, the condemned man 
 did not seem in the least concerned. Even when the 
 translator told him that he would be at once shot 
 he failed to exhibit the least alarm. 
 
 " Death ! Remove the prisoners ! " Behind 
 Hussein stood the other prisoners, five of whom were 
 slim young Arabs like himself. Their heads also were 
 carefully covered. Their clothes, however, were 
 mean and ragged. They were poor, town Arabs. 
 The sixth was an Arab from the Desert, a powerfully 
 built old man, six feet in height and with an extra- 
 ordinarily striking face. It was the face of a rebel, 
 of a free, defiant man. The jaw was strong and 
 firm ; the eye unwavering ; the mouth and the 
 deep lines around it denoted unusual determination. 
 The head was bare, and all the hair and beard seemed 
 to me to have been clipped off, prison-fashion, so 
 as to make the old man look ridiculous. It had the 
 opposite effect, for it disclosed a nobly shaped cranium 
 and a lower face which might have belonged to an 
 old Cromwellian trooper. 
 
 Hussein was executed within half -an -hour after 
 sentence was pronounced. The place of execution 
 was an open space by the sea, in front of the Gen- 
 darmery Office and between the old citadel and the
 
 EXECUTION OF THE GERMAN CAVASS 181 
 
 military club, formerly Turkish. It was less than 
 a hundred feet from the spot where sentence had 
 been pronounced. Right under the lofty, grey walls 
 of the ancient Spanish castle is a semi-secluded 
 corner used by the Italian soldiery as a latrine. It 
 is filled with filth and excrement. One cannot put 
 one's foot in a clean spot. In the midst of this 
 stinking refuse-heap was placed a bale of compressed 
 hay. Seated on this bale Hussein afterwards met 
 his doom. When he fell off he rolled in the foul- 
 smelling impurities with which the ground was 
 polluted. 
 
 After sentence was pronounced the soldiers led the 
 condemned man into the Gendarmery building. 
 Meanwhile a file of eight men of the engineers were 
 drawn up within twenty paces of the aforesaid bale 
 of hay. They were under the command of Lieu- 
 tenant Vercelli, at whose order they loaded their 
 weapons and stood ready, facing the citadel wall, 
 and at right angles to another line of soldiers parallel 
 to the sea. Behind this latter line surged a crowd 
 of correspondents and officers. Most of the corre- 
 spondents and some of the officers had their cameras 
 levelled. All of them had cigarettes in their mouths. 
 There was a big cinematograph installed in a pro- 
 minent position. There were laughing and light- 
 hearted joking. The officer in charge of the pro- 
 ceedings was a large, soft, goose-like man with 
 moustaches turned up and toes turned in. He went 
 about twirling a cane and looking like a musical 
 conductor. He knew that the cinematograph was 
 just about to make a "hero" of him, and that there 
 would be uproarious applause from all patriots and 
 right-minded men whenever his figure was thrown 
 on the screen anywhere from Syracuse to Chiasso.
 
 182 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Suddenly a movement was observed in the crowd. 
 It was the prisoner Hussein and his guards coming 
 through. Hussein was paraded about so that his 
 fate might inspire terror. But, unfortunately, though 
 all this parade of justice took place in the open street, 
 for the exclusive benefit of the Arabs, not a single 
 Arab spectator attended the trial or the execution. 
 The only natives present were local Jews. 
 
 If any Touaregs, Fezzanis, or other desert Arabs 
 had been present, I am afraid that the fearless and 
 proud bearing of this youth would have had a harden- 
 ing effect on them rather than anything else. For 
 even the Italians were impressed by this exhibition 
 of splendid fearlessness. They were amazed that the 
 condemned man cammina tranquillo (walks calmly), 
 that he did not lose his self-possession, not even in 
 the last moment — neanche nel momento estremo. 
 
 Hussein was led towards the bale of hay. He 
 turned back once and looked towards the soldiers 
 who composed the firing-party. " Guarda fredda- 
 mente," says an Italian writer who describes the 
 scene, " i soldati che gli sono vicini con le armi gid 
 pronte." (He coldly regards the soldiers who are 
 near him with their rifles already loaded.) 
 
 He may by this time have recognised them all 
 again in the other world. The Fezzanis who are 
 fighting out in the desert under Nesciat Bey could 
 have been trusted to see to that. 
 
 Even at this last moment, this momento estremo, 
 there was not a tear in his dark Arab eye, not a 
 quiver on his beardless lip. If there had been a tear, 
 dozens of jubilant Italian correspondents would have 
 gloried in it, dozens of hungry, uplifted cameras 
 would have seized upon it. There were two soldiers 
 on each side of the condemned man. Sicilians, and
 
 EXECUTION OF THE GERMAN CAVASS 183 
 
 therefore superstitious, they handled him carefully, 
 even gently, as if he had been an infant or a high- 
 born signora. The mystery of Death had already 
 enveloped him. Their hate had been swallowed up 
 in awe. They timidly and reverently indicated that 
 he should sit do^vn on the hay with his face turned 
 towards the wall and his back towards his execu- 
 tioners and the general public. It had been ordered 
 thus inasmuch as to be shot in the back is, by Italian 
 military law, the punishment of a traditore (traitor). 
 How it had come to pass that this free Fezzani was 
 a traitor to the King of Italy has not, however, been 
 explained. 
 
 It was a weird, ghostly figure which sat there, 
 shrouded entirely in white, the lower limbs invisible, 
 the head still covered by the pointed hood. The 
 figure was perfectly erect, and as motionless as one 
 of the Roman statues in the ex-Turkish Club close by. 
 
 There were two soldiers on each side of him. They 
 suddenly drew down the white hood or haraccano 
 so that it entirely concealed his red fez and his face. 
 The figure seated on the bale of hay was now hardly 
 human. The eyes, the face, the hands, nothing 
 could be seen. As soon as the soldiers had drawn 
 down the hood they fled swiftly away, a pair to the 
 right, a pair to the left. They fled with fearsome 
 haste as if from an already disembodied spirit. 
 
 A sharp order from the Lieutenant, and the soldiers 
 levelled their rifles. Another sharp order — Fuoco ! — 
 and eight shots rang out as one. The white figure 
 remained perfectly motionless and erect. Every 
 shot had missed. And at twenty paces ! 
 
 Did some thought of escape not occur to the Arab 
 at this moment ? Out beyond lay an unequalled 
 panorama of sunlit sea and land, inviting to freedom
 
 184 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 and pleasure and lusty life. In the wind from the 
 desert the fronds of the palm-trees waved like the 
 plumes of cavalry. Yonder, in the green oasis, many 
 of his friends were hidden. On the white sea-shore 
 of Sharashett the glorious free sea broke. Midway 
 it danced in a thousand dimples. Nay, within a few 
 feet of where the condemned man sat, the Medi- 
 terranean lapped the low embankment. 
 
 Between him and that heaving, deep blue sea 
 there was absolutely no obstacle. " Up ! Run ! 
 Throw yourself into the waves ! Swim for it ! There 
 is yet a chance ! " 
 
 There can be nothing in telepathy, for though 
 these words beat violently against the walls of my 
 brain like imprisoned eagles beating against window- 
 bars, the condemned man sat as still as death. His 
 legs were free, but his hands were tied behind his back, 
 and he could not withdraw the baraccano which 
 covered his face down to the chin. But what an 
 effect it would have had on the Arabs if he had even 
 risen to his feet and died with his face to the firing- 
 party and on his lips the terrible war-cry of Islam : 
 " La ilaha illa-llahu Mohammed rasulu 'llah (" There 
 is no God but God, and Mohammed is the Prophet of 
 God ! "), the war-cry which his race had carried from 
 their home in the Arabian desert, along the coast of 
 Northern Africa to Tangier, through Spain from 
 Gibraltar to the Pyrenees, into the heart of France 
 as far as Poitiers. 
 
 Fuoco ! Another order. Another volley. The 
 white figure fell over slowly, gently — ^fell to the 
 ground on its left side. 
 
 " He died like a young martyr," says one Italian 
 author who describes the scene, " and yet he died 
 with a lie on his lips."
 
 EXECUTION OF THE GERMAN CAVASS 185 
 
 Who but God can say that ? He may have been 
 innocent. The Italians have made many mistakes 
 since they came to TripoH. This also may very well 
 have been one. I would not have liked, had I been 
 an Arab, to have been tried for my life by men as 
 panic-stricken, as mad with racial hate, as were the 
 Italian leaders in Tripoli on October 24th. 
 
 But if he is innocent, practically the whole world 
 is banded together to maintain his guilt. The 
 Italians naturally contend that he is a murderer. 
 So do most of the foreigners, as otherwise it would 
 be rather awkward for Dr. Tilger. One of the Consuls 
 — not Dr. Tilger — assured me that Hussein had 
 confessed, but I afterwards found that this was not 
 the case. 
 
 The white, ghostly figure tumbled over without 
 a moan, without a cry, without a syllable. There 
 was absolute silence. One leg twitched feebly. A man 
 in a black uniform, a military doctor, advanced 
 hastily, bent over the prostrate body, raised his 
 hand, said something in Italian, and stepped briskly 
 back. Then an odd thing occurred. The first cavass 
 of the German Consulate and another Arab of the 
 same institution were present, and had brought with 
 them the prisoner's dog. It was a ludicrous, effusive 
 retriever, with black curly hair which had been closely 
 clipped everywhere save around the neck and at 
 the tip of the tail. Somebody had evidently tried 
 to make the poor animal look like a lion, but had 
 only succeeded in making it look ridiculous. 
 
 As soon as the second volley had been fired, this 
 foolish, exuberant dog rushed forward and began 
 jumping around the corpse, sniffing at it and then 
 bounding suddenly back, frisking around, wagging 
 its tail and contorting its body. But it never barked
 
 186 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 once, and it never actually touched the recumbent 
 figure. 
 
 The soldiers did not want to kill this dog. They 
 whistled at it and tried to coax it away. But it 
 would not desert its master, and, despite its presence, 
 the soldiers finally began an indiscriminate fire at 
 the prostrate mummy-like figure on the ground. 
 Happily the dog was not hit. The executioners took 
 special pains to avoid it. It was the man they were 
 aiming at. Thirty shots in all were fired, counting 
 the two volleys. After a few minutes of the indis- 
 criminate firing, the man in the black uniform 
 advanced again along with several others in the 
 same garb. They were policemen or gendarmes. 
 One of them had a red-cross badge on his arm. This 
 man felt the pulse of the figure on the ground, after- 
 wards letting the lifeless arm fall back limply. Then 
 the leading policeman put a revolver to the head and 
 fired two shots. 
 
 At the same instant there rang out what seemed to 
 be a distant, gigantic echo of the pistol-shots. 
 Another ! Another ! Another ! All eyes were 
 turned towards the blue sea and the sunlit strip of 
 yellowish, sandy coast eastward of the Sharashett 
 fort. 
 
 In the water lay the war-vessel Sicilia. Inland 
 from the fort four fleecy, brown clouds of shrapnel 
 hung over the land at a point from which came a 
 crackling of rifle-fire. Hussein's friends had already 
 begun to take their revenge. 
 
 The execution of Hussein was not the first execution 
 which had taken place that day. Six men had been 
 shot at eight o'clock that morning at the School of 
 Arts, while other prisoners — 300 in number — had been 
 forced to assist at the ceremony. The condemned
 
 EXECUTION OF THE GERMAN CAVASS 187 
 
 men were placed against a wall in the court-yard and 
 a file of soldiers was drawn up in front of them. 
 There was a profound silence, while an interpreter 
 read the sentence of death from a rostrum. He cried 
 out in a loud voice and in the Arabic language. When 
 he came to the name of the King of Italy at the end 
 of the document the Italians present applauded, and 
 so did one of the condemned men. This man raised 
 his manacled hands and beat one palm against the 
 other while he pronounced in a guttural voice the 
 name of King Victor Emmanuel. 
 
 He may have lost his senses or he may have 
 ingenuously supposed that this demonstration would 
 save him. It did not, of course. He was shot, a 
 moment afterwards, with the other five.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE OASIS OF DEATH 
 
 On the night of October 23rd Tripoli was more 
 nervous, speechless, and panic-stricken than Port 
 Arthur on the eve of Togo's first onslaught, or 
 Constantinople the night before Mahmud Shefket 
 Pasha stormed that city. 
 
 Being convinced that every Arab was an enemy, 
 and being dreadfully alarmed at the risk they had 
 run of losing the city, the Italians sent around Arab 
 criers to cry out warnings and death-penalties enough 
 to make one's blood run cold. Each crier wore a 
 special native costume of some ceremonial signifi- 
 cance, and was accompanied by an Italian official 
 and two armed soldiers. The criers stopped every 
 hundred yards or so and shouted out the proclama- 
 tion at the top of their voices in some irregular kind 
 of chant. 
 
 " Chi non consegna subito iutte le armi e le munizioni 
 alle autorita sera fusilato." (Whoever does not at 
 once surrender to the authorities any arms and 
 ammunition which he may have in his possession 
 will be shot.) 
 
 The natives were also told that they must be in- 
 doors before sunset, and must not appear on the 
 street during the night on pain of being shot. Any 
 one who did not halt when a sentinel said " Chi va 
 Id ? " (Who goes there ?) would be instantly fired 
 on. All lights were to be extinguished.
 
 THE OASIS OF DEATH 189 
 
 I strolled out, after supper, on the Marina, or sea- 
 front street, and found the city like a cemetery. 
 Not a native was in sight save a number of boot- 
 blacks, street-sweepers, beggars, and other homeless 
 wanderers who slept inside some railings in front of 
 the houses. Wrapped in their white garments and 
 packed closely together, they looked like shrouded 
 corpses awaiting burial. Whether asleep or not, 
 they were certainly as still as dead men. They were 
 afraid even to move. Patrols of soldiers and sailors 
 swung along the street every few minutes. My old 
 friend, the Censor, was accompanied by a soldier 
 with a rifle. Two officers who passed me were ac- 
 companied by armed soldiers ; and, in addition to 
 that, they themselves had revolvers in their hands 
 and had their fingers on the triggers. Every officer 
 was accompanied at this time by an armed soldier, 
 probably because a story had reached the Head- 
 quarters staff that an attempt would be made to 
 suddenly assassinate all the Italian officers in the 
 city. 
 
 For the next few days no Italian, military or civil, 
 passed a native in the bazaar or the street, even in 
 broad daylight, without putting his hand on a con- 
 cealed weapon and preparing against the eventuality 
 of the other springing on him with a knife. There 
 was absolutely no reason for all these precautions 
 against the peaceful town Arabs ; but the plain fact 
 remained that the Italians were working themselves 
 into a condition almost of insanity on the subject of 
 the natives. 
 
 There was not a light on shore. Cafes, shops, 
 hotels had all been closed. But the sea-front was 
 illuminated every few moments by the sinister flash 
 of the search-lights on the battle-ships. Far away,
 
 190 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 along the sea-shore burned huge fires — the straw and 
 thatch and wood-work of native houses which had 
 been wrecked and then set ablaze. 
 
 There was intense stillness, broken occasionally 
 by revolver or rifle shots, sometimes close by, some- 
 times in the heart of the town, sometimes out in the 
 oasis. Occasionally there was a hoarse cry, then 
 perfect silence as before. If the town was thus in- 
 tolerable, the palm -gardens outside were a horror, 
 for they were black as the grave and littered with 
 corpses. It was not safe for any one, friend or foe, 
 to approach any of the innumerable sentinels who 
 now studded the oasis. Every hundred yards or so, a 
 sharp, strained " Chi i;a Za ,^ " or " Chi sono, signori ? " 
 (if a group of officers approached), would bring one 
 up with a jerk. 
 
 Even for an Italian civilian, a promenade in the 
 oasis on this particular night was fraught with 
 danger. Despite his enthusiasm for the war and for 
 the army, the Honourable De Felice, an Italian 
 deputy, had the muzzle of a sentry's rifle pressed 
 against his stomach when he went, this night, to visit 
 Sharashett. 
 
 " Easy, easy ! " he shrieked. " Lower your rifle ! 
 Don't you see that we are not Turks ? " 
 
 " Our men were assassinated to-day by civilians," 
 was the frenzied reply, " Indietro, dunque, o noi 
 facciamo fuoco ! " (Back, then, or we shall fire !) 
 
 And certainly the sentinels could be excused for 
 feeling nervous. The smell of war filled the air. 
 Horses bringing officers through the oasis stopped 
 frequently with snorts of fear. The stoppage was 
 always caused by corpses. In all attitudes of agony, 
 Arabs lay dead in the sand. Sometimes their white 
 robes were stained with blotches of red. Sometimes
 
 THE OASIS OF DEATH 191 
 
 their heads rested in a pool of blood. Sometimes the 
 horses caught sight of snow-white bodies lying 
 motionless in a thicket — the naked bodies of Italian 
 soldiers not yet collected by the ambulances. Some- 
 times one came across groups of five or six Arabs 
 bound together and about to be shot. In all proba- 
 bility they had been burned out of their houses, and 
 had hidden in the thicket. But the thicket hap- 
 pened to be in the rear of the Italian line. " Caught 
 under suspicious circumstances, in close proximity 
 to our line," is the charge. " Fuoco ! " (Fire !) shouts 
 the Lieutenant dryly, and all is over. 
 
 Crouched together in the trenches, the Italian 
 soldiers horrified one another and exchanged the 
 most blood-curdling, " camp-gup " stories about 
 African campaigns. The word Africa has certainly 
 an ominous sound in Italian ears. The shame and 
 the disgrace of Adowa has never been fully set forth 
 in print and is never likely to be, but the conscripts 
 of Italy know all about, and perhaps even exaggerate, 
 its horrors. As is but natural, the stories told of it 
 around Italian camp-fires grow more thrilling and 
 more gruesome every year. The shadow of that 
 great shame hung over the present expedition like a 
 ghost. The very exuberance of the Press, and the 
 gridi d' entusiasmo (" cries of enthusiasm ") of the 
 people were merely the forced gaiety of frightened 
 children trying to reassure themselves while enter- 
 ing a dark room which exhaled tragedy. 
 
 Vivn I' Italia ! 
 
 Viva Tripoli italiana ! 
 
 Viva la marina ! 
 
 Viva P esercito ! 
 
 Viva U Re ! 
 
 Viva lafioUa italiana !
 
 192 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Whenever one hears this litany — and one hears it 
 pretty often in Italy and in Tripoli — one can almost 
 fancy he hears after every exclamation a miserere 
 nobis. 
 
 For the Italians are groping in the haunted house 
 like helpless children. It is pitch dark there and the 
 corpse of an Arab woman lies upstairs with its throat 
 cut ; while, from time to time, a gibbering, malignant 
 spirit curdles their blood by shrieking the one word 
 " Adowa ! " 
 
 With the Italian Press it is the same. The harping 
 on " il valor e italiano," " la magnifica condotta delle 
 truppe " (the magnificent conduct of the troops), is 
 so constant that it only betrays anxiety. 
 
 In the same manner the intense desire of the Press 
 to cull good notices of the Italian army and navy 
 from foreigners and foreign newspapers, is almost 
 pathetic. " Tutta Europa ammira il valor e dei nostri 
 marinai e dei nostri soldati " (All Europe admires 
 the valour of our sailors and soldiers !) runs one 
 newspaper heading. " Magnifica testimonianzo degli 
 addetti militari esteri sul valor e delle truppe italiane " 
 (Magnificent testimonial of the foreign military 
 attaches on the valour of the Italian troops), is 
 another. The attaches in question had only ex- 
 changed a few polite after-dinner compliments with 
 the officers at the front. 
 
 Arab treachery was the theme around every 
 camp-fire and in every trench. The moral of every 
 tale told was that no trust can be placed in an Arab. 
 " La leggendaria impenetrabilitd araba " was insisted 
 upon. 
 
 You might hear again, as in Abyssinia, the pleasant 
 talk of the camp-fires, about mutilations worse than 
 death and about fiendish native crueltv. The Italians
 
 THE OASIS OF DEATH 193 
 
 seem to have a perfect genius for getting among 
 people of whom such stories can be told. But I do 
 hope that some of the stories were fiction. 
 
 During the course of the battle one of the Bersag- 
 lieri had suddenly appeared among his comrades, who 
 had given him up for lost. On being accused of 
 having come down a tree, he evolved a lurid legend 
 about having been captured and carried off along with 
 six others by an overwhelming force of Arabs. When 
 his captors had reached a safe spot in the recesses of 
 the oasis, they tied the seven men to seven trees 
 and mutilated them, one after the other, amid a 
 wild mixture of dervish dancing, religious rites, and 
 fiendish laughter. 
 
 As is the invariable rule in such stories he happened 
 to be the last of the seven, but his explanation of his 
 escape was rather unsatisfactory and incoherent. 
 But, happily, the Italian camp was full of clever 
 literary people, and a satisfactory conclusion was 
 soon found for his little tale, which has probably 
 formed, by this time, the subject of a new poem by 
 Gabriele d' Annunzio, to whose peculiar style of 
 genius the theme is exactly suited. 
 
 It was even asserted at the time in Tripoli, and 
 the statement was published afterwards in Italy, 
 that an Arab had been caught running through the 
 oasis with a bag filled with portions of Italian flesh 
 (Z)' un Arabo che fuggiva con brandelli di came umana 
 in un sacco). Incidents of cannibalism on the part 
 of the enemy were furnished by other Bersaglieri 
 who had " escaped." 
 
 The gloom around our camp-fire was not decreased 
 when a superstitious Sicilian introduced the religious 
 and supernatural element. This Sicilian said that a 
 Holy War had been proclaimed. He spoke of a
 
 194 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 strange excitement which he had noticed among the 
 Arabs several days before. A wild light had come 
 into all their eyes. They had walked like hypnotic 
 subjects. There had been weird, unholy rites and 
 chantings in the mosques. Some of them had 
 pointed to the crescent moon, which then rode high 
 in the heavens, as a sign that a Turkish victory was 
 imminent. Others had mentioned an old prophecy 
 according to which a Christian nation would come to 
 Tripoli and would at the end of forty days be ex- 
 pelled amid storms and tempests, thunder and 
 lightning. 
 
 Pleased with the impression he had made, the 
 Sicilian went on to speak of those mysterious Free- 
 masons of Islam, the Senussi, whose head-quarters 
 are at Kufra in the Egyptian desert, and whose 
 influence extends from the Nile to Morocco and far 
 southward into the unknown heart of the Dark 
 Continent. 
 
 The Sicilians habitually spoke of the enemy as 
 " the Saracens." Terrible legends of the Saracen 
 conquest of Sicily tinged their minds, perhaps uncon- 
 sciously. Various theories were put forward to 
 account for the sudden appearance of such a large 
 body of Arabs in the rear of the Italian line at 
 Sharashett, and the theory most in favour was that a 
 subterranean passage ran between Tripoli and the 
 Turkish camp. Soldiers told how Arabs whom they 
 pursued had mysteriously disappeared — undoubtedly 
 fer mezzo di una escavazione sotterranea. 
 
 1 might here remark that, later on, this story of a 
 sotterranea became an obsession, not only with the 
 soldiers, but even with the Italian civilians and some 
 of the officers. It was said that Turkish spies con- 
 stantly penetrated in this way into the town, that
 
 THE OASIS OF DEATH 195 
 
 there were many Arabs underneath the earth, that 
 half the city might be blown up. The most circum- 
 stantial account of this passage was given to the 
 police by " the oldest inhabitant," a wise Jew. 
 Some authorities said that there were two passages. 
 One of those passages was so ample that four men 
 could walk abreast in it. They were variously said 
 to open (1) on the seashore ; (2) in the centre of 
 Tripoli ; (3) in the oasis ; (4) in the Governor's palace. 
 
 Finally the authorities became seriously alarmed, 
 for it was not impossible that some old Roman or 
 mediaeval passage did open into the Castello ; and 
 Lieutenant Vicinanza made an elaborate search for 
 those mythical tunnels. He went down wells, 
 entered grottos, tapped walls to ascertain if they 
 gave forth a hollow ring, dug in cemeteries. He 
 questioned Hassuna Pasha, the present representa- 
 tive of the Karamanli family, which had long ruled 
 the country from the old castle. Hassuna declared 
 that there was no tunnel underneath the castle, and 
 that there could not be a tunnel because, as the soil 
 was sandy and rich in water, any such passage would 
 soon collapse. 
 
 But in spite of this, enthusiasts went out to Gar- 
 garesh and examined every suspected point. By 
 this time the foreign correspondents had begun to 
 take an interest in the matter and to write about it. 
 They wrote with all the more enthusiasm, inasmuch 
 as this was the one and only subject on which the 
 Censor allowed them a free hand. 
 
 Arab treachery was the theme of innumerable 
 stories. The moral of every tale was that no trust 
 can ever be placed in an Arab. Under the influence 
 of religious fanaticism, he is capable of killing his 
 best benefactor if that benefactor is an Unbeliever.
 
 196 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 You may save an Arab boy from death, you may 
 feed him, clothe him, educate him ; but when the 
 Holy War is declared he will be sure to stick a knife 
 in you. 
 
 The Italians are predisposed to this form of pro- 
 found distrust. When, before the bombardment, 
 the Consuls considered what they should do in the 
 event of a native rising against the Europeans, not 
 improbable at that time, Vice-Consul Galli shocked 
 his colleagues by saying that what he would do 
 would be to first kill his Arab cavass and then 
 barricade himself with his Italian friends in the 
 Consulate. Now, that old cavass had been in the 
 service of the Consulate for years. Those who have 
 been in the Near East will understand how faithful 
 such old servants are, and how ready to give their 
 lives for their masters. 
 
 Among the tales of Arab treachery which were 
 told was one about an Arab youth employed by the 
 Bersaglieri officers, who thought they had made 
 quite a pet of him. When, in the morning, the 
 officers prepared to fight the enemy, the youth ap- 
 proached a captain and killed him with a dagger. 
 He was instantly shot. 
 
 And certainly there is something to be said of the 
 Italian private's point of view in this matter, though 
 nothing can excuse the mixture of massacre and 
 muddle which the higher military and civil authori- 
 ties made of the campaign. 
 
 The privates felt that they had, on the whole, 
 treated the natives with friendliness. They had 
 freely shared their bread and cheese with the little 
 Arab bimbo who had stretched out its hand murmur- 
 ing : " Italiano bono, mangeria.''' 
 
 Sometimes thev had bought a little cotton cloth
 
 * THE OASIS OF DEATH 197 
 
 to make a dress for the small, naked boys. They 
 thought that they had established relations of good- 
 humoured fraternity with the parents of those little 
 mites. The friendly smiles of the fathers seemed to 
 indicate that all was well. The Sicilian soldier was 
 not vexed at the Arab " friendly " breaking faith 
 with Rome. He was vexed at the Arab breaking 
 the tacit pact with him, a pact sealed by many grins 
 and handshakes. 
 
 The recollection of those smiles, of that cotton 
 cloth, of that bread, now made the Sicilian furious. 
 He did not know that in most cases the people who 
 assailed him in the rear were not oasis Arabs, were 
 hostile Arabs, open enemies from beyond the front. 
 He knew or heard of a few cases of treachery, and 
 that was enough to make him curse the whole Arab 
 race. 
 
 The Sicilian soldier had heard the most fantastic 
 stories of Arab cruelty and ferocity, how the wounded 
 and even the dead had been hacked and mutilated, 
 how bearers who went to pick up wounded Turks 
 had been shot by the dying men, who had then 
 breathed out their life in a last deep sigh of thankful- 
 ness to Allah. He had heard how Bersaglieri had 
 been found in the thickets, naked and crucified. 
 
 Most of those stories were fiction or at least exag- 
 gerated, but the Sicilians and Neapolitans believed 
 them and passed them on, amplified, still more 
 horrible. The theatrical instinct of the southern 
 Italian had full play. With eloquent gestures, in 
 torrents of words he described " il dramma sinistro 
 delta rivolta e della rcprcssione " (the sinister drama 
 of the revolt and of the repression). 
 
 The circumstances under which those stories were 
 told added to their impressiveness.
 
 198 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 The night was as black as Erebus and, in a state of 
 extreme nervous tension, their fingers on the triggers 
 of their rifles, one ear sometimes turned sideways to 
 the ground, the sentinels seemed to listen more than 
 to watch. The movements of the Arabs along the 
 sand during the course of the past battle had been 
 so snake-like that ears were needed as well as eyes in 
 order to detect the approach of the enemy. 
 
 Suddenly a sentinel called the attention of his 
 companions to a strange distant noise. It was the 
 faint roll of a drum, and it must have come from 
 some point far out in the desert. 
 
 What could it mean ? Was it a signal of war ? 
 Was it the accompaniment of some devil-dance 
 carried out by savage allies whom the Mohammedans 
 had summoned from the dark heart of Africa ? 
 
 And there were other mysterious signs. In the 
 profundity of the sandy waste a light distinctly 
 gleamed for a moment, then disappeared, then re- 
 appeared, finally went out. Moreover, several men 
 saw, or fancied they saw, a comet, very faint, in the 
 heavens. 
 
 These watchers of the skies were disturbed from 
 time to time by soldiers talking in their sleep around 
 them. One murmured the name of a woman, one 
 the pet name of a child, one the name of a Sicilian 
 village, fair as a dream of paradise. 
 
 " II dramma sinistro della rivolta e della repressione.'' 
 To the Sicilians, however, and in fact to every one in 
 Tripoli at that time, including the Consuls and the 
 foreign business-men, it was something more than a 
 mere drama that was being enacted before them. 
 " Is tragedy again to dog the steps of the Italian 
 soldiers in Africa ? " That was the question most 
 people asked themselves and one another that night.
 
 THE OASIS OF DEATH 199 
 
 The breaking of Caneva's line, the rear attack, 
 the certainty that all the Arabs were now on the 
 Turkish side were very serious facts. An army is a 
 great animal which is easily panic-stricken, and the 
 prospect of a frightened and demoralised soldiery 
 rushing pell-mell into Tripoli and making for the 
 transports was one that did not appeal to the average 
 Esparto Grass merchant, or shipping agent in the 
 town. He had come out to make money, not to get 
 skinned alive. ^ 
 
 For the Italians themselves, the events of the day 
 had been stunning. The very ground they stood on 
 was unsafe. The race on which they had graciously 
 decided to build their Colonial Empire had slipped 
 away like quicksand from underneath their founda- 
 tion-stone. What if their new, untried army slipped 
 away also ? What if a blacker day than Adowa was 
 before them ? 
 
 New tales of cruelty were invented round the 
 camp-fires, and by morning the authors honestly 
 believed in those stories themselves. Hence an 
 exaltation of mind which made terrible reprisals 
 certain, unless the officers kept their men well under 
 control. Alas ! the officers were not strong enough 
 to exercise that control. 
 
 " Owing to the helplessness of the officers," wrote 
 the " Frankfurter Zeitung " correspondent a few 
 days later, " a wild man-hunt began." 
 
 And when the man-hunt did begin, the soldiers 
 
 ^ There was a great exodus from Tripoli, and those who remained 
 made ready for a change of masters. All Turkish coins disappeared 
 because the shopkeepers hoarded them in the conviction that they 
 would come in handy when the Turks returned. Von Gottberg, who 
 lodged with a Jew, found his landlord busily occupied in brushing and 
 smoothing the old Turkish fez which he had replaced by an Italian 
 wide-awake on October 4th. " One never knows what may happen," 
 quoth this Hebrew Vicar of Bray in answer to my colleague's look of 
 inquiry.
 
 200 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 wrote about it in a manner which shows how insane 
 they were with terror and rage. In letters to their 
 sweethearts, mothers, and brothers, they described 
 the cruel extirpation of the peaceful Arabs as they 
 would have described the extirpation of venomous 
 serpents. One man who dates his letter " Tripoli, 
 October 25th," and who writes to his " dear Parents," 
 begins with the words " It is midnight," and goes on 
 to say " the night is dark and silent, and in the 
 midst of the tragic, solemn silence I hear the ' Who 
 goes there ? ' of the sentinels, and the rifle-shots 
 which cut down inexorably those vipers who bear 
 the name of Arabs." 
 
 Going back to describe the surprise of the 23rd, 
 he says, " On a sudden, thousands and thousands of 
 those vermin in human form issued from all directions 
 and surprised the battalion." 
 
 It was to the mercy of men like this that the 
 innocent oasis Arabs were left.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ROAD TO THE FRONT 
 
 At the battle of Sharashett, on October 23rd, the 
 Turks, having demonstrated along the Italian right 
 and centre, made a very furious charge on the left 
 and broke through the Italian line into the oasis. 
 
 Three days later, on October 26th, they repeated 
 precisely the same tactics and with the same result. 
 One would have thought that by this time General 
 Caneva would have been ready for them. But at 
 Sidi Messri, as at Sharashett, the oasis was " flooded 
 with wild Arabs." This is General Caneva's ex- 
 pression, but, as a matter of fact, the exact number 
 was 250. 
 
 General Caneva did, he says, devote the 24th and 
 25th " to the preparation of the line of defence, to 
 an assiduous watch inside and outside the city where 
 a grave ferment was noticed, a consequence of the 
 repression in the oasis on the 23rd." 
 
 The Commander-in-chief further remarks in his 
 official report that on the afternoon of the 24th he 
 gave orders for the complete disarmament of the 
 inhabitants of the oasis. This, he explains, was 
 absolutely necessary in order to protect the troops 
 from " treacherous attacks " in the rear. 
 
 This is very true ; but why did not General Caneva 
 disarm those people earlier ? A week before, their 
 houses might have been searched, and their knives, 
 
 201
 
 202 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 razors, and antiquated flintlocks removed without 
 any harm being done. Now, the ItaHan soldiers 
 were quite carried away by fear and by suspicion, 
 and they killed every Arab whom they found with 
 arms of any kind in his possession. The " disarma- 
 ment " was carried out at first by four companies 
 of bluejackets plus two companies of the 6th Infantry 
 Regiment. 
 
 " It was precisely at this time," says General 
 Caneva, " that having seen how ineffectual the 
 ordinary means of repression {gli ordinari mezzi di 
 repressione) were against the animosity and the 
 ferocity of the rebels, we were obliged to have 
 recourse to severe and energetic measures, carried 
 out, however, with all possible precautions, as is 
 done in analogous cases by all belligerents." 
 
 These " severe and energetic " measures were the 
 wholesale slaughter of the male oasis Arabs from 
 the age of twelve or fourteen upwards. Whether 
 General Caneva ordered this massacre or not I do 
 not know, but if he did not, the massacre was in- 
 evitable as soon as he let loose among the peaceful 
 Arabs a large number of panic-stricken and vindictive 
 soldiers, operating, as a rule, in small groups not 
 commanded by officers. " The Times " corres- 
 pondent has said all that can possibly be said in 
 favour of the Italians, but he has to admit (November 
 8th) that : 
 
 " There is one lesson that stands out in bold 
 relief from this miserable business, and that is the 
 necessity of employing in duties of repression an 
 adequate number of officers and of having a suf- 
 ficient number of officers thus to employ. As far 
 as I could judge, the licence which carried the
 
 THE ROAD TO THE FRONT 203 
 
 Italian soldiery away was the fact that the house- 
 to-house search for arms found small detachments 
 operating without commissioned officers. This 
 was where the danger crept in. Sicilians and hot- 
 blooded Southerners who had just seen their dead 
 — butchered, as they thought, in circumstances 
 of black treachery — were dangerous material to 
 let loose in a suburb when the orders were that 
 the suspicion of carrying an arm was justification 
 for a summary death-sentence. All armies, even 
 our own, require a full complement of officers to 
 cope with all the exigencies of war." 
 
 But I shall deal later with this question of the 
 " repressione." First I must describe the battle of 
 Sidi Messri. I should like to say, however, that the 
 severity of the Italians towards the natives of the 
 oasis was largely the result of fear. There was a 
 general impression in the army that the 23rd had 
 been only an Arab reconnaissance, pushed too far, 
 and that there was impending a great attack in 
 comparison with which Sharashett would be only 
 child's play. 
 
 Those suspicions Avere confirmed by the reports 
 of the aviators who, on the 25th, reported several 
 large Turkish columns three miles towards the south- 
 east. 
 
 More ominous still, a Turkish officer rode in from 
 the Desert with a white flag and demanded the sur- 
 render of the city in two hours. Some of the Italians 
 professed to regard this as comic, some as " insolenza 
 eccessiva." I could not help thinking, myself, that 
 it was one of those soldierly touches of which in 
 this war there are very few to the credit of the 
 invaders. The superb self-confidence of this young
 
 204 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Turkish officer, his mihtary bearing, his curt salute, 
 his curt message, made the Itahans look like men who 
 are only playing at soldiers. The Turks might have 
 respected General Caneva more if he had even once 
 sent an officer to their camp with some such bold, im- 
 perative message. Caneva never sent an officer, but 
 hardly a day passed that he did not send unfortunate 
 negro boys and other natives into the Desert with 
 sly, treacherous, underhand letters, the object of 
 which was to detach some of the Arab chiefs from 
 the Turkish side. If those poor devils had refused to 
 go, the Italians would probably have killed them — it 
 was a painful sight to see some of them going out into 
 the waste, in mortal fear of being shot in the back by the 
 Italians. If they did go and did not destroy the letters 
 on the way, the Arabs would hang them. A good 
 many Italians must have regarded this strange 
 demand of the Turkish officer as rather alarming, and 
 the preparations for the defence were pushed on with 
 feverish activity. The General Staff inspected the 
 positions and strengthened weak points. The men 
 worked all night in some places, putting up earth- 
 works. 
 
 General Caneva's defensive preparations were as 
 follows : The troops in the oasis were reinforced by 
 bluejackets and detachments of fortress artillery 
 armed with rifles, for the fortress artillery had not 
 yet been placed in position. Several batteries of 
 rapid-fire cannon and a number of machine-guns, 
 which had not been landed or not placed in position 
 on the 23rd, were now sent to the weak points of the 
 oasis line, where they were of infinite service next 
 day. The Carlo Alberto and the Sicilia were anchored 
 at a spot off the shore east of Tripoli, from which 
 they could bombard the advancing Turks.
 
 THE ROAD TO THE FRONT 205 
 
 But the Turks also had been busy. Invisible, 
 inaudible, they had nevertheless crept up on all sides 
 towards the Italian line. In some parts of the oasis 
 they were only a few hundred yards off. During 
 the night of the 28th, the Italian sentinels among 
 the palm-trees felt like hunters driven to bay by an 
 army of noiseless, velvet-footed tigers — tigers with 
 the brains of demons and more than the usual blood- 
 thirstiness of their own terrible species. 
 
 Already, on the 25th, Fethi Bey had passed his 
 hand lightly along the whole Italian front as a con- 
 noisseur might pass his hand over a work of art. 
 He had, in other words, made a brief, feigned attack 
 which had disclosed the strength of the Italian 
 defences from Gargaresh to Sharashett. 
 
 Shortly after five in the morning the real attack 
 began. In the Minerva Hotel I heard the earth quiver 
 and the windows rattle to the roar of the naval guns, 
 and immediately ascended, half dressed and half 
 asleep, to the flat roof. Dawn was still struggling 
 with darkness. The stars still shone. A gentle 
 breeze blew from the sea. 
 
 But all the Italian line was in action. We were 
 girt by a circle of fire. Graceful little clouds of 
 shrapnel burst over Sharashett ; and above these 
 clouds the aeroplanes fearlessly manoeuvred. I soon 
 saw that the fighting at Sharashett and Henni 
 was much more serious than the fighting elsewhere, 
 so without further ado I finished dressing myself, 
 took my camera, revolver, and binoculars, and 
 sallied forth in the direction of the east flank. The 
 shops were, of course, shut, and the streets deserted 
 save for occasional parties of sailors and soldiers who 
 marched down them. At the entrance to the oasis, 
 beyond the Esparto Grass Factory of the Banco di
 
 206 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Roma, a young officer stopped me and said that I 
 would not be allowed to go further. But I showed 
 him my pass and he was content, though anxious 
 about my personal safety in going through the oasis. 
 He asked me to await the passage of a pattuglia 
 (patrol), and said that it would be madness for me to 
 go on alone. 
 
 And certainly the rest of my journey was depressing 
 enough. I walked along a street of houses which had 
 just been looted and destroyed. I was alone, and 
 the echo of my own footsteps resounded as if I were 
 walking in a tomb. This suburb, so filled with noisy 
 life four days earlier, was now as uninhabited as 
 Pompeii. I did not see a single Arab all the way, 
 nor did I meet with a single Italian. 
 
 The oppressive solitudes of the oasis were heavy 
 with a sense of tragedy. The stillness was hostile, 
 the very air was dense with unutterable menace. 
 The shattered doorways and windows gaped like 
 the mouths of dead men. Black with blood and 
 pitted with bullets, the naked walls exhaled the 
 quintessence of malignity and hate. 
 
 The oasis dogs are usually very noisy. On this 
 day they were still as death. I saw some of them 
 slinking past in the distance, their tails hanging low, 
 and a furtive, guilty expression in their eyes. 
 
 Had they been feeding on ? But I put the 
 
 loathsome thought away and considered my own 
 danger. For I must confess that I regretted not 
 having waited for the patrol, before I entered on this 
 blood-stained zone of death. Amid the cacti and the 
 ruined houses there might very well lurk an unfortunate 
 Arab who had survived the man-hunt of the last 
 three days, and in his desperation he might easily 
 mistake me for an Italian.
 
 THE ROAD TO THE FRONT 207 
 
 Finally, when I knew by the noise of the firing 
 that I was not far from the Italian line, I came on a 
 group of soldiers standing in reserve with about a 
 dozen horses behind an Arab house and wall. There 
 were sentinels on the look-out towards Tripoli as well 
 as towards the Arabs, and, on seeing me approach, 
 some of them aimed at me with every sign of excite- 
 ment. My strange dress had evidently alarmed 
 them, but a young officer restrained them and made 
 me welcome. I did not know what a narrow escape 
 I had on this occasion until I learned later that all 
 the soldiers were under the impression that their orders 
 were to " shoot every civilian approaching the rear 
 of the trenches." A French journalist once asked 
 a sentinel why he kept blazing away all night. The 
 ingenuous soldier replied : " Prima si spar a, poi si da 
 il ' Chi va Id ? ' ordine del Ministero delta Guerra.^^ 
 (" First shoot, then ask ' Who goes there ? ' Such is 
 the order of the Ministry of War.") He had evidently 
 got the order wrong end foremost, and I suppose 
 this explains how so many innocent to\Mispeople, 
 including seven or eight Maltese, lost their lives in 
 Tripoli town itself during these days of panic. 
 
 We were about five or six hundred yards from the 
 front, but the Arab bullets continually whistled 
 over our heads, so that we found it necessary to hide 
 behind the wall. Soon after I saw a long line of 
 bluejackets in charge of a naval officer coming down 
 a side lane, and I joined them as they crept along 
 the road, which was certainly not in a very safe 
 condition, for every few moments an ominous whiz 
 passed down the centre of it and, judging from the 
 sound, not very high above our heads. 
 
 These had come to reinforce a party of soldiers who 
 were crouching behind a mud-wall about a hundred
 
 208 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 yards from the front, and firing continuously at the 
 enemy. The firing was heavy, the whiz of the 
 bullets frequent, and it was most advisable, if not 
 absolutely necessary, to refrain from looking over 
 that wall. I did look over it once, and this is what 
 I saw. 
 
 The extreme front was close to me It consisted 
 of a line of bluejackets lying flat on the ground 
 behind a row of sandbags and firing very calmly 
 and very steadily. An officer pointed out an Arab, 
 but the Arab had vanished before I could see him. I 
 could only see the palm-groves, cacti, olive-trees and 
 mud-walls. 
 
 About half-way between me and the front stood 
 the large uprights of a well. Behind those uprights 
 and an adjacent wall were posted some half-dozen 
 Italian soldiers. On catching sight of my khaki- 
 coloured Tunisian sun-hat one of those soldiers mani- 
 fested great alarm, but was reassured on seeing some 
 of his comrades with me. That rear attack on the 
 23rd had evidently given a bad shaking to the nerves 
 of the entire army. Somewhere at the front a 
 machine-gun worked almost continuously, and was 
 evidently of great assistance, for the Arab fire became 
 very hot whenever it ceased for a moment or two. 
 Unfortunately the Arabs used black powder, so that 
 the smoke from their rifles always betrayed their 
 whereabouts and showed the men in charge of the 
 machine-gun where to direct their stream of lead 
 At the end of the wall behind which I lay was another 
 well with the usual large uprights. One soldier lay 
 here, on watch, looking south. Suddenly he began 
 firing as if for bare life, and soon he was joined by 
 several other soldiers, who also fired. They were 
 firing on Arabs who were trying to flank them.
 
 THE ROAD TO THE FRONT 209 
 
 Those Arabs sent two or three bullets our way. Had 
 they aimed a little lower, they would have enfiladed 
 us and killed or wounded perhaps half-a-dozen soldiers 
 with every shot, for we were crouching all in a row. 
 Close by was an Arab hut which had been converted 
 into a dressing-station. It was nearer the front 
 than any dressing-station that I have ever seen in 
 war, and was well provided with white and Red 
 Cross flags. I went inside as a bullet whizzed past 
 the doorway, very close, and found there some 
 military doctors with their assistants. All seemed 
 very lugubrious, but they gave me a cup of coffee, 
 which I greatly appreciated. I found that I was 
 watched carefully, however, and by and by an 
 officer of the Carabinieri, an affable, tub-shaped man 
 who speaks Arabic, I believe, and is connected with 
 the Secret Service department, approached me, 
 scrutinised me closely, and then asked curtly for my 
 papers. 
 
 I would have felt more horrified than I did at the 
 touch of his hand if I had known beforehand where 
 I was to meet him next. It was on the Bumeliana 
 road ; his face was then dark -purple with excite- 
 ment, his eyes were bloodshot, and he bellowed like 
 a bull as he blazed away with his revolver at a crowd 
 of manacled natives weltering on the ground in a 
 pool of blood. 
 
 Having satisfied this dread functionary, I crawled 
 back along the wall, got out into the road, and made 
 a series of short dashes for the front. I ran first to 
 the shelter of the well uprights, and then to the 
 rear of a cart which had been abandoned in the 
 roadway and which gave a greater touch of desolation 
 to the scene than anything else in sight. From the 
 shelter of this cart I photographed the line in front.
 
 210 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 When I returned to the wall I was surprised by the 
 silence and depression of those Italians, usually so 
 volatile. That group was certainly not a " magnifico 
 quadro di guerra." 
 
 Now that they had to face free men from the 
 Desert, free men with rifles in their hands, the Italian 
 soldiers did not look at all so gay as when they 
 only had to shoot inoffensive people whose wrists were 
 securely tied behind their backs. 
 
 But one cannot, after all, blame the private soldier 
 and sailor for feeling miserable and looking glum under 
 such circumstances. This was hardly the sort of 
 " passeggiata militare " (military promenade) that 
 they had been promised.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SIDI MESSRI : ARABS AGAIN 
 BREAK ITALIAN LINE 
 
 When, on October 23rd, the Arabs broke the ItaHan 
 line at Sharashett, the ItaHans said that they had 
 been taken by surprise. The enemy had approached 
 too near before being recognised. Besides, " he 
 knew every palm-tree," as an Italian put it ; the he 
 of the land was quite familiar to him. And he had 
 taken a number of other unfair advantages. In 
 short, he had not " played the game." 
 
 Just as if to show the invaders that they could 
 break the line anywhere they chose, the Arabs at- 
 tacked a point in the Desert on October 26th, and 
 broke through there also. This point was a villa 
 between the Cavalry Barracks and Bumeliana, called 
 " the house of Genial Bey." Gemal Bey is the 
 Turkish Chief of Staff, and he may have directed 
 the attack himself. 
 
 On account of this compound fracture of his left 
 wing. General Caneva abandoned the whole Sidi 
 Messri-Sharashett line on the 28th, and fell back 
 nearly two miles. But, in spite of this, he claimed to 
 have won a brilliant victory on the 26th. 
 
 The Italian commander offers many explanations 
 for this second breakage. The broken ground in 
 front of Gemal Bey's house made it, says General 
 Caneva, a great temptation to the enemy and a 
 
 211
 
 212 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 great peril to the Italians. He assures us, again and 
 again, that the Turks were " ottimi conoscitori del 
 terreno " (knew the land like the palms of their 
 hands). It can easily be believed that the Turkish 
 officer who led the charge was familiar with what 
 was probably his own back -garden, but surely the 
 Italians had had plenty of time to study it too, for it 
 was, after all, a small garden. It did not contain 
 three acres. 
 
 The bald fact remains that by means of a terrible 
 frontal assault, the Arabs drove the 7th company of 
 the 84.th Infantry out of the house, killing Captain 
 Hombert, the commandant. 
 
 The men from the Desert had, as usual, begun 
 their attack at the most unearthly hour of the twenty- 
 four, at the moment when day is in process of painful 
 birth, and when the sleepy and tired sentinel cannot 
 tell whether that dim, sickly white light comes from 
 the approaching sun or is only a faint radiance ex- 
 haled by the Desert. A ghostly, unfelt wind had 
 sprung up, and was shaking the tops of the palm- 
 trees, which rustled mysteriously, in the early dawn, 
 like the dark, nodding plumes of funeral cars. Cocks 
 crowed ; a dog howled dismally in the distance. 
 There were mysterious and inexplicable tappings 
 and movings in the underwood, and the sentinel's 
 morbid imagination was crowded by phantom shapes 
 from the blood-curdling folk-lore of Sicily. 
 
 At the same instant as the assault began on the 
 house of Gemal Bey, an assault commenced all along 
 the Italian line from Sidi Messri to Bumeliana. It 
 was still dark, and the sand-hills were suddenly 
 outlined against the black sky in a thousand little 
 bursts of flame — caused by the discharge of Turkish 
 and Arab rifles from the edge of the dunes. The
 
 THE BATTLE OF SIDI MESSRI 213 
 
 Desert looked like a public building outlined on some 
 festive occasion in bulbs of electric light. But, alas ! 
 it was no festival. October 26th was to be one of 
 the ugliest days in Italian military history, a blacker 
 day in some respects than Adowa itself. 
 
 JBoom ! Boom ! Boom ! All the Italian batteries 
 responded. All the rifles in the trenches went off ; 
 and the trenches, too, looked in the darkness like a 
 long line of flame. 
 
 Meanwhile, the remnants of the 7th company, 
 which had been expelled from the house of Gemal 
 Bey, turned up near Tripoli city and, in order to 
 explain their presence, told the usual harrowing tale 
 of having been attacked in the rear by " friendly " 
 Arabs. Yes, when their ammunition was exhausted, 
 they had been most treacherously set upon by a 
 pochi Arabi rimasti nei giardini vicini e non disturbati 
 dai nostri 'per V amicizia e la cordialitd che avcvano 
 dimostrata (a few Arabs who had remained in the 
 neighbouring gardens, and who had not been disturbed 
 by our men owing to the friendship and cordiality 
 which they had demonstrated). 
 
 This was the sort of story that contributed to the 
 massacres of October 26th. The peaceful oasis Arabs 
 were again the scape-goats. 
 
 But during the previous three days the soldiers 
 had killed or chased away every Arab in the oasis 
 immediately behind them, while the rest of the 
 " friendlies " were too well watched to be able to 
 move. 
 
 Even General Caneva refused to endorse this 
 second tale of an attack by " friendlies." His re- 
 port leaves us under the impression that the 
 rear attack was made by Desert Arabs who, 
 " favoured by the obscurity," had managed to creep
 
 214 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 unperceived through the Hne in the oasis before 
 that hne had been broken by the frontal attack. A 
 similar view is held by some of his officers, while the 
 " treacherous attack " theory is adopted by none of 
 them. 
 
 We have, for example, the testimony of Captain 
 Tamaio to the same effect, given by that out-and-out 
 jingo Senator, Signor Enrico Corradini, in his " Con- 
 quista di Tripoli." 
 
 " II capitano Tamaio raccontava e diceva che forse 
 gli arabi i quali avevano assalito alle spalle, erano 
 degli stessi venuti coi turchi dal deserto e penetrati in 
 qualche punto attraverso le trincee." (" Captain 
 Tamaio said that perhaps the Arabs who had at- 
 tacked in the rear were some of those who had come 
 with the Turks from the Desert and had managed to 
 cross the trenches at some point.") 
 
 And, just as happened on the 23rd, the Arabs who 
 now invaded the oasis found there many of their own 
 men who had crept in the night before. Signor 
 Corradini is positive on this point. " The Arabs," 
 he says, " poured through this breach like a torrent 
 and united with them others of their people who, 
 during the night, had succeeded at this point in 
 creeping into the oasis by deep, covered paths 
 leading from the Desert. The men who had thus 
 got in posted themselves behind walls, or lay down 
 behind folds of earth, and tried to cut off the 6th and 
 7th companies." 
 
 But the able correspondents of the " Corriere 
 della Sera " say nothing of Arabs having crept un- 
 perceived through the lines. They seem to attribute 
 all the rear attacks that morning to the men who 
 had broken the line at the house of Gemal Bey. 
 
 As I have already stated, the outside attack began
 
 THE BATTLE OF SIDI MESSRI 215 
 
 before dawn, and the Arabs had, as usual, crept up 
 to within two hundred yards of the Italians before 
 the latter had perceived them. Gli arabi erano gid 
 sulla trincea quando i soldati iniziavana il juoco. 
 (The Arabs were already on the trenches when the 
 soldiers began to fire.) 
 
 The same correspondents admit that " the com- 
 pany, unable to resist the onslaught, fell back ; and 
 some hundreds of Arabs penetrated inside the circle 
 of the advanced posts. The cries of the enemy, who 
 came in masses, preceded by cavalry, were infernal." 
 The shouts of "Allah Akbar ! " drowned the screams 
 of the wounded and the moans of the dying. 
 
 In front of them, we are told, bounded an 
 athletic man whom the Italians recognised as a 
 pleasant, gnarled old Jewish pedlar who had been 
 selling tobacco at the front on the previous day, and 
 who had seemed, so far as his limited knowledge of 
 the Italian language permitted, to be overflowing 
 with kindly benedictions on the Italian soldiers. 
 " The fanatics having succeeded in breaking the 
 line, rushed towards the cavalry barracks, spreading 
 themselves out in the oasis and attacking the neigh- 
 bouring trenches in the rear." 
 
 Once more, says General Caneva, " a horde of 
 many hundreds of Arabs poured like a sea into the 
 oasis through the open gap in our line of defence." 
 As a matter of fact, the " horde " only amounted to 
 250 men. 
 
 The firing by the Arabs, who had thus broken the 
 line, on the rear of the 4th and 6th companies caused, 
 in the trenches which those companies occupied, 
 what the Italians describe as " una confusione 
 sanguinosa " (bloody confusion). 
 
 Unfortunately, the natives again made the mis-
 
 216 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 take which had turned their victory of the 23rd into 
 a defeat. Their craze for loot undid them. Hardly 
 had they driven the Italians out of their trenches 
 when they began stripping the dead bodies, and 
 eating with avidity the biscuits and pieces of meat 
 which they found in the pockets. They also appro- 
 priated the knapsacks and all sorts of odds and ends 
 which they discovered about the trenches. 
 
 One Arab who was killed elsewhere that day was 
 found to have on his feet a pair of ill-fitting boots 
 which were afterwards identified as having been 
 taken from the dead body of a corporal who had 
 been killed that morning in the trenches. Somebody 
 else must have got the rest of the corporal's belong- 
 ings ; and when he was shot, the Arab of the boots 
 was probably roaming the oasis on the look-out for 
 some soldier with a pair of socks that would match 
 his newly acquired foot-gear. But the boots prob- 
 ably proved his undoing. He might have escaped 
 had he not been wearing them when the Italians 
 gave chase. 
 
 In the same way many Arabs were shot down in 
 Gemal Bey's villa while industriously stripping 
 corpses instead of trying to meet the counter-attack 
 of the Italians. 
 
 But a great deal of booty must have been carried 
 off into the Desert, for during later attacks some of 
 the Arabs appeared on the horizon dressed as Ber- 
 saglieri, and in some of the soldiers' letters we find 
 bitter complaints about all the spare linen and cloth- 
 ing having been carried off by the Arabs, with the 
 result that the soldiers did not in some cases get a 
 change of linen for months. 
 
 This stripping of the slain was an unpleasant 
 habit of the Arabs, and the Italian soldiers seemed
 
 THE BATTLE OF SIDI MESSRI 217 
 
 to think that it was carried out with a view to insult- 
 ing and shaming the dead. But I do not think that 
 the practice constituted an atrocity. Up to a hundred 
 years ago the stripping of corpses was the rule in 
 European war ; and, in the present instance, the 
 only desire of the Arabs was, in most cases, loot. 
 According to the " Corriere della Sera," they even 
 stripped their own dead. They are now getting so 
 much Italian loot, however, that I should not be 
 surprised if, before the war ends, the Arabs are all 
 dressed in Italian uniforms and provided with 
 Italian Zeiss glasses, water-bottles, capes, rifles, etc. 
 At least, that is the only conclusion I can come to 
 after having read the accounts of unexceptionable 
 witnesses who, like Mr. E, N. Bennett, have been 
 with the Turkish forces in the interior. 
 
 Not only did the rear-attack of the Desert Arabs 
 cause " bloody confusion " in the Italian trenches. 
 A murder committed by one " friendly " also caused 
 consternation. 
 
 The murderer was an old gardener who had been 
 employed in Gemal Bey's villa, but who had latterly 
 taken to cooking food for the officers ; and the victim 
 was Lieutenant Orsi of the 84th Regiment. The old 
 man's daughter had been suffering from fever, and 
 for days previously the young lieutenant had taken 
 a kindly interest in her and given her quinine. Only 
 that morning he had brought her medicine and also 
 a cup of hot coffee from the regimental mess. 
 
 But the girl's father ran amok and seemed to lose 
 his senses, when, a few moments later, he heard the 
 deafening fusillade of the conquering Arabs and the 
 terrible battle-cries of " Allah Akbar ! " and " La 
 ilaha illa-llahu Mohammed rasulu 'llah ! " 
 
 Seizing a knife, he rushed at the man who had
 
 218 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 saved his daughter's life and stabbed him to the 
 heart. But he was bayoneted so quickly that he fell 
 dead across the still warm body of his victim. 
 
 This story, I may remark, has been told in varying 
 keys of indignation and horror by every Italian 
 correspondent in Tripoli. It has been cited as an 
 instance of the blackest ingratitude. 
 
 But we have not got the old gardener's version of 
 it. Is it not possible that the gay young lieutenant 
 was unaware of the fierce jealousy of the Moslems in 
 everything which regards their women ? Did he not 
 know that a Mohammedan father would sooner see 
 his daughter dead than snatched from the grave by 
 a giaour who had looked upon her unveiled face ? 
 
 In all these matters we only get, of course, one 
 side of the case. The other side we never get, for the 
 Mussulmans are too proud to write to our papers 
 about the ill-treatment of their women, and in any 
 case they cannot write, as they are dead. 
 
 Indeed, in the present instance all the members of 
 the old gardener's family are dead. An Italian 
 correspondent tells us that " all his [the gardener's] 
 family was destroyed during the combat " (" tutta la 
 sua famiglia e stata distrutta durante il comhaUimento "). 
 This is rather a mysterious sentence. It lends itself 
 to various interpretations, and to one very black 
 interpretation when we remember the day this 
 occurred — the terrible October 26th — and the scenes 
 of massacre which the oasis was to witness before 
 nightfall. 
 
 In any case, it is singular that the gardener should 
 seek out Lieutenant Orsi while the latter was actually 
 in the trenches " in the middle of his soldiers," 
 unless the old man fancied that some wrong had 
 been done to his daughter. Otherwise he would
 
 THE BATTLE OF SIDI MESSRI 219 
 
 naturally have attacked some one else. I only 
 suggest, of course, that the young lieutenant may, 
 in his ignorance of Moslem prejudices, have quite 
 innocently lifted the girl's veil ; but it is a pity that 
 no investigation could be held. 
 
 I have heard of one case in which an attempt was 
 made to assassinate a European in Tripoli. The 
 would-be assassin was said, of course, to be an 
 emissary of the Young Turk Committee, which was 
 absolutely absurd. The victim received telegrams 
 of congratulation on his escape, from all the munici- 
 palities, newspapers, mayors, and poets in Italy. I 
 am told, however, that the assault was emphatically 
 not because he was pro-Italian. 
 
 But, as before, the Arabs were too few in number 
 and too badly armed to hold their own long, much 
 less to break into the town. Besides, they continued 
 to be over-fond of biscuits. For, having rushed the 
 encampment of the 84th Regiment, they discovered 
 there another consignment of biscuits and at once 
 started to devour them. 
 
 I do not like to give General Caneva any hints 
 that may help him in the prosecution of this iniquitous 
 war, but if he were really crafty he would import 
 some very tasty varieties of hard-baked bread, and 
 leave boxes of them some distance inside the trenches, 
 where they would form a sort of second line of de- 
 fence ! 
 
 Charles Martel noticed this weakness of the Arabs 
 for loot when he warned the Franks against attack- 
 ing those invincible invaders until " they have 
 loaded themselves with the incumbrance of wealth." 
 
 Colonel Spinelli, who was in command at the 
 Cavalry Barracks, slaughtered a good many of the 
 biscuit-eaters and at the same time used his utmost
 
 220 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 endeavours to drive the invaders out of the dense 
 undergrowth at Gemal Bey's house. He sent two 
 squads of the 12th company, the machine-gun 
 section, and all the Lodi cavalrymen, the latter, of 
 course, on foot. All were under the command of 
 Captains Gandolfi and Landolina. This relieving 
 force fought its way forward, step by step, but lost 
 in the contest its captain, who was killed while lead- 
 ing on his men, and one lieutenant. The latter had 
 seized the rifle of a soldier, and was not shot down 
 until he had killed three of the enemy. We hear a 
 good many of these tales of Italian heroism — and 
 the Italian officer is undoubtedly brave — but we 
 never hear a word of Arab heroism. Yet what an 
 exploit that was of 250 Arabs to break the Italian 
 line ; and what a desperate fight they must have 
 made of it afterwards in the oasis ! 
 
 In a house which they had seized, a group of them 
 held out till next day, and finally had to be blown up 
 with dynamite, house and all. Not one of that brave 
 250 escaped, and, even if they had escaped, it is 
 doubtful if they could have told their story in such a 
 way as would appeal to Europeans. For the Arab 
 is untruthful in a naive way. He Avill spin a yarn 
 (which nobody will believe) of having entered Tripoli 
 and driven Caneva back to his ship ; but of his 
 escaping, say, from a burning house surrounded by 
 Italian soldiers he will say nothing. And he may be 
 sure that the Italians will say nothing. 
 
 But it was not Italian courage which saved the 
 situation. It was the naval battery and the Krupp 
 battery which prevented Nesciat Bey from rein- 
 forcing his men who were fighting in the oasis. 
 
 As soon as a gap was opened in the Italian flank, 
 considerable numbers of white-robed Arabs appeared
 
 THE BATTLE OF SIDI MESSRI 221 
 
 on the crest of the distant sand-hills and moved rapidly 
 towards the breach. If they had got in, the fate of 
 the Italian army was sealed. But the quick-firing 
 battery was hurried from the Cavalry Barracks : the 
 Golzio battery, which had only been landed at 
 Tripoli that very day, was rushed out to Bumeliana, 
 and managed to reach that point despite the efforts 
 of two brave and intelligent Arabs concealed in a 
 house, to shoot the horses. At Bumeliana this new 
 battery proved very useful ; and meanwhile the two 
 other batteries, which had been installed at Bumeliana 
 since the occupation, began to shell the advancing 
 Arabs with deadly effect. 
 
 It was impossible for Nesciat Bey to send rein- 
 forcements, considering how frightful was the Italian 
 artillery fire from Bumeliana. The marine battery 
 there, under Captain Savino, swept the Desert and 
 the sand-hills. All the trenches vomited rifle-fire. 
 The splendid field-artillery, which had by this time 
 been placed to the left of the naval battery, prevented 
 the advance of any Turkish reinforcements from 
 the sand-dunes. The great guns of the men-o'-war 
 threw, every moment, shells which burst among the 
 enemy, hurling high into the air mingled clouds of 
 sand and smoke. The machine-guns rattled inces- 
 santly. 
 
 The position of the field-artillery was several times 
 shifted so as to let the Turks have the full benefit 
 of it. Sometimes the wheels of the cannon stuck 
 in the sand, but on these occasions even the officers 
 put their shoulders, literally, to the wheel, and helped 
 their men to move the guns. Amid the explosions 
 one could hear the hoarse cries of the Italian leaders, 
 " Forza ! Alzo ! " Sometimes numbers were called 
 out, — the distances at which the shells were regulated
 
 222 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 to burst. The deadly shrapnel searched everywhere 
 for the enemy. It burst on the edge of the sand-hills, 
 it burst in the valleys behind the sand-hills. Evidently 
 there was no refuge for the Turks, save underground. 
 Yet sometimes a few of them appeared on the crest 
 of a hill. Amid the smoke of a shell one could often 
 see them getting up and running. Nevertheless they 
 continued to fire at the Italian trenches. But their 
 range was too short, for one could see the sand knocked 
 up by their bullets fully a hundred yards from the 
 Italian lines. 
 
 The artillery was well served. It prevented a 
 concentration of the enemy. Whenever a group of 
 Arabs got behind a fold in the ground and began to 
 fire, a shrapnel shell exploded over their heads and 
 very often silenced them forever. When they took 
 refuge in a hut a couple of shells demolished the roof 
 and walls, and as the little garrison ran away, its 
 members were sometimes stricken down by a deadly 
 rain of shrapnel bullets. 
 
 Finally the Arabs were driven back, but not until 
 some of them had, con incredibile temerarietd (with 
 incredible bravery), as General Caneva says, come 
 to within some thirty yards of the batteries. 
 
 Nay, one Arab came so far that he fell into the 
 trench, at the bottom of which he lay on his back, 
 dead, his face still black with passion, his mouth 
 wide open. 
 
 Another, a beardless youth, crept mortally wounded 
 as far as the Italian line under the Kaimakan's house 
 at Henni and laid down his blood-stained head on 
 one of the sacks of sand in front of the trench, as if 
 it were a pillow. One thought of that Arab youth, 
 whom Gibbon tells us of, that youth who, at the 
 siege of Emesa, shouted that he saw a black-eyed
 
 -: rt 
 
 O 
 - 5 
 
 h c
 
 THE BATTLE OF SIDI MESSRI 223 
 
 houri beckoning him on from the gates of Paradise, 
 and charged to certain death. Over a thousand 
 years have passed since then, but we find that 
 marvellous bravery in the Arab still. 
 
 " In this fearful combat," says an Italian writer, 
 " the courage of our troops was prodigious." If so, 
 what must have been the courage of the catiivo, 
 furioso nemico (the bad, furious enemy), as Signor 
 Corradini calls the Arabs? "E incredibile ! " is 
 the only phrase the Italians can think of in this 
 connection. 
 
 There were only 1500 of them attacking at this 
 time an army of 20,000 men. Those 20,000 were 
 entrenched, invisible, and consequently enjoyed an 
 enormous advantage. Several of the photographs 
 which I reproduce in this volume show how strong 
 the Italian trenches are and what excellent cover 
 they afford. By all the laws of war it is futile and 
 mad for 1500 men to attack an entrenched force of 
 even 1000. Here the 1500 not only attacked 20,000, 
 but even succeeded in breaking the Italian line and in 
 causing, two days afterwards, a retreat. 
 
 How the invaders behaved when they were the 
 attacking party and the Arabs were waiting for 
 them, not buried, indeed, in trenches, but just lying 
 on the ground along the edge of the sand-dunes, is 
 told by an Englishman, Mr. E. N. Bennett, who has 
 been on the Turkish side. Mr. Bennett describes 
 how on December 15th two Italian cruisers anchored 
 close to the beach at Sidi Said, near the Tunisian 
 frontier, and sent 150 men ashore. There were in 
 the place only thirty -four Arabs, who concealed 
 themselves amid the sand-dunes. 
 
 " Just as the landing-party commenced to climb 
 the dunes, the Arabs opened fire. The officer.
 
 224 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 badly wounded, fell on his knees, and a second 
 bullet killed him outright. The effect on the 
 Italians was striking. The 150 men simply turned 
 tail and bolted in utter confusion to the beach, 
 hotly followed by thirty-four Arabs, who could 
 no longer be restrained from pursuit. The sailors 
 managed to carry off the body of their officer and 
 six killed and wounded comrades, but they left 
 on the sand 50 picks and shovels, 300 cartridges, 
 and a number of sailors' caps." 
 
 The Turks had seven old guns which were not in 
 action on the present occasion. Against those seven 
 old guns the Italians had a fleet which could throw 
 any number of ten-inch shells among the enemy. A 
 single one of the 522-kilogramme projectiles of the 
 Re Umberto is capable of annihilating a whole brigade 
 with its fragments and its deleterious gases. On 
 land the Italians had at this time seven batteries 
 of magnificent field-guns, nine batteries of mountain- 
 guns, sixteen machine-guns, naval search-lights to 
 sweep the seashore at night, search-lights to sweep 
 the Desert, wireless telegraphy, telephones, all the 
 resources of science. As for the Arabs, they were 
 refused quarter, they were not recognised as belli- 
 gerents, their white flags were not respected. Europe 
 allowed any amount of German ammunition, any 
 number of French aeroplanes, to pass into Italy, but 
 did not (so far as lay within its power) allow a single 
 cartridge to cross the Egyptian or Tunisian frontiers. 
 On the Italian side, in Tripolitania, there are four- 
 and-twenty big brass generals with a general staff. 
 On the Turkish side there is one colonel and a few 
 staff-officers devoid of all technical appliances. 
 
 Not only had the Arabs all these things to contend 
 against on the present occasion. They had also to
 
 THE BATTLE OF SIDI MESSRI 225 
 
 reckon with aeroplanes which swooped over their 
 heads, during the combat, Hke gigantic birds of prey. 
 One felt inclined at times to get up and say to the 
 Italians : " Now, look here, gentlemen, excuse me, 
 but really this is not fair." 
 
 Worst of all, they have to contend with a system 
 of espionage which reaches, I am afraid, into their 
 own camp. Of some of the Levantines who have 
 developed a sudden violent sympathy for the Turks 
 and who have gone to condole with them in the 
 hinterland of Tripoli, I am rather doubtful. Of the 
 swarms of Maltese, Greeks, Frenchmen, and Italians 
 who at Sfax, Tunis, Ben-Garden and along the Tunis- 
 Tripolitan border seem to spend all their time in 
 worming information out of passing travellers, I 
 am not doubtful at all. They are Italian spies. 
 
 In studying this whole war, and especially this 
 particular battle, the reader must not forget the 
 tremendous advantage which the Italians enjoy by 
 reason of their artillery. The Arabs recognise that 
 if their artillery had been even one-tenth as strong as 
 that of their enemy they would have conquered. 
 
 Hence their longing for foreign cannon — a longing 
 which is never likely to be gratified by importation 
 in the usual way, though it is likely to be gratified 
 by the capture of Italian field-pieces. When the 
 German Red Cross lately Journeyed through Tripoli- 
 tania in order to join the Turks, the constant chorus 
 of the Arab villagers when they saw the long train 
 of camels laden with boxes (of medical stores, how- 
 ever) was " Die Deutschen bringen Kanonen . . . 
 Gesegnet seid Ihr, die Ihr Kanonen bringt." (" The 
 Germans bring cannon . . . Blessed be ye who bring 
 your cannon.") 
 
 One fact about this battle may appeal to English- 
 Q
 
 226 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 men. It was not till Sidi Messri that the Italians 
 had got their artillery ashore, and much of it was 
 landed and placed in position while the fight was 
 going on. The invaders had thus to depend mostly 
 on mountain-guns and on the battleships for more 
 than three weeks after their occupation of Tripoli 
 city. If the Turks had got any decent sort of artillery 
 at all they could have pounded General Caneva to 
 pieces in his citadel before those three weeks had 
 come to an end. 
 
 This shows how difficult it would be for any 
 foreign Power to land an expedition in England. 
 Even if the English fleet were beaten, the landing 
 of the invader's artillery would take a long time, 
 and meanwhile the enemy could be annoyed by 
 aeroplanes and overwhelmed by powerful artillery 
 collected from all parts of the Island ; while English 
 torpedo-boats lurking in adjacent harbours would 
 be a perpetual menace to their landing operations. 
 Steam has shortened the distance between England 
 and the Continent, but, thanks to the number of guns, 
 aeroplanes, and other heavy or bulky objects which 
 an army has to bring with it, the actual landing of 
 an expeditionary force in hostile territory is a much 
 more delicate operation now than it was in the days 
 of Julius Csesar or William the Conqueror.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HOW THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE 
 WAS CLOSED 
 
 Thus, thanks to their artillery, the Italians were able 
 to repel the enemy and to defeat Nesciat Bey's bold 
 attempt to outflank and destroy the 84th Infantry. 
 For the destruction of this particular regiment was 
 the object of the Turkish leader's strategy at Sidi 
 Messri, as the destruction of the 11th Bersaglieri 
 had been his object at Sharashett on the 23rd. 
 
 Lieutenant Franchini reoccupied Gemal Bey's 
 house with a portion of the 7th company, but was 
 immediately besieged there. In the broken ground 
 about the house the dismounted cavalry and part 
 of the 12th company also found themselves in dif- 
 ficulties. Besides, the Arabs held some adjoining 
 houses, especially one known as the Sokt. 
 
 A company of sappers was sent to the rescue, but 
 it would have been overwhelmed along with the 
 detachments which it had come to support had not 
 a colonel sent after it from another part of the line 
 the 3rd battalion of the 82nd Infantry Regiment. 
 The 12th company of the 84th was already on the 
 spot, and finally all those forces managed to surround 
 the houses occupied by the enemy, to close the gap 
 in the line, and to prevent any more Arabs from 
 entering. 
 
 This movement could not have been carried out 
 
 227
 
 228 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 had not the 3rd battalion of the 82nd Regiment 
 arrived on the scene in time. It had been sent to the 
 rescue, but had been stopped by Arab irregulars mid- 
 way in the oasis exactly as it had been stopped the 
 day before. To-day, however, Captain Robiony, the 
 commander of the detachment, esegui brillantemente 
 la sua missione (brilliantly carried out his mission), 
 thanks to uno stratagemma riuscito felicemente (a 
 stratagem which succeeded happily). 
 
 " A crowd of some thirty Arabs, mostly women, 
 children, and old people, were passing swiftly along 
 a side road, having abandoned their houses and 
 being anxious to reach the city. The captain 
 stopped them, put them at the head of his column, 
 and made them march towards Henni. The effect 
 was miraculous. All opposition ceased. The houses, 
 the olives, the palms, the fig-trees ceased to vomit 
 fire. This company which would otherwise have 
 been obliged to fight all day like the battalion 
 which had been sent to carry succour to Sharashett 
 on the 23rd, and which did not reach its destina- 
 tion until the evening, when the battle was over, 
 reached Henni at ten o'clock. Those hostages 
 were afterwards seated in a circle on the ground 
 to the right of the soldiers. Incurious, mute, and 
 motionless under their white head-dresses, they 
 seemed to be immersed in a profound and bestial 
 stupor." 
 
 No wonder ! They were probably surprised at 
 their treatment by the nation that has " thrice 
 civilised the world," and which, having used them 
 as a shield against the Arabs firing in the oasis, now 
 kept them at the front as a shield against the Arabs 
 firing from the Desert.
 
 THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE 229 
 
 The above quotation is taken from a description 
 written by one of the best and most Hberal-minded 
 of the Italian writers who deal with this war, Signor 
 Giuseppe Bevione. Signor Bevione thinks that 
 Captain Robiony's idea was " uri idea genialissima" 
 which " would have saved us many lives if it had 
 occurred to somebody else on the 23rd." 
 
 All the Italian writers who describe this incident 
 are enthusiastic about it. But surely it was unfair, 
 since, on the previous two days, every Arab man 
 in that portion of the oasis had been killed or im- 
 prisoned, and every weapon in the Arab houses 
 seized, even the women's scissors and the men's 
 razors. The firing on Captain Robiony's party came, 
 therefore, from desert Arabs who had broken in 
 through the gap at Gemal Bey's house, and who 
 should have been considered as regular Turkish 
 soldiers.^ 
 
 After the gap in their line had been closed it was 
 comparatively easy for the Italians to crush the 
 small number of Arabs who remained in the oasis. 
 There were about forty of them to every Arab, and 
 as most of the natives had used up all their ammuni- 
 
 ^ Like the honest German soldier that he is, Von Gottberg, of the 
 " Lokal-Anzeiger," pours vitriolic contempt on the men responsible 
 for this cowardly trick :— Statt des Tambours, der an die Spitze der 
 Kolonne gehdrte, nahm ein Fiihrer arabische Weiber und Kinder vor 
 die Front und brachte mit ihnen als Schild seine Leute an den Feind. 
 Italienische Korrespondenten berichteten davon unter der Uebersch- 
 rift: "GelungeneKriegslist." (Messaggero vom28. Oktober.) Neutrale 
 Augenzeugen waren entsetzt und empdrt. Zu wundern brauchte sich 
 niemand, der das Bild hinter der Front gesehen hatte, denn die 
 Moral auch der besten Truppe ist nur ein briichig Ding. 
 
 In the " Messaggero," October 28th, under the heading " A Strata- 
 gem which succeeded " {Stratlayemma lUuscito), we are told that 
 when a company of the 82nd Infantry Regiment was sent to the 
 front, the captain had to pass through an unsafe part of the oasis, so 
 he *' adoperd uno strait agemma die 7-msct felicemente. E<jU raccolse 
 una quarantina di Arabi fra nomini e donne ed alcuni abitanti che &d 
 trovavano net yiardini dell' oasi e It costrinse a marciare tnnanzi alia 
 propria compagnia." (He hit upon a plan which succeeded very
 
 230 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 tion, the Sicilians had a great chance of performing 
 the usual " prodigies of valour," with perfect safety 
 to themselves. Colonel Spinelli surrounded one group 
 of Arabs with three half-squadrons of dismounted 
 Lodi cavalry and a detachment from the last company 
 of the 82nd. The Arabs were all killed, or captured in 
 order to be killed later. No mercy was ever given 
 to any of those brave men, though one would think 
 that they had every right to be considered as com- 
 batants. They did not wear a uniform, but neither 
 did the Boers, yet Boers who were captured when their 
 powder was exhausted were never put to death by 
 British troops. 
 
 One tremendous triumph of the Italian arms this 
 day has been loudly trumpeted by the Italian Press, 
 by the officers invalided home, and probably by 
 Gabriele d' Annunzio. This was the capture of la 
 handier a verde del Projeta (the green flag of the 
 Prophet) by the gallant 8th company of the 84th. 
 Soul-stirring descriptions have been written about 
 the manner in which that gallant band of heroes 
 cut to pieces the Arabs who clustered round that 
 sacred emblem and captured the treasure. Even the 
 generally restrained and accurate Corrado Zoli tells 
 us how " a party of the 84th succeeded in taking a 
 green flag of the Prophet carried by a group of Arabs." 
 He omits to tell us that the Arabs were all dead. 
 
 nicely. He collected some forty Arabs, men, women and other 
 inhabitants, whom he found in the gardens of the oasis, and forced 
 them to march in front of his company.) 
 
 This is the same incident. All the Italian papers refer to it with 
 genuine enthusiasm. This fact shows how hopeless are the arguments 
 about the massacres that have been carried on during the last six 
 months between Britishers on the one side and Italians on the other. 
 Both sides differ as to first principles. It would be as hard to per- 
 suade a Sicilian soldier that it is wrong to go out hunting oasis 
 Arabs with a gun as to persuade a Neapolitan cab-driver that he 
 should not ill-use his horse.
 
 THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE 231 
 
 On October 27th the Ministry of the Interior at 
 Rome (which had been holding up all independent 
 accounts of the previous day's fighting and surpassing 
 even its own previous record by the energy with 
 which it wielded the censorial blue pencil) kindly 
 allowed the Italian Press to have a little thing of 
 its own composition. This little thing was headed 
 by the word " Official " and was dated " Tripoli, 
 October 26th, evening." It purported to give a fair 
 summary of the fighting, but totally forgot, for some 
 reason or other, to say a single word about the Italian 
 line having been broken. It certainly did not forget, 
 however, the legend about the famous " handier a 
 verde.'' " The 8th company of the 84th Infantry 
 captured," it says, " in a brilliant bayonet attack, 
 the green flag carried by the Arabs." 
 
 I do not know if any one belonging to the 8th com- 
 pany has been left undecorated, but I believe the true 
 facts of the case are as follows : The green flag was 
 found, after the battle, underneath a heap of Arab 
 dead, piled in front of Gemal Bey's house. There was 
 no brilliant charge on the part of the Italians. In- 
 visible themselves, their artillery and rifle fire had 
 accomplished for them this heroic deed. 
 
 But occasionally the Italians came across Arabs 
 who were not dead. At a cross-roads in the oasis, the 
 12th company of the 84th suddenly encountered a 
 group of Arabs about equal in number to themselves. 
 Had the enemy been unarmed oasis Arabs, the Italians 
 would undoubtedly have pulverised them with great 
 determination and bravery ; the Italian leader 
 would have shown himself to be a combination of 
 Napoleon I and Bismarck ; and his subordinate 
 officers would have proved their right to be called 
 " descendants of the Scipios."
 
 232 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Captain Faitini, a genial and observant officer, 
 who was walking at the head of his column with a 
 monocle in his eye, was at first, indeed, under the 
 impression that these Arabs were the usual batch 
 of dismal " friendlies " coming in to be shot and 
 being meanwhile prodded in the rear by Italian 
 bayonets. But when they had approached nearer 
 he made the horribly unpleasant discovery that the 
 scoundrels were armed. Upon this, " the heirs of 
 ancient Rome " ran like rabbits, losing their leader, 
 Captain Faitini, as well as Lieutenant Bellini and 
 a considerable number of the rank and file. Most 
 of the survivors climbed trees and remained aloft 
 till a company of the 82nd arrived, whereupon the 
 enemy retired. Of course, if Captain Faitini had 
 only had Captain Robiony's idea genialissima of 
 sheltering himself behind a crowd of Arab women 
 and children, he might have been alive to this day 
 and wearing a medal. ^ 
 
 The Lodi cavalry also lost heavily. Among the 
 officers killed were Lieutenants Solaroli and Granatei. 
 Captain Gandolfi was wounded. 
 
 The clearing of the oasis was a succession of 
 
 1 Writing in "The Nation," in March, 1912, Mr. Richard Bagot 
 accused me of having accepted the testimony of Arabs. I answered 
 that when, fifty years ago, Northern Italy was trying to shake off the 
 Austrian yoke, Enghshmen did not swear by the Ballplatz version 
 of events and close their ears to the Italian story. And, as to the 
 incident which I have described above, what would Mr. Bagot have 
 me do ? It is quite certain that 250 Arabs broke the Italian line. 
 Their action was a miracle of bravery. Would Mr. Bagot have me 
 turn a deaf ear to one of these 250 heroes in case I came across him, 
 and say : *' No, no, don't give me your account of the affair. I must 
 see that gentleman up the tree. I must get his version and no 
 other. " 
 
 Unfortunately, it is "the gentleman up the tree" who has a 
 practical monopoly of all the news relating to this war. As a local 
 poet has it : 
 
 Silent the Arab fights, and silent dies. 
 
 His enemy descends the tree, and lies.
 
 THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE 233 
 
 Sidney Street sieges. The Arabs sometimes got 
 into houses, and it needed some strength of mind 
 to tackle them, for they invariably killed somebody 
 before they were disarmed, and then they died 
 happy. In one house there were forty people. Two 
 soldiers got on to the flat roof and fired down the 
 stairs, but as nobody would venture to enter the 
 building it was determined to burn it down. Branches 
 of palm-trees and piles of wood were placed before 
 the door, and a match was applied. The Arabs were 
 all driven out by the flames and were all riddled with 
 bullets as they left. In some cases the Italians could 
 not approach near enough to set the house on fire, and 
 the building had to be smashed by means of cannon 
 or blown up with dynamite. At frequent intervals 
 during the next two days the dull roar of dynamite 
 was the only epitaph of little Arab garrisons holding 
 out with matchless tenacity and laughing at the 
 death of fire when it came. 
 
 And it came to many. Death stalked in those days 
 among the palms of the oasis. Amid the abandoned 
 courts of the ruined houses one continually came 
 across corpses, the arms contorted, the red, trampled 
 fezzes lying at a distance amid the grass. Sometimes 
 one lifted a fez and immediately threw it down again 
 with energy, for it was soaked with blood or a portion 
 of the grey matter of the brain fell out of it. 
 
 Individual Arab soldiers were run to earth in all 
 sorts of queer places, and always owing to the fact 
 that they never attempted to hide, that they in- 
 variably continued " sniping " until their last cart- 
 ridge was gone. Then they rushed out knife in 
 hand and stabbed the first soldier they met. 
 
 But sometimes they were discovered before they 
 had reached this stage. A group of soldiers stationed
 
 234 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 in the oasis heard bullets whizzing past them at 
 regular intervals, and after several of their company 
 had been wounded they proceeded to investigate. 
 They searched, but without result, a white native 
 hut, from which the shots had seemed to come. It 
 was dark and deserted, and they were just about to 
 leave it when a Sicilian sergeant, who had command 
 of the party, noticed something white stirring in 
 a recess like a dog-kennel. Then a sudden, fierce 
 rush on the part of the sergeant and his men ; a short, 
 sharp, violentissimo struggle, in course of which the 
 dog-kennel went to pieces ; and lo ! the panting 
 sergeant stood gripping an Arab whose hair was 
 dishevelled and who had had half the clothes torn off 
 his back. The Arab had a Mauser, still hot, in his 
 hand, and around his waist was a belt holding some 
 fifty cartridges. 
 
 " Now, don't be alarmed ! Don't let us disturb 
 you, sir ! " murmured the Sicilian, with bland irony. 
 
 But the prisoner was absolutely undisturbed. He 
 looked the soldiers tranquilly in the eyes, and though, 
 of course, he read his death-sentence on every hirsute 
 face, he only smiled. They were standing in a little 
 white Arab courtyard, full of sunshine. The sky 
 above was marvellously blue. The palm-trees were 
 filled with birds, which also hopped about the deserted 
 yard, and on top of the wall. Then a deep silence 
 fell while the Sicilians made a few rapid prepara- 
 tions. 
 
 " Pronti ! " (ready), said the sergeant. 
 
 The men levelled their shining gun-barrels. The 
 Arab, still smiling, still contemptuous in his coolness, 
 was placed with his back against a wall. . . . The 
 air was suddenly rent by a violent rattle of musketry 
 which reverberated like thunder through the empty
 
 THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE 235 
 
 house. A big patch of plaster fell from the wall. 
 The birds flew away screaming. The Arab lay on 
 his back on the ground, his legs doubled up under- 
 neath him. His blood was trickling into a little 
 kitchen-sink hard by. His pale brown face was 
 thrown back and the chin was tilted sharply up- 
 wards. The smile was gone. The lips were drawn 
 tightly. The white teeth were exposed. They were 
 like the white teeth of a dog killed when about to 
 bite. 
 
 As the Arabs outside fell back, the Italians made 
 a feeble attempt at a counter-attack in order, it was 
 asserted, a tagliar la fuga al nemico (to cut off the 
 enemy's flight). It was a ludicrous exhibition, re- 
 minding one of a rabbit coming out of its safe burrow 
 in order to cut off the flight of a terrier which had 
 been vainly trying to interview it. 
 
 A strong detachment of the 40th Regiment ad- 
 vanced very slowly and gingerly over the sand, their 
 brown clothes showing up against the grey desert. 
 In front, like a procession of sandwich-men, went a 
 small, dispirited advance guard ; behind trailed the 
 bulk of the company. Slowly they climbed the crest 
 of the nearest sand-dune, the great shells of the 
 battleships ploughing up the desert in front of them. 
 Then they began to fire with quite unusual " dash " 
 — to use a word which has seen a good deal of service 
 in this war — for, happily, the enemy was now out of 
 sight. Another company advanced and gained the 
 dunes towards the sea. It was now ten o'clock, and 
 the battle was at an end. 
 
 Tears of joy now stood in the eyes of the Italians 
 and they embraced one another with enthusiasm. 
 They discussed the taking of the " handiera verde del 
 Prof eta.'* They exchanged tales of heroism and
 
 236 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 adventure. One of them told how in the oasis he 
 had killed five Arabs with his own hand. He did not 
 say whether they were armed or unarmed. Another 
 told a fable of a Turkish officer, disguised as a Moham- 
 medan woman, who had attempted to penetrate to 
 the town, and he detailed at great length how this 
 " woman " had been questioned and what she had 
 said. A third span a long yarn about a bogus Arab 
 funeral which was seized on its way to the town and 
 quickly turned into a real funeral on a large scale, 
 owing to the fact that the coffin was found to contain 
 only Mausers. 
 
 Another man followed this up with a story of how 
 a bogus mendicant, afterwards identified as a Turkish 
 soldier, had got as far as the bread market before he 
 was arrested and deprived of an interesting Arabic 
 letter which he carried. Many tales were told of the 
 effetto terribile of the bombs hurled by the aeroplanes, 
 and of the narrow escapes of the aviators from the 
 enemy's bullets. 
 
 But, of course, the atti di valor e, the " acts of 
 valour," were most discussed — each man candidly 
 telling tales about himself. Sometimes popular 
 officers were spoken of. The deeds of il piu puro 
 eroismo (the most pure heroism) on the part of the 
 officers were numerosissimi. 
 
 Lieutenant Manera of the Carabinieri had retaken 
 the trenches and made 200 prisoners. Armed with a 
 rifle taken from a Turk, Lieutenant di Palma of the 
 Engineers had held out for five hours in Fort Messri. 
 
 Captain Caracciolo had had two horses shot under 
 him. At one time he and three others were sur- 
 rounded by twenty Arabs, but i quattro valorosi 
 (the four brave men) did not lose their presence of 
 mind. With rifle and revolver shots they put to
 
 THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE 237 
 
 flight their assailants, who left five dead and three 
 seriously wounded on the field of battle. 
 
 Horsemen and infantry performed prodigi di 
 valore. They sometimes ran out of the trenches just 
 to have a slap at the enemy, and then returned un- 
 injured. 
 
 All the above stories may be found in the jingoistic 
 " Giornale d' Italia." The other Italian papers 
 (and, of course, the " New York Herald ") contain 
 foolish fabrications about the " cruel pressure " 
 which the Turks brought to bear on the Arabs in 
 order to make them fight : how they kept native 
 families as hostages : how they themselves remained 
 in the rear while forcing the Arabs to advance. 
 
 Legends like these gather around every battle, 
 and their growth is encouraged by every wise com- 
 mander. Sometimes it is the commander himself 
 who starts them. During a critical period at the 
 battle of Liaoyang, I remember a wild rumour being 
 brought to us on Shao-shan Hill by a staff-officer. 
 It was to the effect that General Stoessel had broken 
 out of Port Arthur, was coming north with his army, 
 and might be expected every moment. The Russian 
 soldiers cheered wildly, but Colonel Waters, one of 
 the British attaches, damped the prevalent enthusiasm 
 by an innocent inquiry as to whether Stoessel and his 
 legions were coming in balloons. 
 
 In old times, unknown privates with a poetic 
 imagination invented or dreamt those thrilling 
 stories. Poets afterwards furbished them up, and 
 possibly those furbished-up versions are the only 
 accounts of some ancient combats that have reached 
 us. 
 
 In modern times, however, these legends are 
 generally turned out by War Offices and other official
 
 238 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 abstractions, and have no poetic value whatsoever. 
 The torrent of official mendacity which one en- 
 counters in this war makes one inclined to say that 
 war is falsehood. Some days ago an Italian aero- 
 plane scattered among the Arabs thousands of 
 Arabic leaflets whereon was printed a statement 
 signed by the Italian Prime Minister and the Italian 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the effect that Italy 
 was the richest and most powerful country in Europe 
 and that it was no use for the Arabs to continue the 
 war, since the Italian fleet had just sunk sixteen 
 Ottoman transports ! 
 
 The Italian losses in this engagement were par- 
 ticularly heavy, especially among the officers. The 
 most distinguished of the officers that fell was Captain 
 Pietro Verri of the General Staff, who had been con- 
 nected with the Secret Service Bureau in Tripoli. 
 Captain Verri had been a Secret Agent in Eritrea, 
 Aden, China, Trieste, and Tripoli, and he enjoyed 
 among all who knew him a great reputation for 
 bravery and for ability. Just before the bombard- 
 ment he had come to Tripoli under the name of 
 Vincenzo Parisio, and under the title of " Inspector 
 of the Italian Post-offices." His object was, of 
 course, to collect all the information he could on the 
 distribution of the Turkish forces and the armament 
 of the Turkish forts. The Italian War Office had 
 already got the fullest details on those points, but it 
 wanted to verify them and bring them up to date. 
 Sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by Signor 
 Saman, the dragoman of the Italian Consulate, 
 Captain Verri had travelled on horseback through 
 all the country around Tripoli, from Zenzur on one 
 side to Tagiura on the other, and had got the most 
 exact details of all the batteries and all the forts.
 
 THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE 239 
 
 I may add, by the way, that similar postal or 
 other " inspectors " were, I dare say, sent by the 
 Italian Government to Derna, Benghazi, and all the 
 other places on the coast, while " scientific " and 
 " commercial " missions were certainly sent inland. 
 All these " missions " were allowed by the Turks to 
 go where they liked, nevertheless Italy was, ac- 
 cording to her own indignant statement, reluctantly 
 forced into war on account of the difficulties thrown 
 by Turkey in the way of her commercial exploitation 
 of Tripolitania. 
 
 Captain Verri seems to have, at this time, worked 
 hand in glove with Vice-Consul Galli, the pompous 
 little representative of Italy in Tripoli. Galli, who 
 was himself engaged almost entirely in Secret Service 
 work, made much of his mysterious guest whose 
 visits appealed to his Florentine thirst for intrigue, 
 masks, midnight conferences, and melodramatic 
 situations. 
 
 Shortly before the bombardment, the Italian Vice- 
 Consul was standing with a journalist on the terrace 
 of his Consulate watching the lights on the Italian 
 battleships when Signor Galli was hailed by a tall, 
 thin, elegantly dressed civilian, with a nervous, 
 energetic manner. Thereupon Galli turned with his 
 most mysterious air towards the receptive corre- 
 spondent and said, " Never tell anybody about this 
 person whom you have often seen with me. A single 
 word might cost him his head." The stranger was, 
 of course, " Vincenzo Parisio." 
 
 This spy left Tripoli with the Consul, but soon 
 returned as Captain Verri of the General Staff. He 
 was the first to land in Tripoli, having come ashore 
 before the others, at Fort Hamidie in order to see if 
 the old torpedo-station there had been destroyed by
 
 240 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the bombardment. He afterwards drew up the plans 
 for the first defence of TripoH by the bluejackets. 
 But though he first fortified Bumeliana and fixed the 
 lines for the future trenches, he was strongly in 
 favour of an advance into the Desert. He thought 
 that the scattered bands of Turks could easily be 
 captured or dispersed before they had had a chance 
 of rousing the Arabs. There is something to be said 
 in favour of this view. Either Italy was or was not 
 in a condition to take some part of Tripolitania 
 beyond a few towns on the sea-coast. If she was, 
 she should have advanced. If she was not, then she 
 should not have made war. But General Caneva 
 believed in slow methods, and refused to be guided 
 by the advice of his more enterprising subordinate. 
 
 There was something of a mystery about the 
 death of this capable officer — I mean, of course, 
 Captain Verri. The most important object of his 
 ante-bellum mission to Tripoli was to ascertain if the 
 Arabs would assist the Turks, and he is said to have 
 reported that they would not. The events of October 
 23rd came, in consequence, as a great disappoint- 
 ment to him, and it is said that, as a result of that 
 disappointment, he committed suicide on the 26th. 
 
 But the explanation given by his friends is this : 
 Though exceptionally well qualified by nature to 
 discharge the duties of a Secret Service agent, he 
 had never liked that work very much and had always 
 desired to command men in the field, to lead soldiers 
 against the enemy. I dare say that most military 
 officers who are ordered to devote themselves to 
 espionage feel very often in the same way. 
 
 On the morning of the 26th he happened to be the 
 guest of Colonel Fara at Henni, and during the 
 progress of the fight he saw a detachment of the
 
 THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE 241 
 
 enemy moving around towards Sharashett in order 
 to outflank the Bersaglieri. Colonel Fara deter- 
 mined to send to his left a company of marines from 
 the Sicilia, and Captain Verri begged for permission 
 to lead them. The permission was given, but Captain 
 Verri exposed himself needlessly in the trenches and 
 was shot dead, no less than twenty of his little detach- 
 ment being killed or wounded. 
 
 The heavy losses among the Italian officers were 
 probably due to their rashness in exposing them- 
 selves, as well as to the probable fact that the Turks 
 and Arabs had been instructed to pick off as many 
 officers as possible. It was always easy to distinguish 
 the Italian officers by their uniform, while, on the 
 other hand, it was impossible to make out who were 
 the leaders of the Turks, for each Turkish officer 
 wore an Arab dress, had a rifle like his men, and 
 was in no wise distinguishable from the rank and file. 
 Moreover, the Italian officers stood up in the trenches, 
 while the Turkish officers wisely availed themselves 
 of every inch of cover. 
 
 Once during the battle of Sidi Messri an Arab, at 
 the end of a line of the enemy advancing against 
 Henni, was observed to wave a rifle as if it were a 
 sword and to give at the same time some commands 
 to his companions. His action cost him his life, for 
 the Italian sharp-shooters at once concluded that he 
 was an officer, and never rested till they had picked 
 him off. Beneath the rough white dress which 
 covered each of the Arab dead, was sometimes found 
 the dress of a Turkish officer. 
 
 Turks and Arabs waste ammunition frightfully, 
 but in comparison with the Italians they fired on 
 this occasion with great care and never at random. 
 The Italians consoled themselves by saying that this
 
 242 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 was owing to the fact that they had not got too much 
 ammunition. The aviators reported that whenever 
 an Arab fell, one of his companions always took the 
 fallen man's cartridge-belt, and this confirmed the 
 invaders in the belief that the enemy was near his 
 last cartridge. But, on the other hand, the Arabs 
 shot in the oasis were sometimes found to possess a 
 very great quantity of ammunition, and, as a matter 
 of fact, the Turks in Tripolitania have cartridges to 
 burn. 
 
 Thus ended the battle of Sidi Messri. What was the 
 result of this great Italian " victory " ? 
 
 " To-day," writes one Italian author on the 28th, 
 " in consequence of the victorious action of the 
 26th, all the east front has been brought back 
 about a mile and a half towards the city so as to 
 form a straight line from the tombs of the Kara- 
 manli to the Marabout of Sidi Messri. . . . We 
 have thus abandoned to the enemy . . . two forts 
 (Messri and Hamidie) and one most important 
 position (Henni), also a large stretch of land very 
 near Tripoli whence the enemy can fire with cannon 
 on the city, and all our dead buried on the 23rd." 
 
 And this was the result of the " grandioso suc- 
 cesso " of the Italians, of the " vittoria grande per 
 noi" of " Za plus grande et la plus decisive de nos 
 victoires,^' as Signor Marinetti calls it. 
 
 The terror of the night following this " victory " 
 is difficult to describe. " Orrbile notte," wails one 
 Italian impressionist, " piena di tragedie ignote, 
 quella in cui le ombre si aggirano sui campi della 
 morte .' " (" Horrible night, night full of unknown 
 tragedies, night in which the shades wander around 
 on the fields of death ! ")
 
 THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE 243 
 
 Horrible, indeed, for this was not only the night of 
 the victory (with inverted commas) : it was also the 
 night of the massacres (without inverted commas), 
 and every road, pathway, and garden in the oasis 
 was stre^vn with dead bodies — the bodies of innocent 
 men, women, and children. 
 
 To add to the confusion and horror, a violent 
 artillery - fire began at half -past ten. The corre- 
 spondents in town thought at first that it was thunder. 
 Then they felt sure that the Arabs had begun a 
 furious night-attack at Sidi Messri. But it was not 
 thunder and it was not a night -attack. It was 
 entirely an Italian cannonade, and it was due to the 
 appearance of small parties of the enemy, who were 
 discovered by the search-lights, which now turned 
 night into day on the Desert in front of Sidi 
 Messri. 
 
 Those parties waved white flags and signified that 
 they only wished to take away their dead and 
 wounded. The Italians deeply sympathised. " E 
 probabile pero," says one tearful writer who describes 
 the scene, " che alia spicciolata, con tenace amore dei 
 proprii cari perduti, piu d' uno di essi sia ritornaio 
 ancora nella nottc al pietoso ufficio." ("It is probable 
 however, that, with strong, unwavering love for their 
 own dear lost ones, more than one of the Arabs had 
 again returned in the night to render the last sad 
 offices to the bodies of the slain.") 
 
 Bursting with sympathy, the Italians allowed the 
 Arab ambulances to approach — and then opened on 
 them a terrific artillery and rifle fire which (for the 
 invaders had noAv got the range accurately, and the 
 splendid search-lights made the aiming of the guns 
 very easy) strewed the Desert with fresh corpses. 
 The Arabs fell back in confusion, but they evidently
 
 244 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 thought that a mistake had been committed, for 
 they did not return the fire, and after a while they 
 advanced again. Once more the " heirs of ancient 
 Rome " allowed the ambulance-bearers to approach. 
 Once more they threw the search-lights on them, 
 and opened a heavy fire with their batteries and 
 their rifles. 
 
 Again some of the Arab ambulance-men fell ; 
 while the survivors fled and did not attempt to 
 return that night. 
 
 Few of the Italians could believe that mere 
 Mohammedans would twice run such a risk simply 
 in order to give a cup of cold water to a dying friend 
 whose shrieks had reached them as he writhed in the 
 agonies of thirst, or to give burial with Islamic rites 
 to their heroic dead. They concluded, therefore, 
 that un grande capo arabo (a great Arab chief) was 
 among the slain and that it was his body which the 
 enemy wished to remove. 
 
 As for the Arab wounded, if they were inside the 
 Italian oasis, their cries and moans were soon stopped 
 by a bullet. If they lay out in the Desert, the Italians 
 neither helped them themselves nor allowed others 
 to help them. 
 
 They let them die without a cup of water 
 under the piles of corpses which stifled them ; and 
 an impressionist writer — Tripoli was at this time full 
 of Italian impressionists and futurists, for this was 
 their war, they had brought it about — cleverly 
 describes how, as they lay powerless on their backs, 
 they looked up vainly with glazing eyes al cielo im- 
 passibile del Profeta (at the impassible sky of the 
 Prophet). 
 
 Carried into the Italian lines by the night-wind 
 from the Desert, their delirious shrieks of agony
 
 THE GAP IN THE ITALIAN LINE 245 
 
 intensified the horror of a scene which was already 
 horrible enough. Quite proper, of course, to treat 
 in this way the " bad, furious enemy " who had 
 given so much trouble to the good Italians ! 
 
 For military reasons the dead bodies of friends 
 and foes are always examined very carefully in war, 
 and in this case an examination was made of the 
 Arabs who had fallen in front of the trenches, as 
 well as of the Italians, Turks, and Arabs who had 
 fallen inside the oasis. Opposite the villa of Gemal 
 Bey the Arab dead were piled so high that they 
 formed a little wall from behind which their living 
 comrades had fired. It was underneath this pile, by 
 the way, that the famous " green flag of the Prophet " 
 had been " captured." Practically all the dead at 
 this point were Arabs. Only one corpse had a 
 Turkish uniform underneath his Arab dress. On 
 the person of each native was a little " soldier's 
 manual," and a book of simple instructions regard- 
 ing the rifle. This showed that the combatants were 
 irregular Arab soldiers in the redif. 
 
 The attack must have been made by some 1500 
 Arabs from Tarhuna, Misurata, Tagiura, Agelat, and 
 Gharian. The Italians pretend to believe that the 
 enemy were 4000 strong, but, even if he were, he 
 dislodged from an entrenched position a force five 
 times superior to himself. In modern military history 
 such a feat deserves to rank with Plevna and 
 Silistria. 
 
 As for the Italians who had fallen in the oasis, it 
 was seen that many of them had been killed with 
 knife-wounds at close quarters. There had evidently 
 been many hand-to-hand fights in the palm-gardens ; 
 and, wherever it was a case of man against man, the 
 Italian, unsupported this time by his battle-ships,
 
 246 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 his artillery, and his aeroplanes, had invariably got 
 the worst of it. 
 
 Surely, when they read the report of this battle, 
 the statesmen of Rome must have regretted their 
 precipitancy in coming to death-grips with a people 
 like this — the people whose perpetual and turbulent 
 freedom is referred to in a text of Scripture and in 
 a line from Horace — the race before which even " the 
 legions of Augustus melted away in disease and 
 lassitude."
 
 PART IV 
 THE MASSACRES
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BURNING OF THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 
 
 I HAVE already touched on the "purging" of the oasis, 
 that is, the kilhng of nearly all the male Arabs above 
 thirteen or fourteen years of age in the Italian palm- 
 gardens. Those Arabs were killed or exiled because 
 they were suspected of having fired on the Italian 
 rear or of being capable of doing so in the future. 
 As I have already explained several times, the mistake 
 arose from the fact that on several occasions the 
 Arabs from the Desert had crept inside the Italian 
 lines and attacked those lines in the rear. They 
 were mistaken at first for " friendly " Arabs who 
 had " treacherously " risen, but they were not 
 friendly Arabs. I have shown by extracts taken 
 from the reports of the Italians themselves that the 
 men who fired on the Italian rear were Arab auxili- 
 aries who had come from a distance with the Turks. 
 On the 25th and 26th, however, the Italians de- 
 liberately killed many peaceful oasis Arabs whom 
 they knew to be innocent. There was a carnival 
 of killing, a regular pogrom. These massacres had 
 been going on pretty steadily for days, but they 
 reached their grand climax on the morning of October 
 26th. The reasons are evident. They are as follows : 
 All sorts of rumours had been circulating in the 
 Italian camp the night before. It was reported that 
 the mysterious head of the Senussi had proclaimed a 
 
 249
 
 250 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 holy war, and that 40,000 well-armed Senussi were 
 on their march to Tripoli. It was recognised that the 
 affair of the 23rd had only been a trifling recon- 
 naissance, but that next time Nesciat Bey would 
 mean business. And every indication pointed to the 
 fact that " next time " meant the 26th or 27th. It 
 was known that the forces which had attacked the 
 Bersaglieri in the oasis on the 23rd, and which were 
 reported by the Italians to have been almost swept off 
 the face of the earth, had only gone back about half a 
 mile and were preparing another attack. The aviators 
 discovered that fresh forces were marching from the 
 interior towards Tagiura at the eastern extremity of 
 the oasis, and the junction of these two Arab columns 
 was expected to take place on the 26th. From the 
 top of Messri fort other small columns of the enemy 
 were seen afar off in the Desert. 
 
 All these circumstances combined to create terror 
 and desperation in the Italian ranks, and the climax 
 was reached when, on the morning of the 26th, the 
 Turko-Arab force again attacked and again broke 
 the Italian line. 
 
 For the Italian army this was near being the end 
 of all things. The oasis was again flooded with 
 Desert Arabs, and, as we have already seen, matters 
 were well-nigh hopeless. The Italians were trying 
 desperately, but vainly, to close the open wound in 
 their flank, the wound through which the enemy's 
 steel was being forced deeper and deeper. A straw 
 might turn the scale. A handful of oasis Arabs 
 attacking in the rear might bring about a disaster to 
 which Adowa would be as but a street accident, and 
 which the House of Savoy could hardly hope to survive. 
 
 To prevent this rear attack, the Italians killed off 
 most of the innocent oasis Arabs in their rear.
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 251 
 
 General Caneva's proclamations did not, it is true, 
 order a general massacre, but those proclamations 
 were interpreted in such a way that a general mas- 
 sacre took place. 
 
 " The orders were issued, therefore," says a well- 
 informed English eye-witness, writing in " Black- 
 wood's Magazine " for December, 1911, that the oasis 
 should be immediately cleared, and that all male 
 Arabs found with arms in their hands, or who were 
 shown, from circumstantial or other evidence, to 
 have been implicated in the rising, should be sum- 
 marily executed. The orders were sufficiently lax 
 and general to permit of a sharp and salutary lesson, 
 as the Arabs had already been warned by proclama- 
 tion that the possession of a rifle would be considered 
 a capital offence. Caneva and his staff, however, 
 had not calculated upon what this order meant to 
 troops that had just seen their mutilated dead, who 
 believed that they were about to be attacked 
 treacherously in the rear, and who had ever over 
 them the shadow of Adowa. The carrying out of 
 the duty necessitated the breaking up of the troops 
 into small detachments, which loosed the control 
 upon the inflamed passions of the soldiery. Nor did 
 the Staff know how or when to place a period upon 
 the license they thus gave the troops. The result 
 was a retribution upon the Arabs, which will live in 
 the memory of Tripolitania for generations, and 
 which will react for many a year upon the perpe- 
 trators themselves. It is not desirable here to go 
 into the details of the days of bloodshed that swept 
 through the Italian portion of the oasis. War is 
 horrid and merciless, and its horror and mercilessness 
 is intensified when killing is done by men actuated 
 by terror."
 
 252 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 " The Times " correspondent said : 
 
 " The severity with which the Italian army has 
 exacted retribution upon the suburban Arabs who 
 rose last Monday might justly be described as indis- 
 criminate slaughter. The two quarters from which 
 the Arabs assailed the Bersaglieri in the rear have 
 been turned into human abattoirs. It has been a 
 miserable business. . . . The Italians having set 
 themselves to cow the Arabs, the flood-gates of blood- 
 lust were opened, and in many instances the men 
 got beyond control and the innocent suffered with the 
 guilty. The tale of retribution has been shockingly 
 heavy. . . . The memory of this awful retribution 
 will take long to live down. Even making allowance 
 for the exigencies of the military situation, there is 
 every possibility that the hideous severity of the 
 retribution will give rise to a war of sanguinary and 
 pitiless reprisals upon unfortunates who fall by the 
 way. War is merciless. I have witnessed one of its 
 most merciless phases. One hardly knows to what 
 limits the elasticity of the phrase ' military 
 exigencies ' will be stretched in the twentieth 
 century." 
 
 " For three days," said the " Daily Chronicle " 
 correspondent, " Italian troops shot down all whom 
 they met without trial. Innocent and guilty were 
 wiped out, and many women and children perished 
 in the confusion. Including those killed in the 
 fighting, 4000 Arabs perished between Friday and 
 Monday last week. . . . Orders were given by the 
 authorities to exterminate all Arabs found in the 
 oasis, and to make a systematic house-to-house 
 search for arms and ammunition. For three days 
 this dread task continued. Parties of soldiers pene- 
 trated throughout every portion of the oasis, shooting
 
 i 4
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 253 
 
 indiscriminately all whom they met, without trial, 
 without appeal." 
 
 " Who could ever have imagined what we have had 
 to look on at ? " said M. Cossira, the special corre- 
 spondent of the Paris "Excelsior." "The rush to 
 assassinate — the hecatombs of old men, women and 
 children, the executions by heaps — the piles of 
 mangled flesh smoking under the wool of the bur- 
 nouses, like a human incense burnt before the ruined 
 altar of a dearly bought victory ! 
 
 " Whilst going away from the cavalry post I came 
 upon a hundred corpses thrown against a wall, 
 where they had been shot down, in horrible attitudes, 
 all mixed up together. I hurried away to escape the 
 sight, and passed an Arab village. A native family 
 was grouped there round a burnt-out fire. They had 
 evidently been about to eat, but now they were all 
 dead. One little girl had thrust her head into a box 
 so as not to see anything ; another had fallen back 
 on to a cactus bush." 
 
 Mr. Ellis Ashmead - Bartlett, who represented 
 Renter, wired as follows : 
 
 "On October 24th, 25th, 26th, and 27th, the 
 troops proceeded to make a clean sweep of all that 
 portion of the oasis of which they held possession. 
 There is no certain proof that any Arabs in the 
 west end of it ever took part in the rising ; but, 
 even admitting that there were, there were vast 
 numbers of men, women, and boys who were perfectly 
 innocent, and of these nearly all the men, and even 
 the boys above a certain age, were shot, while un- 
 doubtedly many women perished in the confusion, 
 and in one instance I know soldiers without an 
 officer were only restrained from shooting at a woman 
 by the intervention of a foreigner.
 
 254 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 " But even supposing these wholesale executions 
 were justified as condign punishment and as a 
 salutary lesson to evil-doers, the manner in which 
 they were carried out cannot be too strongly con- 
 demned, and it is only fair to say that many Italian 
 officers, looking at the affair calmly after its occur- 
 rence, are of the same opinion. 
 
 " For four days parties of soldiers scoured every 
 portion of the oasis, shooting indiscriminately every 
 Arab they met. . . . The blood of the men was up, 
 and naturally so ; they had seen their comrades 
 shot from behind, and even, it is reported, mutilated ; 
 but of the latter fact I could not ascertain the exact 
 truth ; and with their excitable temperament and 
 highly developed imagination they suspected every 
 living soul to be guilty ; and decided to punish all 
 accordingly. Thus for four days gangs of soldiers, 
 often without officers, shot every one." 
 
 In addition to this, Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett wired 
 from Malta a description of a ride he had taken in 
 company with Mr. Grant of the " Daily Mirror " and 
 Mr. Davis of the " Morning Post." This statement 
 was afterwards signed in the British Consulate by all 
 three gentlemen, Mr. Grant and Mr. Davis making, 
 however, reservations with regard to cases which 
 they had not seen themselves, 
 
 " On leaving the town," says Mr. Ashmead- 
 Bartlett, " the first object which met our eyes was a 
 group of from fifty to seventy men and boys who 
 had been caught in the town on the previous day, or 
 on October 25th, and shot without trial of any sort. 
 The majority of them were caught without arms, and 
 were executed under a general order issued by the 
 Governor, General Carlo Caneva, to exterminate all 
 Arabs found in Tripoli or in the oasis. They had
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 255 
 
 been led to this spot with their hands tied behind 
 their backs and shot down indiscriminately. This 
 mass of corpses lying in all attitudes in a solid mass 
 piled on one another could not have covered a space 
 greater than fifteen yards wide to five deep. . . . 
 
 " The next object which struck our eyes was the 
 body of a very old man lying in the centre of the 
 road. From the attitude in which he lay he had 
 evidently been shot while running or walking up the 
 road. Every few yards we came across fresh corpses 
 lying in every conceivable attitude just where they 
 had been shot down, but not all had been killed in 
 this manner, for some bore evident traces of having 
 been bayoneted or clubbed to death with the butt- 
 ends of rifles. Many had evidently only been wounded 
 and had crawled to the side of the road, there to 
 die. 
 
 " The road from the town to the desert, which had 
 formerly been alive with Arabs — men, women, and 
 children — ^was now completely deserted except for 
 the dead. The houses on either side had been broken 
 into and their occupants murdered therein or taken 
 outside and shot. In the side tracks running off 
 from the main road were many bodies, some lying 
 alone, others in small groups, and in one spot lay two 
 Jews who had shared the fate of almost all the in- 
 habitants of the outlying gardens and houses. 
 
 " During the whole progress over a distance of two 
 miles we never saw a single living Arab — man, 
 woman, or child. Lying just outside the outpost 
 line, was another group of about fifty men and boys, 
 who had evidently been taken out there on the 
 previous day and shot en masse. Several of them 
 had been bayoneted or slashed with swords, and one 
 man had his head completely smashed in — a wound
 
 256 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 which could only have been inflicted by the butt-end 
 of a rifle. 
 
 " Then we rode on out to the lines of the Bersaglieri, 
 who were holding a position known as a fort, but 
 we did not stay there long, because the troops had 
 received orders to evacuate their position and to take 
 up another closer to the town. The fort was thus 
 abandoned and blown up. At the same time another 
 position, a large white building known, I think, as 
 the Agricultural College, was abandoned by the 
 Italians. It had been held ever since the occupation 
 of Tripoli, and there were several Arabs who stayed 
 there with the troops, fetching them water or grazing 
 goats in the Desert just beyond, returning to the lines 
 at nightfall. I have also frequently seen a number 
 of children round this building. 
 
 " Now, these men could not have been guilty of an 
 attack on the Italians, because they had been living 
 under their observation ever since the occupation, 
 and had they been guilty they should have been 
 shot on the 23rd, the day of the outbreak in the 
 town, and should certainly not have been allowed 
 to roam in and out perfectly free for four days. 
 When the troops evacuated the position one of 
 these Arabs followed them, evidently intending to ac- 
 company them into the town for safety. Suddenly, 
 when he was only about thirty yards away, about 
 a dozen soldiers turned around and commenced to 
 take pot-shots at him. He attempted to run for 
 shelter behind one of the evacuated entrenchments, 
 but he was evidently wounded, for he could only 
 walk. Then one of the soldiers had another shot, 
 and he fell. They closed in on him, but he was 
 evidently dead, for there was no further firing. 
 This I will call for reference ' Case No. 1.'
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 257 
 
 " Case No. 2 was that of another very old Arab. 
 He had been sitting most of the afternoon up against 
 the wall of the college and saw what passed. He 
 made no effort to escape, and the soldiers went back 
 and shot him in like manner from a considerable 
 distance as he sat against the wall with his head 
 bowed as if too weary of life or too apathetic to 
 survive the massacre of his friends and relatives. 
 Then we rode past the mass of bodies lying just in 
 front of the trenches. A party was at work digging 
 a trench in which to bury them. Soldiers and sailors 
 and some Italian journalists were standing around. 
 There was talking and laughing, and photographs 
 were being taken. Then we once more took the 
 same road past the Cavalry Barracks leading to the 
 town. 
 
 " Case No. 3. Suddenly we heard a shot and saw 
 a figure emerge from a house and apparently fall 
 in the middle of the road about one hundred yards 
 ahead of us. Mr. Grant said to me : ' Look, I believe 
 there is a soldier or an Arab lying down to take a 
 shot at us.' I replied : ' No, I don't think so ; I 
 don't know what it is, but I certainly saw it move.* 
 Then we rode up, and we saw an Arab cloak lying 
 in the road out of which had crawled a young Arab 
 to a cottage to the right of the road. He was lying 
 by the door, and was bleeding profusely and near 
 death, so it seemed to me. Hearing our approach, 
 he had evidently tried to crawl for shelter. 
 
 " Just then an Arab woman, doubtless his wife, 
 came running from the cottage from which he had 
 first emerged from the left of the road with a bowl 
 in her hand, but when she saw us coming she ran in 
 again. We could do nothing, so we passed on wonder- 
 ing who had shot the man, as we had seen no soldiers, 
 s
 
 258 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 but, rounding a bend, we came upon a detachment 
 under an officer. It was they who had taken him 
 from his house and shot him before the eyes of his 
 wife and then left him to die by the roadside. 
 
 " Cases 4, 5 and 6. Just as we reached this de- 
 tachment, they met three perfectly harmless-looking 
 Arabs walking up the road and carrying no weapons. 
 They were clad in clean white robes, and evidently 
 men of high class. It was obvious at a glance that 
 they were not men of the fighting class, but peaceful 
 and well-to-do owners of property in the oasis, and 
 the last men to risk their lives and their property 
 in a futile insurrection. One of them looked about 
 fifty years of age and another about thirty, and the 
 third was a youth in his 'teens, I should judge. 
 But appearances availed them naught. They were 
 seized by order of the officer, and without a word of 
 interrogation or explanation, for the Italians had 
 no interpreter with them, unless one of their own 
 number could speak Arabic, an extremely unlikely 
 contingency, they were taken inside a cottage and 
 shot against the wall, not by a regular volley, but by 
 a series of isolated shots. 
 
 " These are the six instances of men being shot 
 before my eyes on the fourth day after the so-called 
 insurrection. 
 
 " Although there was no fighting on the afternoon 
 of October 27th, there was continual firing in all 
 parts of the oasis. This was entirely produced by 
 small bodies of soldiers, in many instances without 
 officers, roaming throughout and indiscriminately 
 massacring all whom they met. We must have 
 passed the bodies of over one hundred persons on 
 this one high road, and as similar scenes were enacted 
 through the length and breadth of the oasis some
 
 f^
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 259 
 
 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." 
 
 " Steps have been, and are being taken," writes 
 Mr. Bennet Burleigh, the war-correspondent of the 
 " Daily Telegraph " (Nov. 7th), " to ensure us 
 greater tranquillity in Tripoli. The oasis of palms 
 is being ruthlessly cleared of its population of villagers, 
 small farmers and peasants. Very many have been 
 killed and their corpses bestrew the fields and roads. 
 The scent of war's scythe poisons the air. An aged 
 Arab declares that 4000 have been slain, and with 
 them at least 400 women and many children. Say 
 half that number, and still you have a fearful, sangui- 
 nary monument of the horrors of war and conquest, 
 if not of something worse, and of a massacre of the 
 strong, the weak, of aged greybeards, and the young. 
 Many have unquestionably been wantonly murdered. 
 That is not always preventable in war, but in the 
 twentieth century, and in civilised warfare, it is 
 quite without the pale to shoot men and lads whole- 
 sale on sight without trial and because of their skin 
 and dress. 
 
 " I have seen a crippled beggar — a man whose 
 limbs were so deformed that he had to move by 
 pushing along the ground in a sitting position — 
 deliberately shot at near the Austrian Consulate. 
 Dozens of other natives I have seen herded and 
 corralled and others fired upon in broad daylight. 
 But there are half a dozen colleagues, English, French, 
 and German — who assert that they have seen Arabs 
 fusilladed in groups, and have even ' snap-shotted ' 
 instances where soldiers and officers indiscrimin- 
 ately fired upon these unfortunate natives. At any
 
 260 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 hour of the day you may see gangs of wretched 
 natives being marched through the streets as prisoners. 
 These are subsequently dealt with by the carabinieri, 
 imprisoned — or otherwise. The daily captures effected 
 in town and suburbs of men, women, and children 
 run into hundreds, nay thousands." 
 
 " Owing to the helplessness of the officers," wired 
 the Tripoli correspondent of the " Frankfurter 
 Zeitung," " a wild man-hunt began. The troops were 
 even allowed to fire on women and children. Thus 
 far, at least, 3000 natives have been executed or 
 shot down. ... In the execution of these measures 
 I witnessed myself unheard-of atrocities." 
 
 " The Arabs were shot a little everywhere," 
 remarks an Italian correspondent lightly. "At 
 Bumeliana there was an enormous pit, into which 
 one descended by a narrow path, a pit dug in the 
 hot, morbid earth, a gash in the ground which had 
 the sinister aspect of a gigantic wound. The Arabs 
 were thrown (alive) into this pit from above. Then 
 a soldier descended, and one heard a series of dull 
 explosions as if there was firing going on in the 
 bowels of the earth. The soldier ascended — alone." 
 
 Whole sections of the suburbs were surrounded 
 by soldiers who hunted through the huts, houses, and 
 date-gardens exactly like sportsmen hunting big 
 game. Not only did they shoot at every Arab whom 
 they met. Blinded by perspiration and panic, they 
 also fired at one another in mistake, and these ac- 
 cidents gave rise to fresh massacres. 
 
 In many instances the soldiers were received with 
 rifle and revolver bullets on the thresholds of native 
 houses, which they had come to search. The inhabit- 
 ants may have been leagued with the Turks, but it 
 is quite possible that some of them were innocent
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 261 
 
 people driven to desperation by witnessing the fate 
 which had overtaken their friends and neighbours. 
 Under the Turkish regime they had kept arms in 
 their houses for self-protection. The new rulers of 
 Tripoli city had not made known to them the 
 fact that they wanted those arms surrendered and 
 that to retain them meant sudden death. If the 
 proclamation of the 23rd requiring all arms to be 
 surrendered within twenty-four hours had reached 
 them at all, it had reached them at a time when the 
 oasis was overrun by crazy soldiers who would most 
 certainly shoot any Arab caught with arms in his 
 hands, whether he was on his way to surrender those 
 arms or not. 
 
 Under these circumstances even a worm would 
 turn, and the Arab is not exactly a worm. Seeing no 
 other way out of the difficulty he remained at home 
 and prepared a hot reception for the emissaries of 
 King Victor Emmanuel. When the first soldier 
 crossed the threshold there was a loud report from 
 the obscurity of the cabin, and that soldier fell. 
 The others raked the house with bullets and then 
 set it on fire. The Arab died game. He had not 
 to submit to the indignity of being dragged outside, 
 kicked, buffeted in the face, and then placed against 
 a wall and killed. Since he had to die in any case, 
 well, better let an Infidel or two go before him. No- 
 body can blame the Arabs for acting like this towards 
 opponents who were practically insane. Under 
 similar circumstances Englishmen would have done 
 the same thing, and Rudyard Kipling would have 
 written ballads in honour of them. 
 
 Behind the Esparto Grass Factory of the Banco di 
 Roma, was a Bedouin village containing several hun- 
 dred inhabitants. On the morning of October 26th,
 
 262 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the place was burned to the ground and most of 
 the inhabitants were butchered. Among the blazing 
 embers I found the corpse of an old grey-haired 
 woman with a bullet -wound in the left shoulder. A 
 few feet away I found a sick boy and two sick and 
 bed-ridden old women lying on the ground near the 
 dead bodies of several women and men. These three 
 sick persons had not been protected from the heat 
 of the fire ; and the boy, who seemed to be about 
 thirteen or fourteen years old, was left lying on the 
 ground, half-naked and exposed for a whole day 
 without food or drink to the intolerable blaze of the 
 sun. He moaned piteously as he lay in the ashes 
 and dust, and pressed his hands against his temples. 
 Twenty yards off was a temporary Red Cross hospital 
 under canvas, and at the door of it stood two very 
 stylishly dressed military doctors with nothing in 
 the world to do at that moment save to twirl the 
 ends of their well-waxed moustaches. Behind them 
 were fully twenty Red Cross soldiers, also with abso- 
 lutely nothing to do. I asked the officers if they could 
 not have those sick people carried inside the hospital 
 or given at least the drink of water for which they 
 were most piteously begging. The doctors promised 
 to attend at once to the matter. They said, "Yes, 
 yes, we are not barbarians. We shall at once send for 
 stretchers and have all those people brought into the 
 hospital." And as they apparently gave directions to 
 that effect, I felt sure that the sick people would 
 be attended to, and went out into the oasis. But 
 when I chanced to pass that way some hours later I 
 found that the officers had broken their promises and 
 that the sick Arabs were still in the same condition. 
 I determined, therefore, to appeal to a venerable 
 Franciscan who was not only a high official of the
 
 Ill IvX I llKlMii IN E.\X \M1'MKXT. 
 
 Xakfd woman left to die. She was dead tlie next day. 
 
 
 Kl-.M.M.Ns 111 r,i i,:\i .\I^\|■, Vlf.I..V(.K. 
 To Jaci- p. 262. I'lwlos. by Author.
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 263 
 
 Red Cross organisation, but also an ecclesiastic of 
 very elevated rank. I refer to the Very Rev. Father 
 Giuseppe Bevilacqua, ex-Prefect Apostolic, who had 
 just returned from Italy in order to lend his powerful 
 assistance to the Red Cross. I had read in the local, 
 ultra -jingoistic, ultra-" patriotic " Italian organ that 
 Father Bevilacqua had obeyed the summons because 
 of his " extraordinary self-abnegation " which made 
 him think himself " ben felice di poter ancora rendersi 
 utile alia Patria." 
 
 I felt convinced that if I drew Father Bevilacqua' s 
 attention to the case of this Arab boy he would at 
 once attend to it. I found the Reverend Father 
 walking along the sea-front in company with several 
 large, well-groomed countrymen of his. 
 
 The bare feet, the rope cincture, the rough dress, 
 the Red Cross badge, all indicated devotion to the 
 outcast and the poor. Surely he would seize with 
 avidity this opportunity of showing the benighted 
 Arab the superiority of Christian morality. 
 
 Father Bevilacqua promised in French that he 
 would represent the boy's case to the medical authori- 
 ties. The large well-groomed public men who were 
 with him could not conceal looks of surprise and 
 disapprobation as they heard my request ; so that 
 I hastened to explain that I would bear all the ex- 
 penses of the boy's treatment. 
 
 After an hour had passed I returned to the place 
 where the lad lay and found to my surprise that 
 Father Bevilacqua had not kept his promise. The 
 boy was still in the same place. His eyes, nostrils, 
 and mouth were black with flies which had settled 
 on him as if he were already dead. The two old 
 women were in the same condition. 
 
 I next approached another Franciscan, a young
 
 264 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Frenchman. He was pious and sympathetic, but 
 very weak and simple. On our way to see the boy 
 we met Father Bevilacqua, who avoided my eye, but 
 hastily counselled my companion not to bother him- 
 self about the dying Arab lad. " Let him die " was 
 his parting observation. I did not hear that remark, 
 but, with a horror-stricken face, the French Francis- 
 can translated it for me. 
 
 The young French monk came with me and we 
 both tried every means to get the unfortunate Arabs 
 attended to. It was all in vain. The fury of the 
 Italians against the Arabs made the admission of an 
 Arab to any hospital a matter of utter impossibility. 
 There is here an Italian hospital looked after by 
 French nuns. My friend the French Franciscan 
 assured me, however, that it would be utterly im- 
 possible to get the boy into this or any other hospital. 
 My renewed offer to pay all the expenses did not 
 improve matters. The thing could not be done. 
 The fury of the Italians against the Arabs was too 
 great. 
 
 Within some yards of where I stood, a private 
 soldier was savagely kicking a corpse. I offered him 
 money if he would attend to the dying Arab, but he 
 refused. I had almost persuaded an Italian labourer 
 to undertake the work when, on examining the lad, 
 he suddenly declared that it was a case of cholera, 
 and informed me that he would have nothing to do 
 with it. 
 
 An interpreter who accompanied the Franciscan 
 questioned the sick boy in Arabic, The boy said 
 that he was suffering from hunger and thirst. He 
 attempted to rise to his feet, but failed. That he was 
 not shamming is proved by the fact that when I 
 visited the spot next morning I found him dead.
 
 ff « ■'■ ■'" 
 
 mmm^jBmmi 
 
 ^■^' 
 
 I 
 
 Dying Arai;. Si:ntinki.s on clakd. 
 
 Slil.DIKNS JKEKING AT DYIXC; NAKKI) ARAI! WOMAN, WHOM I 
 I'OLNU UKAIJ AT THE SAME Sln)T ON THE I-OLLOWTNCt DAY. 
 
 To Jim: p. .'65. 
 
 Photos, bv Aiilhoi.
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 265 
 
 His mouth and his finger-nails were full of earth. In 
 his death-agony he had evidently torn the ground 
 with his teeth and nails. He died without any one 
 near him to offer him a cup of water, for all his tribe 
 — men, women, and children — had been exterminated. 
 The two old women who lay at some distance from 
 him were also dead. 
 
 At the entrance to the enclosure in which the boy 
 and the old women lay, a number of half-crazy 
 soldiers had been on guard all night. In the day-time 
 it would have been impossible for any Arab to ap- 
 proach the place. They would have been shot down 
 at once. At night it would have been equally 
 dangerous for a European civilian to approach. 
 Even a perfect knowledge of the Italian language 
 was not always a safeguard. In broad daylight next 
 morning Lorenzo Falcon, a peaceful Maltese fisher- 
 man and a British subject, had been shot dead by a 
 sentinel on the sea-front, the most fashionable and 
 frequented street in the city. The British Foreign 
 Office accepted the Italian explanation that the man 
 had been fired on only after he refused to stop or 
 to give the password. 
 
 This Arab child had died a lonelier and more 
 abandoned death than even Christ had died on the 
 Cross, for the Italian soldiers of that day had allowed 
 at least His mother and His favourite disciple to 
 approach. This Bedouin lad died naked and aban- 
 doned on the ground.^ 
 
 ^ It was when von Gottberg and I saw these dead bodies that we 
 decided to send back our papers to General Caneva and to leave an 
 army in which such things were done. This brave German gentleman 
 was moved almost to tears, and I remember him saying as we stood 
 over the corpse of the Arab : " This is what a quarrel between 
 England and Germany will mean — the weakening of both, and con- 
 sequently a free hand to the peoples who do things like this." 
 
 I must say that during my stay in Tripoli I felt much attracted by 
 the Germans and Austrians, owing to the honest and manly indignation
 
 266 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Next day I saw Father Bevilacqua on the 
 steps of the Franciscan Church receiving consuls, 
 consuls' wives, powerful financiers, and military 
 magnates who had come to attend the Solemn 
 Requiem Mass for the Italian dead. 
 
 Before concluding my account of the sick Arabs 
 
 which the Itahan outrages roused in them. Those outrages seemed 
 to affect the French and the other European residents much less, 
 indeed at one of the worst spots in the oasis I met on this day a 
 young French lady from Tunis calmly photographing the corpses with 
 which the ground was strewn, and not seeming to be in the least put 
 out. I suspect that on the question of killing there was a funda- 
 mental difference of view between the Germans and myself on the 
 one hand and the Southern Italians, Southern French and Tunisian 
 French on the other. The terrible account of the massacres which 
 Renter sent from Malta on November 6th shocked all London, but 
 an Italian paper which had it retransmitted expressed its surprise 
 that these few killings should have aroused such a protest. The same 
 observation was made by an Italian paper when von Gottberg 
 published in the " Lokal-Anzeiger " an even more shocking story. 
 In conversation with Italians I find that they sometimes admit all 
 the cases I give, but object to my using the word " massacre." In 
 fact that is all they object to. I must say that they also maintain 
 that the women and young boys who were shot had been found 
 firing on the Italians. 
 
 Von Gottberg gives in the "Lokal-Anzeiger" the following account 
 of how he and I decided to return our passes to G oneral Caneva, It 
 was, he says, after we had seen the Arab boy's corpse. 
 
 " McCullagh war nachgekommen, er begegnete mir mit einer Hand 
 erhoben wie zum Schwur : ' Dafiir soUen in London Versamralungen 
 einberufen und Protestreden im Farlament gehalten werden ! ' 
 
 " ' Recht so ! Aber zunachst werfen wir dem General unsere Papiere 
 vor die Fiisze ! ' 
 
 " ' At once ; if you please ! ' 
 
 " Und ich glaube, dasz jedermann unsere Entriistung teilen wird. " 
 
 I shall translate part of this, briefly, as follows : " McCullagh had 
 overtaken me. He met me with one hand uphfted as if swearing an 
 oath. 'For this day's work,' said he, 'there shall be meetings in 
 London, there shall be speeches of protest in Parliament.' " 
 
 I may add that both prophecies came true, but I had no idea at the 
 time that I myself woiild address one of those meetings. When the 
 late Mr. W. T. Stead urged me to do so I declined on the ground of 
 inexperience in the art of public speaking. " Well, then, I see what 
 I must do with you," said Mr. Stead in his jocular way, " I must 
 throw you into the deep water as a father throws a boy of whom 
 he wants to make a swimmer." And he carried out his threat, for 
 next day I saw it announced in the Press that I was to address a 
 meeting in the Farringdon Memorial Hall. As Mr. Stead had already 
 engaged the hall and printed the tickets I felt that I had got to 
 address that meeting and I did so, Mr. Stead acting as chairman.
 
 FCI.LlXi; AliOlT A CORPSE. 
 
 Ml i;hi',K'i:ii Ak'Ai; \ i i.i.ackk'. 
 To face p. 2'j(>. I'liolos. bv Aiillior.
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 267 
 
 whom I saw in the burned village, I should like to 
 mention the case of an Arab girl, sixteen or seventeen 
 years old, who was also left on the ground to die. 
 Being sick or wounded she was unable to walk. The 
 soldiers, therefore, dragged her along by the feet, so 
 that her clothes came up over her head and all her 
 body was exposed. At this the soldiers laughed. 
 So did an officer who accompanied them. A foreigner 
 remonstrated with them, and pointed out that the 
 girl was evidently very ill. Then the soldiers caught 
 the victim by the wrists and dragged her along the 
 ground. Her veil fell off her face and this exposure, 
 so repugnant to Mohammedan ideas of modesty, 
 seemed to cause the poor girl more shame than the 
 exposure of her naked body. Finally, the soldiers 
 abandoned the girl at the gate of a Red Cross hospital. 
 She lay there on the ground begging piteously for a 
 drink of water — which was not given her. A group 
 of soldiers and officers inspected her critically, for 
 she was an extremely beautiful girl. . . . 
 
 Now these things were witnessed not only by my- 
 self, but by Otto von Gottberg of the " Lokal- 
 Anzeiger," who afterwards, like myself, sent back 
 his papers to General Caneva, by way of protest 
 against this barbarity. They were also witnessed by 
 the dragoman of the German Consulate, who speaks 
 German, Italian, and Arabic. They were reported 
 on to his Government by Dr. Tilger, the German 
 Consul, who forwarded to Berlin the sworn state- 
 ments of three Germans on this subject. 
 
 I know that these Germans have been suspected 
 of animosity against the Italians. With regard to 
 this incident, however, I find that they took even 
 too pro-Italian a view. They could not believe that 
 this Bedouin village could have been burned down
 
 268 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 for nothing, that all these people could have been 
 put to death because they might in future get arms 
 and fire on the Italians. They assumed that the 
 villagers had fired on the troops, but, even so, they 
 found the punishment meted out to them too severe. 
 Dr. Weibel of the " Frankfurter Zeitung" said that 
 he had heard two shots fired near that village in the 
 morning, and he presumed that those shots were 
 fired by the villagers on the Italian troops, and were 
 the cause of their own extermination immediately 
 after. Herr von Gottberg immediately accepted 
 that view, and took it for granted that the villagers 
 had fired on some soldiers on their way to the front 
 and had wounded several of them. 
 
 Now, will it be believed that the villagers fired no 
 shots and committed no crime whatsoever, and that 
 their extermination was carried out simply as a 
 precautionary measure — lest they might become 
 rebels later on ? Yet this is the explanation given 
 by the Italians themselves for the burning of this 
 village, and for all the deaths and murders which 
 that measure entailed. Signor Giuseppe Bevione 
 may be almost styled the official historian of the 
 war, since he never criticises the military authorities, 
 always praises them, and dedicates his book, " Come 
 Siamo Andati a Tripoli," to the Hon. Giovanni 
 Giolitti himself. And Signor Bevione calmly tells 
 us that this Bedouin village near Dahra was wiped 
 out merely " by way of precaution " ! 
 
 I shall give the whole passage containing this re- 
 markable statement. He describes how he rode past 
 the village in the morning, and suddenly saw it set 
 on fire by the troops. Then he goes on as follows : 
 
 " A dense smoke rises behind the mill. A long 
 tongue of fire shoots up through the darkness
 
 Akah cakkyi\(; off his (ii.d Mothkr. 
 
 -/▼^ 
 
 .^*% "^.j 
 
 '^ 
 
 Dyixc; Akai; (1ii^;i.. 
 
 To face p. 26S. 
 
 I'liotcs. by Autlior.
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 269 
 
 towards heaven. A horde of ragamuffins, crowded 
 together hke a flock of sheep, pour out of Mill 
 Street into the Market Square and go towards the 
 shore between a cordon of soldiers. The miserable 
 Bedouin encampment which they occupied has 
 been set on fire by way of precaution." {Si e dato 
 fuoco per misura di sicurezza al miserabile accampa- 
 mento beduino.) " What a gang those inhabitants 
 were ! " Signor Bevione contemptuously adds. 
 " When I saw them, they were going to seek an 
 asylum on the sea-shore." 
 
 The only Italian correspondent, so far as I know, 
 who says that the inhabitants of the Bedouin village 
 fired on the Italians, is Mr. Luigi Barzini of the 
 " Corriere della Sera." Mr. Barzini tells us how an 
 artillery soldier, who, while standing in the Market 
 Square, was slightly wounded by a bullet, declared 
 that he had seen the shot fired from the Bedouin 
 village. Immediately some soldiers attacked the 
 village and burnt it. None of the Italian correspon- 
 dents say that any search was made for arms ; and 
 I think we may conclude that if a single cartridge 
 had been found, they would certainly have mentioned 
 the fact. But they all agree that as soon as the hovels 
 began to burn, there were continual reports of cart- 
 ridges exploded by the heat. One of them says that 
 the explosions reminded him of a battle. But it may 
 have been the crackling of the burning wood. I 
 myself passed the village while it was burning in the 
 morning, and I heard no such fusillade. 
 
 Even if we accept Mr. Barzini's explanation, we 
 must admit that the proceedings of the Italians on 
 this occasion seemed very much like hanging a man 
 first and trying him afterwards. On the mere word 
 of an excited soldier, and without any search or
 
 270 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 inquiry being made, a village is burned and many of 
 its inhabitants killed. Then, the executioners hear 
 amid the flames something which vaguely reminds 
 them of the explosion of cartridges, and they say to 
 one another : " What a lucky thing we burned that 
 village ! Those people would have been sure to fire 
 on us sooner or later." 
 
 Moreover, the soldier who was wounded may have 
 been hit by an Arab bullet from the oasis, for at that 
 very moment the Italian line had been broken at the 
 house of Gemal Bey, and the Arabs who broke it 
 could easily have fired on the town from the tree- 
 tops. Next day one bullet struck the roof of the 
 American Consulate, not far distant, and another 
 killed a soldier close to that consulate, but in both 
 cases those missiles came admittedly from the front. 
 
 Other Italian correspondents support Signor 
 Bevione's story. The military authorities, says one, 
 continued energetically le misure per ripulire V oasi 
 (the measures for the purging of the oasis). " They 
 burned houses and cabins," he adds casually, " and 
 a Bedouin village at the gates of Tripoli." 
 
 If those Bedouin villagers had been guilty of 
 treachery, or even of having razors and empty cart- 
 ridge-cases in their possession, the fact would most 
 certainly have been mentioned by General Caneva, 
 by more than one of the forty semi-official Italian 
 correspondents in Tripoli, by more than one of the 
 hundreds of officers, soldiers, and deputies who have 
 written about this day's " battle." 
 
 I at once made the above facts known in the 
 " Westminster Gazette," and in the " Daily News." 
 If those Arabs had been "traitors," that is, if they 
 had fired on the Italians, that fact would have been 
 quickly brought forward by the many active and
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 271 
 
 excellently-informed agents and friends of the Italian 
 Government in this country. 
 
 That it has not been brought forward shows that 
 this Bedouin village near Dahra was wiped out lest 
 it might in future become disloyal. 
 
 The terrible story told in this chapter is confirmed by Otto von 
 Gottberg in the "Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger." There was much con- 
 troversy in the London "Daily News" on the subject of the Arab 
 boy. Some Enghsh Roman Catholics drew the attention of Father 
 Bevilacqua to it, and received from him a reply in which he admitted 
 that I met him and asked him to succour a sick boy. He says that 
 on going to the military hospital he found there a young Arab who 
 had been wounded and who was, so he was given to understand, the 
 child in whom I had interested myself. 
 
 I have been blamed for not having helped the boy myself, and in 
 defence I have several times pointed out that it would have been 
 impossible for me to have done so owing to the confusion which pre- 
 vailed, to the distance of the nearest well, and the impossibility 
 of obtaining the help of any Arabs or Italians to carry the lad away. 
 No Arabs would venture near the spot. Their lives would have been 
 forfeit had they done so. So terrible was the blood-lust of the Italians 
 that the French Franciscan Father, of whom I have spoken above, was 
 very much distressed about the safety of a little Catholic Levantine 
 pupil who accompanied him wearing a fez. The monk feared, and 
 with very good reason, that at any moment one of the crazy soldiers 
 might mistake the boy for an Arab and bayonet him as he walked 
 between us. Finally we persuaded the boy to put his fez in his 
 pocket ; and, as the rest of his costume was European, he escaped. 
 But this incident shows how impossible it would have been to bring 
 Arab labourers to this spot to carry away the sick lad. And Italian 
 labourers would, at that moment, have been more likely to finish off 
 the boy than to lend him a helping hand. 
 
 Then a good deal of time was lost owing to my certainty, first that 
 the hospital authorities would take him in as they had promised, 
 secondly that Father Bevilacqua would look after him as he had 
 promised. Father Bevilacqua reproaches me in his letter with 
 asking him, an old man, to look after a case which I could just as 
 well have attended to myself; but the reproach is hardly fair, for 
 he held a high ecclesiastical position, and among those Sicilian soldiers 
 his word was law. Moreover he had a high official position. He was 
 connected with the Red Cross and wore a badge of some kind. I 
 naturally expected that by saying two words to an orderly he could 
 save the boy's life. I certainly did not expect him to carry away the 
 lad on his back, though a son of St. Francis of Assisi might not have 
 considered even that beneath him.
 
 272 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 When night had come on, there were sentries around the place 
 wliere the lad lay, and for a civilian to approach that place in the 
 darkness meant almost certain death. No returns have been made 
 of the number of innocent people, unable to give the password, who 
 were shot that night, but I should put it at almost a dozen. There 
 ^.;ls occasional firing in every part of the town, and in many cases 
 the sentinel must have hit his mark. 
 
 Herr von Gottberg has written to the British Press confirming my 
 narrative; and Mr. Thomas E. Grant of the "Daily Mirror" also 
 sent the following letter to the " Daily News," which published it on 
 November 38th : 
 
 "On returning from Tripoli yesterday I found in 'The Church 
 Times ' of November 24th an attempt, on the part of a contributor 
 who signs himself 'Viator,' to throw doubt and ridicule on the 
 story of a dying Arab boy, whom Mr. Francis McCullagh saw in 
 Tripoli and whose hard case he has described in the ' Daily News.' 
 
 " As to the existence of the boy, there can be no doubt. I saw 
 him myself on October 36th. He was then alive. I saw him dead 
 on the morning of the 27th. In his account of the matter Mr. 
 McCullagh is far too modest with regard to his own conduct. He 
 does not say that, though the lad was undoubtedly suffering from 
 cholera, he (Mr. McCullagh) repeatedly risked his life in my presence 
 by touching him, brushing away the flies which tormented him, 
 examining his body to see if he were wounded, and trying in every 
 way to make him comfortable. What the lad really needed was 
 medical attendance, and that, of course, we could not supply. 
 Then, it soon became dark. Guards were drawn up around this 
 lonely, burned village in the oasis, and it would have been sheer 
 madness for us to have ventured in amongst them in civilian dress 
 and without a perfect knowledge of the Italian language. Besides, 
 there were scores of such cases, and it would have been impossible 
 for us to attend to them all, though it would have been easy for 
 the Italians to have done so, as their army in Tripolitania is wonder- 
 fully well equipped with hospitals and Red Cross people, the latter, 
 for the greater part, standing idle on the occasion in question. We 
 returned in the morning and found the child dead. . . . 
 
 " I know little of Mr. McCullagh, and have had little connection 
 with him, having only met him casually once or twice on newspaper 
 work abroad. But in the present instance I feel very strongly 
 impelled to write in his favour as an act of fair-play and simple 
 justice against the sneers of an anonymous arm-chair critic. " 
 
 It may be thought that I am dealing at unnecessary length with 
 this unpleasant subject of the atrocities. As a matter of fact I am 
 only just touching on the fringe of it. I do not give the evidence of 
 Herr Mygind (" Morgenpost"), Dr. Weibel (" Frankfurter Zeitung "), 
 Dr. Gottlob Adolph Krause, or of a single Austrian correspondent. I
 
 BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 273 
 
 do not want to make ray book a literary chamber of horrors, but on 
 the other hand I feel it incumbent on me to let the reader judge for 
 himself the truth of the ItaHan statement that not a single innocent 
 Arab was put to death, the truth of Signor Giolitti's statement that 
 the " behaviour " of the Italian Army and Navy on the present 
 occasion " will render this war an example of generous and chival- 
 rous civilisation."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE "PURGING" OF THE OASIS 
 
 Meanwhile a man-hunt was going on throughout 
 an extensive and once prosperous Arab quarter 
 extending to the left of the Bumehana road all the 
 way to the Desert. Dead men lay on the ground 
 in all directions. A tall Fezzani lay almost naked 
 in the middle of the street, the whole top of his head 
 having been knocked off evidently by an axe or the 
 butt-end of a rifle, and the contents of the cranium 
 were lying several feet off. The body was not cold, 
 and a soldier amused himself by kicking it and 
 watching it quiver with that jelly-like motion of a 
 corpse which is still warm. Some dozens of soldiers 
 were wandering about with revolvers in their hands, 
 shooting at every Arab who showed himself, and 
 very frequently at comrades whom in the distance 
 they mistook for Arabs. Those soldiers were literally 
 drunk with blood. They had all the symptoms of 
 alcoholic intoxication — the flushed face, the blood- 
 shot eye, the unsteady hand, the excited, incoherent 
 manner, the uneven walk, the utter loss of self-control. 
 Many of them had taken their coats off and rolled 
 up their sleeves, like butchers. 
 
 " Why are you shooting at those people ? " von 
 Gottberg frequently asked, and the answer always 
 was the same — " Because they are traitors." It 
 was rather vague. 
 
 274
 
 •aa^aiS--- 
 
 ■ ^S^r^^=@:^2=S;->'^;^, 
 
 Ml KiiKki'.i) Arab. 
 
 Examining a corpse to see if it needs another iuli.et. 
 
 To face p. 2^5. Photos, by Autlior.
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 275 
 
 We came on ten soldiers. Revolver in hand, they 
 were walking through the deserted and battered 
 houses peering into every corner and blazing away 
 at everything that moved. Suddenly they caught 
 sight of a number of men at a distance, almost 
 concealed by the cacti, the palm-trees, and the mud- 
 walls. They at once opened fire on them, and a 
 moment later the others, who were certainly Italians, 
 returned the fire with interest, and bullets began to 
 whiz over our heads. The ten soldiers took refuge 
 behind a wall, while Gottberg, the German drago- 
 man, and I fled. 
 
 Next a soldier took us in tow in order to show us 
 corpses. He also had a revolver in his hand and he 
 walked along the oasis paths with the air of a proud 
 hunter bringing visitors to see his " bag." And a 
 good bag he had. There were corpses strewn in all 
 directions. One was that of a woman. A little way off 
 a man lay on his back. Our guide not only pointed 
 him out with pride, but even jumped with glee on 
 the dead body, shouting : " It was I who killed him." 
 
 This was too much. Again we fled. A group of 
 soldiers rushed past us through the palm-gardens 
 and, to our amazement, they were led on not by an 
 officer but by an acquaintance of von Gottberg' s, 
 an Italian civilian, Count X. The Count wore civilian 
 dress, but he had a revolver in his hand. His face 
 was flushed, and his voice was rapid, thick, and 
 indistinct, like that of a drunken man. My com- 
 panion asked him something in German, whereupon 
 he answered in the same language, saying : " Achtung, 
 hier sind noch Lebende versteckt ! " (" Take care ! 
 There are still some living ones hidden here.") With 
 that he hurried on, followed by his soldiers, all of 
 whom had their rifles ready.
 
 276 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Von Gottberg and I looked at one another in 
 amazement. It was, then, a regular man-hunt. 
 They were killing the Arabs, without inquiry, with- 
 out trial, exactly as if those Arabs were wild beasts. 
 
 I shall now let von Gottberg speak : 
 
 " A gang of soldiers rushed out from behind 
 some houses. By their epaulettes one could see 
 that they belonged to different regiments. A little 
 pleasure-party, evidently, drawn from various 
 parts of the army. A lieutenant was in command ; 
 when they came nearer we could see that there 
 were prisoners in their midst, five Arabs whose 
 arms were tied behind their backs. Suddenly there 
 was a great shouting in another direction, and a 
 number of soldiers emerged from a house dragging 
 with them an Arab. This Arab was added to the 
 five and all were shot together. The original five 
 may have been judged and condemned by some 
 regular tribunal, — though certainly it did not 
 look like it, — but the sixth had been casually 
 picked up before our eyes and added to the group 
 of condemned men without any protest being made 
 by the lieutenant in charge of the party. This 
 was not military justice. It was lynch law on a 
 large scale." 
 
 In the corner of a garden I detected an Arab 
 family hiding and I noticed among them an infant 
 only a few months old. An Arab, evidently the 
 father of this family, was sneaking out of a gate-way, 
 probably to get food. He had the look of a hunted 
 animal, and he recoiled abruptly when he saw me. 
 I did not see him shot, but am certain that he could 
 not have escaped. It is even doubtful if any of his 
 family escaped.
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 277 
 
 There must, by the way, have been in this extensive 
 devastated district many infants at the breast. What 
 has become of them ? What has become of their 
 mothers ? I have been told that four hundred 
 women and children were shot during these three 
 days of panic and four thousand men — one-tenth 
 the population of the whole oasis. Many of the 
 women were shot in mistake for men. They were 
 seen by the soldiers from afar off and immediately 
 potted. In most countries a man cannot be executed 
 unless there is some official order to that effect. In 
 Tripolitania an Arab, in order to be safe, must very 
 often provide himself with an official badge and a 
 document in Italian to the effect that he is not to be 
 shot. The bearers of cholera corpses have yellow 
 brassards, the war-correspondents white brassards, 
 and so on. Near the German Consulate I stopped 
 an Arab gentleman to ask him for some directions. 
 Fearing that I was about to shoot him, he hastily 
 drew forth an official Italian permit to live and 
 handed it to me with trembling fingers. It was this 
 man, an intelligent and educated Arab, who after- 
 wards said to me apropos of the massacres : " The 
 Turks were bad, but they spared at least the women 
 and children." 
 
 Suddenly hell was let loose. There was a roaring 
 and a trampling and a shouting like that of a mob of 
 mad-drunks who have been ejected from some cess- 
 pool of a public-house after closing-time. Round 
 the corner swung some fifty armed men wearing the 
 uniform of the King of Italy. They were conducting 
 six prisoners whose hands were tied behind their 
 backs. Among these prisoners were a tall Fezzani, 
 in European dress, and a light-coloured lad of twelve 
 or thirteen years, in a red cap. With wild roars the
 
 278 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 soldiers told us to stand back. They swayed to and 
 fro, they lurched forward like drunken men. At 
 their head was a lieutenant. His face was as flushed, 
 his hand as unsteady, as those of the most excited 
 of his men. He had as completely lost control of his 
 soldiers as he had lost control of himself. The private 
 soldiers bumped into him, and bumped out again 
 without any apology. They shoved and jostled him 
 as the whole disorderly rabble reeled unsteadily 
 along. And on that officer's back was the uniform 
 of the King of Italy. On his helmet was the Crown 
 and the Cross — the Cross of the Merciful Christ ! 
 
 None of these men had tasted wine. Of that I 
 am certain. It was blood alone which had intoxicated 
 them. It was dangerous to be anywhere near them, 
 for, owing to their excited condition and to the way 
 in which they held their rifles, any one round about 
 might be accidentally shot. They knew this them- 
 selves. Hence their shouts to us, their wild gestures 
 to get out of the way, though we were not in the line 
 of fire at all. 
 
 They marched their prisoners to a small mud-hut, 
 one side of which had been completely demolished. 
 The floor had evidently been used for some weeks as 
 a latrine by at least a regiment. Into this house 
 of dirt and doom the prisoners were driven two by 
 two, placed against the inner wall, and instantly 
 riddled with bullets. No word of command was 
 given when the firing began. The soldiers all blazed 
 away as they liked. There was none of that order, 
 discipline, and solemnity which, in civilised armies 
 like those of England, Germany, Turkey, Japan, etc., 
 invest a military execution with something of official 
 dignity. The officer in charge of the party fired at 
 the prisoners with his revolver.
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 279 
 
 The prisoners waiting their turn watched those 
 who fell, but they were as calm as if they were mere 
 spectators themselves. The soldier standing beside 
 the Fezzani kept roaring something into his ear : 
 the fingers of another soldier kept playing nervously 
 with a very long black tassel on the top of the boy's 
 red fez. The restless fingers plaited the silken threads 
 of the long black tassel as if they were the strands 
 of hair on a girl's head. The boy did not move. 
 Like all the Arabs whom I have seen executed in 
 Tripoli, he was perfectly calm and silent. 
 
 As the firing-line was only six feet distant almost 
 every bullet told. The boy went in the second 
 batch. His bronzed face had almost turned pallid, 
 but he was still perfectly calm, and he walked over 
 the corpses of the first two with the light foot of a child. 
 At the first volley he pitched forward on his face, 
 dead. His companion was struck first on the right 
 cheek, then on the left shoulder : one could see that 
 by the blood and by his quick, nervous motion, 
 first on one side, then on the other. But he stood 
 bolt upright, and even when he had received several 
 other wounds he still attempted to face his execu- 
 tioners, proudly and erectly, his back against the 
 wall. When he finally fell, his body was still stiff 
 like that of a soldier on parade. He died as a desert 
 horseman should die. 
 
 The tall Fezzani in European dress went last. He 
 must have spoken Italian, for, before putting him 
 against the wall, the soldiers questioned him, pressed 
 him, urged him to do something. Evidently they were 
 trying to worm some secret out of him. They wanted 
 to make him implicate others — and then to shoot 
 him all the same. But he only shook his head. He 
 was placed in the far corner, as all the rest of the
 
 280 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 space was now covered with corpses whose naked 
 limbs and blood-stained bodies were strangely twisted 
 and intertwined. Beside the Fezzani stood an 
 elderly, bearded Arab with a noble brow and a yellow, 
 pensive, deeply-furrowed face. A second or two 
 before the fatal volley the Arab turned to his com- 
 panion with the air of a man turning to say some- 
 thing to a friend in the street, and made some remark, 
 whereat the Fezzani nodded. What could he have 
 said ? It will never be known, for the same instant 
 there rang out the usual deafening report of rifles and 
 revolvers. Like a flash the Fezzani fell, but the other 
 span round and round like a top, his sunburnt face 
 now deadly pale, his features contorted in agony. 
 When the second volley came he, too, slid to the 
 ground, dead. 
 
 This sight was witnessed by scores of soldiers and 
 officers, who danced and yelled with delight as each 
 pair of Arabs went down. A Red Cross doctor rushed 
 forward with a cigarette in his mouth, and in his 
 hands a folding Kodak drawn out to the proper 
 distance and all ready for action. This was one of 
 the unoccupied military surgeons who had promised 
 to help the sick Arab boy and who had broken his 
 promise. The presence of the officer - photographer 
 at these scenes is quite a feature of them. He gener- 
 ally smokes cigarettes while snapshotting. At the 
 execution of Hussein, the German cavass, I even 
 saw two Franciscans, one of whom was beaming 
 with smiles, as he looked at the body of the dead 
 man. 
 
 Many officers and soldiers had been attracted by 
 the sound of the firing and now crowded close to 
 the firing-party. There was much pushing both by 
 officers and men to get into the front row. While
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 281 
 
 the performance lasted, the walls and windows round 
 about had been crowded with soldier-spectators, 
 and when the last Arab fell there was a mad rush of 
 officers, soldiers, and civilians to view the corpses. 
 The air was filled with jeers and comments on 
 the strange, relaxed attitude of the bodies, which 
 seemed, as soon as life had departed, to have become 
 as limp as wet rags. They lay doubled-up and 
 twisted in the most unexpected and unnatural 
 attitudes. 
 
 Over four hundred shots had been fired at these 
 six people. . . . And the Italian newspapers called 
 this day's work " a glorious victory," " revenge for 
 Adowa." Alas ! not even Adowa was as black a 
 day for Italy as this. 
 
 The expression of sympathy and commiseration 
 on our faces must have excited the attention of the 
 lieutenant, who was now apparently getting cool 
 and beginning to feel the reaction. He sent to us a 
 soldier who, having been in America, spoke a little 
 English. The soldier pretended that he wanted to 
 see our papers, but his mission was clear when, having 
 seen them and expressed his satisfaction, he tried to 
 convince us that " these men " — indicating the six 
 bodies — were traitors. He also told the usual story 
 of Bersaglieri having been found crucified on the 
 23rd, and of Italian prisoners having been tortured. 
 
 I have never been able to understand how it is 
 that those crucified and mutilated Bersaglieri were 
 not discovered and photographed till November 26th 
 — a month later. The Italians talked of them being 
 at Henni on the 23rd, but they themselves did not 
 evacuate Henni till the 28th, and presumably they 
 buried their dead comrades before the evacuation. 
 They reoccupied Henni on November 26th, about a
 
 282 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 month later, and lo ! the mutilated Bersaglieri had 
 arisen from their graves and were again crucified on 
 trees. The Italian Freethinkers who manipulate 
 the Press Bureau are cunning enough to insist again 
 and again (with their tongues all the time in their 
 cheeks) on this useful word " crucified." It makes 
 such an appeal, you know, in England and America. 
 Briefly, the Italian defence is this. We killed Arabs 
 on Tuesday because Arabs killed our men on Friday 
 of the same week. 
 
 I tried to get away from this horror, but only 
 succeeded in finding a much greater horror. Down 
 the main road which runs inland from Bumeliana 
 marched about fifty soldiers. They were in the form 
 of a hollow square. Inside the square walked about 
 fifty Arabs, men and boys. There was one boy of 
 ten or eleven — a slim, lithe child with a carriage as 
 graceful as that of a young Arab foal. The children 
 seemed to feel quite safe since they were in the 
 company of their parents, uncles, cousins, and all 
 the people in their street. They looked out beyond 
 the glittering line of bayonets with wide-open but 
 serene, unalarmed eyes. They were wondering 
 whither the foreigners were bringing them. 
 
 The foreigners marched them down the street 
 towards the oasis on the outskirts of the town, but 
 half-a-mile or so from the edge of the desert and the 
 Italian trenches. Then a strange thing happened. 
 From the midst of the date-palm gardens a shot rang 
 out, then another and another. Bullets whizzed 
 past our heads. A sudden panic seized upon the 
 soldiers, and they rushed to line the ditches on the 
 side of the road. They left their prisoners standing 
 in the middle of the broad pathway, all roped to- 
 gether, all calm and silent, and looking somehow
 
 
 !i 
 
 XU 
 
 a S 
 
 •5! •« 
 
 1 .5 
 
 2 o 
 
 
 s 3
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 283 
 
 in their long white garments and in their general 
 attitude like a flock of sheep and lambs. Not a 
 soldier remained near them save one, who drove his 
 bayonet into two prisoners, an old man and a youth. 
 The latter fell on his back dead, whereupon the 
 soldier pulled the dead man's clothes up to his waist, 
 exposing his nakedness as he lay, and he lay there 
 in the centre of the street for twenty-four hours. 
 The old man, who was mortally wounded, was left 
 to bleed to death, and his moaning was heart-rending. 
 I afterwards saw a soldier jumping on his body and 
 kicking him. 
 
 Along this road next day I saw a long procession 
 of Arab women approach. The Italians had con- 
 siderately brought them this way, as it was littered 
 with dead bodies, some of them perhaps the bodies 
 of these women's sons, brothers, husbands, or fathers. 
 These refugees were all well dressed and evidently of 
 good family. In passing the dead bodies they ex- 
 hibited extraordinary dignity. Though their step 
 sometimes faltered, and though they repeatedly 
 drew their veils across their eyes, not a sound escaped 
 them. What a contrast to the fog-horn lamentations 
 of the Jewish and Italian women in Tripoli city 
 when, on October 23rd, they thought the Turk was 
 coming ! In front of these brave matrons and girls 
 walked a gentle little Arab boy. He was, with the 
 exception of the Italian soldiers, the only member of 
 the male sex in the party. In his hand was a little 
 stick and at the end of it a white flag, and lo ! a Cross 
 — the Red Cross of Christ ! Has Christ, then, to do 
 with this war, where one side is Mohammedan and 
 the other worse than Mohammedan ? 
 
 As gently as I could, I tried to make the boy hold 
 his little flag so that the light should fall on it in such
 
 284 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 a way that it could be photographed. His hand was 
 as chilly as that of a corpse, and without even looking 
 at me he resigned his little ensign to me, closed his 
 eyes, and bent his head in silence. A chill went to 
 the marrow of my bones. The child had evidently 
 taken me for an Italian " hero," and had expected 
 that I was going to plunge a bayonet into him. 
 
 But I am anticipating. I must return to the fifty 
 condemned men calmly standing together in the 
 centre of the roadway and to the fifty panic-stricken 
 executioners lining the ditches. The soldiers kept up 
 a lively exchange of fire with some people in the 
 undergrowth who replied. I knew that both sides 
 were Italians, but God or the devil seems to have 
 blinded the eyes of these bloodthirsty and half -crazy 
 men so that they shot one another right and left. 
 The same panic reigned that day all over Tripoli. 
 It reigned even in the great Sok, or seashore market, 
 at the foot of the citadel. Even here two soldiers 
 Avere shot, undoubtedly by some of their own comrades 
 firing wildly from a distance. 
 
 The lieutenant in command of the party to which 
 I had attached myself was utterly ignored by his 
 men, who fired without consulting him at all. He 
 was a swollen, purple-faced little man who kept up 
 an almost perpetual roar at the top of his voice, 
 though nobody paid the least attention to his orders 
 except to disobey them. Throughout the entire 
 army the same demoralisation prevailed. 
 
 Finally, many other officers, as well as a detach- 
 ment of blue-coated gendarmes, ran up ; and, after 
 they had fired for half - an - hour on their own 
 comrades in the date-palm garden, the soldiers 
 composing the convoy were persuaded to proceed 
 with their dread work. They again surrounded
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 285 
 
 their prisoners and marched them into an empty 
 and partially dismantled mud-hut exactly like the 
 one which I have already described, and evi- 
 dently used, like that one, as a regimental latrine. 
 At the corner of the house one of the soldiers, unable 
 any longer to control his ungovernable lust for 
 blood, suddenly drove his bayonet into the side of 
 one prisoner, an old man, who instantly fell dead. 
 The others were hurried by groups into the house. 
 Then the usual horror began. I need not describe 
 it twice. The floor of the house became so encumbered 
 with corpses that the victims who came last could 
 not find standing-room and had to climb a pile of 
 dead bodies. As their hands were tied behind their 
 backs, some of them stumbled several times in doing 
 so. When the work of the firing-party was finished, 
 the floor of the house presented the same awful aspect 
 of tangled and intertwined limbs and bodies as I have 
 already described. Great pieces of plaster had been 
 knocked off the wall by bullets. In other places there 
 were great splashes of blood. These blood-stains 
 were at the height of a man's head above the ground. 
 The blood must therefore have spurted from some 
 large arteries in the heads or necks of the Arabs before 
 they fell. 
 
 But despite the great number of bullets which 
 had been poured into the house, many of the Arabs 
 still remained with some faint spark of life in them. 
 The lieutenant in command began firing his revolver 
 at every head he saw among the hideous pile of dead 
 and dying. So did the tub-shaped Secret Service 
 man whom I had met that morning at the front. A 
 number of brother-officers gallantly helped in this 
 sportsmanlike work, which continued for twenty 
 minutes.
 
 286 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 The blue-coated gendarmes also took part in the 
 fun. But, despite all this shooting, there still 
 remained in that heap men and boys who gave signs 
 of life. The reason probably was that some of those 
 who were shot first fell without being killed out- 
 right, and were afterwards shielded from subsequent 
 bullets by the mass of bodies that fell on top of them. 
 Sometimes, however, supposed corpses lying in 
 exposed places gave gruesome and startling signs of 
 vitality. On top of the pile lay an old grey-bearded 
 Arab, his head propped up against the wall and his 
 whole air and attitude exactly that of an aged man 
 sleeping in a bed. Suddenly, while the body re- 
 mained motionless and dead, the head began to roll 
 slowly and deliberately from side to side like that of 
 a person in an uneasy sleep, like that of some horrible 
 mechanical doll with a head that worked in a socket. 
 The mouth and eyes were closed, the body was still, 
 but the head rolled from side to side with the regu- 
 larity of a pendulum. It was a dreadful sight. 
 
 The sportsmanlike lieutenant aimed at the head 
 once, but missed. The head continued to roll from 
 side to side. The lieutenant aimed again. This time 
 he hit, for suddenly the motion ceased, while, with a 
 sharp jerk, the mouth sprang wide open and remained 
 like that. The head had ceased to live. 
 
 There still remained a moaning at the very bottom 
 of the pile near the door. The sportsmanlike lieu- 
 tenant and his brother-officers emptied their revolvers 
 again and again into that part of the hillock of bodies 
 from which the groans came. But the sounds still 
 continued, the hoarse plaintive sighing of an old, old 
 man, asleep and very ill. Finally, the soldiers were 
 again invited to fire with their rifles, and the corpses 
 were once more raked with half-a-dozen volleys.
 
 To face p. 2S6. 
 
 A I'll.t Ol- Ml- IV MIA AM) ImV;
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 287 
 
 When I listened again at the door the moaning had 
 ceased. But all this firing at very close range had 
 torn and lacerated the corpses in a frightful manner. 
 The whole face or forehead was sometimes shot away, 
 brains and entrails hung out — but the subject is far 
 too ghastly for detailed description. I am afraid, 
 indeed, that much of what I have already given is 
 unsuitable for a book, but it is just as well, perhaps, 
 that the reader should know, firstly, what war is, 
 and, secondly, what kind of warfare it is which the 
 Italians are now waging in Tripolitania. 
 
 Some military readers of the foregoing particulars 
 regarding the Italian method of warfare in Tripoli 
 may be inclined to regard the writer as unduly 
 sensitive. But such is not the case. I have been 
 through a great war from start to finish. I have 
 seen Chinese executed by Chinese, Chinese spies 
 executed by Russians, Turkish traitors executed by 
 Turks, and, save on the occasion of the first execution 
 I saw, I was not in the least disturbed and never 
 made any protest. Instead of making protests, I 
 made photographs. But the recent butcheries in 
 Tripoli were of such a nature as would arouse even 
 Abd-ul-Hamid or M. Puriskevitch to indignant pro- 
 testation. Mr. Otto von Gottberg, a Prussian 
 officer, a firm believer in the strong hand and in 
 drastic military action, has for the first time in his 
 life taken the side of the civilians. I need not mention 
 the names of the British journalists who take the 
 same side. I think I am right in saying that the 
 only journalists who regard the severity of General 
 Caneva as justifiable are Italian journalists. 
 
 It may be urged that, in the cases I have already 
 given, the boys of whom I speak were really guilty, 
 and had really used arms. But it is impossible that
 
 288 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the sick boy or the old women could have done so. 
 It is impossible also that one-tenth of the murdered 
 Arabs whom I saw could have been regularly tried 
 before a military tribunal. They often lay singly on 
 the roadside. They never had weapons of any kind, 
 and sometimes they looked as if they had just got 
 out of bed and had not had time to dress. 
 
 The following instances which I have collected 
 from trustworthy sources show that cold-blooded 
 murder was the order of the day. 
 
 One of the chiefs of the Jewish community tells 
 me that a blind Jewish beggar and his son were both 
 murdered. They were arrested, and it shows what 
 a farce their trial must have been when, despite all 
 their protestations that they were Jews, the soldiers 
 insisted that they were Mohammedans and killed 
 them both. All the Jews in Tripoli are enthusiastic- 
 ally on the Italian side, and would dread nothing so 
 much as the return of the Turks. It is evident, 
 therefore, that these two Jewish lives were left 
 entirely to the decision of an ignorant soldiery, 
 panic-stricken, and inflamed to madness by stories 
 of the mutilations inflicted on their wounded. Dani 
 Saada, the elder Jew, did not die at the first volley. 
 The soldiers therefore broke his legs with the butts 
 of their rifles and beat him to death. He was sixty- 
 two years of age, and his son was twenty-six. 
 
 The butchery continued for several days. Soldiers 
 met well-dressed natives on the road. They took 
 them into empty houses, robbed and shot them. The 
 Italians abandoned on the second day their positions 
 on the east and fell back. Old Arab cooks and 
 labourers who had attached themselves to the new- 
 comers hobbled after them. The soldiers took pot- 
 shots at these unfortunate people. Sometimes a
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 289 
 
 man went back to finish off the wounded wretches 
 with the bayonet. Hundreds were buried in the 
 desert sand, hundreds were thrown into the sea ; and, 
 for many days afterwards, the TripoHtan fishers were 
 continually finding these corpses in their nets. The 
 oasis stank with unburied bodies. The soldiers refused 
 to inter them on account of the smell, and the Arabs 
 refused to do so unless forced to work at the point of 
 the bayonet. The sea-breeze was tainted with the smell 
 of swollen and putrid masses floating on the surface 
 of the bay. 
 
 The whole truth about these massacres will perhaps 
 never be known unless, indeed, some Socialist officer 
 or soldier in General Caneva's army lets the world 
 have his experiences. Permissions had been given to 
 newspaper correspondents to circulate everywhere. 
 When the murders began, all these permits were 
 stopped and an attempt was made to prevent any 
 foreign newspaper-man visiting the places where the 
 worst and biggest butcheries were carried out. The 
 military attaches were detained in Italy and then 
 sent on to Benghazi, or Derna, so that they should not 
 witness the horrors in Tripoli city. 
 
 During the early days of the occupation the 
 Arabs used to carry the Italian wounded into the 
 Italian lines under a flag of truce. It was not till 
 the invaders began butchering innocent women and 
 children that the Arabs mutilated the bodies of some 
 Italian soldiers. These cases of mutilation have been 
 made much of by the Italians. But even if the 
 Bedouins had committed unheard-of atrocities, that 
 was no reason why Rome should follow suit. 
 
 The real culprit is not the Italian soldier. On the 
 battle-field every soldier tends to become a brute. It 
 is, however, the duty of the officer to hold him in
 
 290 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 check. The English, German, American, or French 
 officer would have done so. Here it is, however, 
 where the Italian officer failed. 
 
 I shall now give some more details of the cold- 
 blooded murders committed by Italian soldiers 
 during those terrible days. 
 
 An old marabout (holy man) who sat in the sand 
 near Sokra in the oasis begging for alms was shot 
 dead. The villagers set the dead man on a donkey 
 and led him round about the oasis to show the people 
 how the foreigners treat their saints. 
 
 Ali Frefer, a butcher of Sania, a hamlet in the 
 oasis, was killing a sheep when some Italian soldiers 
 arrived upon the scene, took his axe from him, and 
 killed him with it. 
 
 In Tripoli a blind beggar was killed by soldiers. 
 
 A friend of mine had an old Arab servant for 
 twenty-eight years a cripple. The soldiers shot him. 
 
 Hundreds of similar instances could be given. 
 Almost every correspondent, almost every foreign 
 resident, has his own list of horrors. Every Consul 
 has sent official reports on the subject to his Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Not only was the possession of powder and rifles a 
 capital offence. The possession of a razor, a dagger, 
 a knife, or anything that looked like a weapon was 
 equally a capital offence. Now, a razor is an absolute 
 necessity in every Moslem family. It has a religious 
 significance, being sometimes used in the ceremonial 
 shaving of the head in the case of males, and of the 
 armpits in that of females. Yet Arabs were murdered 
 by the Italians for being in possession of razors. 
 Butchers were killed with their own axes. Arabs 
 found in possession of watches, buttons, and other 
 articles supposed to have belonged to Italians who
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 291 
 
 had disappeared or been murdered were shot without 
 any inquiry being made. 
 
 An Austrian explorer, Herr Artbauer, gives the 
 following particulars : 
 
 " Three blind beggars came along a row of houses 
 in Sokra, when some Bersaglieri, who were in a hut 
 at the corner of the street, fired and killed them. 
 Till evening their bodies were left lying where they 
 had fallen. Three children fled out of the oasis 
 into the graveyard of Sidi el Masri. The soldiers 
 composing the Italian post there opened a rapid 
 fire on the little ones, the eldest of whom was only 
 eight years. At Sania a peaceful resident, Moham- 
 med Mosuri, was coming from the market with a 
 little money, when he was stopped, searched, robbed 
 and murdered. On the Gargaresh road two women 
 were riding on two camels. The Italians called 
 on them to halt, but not understanding Italian they 
 continued their course. Their camels had not 
 gone a yard, however, when the sentinels opened 
 fire, killing both women. Another woman was 
 murdered on the Bumeliana road because she did 
 not lift her veil. Some Italian soldiers who were 
 passing by and who heard a wandering preacher 
 chanting, sent him alms in the shape of bullets ; 
 and the old man fell dead without a moan. This 
 afternoon (October 26th) I saw a twelve-year-old 
 boy drinking water at a well just outside Sania. 
 Suddenly a report rang out very close and the lad 
 fell to the ground with a shriek. At the Suk el 
 Djuma (Friday market) on the Tagiura road a 
 woman knelt over the body of her husband, 
 wailing loudly according to the custom of the 
 country. Her wailing did not last long, for an
 
 292 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Italian bullet soon stretched her dead beside the 
 body of her spouse." 
 
 Otto von Gottberg has furnished the following 
 particulars : 
 
 " Next morning (October 27th) I went to the 
 left from the Bumeliana main road behind the 
 Cavalry Barracks in the oasis. I did not go far, 
 as the road was too dangerous. Out of an Arab 
 hut, I saw a young woman emerge holding in her 
 right hand the fingers of her little son, and in her 
 left a water-pitcher. The street was perfectly 
 tranquil, but suddenly three shots rang out and 
 the woman fell dead. The screaming child fled 
 back into the house. I must admit that the horror 
 of this sight made me stagger and almost fall to 
 the ground. On recovering myself, I hurried on 
 and, meeting an officer, I said to him : ' Your 
 people have just shot a mother at the well ! ' 
 
 " The officer seemed really shocked, but he said : 
 ' Our soldiers cannot always see at the first glance 
 if it is a man or a woman that they have before 
 them.' 
 
 " This answer shows that, whether innocent or 
 guilty, the Arab man is lawful prey. I shall give 
 still another picture. Over the mud -wall of a 
 house some soldiers were firing. As we went up 
 to them they were in the garden, bending over 
 the body of a grey-haired old man whom they had 
 just shot. On our faces was the question : ' Why ? ' 
 By way of answer the under-officer fumbled in 
 the dead man's clothes and triumphantly drew 
 forth — a razor ! 
 
 " This murder was justified by an order to the 
 effect that every knife more than two inches long
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 293 
 
 is to be regarded as a weapon. Now in this country 
 even the women carry a razor about with them 
 owing to the fact that its use is prescribed by their 
 rehgion for the removal of hairs from the arms. 
 And this razor is never less than two inches long ! " 
 
 Even as late as November 11th, the Tripoli corre- 
 spondent of the " Vossische Zeitung " says (Novem- 
 ber 20th, 1911) that : 
 
 " I myself have more than once seen Arabs 
 who went into the gardens to work or to mow 
 some grass, simply shot down." 
 
 In some cases that have been made known to me 
 the Sicilian soldiers acted like brigands. I am 
 thinking particularly of one case in which some 
 soldiers searched an oasis shopkeeper and, on finding 
 some money in his purse, killed him for the money. 
 
 When the reaction set in very many of the private 
 soldiers became insane and had to be sent back to 
 Italy. The Nationalists tried to make capital out 
 of their infirmity by giving out that it was the result 
 of the atrocities of the Arabs. In some cases this 
 may have been so, but in the greater number of 
 instances I believe that the insanity was due to the 
 atrocities committed by the Italians themselves. 
 On March 28th I was stopped in front of the American 
 Consulate by an Italian soldier who was wandering 
 aimlessly about and obviously deranged. His belt 
 and all his weapons had been taken away from him, 
 however, so that he was not dangerous, but Heaven 
 alone knows how many murders he had committed 
 before he was disarmed. A more disgusting spectacle 
 I have seldom seen, for his eyes were bloodshot, he 
 was dirty and unshaven, his mouth hung open, and 
 the slaver poured down on his uniform. Seeing in
 
 294 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 me a stranger and therefore a possible victim, he 
 approached me and, getting his wandering wits 
 together by an effort, tried to bully me. He asked 
 me if I were a Turkish officer, if I had papers of 
 identity ; and his manner clearly indicated an intention 
 of blackmailing and terrorising me. I had no difficulty 
 in shaking off this pitiable object, but how many 
 wretched Arabs had not he and men like him victim- 
 ised and murdered during those awful days of the 
 Terror ! 
 
 And now in the madhouses of Italy, they pay 
 the penalty themselves. For your butcher is not 
 always a man of iron nerve. In this case many of 
 the butchers were probably neurotic city youths, 
 and the awful debauch of blood, the unlimited 
 licence to kill, kill, kill, had been too much for their 
 weak nerves and feeble brains. They were nervous 
 wrecks before the massacres had come to an end. 
 
 These " human abattoirs " were not, however, 
 the worst feature of the massacres. The worst 
 feature has never yet been described. I mean the 
 famine and sickness which followed them and which 
 naturally resulted from them. This famine and pesti- 
 lence carried off many women, children and old men 
 whom the heroes of la terza Italia had spared. 
 
 In many humble families the bread-winner had 
 been taken away, the little hut on the sea-shore or 
 under the palm -trees had been burned, the little 
 store of grain destroyed. Hardly had the massacres 
 ceased when the Market Square and the courtyards 
 of the mosques became crowded with the sick, the 
 wounded, and the old. They had no food, no medicine, 
 no resting-place save the bare ground. Cholera and 
 other diseases made short work of them. That 
 dreaded word cholera did, it is true, startle the
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 295 
 
 Italian authorities somewhat (for their own sakes) ; 
 and on November 21st General Caneva thought it 
 good policy to bestow some grain, rice, and clothes 
 on those poor people. This gift was sent through 
 Prince Hassuna Pasha, the Vice-Governor, and, of 
 course, the official telegraphic agency " Stefani '^ 
 trumpeted the fact throughout the world. 
 
 On the whole. General Caneva comes badly out 
 of this business. He proved himself a little barrack- 
 square martinet, not an administrator. He forgot 
 that he had taken over the responsibility for ruling 
 many poor people of another race, and allowed his 
 soldiers to butcher these people without making the 
 slightest attempt to stop them, to administer justice, 
 or to make any kind of investigation. The Arabs, 
 who are quick to see a sense of justice even in a 
 conqueror, cannot soon forget this blunder of the 
 Italians ; and, as " The Times " correspondent 
 prophesies, the events of October 23rd-27th will 
 react for many years on the invaders themselves. 
 
 It is reacting even now. All the Englishmen who 
 have been with the Turks dwell upon the wide 
 currency which the story of the oasis massacres has 
 obtained. Writing from the Turkish lines on March 
 27th, a correspondent of " The Times " says that 
 " from Tunis to Aziziah the country rings with tales 
 of wanton destruction committed by the Italians, of 
 the massacre of defenceless men, and the slaying 
 of women and small children, even children at the 
 breast. . . . These tales have now penetrated into 
 the ends of the Desert and the Sudan (whence rein- 
 forcements are consequently beginning to arrive in 
 larger and larger numbers), and . . . they have 
 aroused in their believers an undying hatred of the 
 Italians."
 
 296 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 The universality of this hate is one of the proofs 
 that there was a massacre. Alone it would be suf- 
 ficient to disprove the Italian assertion that not a 
 single innocent Arab was killed. For the Arab is 
 not easily shocked by massacre. He is accustomed 
 to it on a small scale, and dabbles in it himself 
 occasionally. Only something colossal, frightful, and 
 stupefying could have aroused him as he is now 
 aroused from the Yemen to Algeria, from the Mediter- 
 ranean to the heart of Africa. And neither the Arab 
 nor the Turk could have invented a massacre " story," 
 as some pro-Italians have suggested. They invent 
 many things, it is true, but their taste in mendacity 
 and exaggeration lies in quite a different direction 
 from this. They might say, for example, that they 
 killed tens of thousands of Italians, re-took Tripoli, 
 Derna, Tobruk, and Benghazi, drove all the Italians 
 back to their ships, and captured an aeroplane. 
 But it would never have occurred to them to fabricate 
 a massacre legend. It never occurred to the Mahdi 
 who fought us in the Sudan, nor even to the opponents 
 of the French in Algeria. And even if the Arabs 
 did fabricate such a story, they would not die in 
 hundreds for their own fabrication as they are dying 
 to-day. The merciless nature of this war and the 
 unparalleled fury with which the Arabs fight are 
 proofs of the massacre. There is hardly one of them 
 who has not had some friend or relation butchered in 
 the oasis. Some of them have seen the massacres. 
 Once there was a sallow Arab clerk who worked in 
 a French shipping-office opposite the Hotel Minerva 
 in Tripoli. On October 26th an Italian soldier, 
 accompanied by an ex-Turkish policeman, called on 
 him and told him that his brother had just been 
 executed. The grief of this unfortunate clerk was
 
 MiXAKET DISOriSEl) WITH FALM-FROXDS SO AS TO PREVEXT IT SERVIXG 
 AS A MARK FOR TURKISH ARTILLERY. 
 To face p. IQ/.
 
 THE " PURGING " OF THE OASIS 297 
 
 pitiable to see. The brother may have been a child 
 or a cripple, sitting at home in a little hut among 
 the palm-gardens waiting for the return of the bread- 
 winner. His guilt must have been impossible ; other- 
 wise his brother would have been to some extent 
 prepared for the result of it. But, with a loud cry, 
 he collapsed utterly. He threw himself flat on his 
 face on the floor. 
 
 Next day his high office stool was vacant. His 
 high office stool knew him no more. He had done 
 what every youth in England would have done 
 under similar circumstances. He was out in the 
 Desert with a rifle in his hand. Scores of men 
 like him, scores of eye-witnesses whose testimony 
 could not be doubted, gradually made clear to all 
 the Arab race the great Christian crime at which the 
 Tripolitan palm-groves had shuddered. 
 
 And not only did the Italians hopelessly alienate 
 the Arabs by their rank injustice. They alienated 
 them still more, perhaps, by their tactlessness in 
 religious matters. The soldiers violated many of the 
 mosques in the territory which they occupied. They 
 were not aware of the intense dislike of the natives 
 to seeing Christians enter even the grounds of a 
 mosque. They turned some of them into observa- 
 tories and filled others with soldiers. The Italian 
 newspapers have published photographs of minarets 
 crowded with troops. One Italian writer describes 
 for his readers how " from the terrace whence the 
 muezzin once called the faithful to prayer, seven or 
 eight Italian rifles now dominate the surrounding 
 country." 
 
 Another mistake made by the Italians was their 
 wholesale violation of the harems and their wholesale 
 unveiling of Arab women.
 
 298 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Alarmed by foolish stories about Turkish spies 
 who had masqueraded as veiled women, they had 
 sometimes shot women who refused to unveil. The 
 result was that during the last week of October the 
 veils were torn from the faces of nearly all the Moham- 
 medan women in Tripoli. One never saw a veiled 
 woman in the streets, and on the Italian steamers by 
 which Turkish families left, all the women were un- 
 veiled. To any one who knows how strongly the 
 Arabs feel on this subject of the veiling of women, 
 the intolerance of the Italians on this point will 
 seem one of the gravest mistakes they made. 
 
 What renders their case hopeless, however, is their 
 immovable and unalterable conviction that they have 
 done the correct thing as no other race under heaven 
 could have done it. One of their commanders, we are 
 told, won all the native hearts " con un impeto e una 
 genialitd di cui sola la nostra razza e capace, senza un 
 errore d'intelligenza o d'energia " (" with an impetuosity 
 and a geniality of which only our race is capable, with- 
 out an error of intelligence or of energy "). 
 
 Even if we leave the massacres out of account, 
 we must admit that, as a matter of fact, they have 
 behaved ever since they came to Tripoli with the 
 tactfulness of the proverbial bull in a china-shop.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HASSUNA KARAMANLI 
 
 Even if we admit for a moment (what I do not 
 in the least believe, however) that the extension 
 of Italy's rule to Tripoli would be a blessing, 
 we must also confess that with a little tact, a 
 very little tact, the Italians might have avoided 
 bloodshed almost altogether. They should have 
 allowed themselves to be guided by their staunch 
 friend, Prince Hassuna Karamanli, whom they 
 made Vice-Governor of Tripoli. Prince Hassuna, of 
 whom I shall have more to say hereafter, was a 
 grandson of Jussef Karamanli, the independent Bey 
 of Tripoli, whom the Turks dethroned in the middle 
 of the last century ; and the obvious plan of the 
 Italians, if they wished to possess themselves of 
 Tripolitania, was to come in as the supporters of 
 Hassuna against the Turks. 
 
 If they had made Hassuna king and allowed him 
 to sign all the proclamations to the Arabs, to give 
 largess to the chiefs, and to act as a potentate 
 generally, they could have ruled Tripoli as the 
 French rule Tunis. Karamanli himself had pointed 
 out this course to the Italians in 1890. Crispi, who 
 was then in power and who had designs on Tripolitania, 
 conceived the brilliant project of getting suddenly 
 excited even to tears by the wrongs of the Karamanli, 
 and sending a few battle-ships to take their part 
 
 299
 
 300 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 against the Turkish oppressor. The whole story has 
 now come to Hght since there is no longer any necessity 
 for concealing it, and the confidential correspondence 
 between the Arab Prince and the Italian Premier 
 has been published. Crispi asked Signor Grande, the 
 Italian Consul in Tripoli, to sound Karamanli on the 
 subject of Italian intervention. Now, Karamanli, 
 though a traitor, is also a statesman of quite unusual 
 capacity, a fine diplomatist, a tactful, reasonable, 
 unambitious man of business, and, at the same time, 
 a great chief whose ascendancy over practically all 
 the Arabs of Tripolitania was unquestioned until the 
 blundering bombardment of the Italians and the 
 landing of General Caneva deprived him of all his 
 followers save a few personal servants, one son, and 
 a group of discredited ex-chiefs. In answer to Consul 
 Grande, Karamanli declared that he was willing to 
 act the puppet-part which the Italians wished him 
 to play. To quote Consul Grande's letter : 
 
 " Sid Hassuna Karamanli showed himself well 
 disposed to help in the Italian occupation, since 
 he is convinced that if we do not occupy 
 Tripolitania some other Power will. He says that 
 he can dispose of all the strength of the mountain 
 population since he enjoys their sympathy. He 
 would accept a form of government similar to 
 that of Tunisia. This arrangement would, he says, 
 prevent any resistance on the part of the Arabs 
 and would pacify the country. He does not deny 
 that Turkey will fight, but he thinks that she can 
 do nothing serious if she is not supported by the 
 Arabs." 
 
 Early in last year Italy intimated to Karamanli 
 that she was ready to act, and the Prince again
 
 HASSUNA KARAMANLI 301 
 
 insisted, I presume, on the necessity of doing the 
 deed gradually, on the terrible consequences which 
 would result if the Italians simply bombarded the 
 towns on the coast-line, filled them with soldiers, 
 and frankly annexed the whole vilayet in the name 
 of King Victor Emmanuel. He undoubtedly pointed 
 out that, in that case, the whole Arab population 
 would join the Turks and wage war against the 
 invaders until either they or the Italians were ex- 
 terminated. He assured them that if they blundered 
 into the country as " the heirs of ancient Rome," the 
 members of his own family would fight in the ranks of 
 the Osmanli, and that probably not a dozen Moham- 
 medans in the country (besides himself) would be 
 found on the Italian side. But the Napoleonic Galli, 
 the Bismarckian Giolitti, refused to listen to him. 
 They preferred the slapdash method, the bull-in-a- 
 china-shop manner. It is said that Giolitti intended 
 to make Victor Emmanuel Emperor of Italy as 
 Bismarck made King William I of Prussia Emperor 
 of Germany at Versailles, and he could hardly do so 
 if there was anything veiled or indirect about the 
 Italian conquest of Tripolitania. 
 
 Besides, the jingo Press was yelping at his heels. 
 The newspapers wanted la guerra ad oltranza. They 
 would not have a protectorate on any terms. Ignorant 
 of the importance which the management of despots 
 plays in the theory and practice of modern Im- 
 perialism, they refused to maintain any native despot 
 for the purpose of giving their crude aggression a 
 show of legality and right. They did not even stop 
 to ask themselves how they could manage about the 
 franchise in case Tripoli was declared to be as much 
 a part of Italy as the Roman Campagna. So far, 
 this is surely a case of greediness grasping too much
 
 302 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 and getting next to nothing. That pagan people, 
 the Japanese, conducted the absorption of Korea 
 with infinitely more tact, while their diplomatic 
 correspondence with Russia, which ended in an 
 ultimatum, makes the tactless and ungainly notes 
 which Signor Giolitti sent to the Sublime Porte look 
 like the immature scrawls of a barbaric chief. 
 
 Consequently Hassuna Karamanli, with all his 
 long experience of the country and all his intimate 
 knowledge of his own people, was overborne by men 
 who did not know the difference between an Arab and 
 a Berber ; and the fatal expedition was decided upon. 
 The Italians thought that Karamanli was playing 
 for his own hand. He wanted to be Bey like the Bey 
 of Tunis, and in order to attain to that ridiculous 
 eminence he tried to frighten them, " the descendants 
 of the Scipios," with cock-and-bull stories of Arab 
 ferocity. This smallness and greediness, this want 
 of a large, generous outlook, is characteristic of the 
 Giolitti Ministry. They may always be confidently 
 relied upon to do the wrong thing. I would not 
 trust them with the handling of a tramway strike, 
 much less with the tactful settlement of a dangerous 
 conflict which raises more than one delicate question 
 and which may ultimately involve all Europe in war. 
 No wonder that England, France, Germany, and 
 Austria-Hungary wait with the most intense anxiety 
 to see what these schoolboy statesmen are going to do 
 next. 
 
 To make the defeat of the Prince all the more galling, 
 the Italians spoke sorrowfully of his wrongs and threw 
 out a hint that they were there to avenge them. In 
 the congenial columns of the " New York American," 
 Gabriele d' Annunzio wept tears of blood for la 
 dinastia dei Caramanli hrutalmente spodestata dai
 
 HASSUNA KARAMANLI 303 
 
 iurchi e il modo come il Caramanli allora dominante fu 
 atiratto sulla nave ammiraglia turca, legato, portato a 
 Costantinopoli, dove subi la morte misteriosa della 
 tradizione ottomana. 
 
 " A profound, incessant gleam burned in the eyes 
 of the last Karamanli," says an Italian writer, 
 describing the scene of the formal submission in the 
 castle after Admiral Ricci's landing. " His vendetta 
 on the Turkish usurper was at last finished." 
 
 Yes, under the Turks even, he was a Prince and 
 a Pasha by whose beard nearly a million Arabs swore. 
 The Italians made him Vice-Governor of Tripoli 
 town ! ^ Thus were avenged the secular wrongs of 
 the Karamanli ! 
 
 So the invaders had things their own way; and 
 as Hassuna Pasha was in the same boat with them, he 
 had to submit. But when he made submission to 
 Admiral Borea-Ricci in the name of all the Arabs, 
 he was depressed and despondent, for he knew 
 very well that he only spoke for himself. To the 
 surprise of the Admiral, he turned to him and said, 
 " I hope you will spare the lives of my people." 
 He trusted that the Italians would assure to the 
 Arabs respect for their religion, their women, their 
 property. When interviewed by correspondents 
 innumerable, he repeated, sadly, the same phrase 
 about wanting the lives at least of his people to be 
 spared. Journalists asked him about the resources 
 of the country, the minerals hidden in the mountains, 
 the possibilities of a Klondike or a Johannesburg. 
 Prince Hassuna sadly shook his head and said that 
 the country only wanted peace, that the Arabs only 
 
 ^ He is afterwards referred to frequently, however, as the Mayor. It 
 does not seem to be quite certain what sort of a tenth-rate honorary 
 position the unfortunate man held, but officially he was Vice-Governor, 
 at least in the beginning.
 
 804 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 wanted respect for their religion, their women, their 
 property. 
 
 " Don't you think that the Italians will be well 
 received by the Arab population of the interior ? " 
 they asked. 
 
 " Provided that the Italians respect the families 
 and the religion of the people," answered Karamanli 
 sadly, unable evidently to get away from this aspect 
 of the question. 
 
 " Won't Your Excellency come forward to accept 
 the leadership, the representation, so to speak, of 
 the Arab people — if Italy invites you to do so ? " 
 they tactlessly asked. 
 
 " I wish to keep entirely apart," answered the 
 Prince. " My only desire is for the peace and tran- 
 quillity of my people. What Allah decrees must be, 
 ma se V acqua non si cheta la sabbia che c' e dentro non 
 precipita. [But if the water is not at rest, the sand 
 in it does not settle down to the bottom.] The Arabs 
 only want respect for their religion, their women, 
 their property." 
 
 Then came the massacres, and Prince Hassuna 
 was in bad odour immediately. His powers as Vice- 
 Governor, always rather mythical, were immediately 
 curtailed. The Hon. Deputy De Felice wired from 
 Tripoli that " Per misure di or dine generate i poteri 
 accordati al sindaco della cittd sono stati limitati alio 
 stretto necessario nei riguardi esclusivi degli usi locally 
 (" For the sake of the general tranquillity, the powers 
 accorded to the Mayor of the city have been limited 
 to matters of strict necessity in exclusive connection 
 with local customs.") 
 
 In other words, after allowing him to reign with 
 sham brilliancy for exactly twelve days, the Italians 
 suddenly " busted " (to use an Americanism) their
 
 HASSUNA KARAMANLI 305 
 
 puppet Lord Mayor, the capo delta municipalitd di 
 Tripoli e capo riconosciuto dagli arabi della cittd e 
 delle campagne (the chief of the municipahty of 
 Tripoli and recognised head of the Arabs of the city 
 and of the country). 
 
 De FeHce added that " the notables of the city 
 apparently continue in favour of the Italian occu- 
 pation." 
 
 The unfortunate Mayor was made the scapegoat 
 for the sins of Italian officials who, having got the 
 city into a state of massacre and muddle, were now 
 anxious to blame somebody else for it. He was 
 blamed for having tried to make the Italians pursue 
 a peaceful policy towards the Arabs. " You prevented 
 us from disarming those oasis Bedouins, and now, 
 thanks to your leniency, they have risen in our rear 
 and wiped out two companies of our best troops." 
 " You told us the Arabs were on our side and your 
 prophecies have all come wrong." " You assured 
 us that we would have no difficulties save with the 
 Turks, and now see the mess in which you have 
 landed us." 
 
 Such were the reproaches addressed by blundering, 
 angry, incompetent officers to il ultimo dei Caramanli 
 (the last of the Karamanlis). Newspapers in Italy 
 even agitated to have his wretched salary reduced — 
 the unfortunate man was getting a few thousand lire 
 a month to keep up his state as " Prince " and as Lord 
 Mayor of Tripoli — on the ground that he had not 
 carried out his engagements to keep the natives quiet. 
 
 Probably because he refused to abase himself to the 
 last pitch of degradation by signing a protest against 
 the "exaggerated" accounts of Italian atrocities which 
 had appeared in the foreign Press, he was actually 
 suspected of being in communication with the Turks, 
 
 X
 
 306 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 of being, in short, a spy, of intriguing with the enemy 
 through his son, a Turkish cavalry officer, who had 
 left the city with Nescia Bey. 
 
 In spite of all his sacrifices, he was suspected. 
 During the battle of Sidi Messri I spoke with an 
 officer who threw serious doubts on Karamanli's 
 loyalty, and who said that he was probably betraying 
 the plans of the Italians to the Turks through his son 
 the cavalry officer out in the Desert. 
 
 In all probability, the unfortunate man now 
 regrets that he ever helped the Italians to come to 
 Tripoli. Save for a younger son, and for the members 
 of his harem, he is alone in the world. All the Arabs 
 in Tripoli hate him as a Judas, and sooner or later one 
 of them is bound to put a knife or bullet into him. 
 During the progress of the massacres he was a 
 pathetic sight as, in obedience to peremptory orders 
 from his Italian taskmaster in the Castello, he 
 perambulated the streets of the city accompanied 
 by a few Arab " notables " who looked as bedraggled 
 and dispirited as himself. He was supposed to be 
 out on a vague and hopeless mission of calming the 
 people and allaying the turmoil, but he dared not 
 speak to any Arab. Had he ventured to address 
 the lowest hamal (porter) in the street, the hamal 
 would have considered himself insulted, would have 
 spat in the face of the traitor who had brought in 
 the giaour. 
 
 If an Arab bullet does not end his days, this mock 
 " Prince " will probably finish his picturesque career 
 as a suspect in some Italian fortress. Bitter, indeed, 
 is the bread of the man who has betrayed his country. 
 Thrice bitter is the bread eaten by the " mnico delV 
 Italia, Hassuna Fascia, ultimo dei Karamanli, prin- 
 cipe della Tripolitania." For he is thrice a traitor.
 
 HASSUNA KARAMANLI 307 
 
 He has betrayed not only his country, but also his 
 religion and his race. 
 
 And, as if the hand of Allah had smitten him, his 
 eldest son has been taken away from him by an 
 untimely death. Early in November, far away 
 amid the Gharian mountains, this brave young 
 soldier was carried off by fever.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CANEVA OVER-CAREFUL 
 
 It is generally supposed that the oasis massacres 
 were the result of a sudden rising of the Arab " friend- 
 lies " on October 23rd. As a matter of fact, they 
 were inevitable from the moment General Caneva 
 landed. 
 
 The arrangement of the Italian line made them 
 inevitable. So did the utterly mistaken ideas which 
 General Caneva had brought with him from Rome 
 regarding the submission of the Arabs. 
 
 In arranging his line and in everything he did, 
 General Caneva erred, sometimes by over-caution, 
 sometimes by insufficient caution. 
 
 He was over-cautious when he posted his soldiers 
 shoulder to shoulder in a semi-circle round the town, 
 one end of the entrenched line reaching the sea west 
 of Tripoli at Gargaresh, the other end reaching the 
 sea east of Tripoli at Sharashett. While keeping a 
 very strong reserve in Tripoli, he should have attacked 
 in detail the very small parties of Arabs who harassed 
 him ; he should have occupied positions far from the 
 town. But his line was in no place more than two 
 miles from the citadel on the water's edge, and at 
 night there were no outposts in front of this line, 
 so that the Arabs could come up to within forty yards 
 of the Italians, while the Turkish artillery amused 
 itself for weeks and weeks by throwing shells into 
 
 308
 
 CANEVA OVER-CAREFUL 309 
 
 the city. Considering the relative strength of the 
 two armies, this patience and humihty on the part 
 of the Italian leader was preposterous. The Turko- 
 Arabs numbered 1500 men, with eight old cannon. 
 The Italians 20,000, with, at the end of October, 
 seven field - batteries, nine mountain -batteries, ten 
 machine-guns, not to mention half-a-dozen men-o'-war 
 and half-a-dozen aeroplanes. Armed with modern 
 rifles, any body of soldiers can keep at bay a force 
 three times as great as itself ; but here we find an 
 entrenched army compelled to retreat by an enemy 
 less than one-tenth as numerous. 
 
 The retreat took place on October 28th. It was 
 probably due to over-carefulness, to General Caneva's 
 anxiety not to run the risk of another Adowa, of a 
 disaster which might lead even to the overthrow of 
 the dynasty at home. But in war this sort of over- 
 carefulness is nearly always fatal. It was extremely 
 near being fatal in the case of the Italians, for it caused 
 great jubilation among the Arabs, who considered 
 that they had gained a victory. Meanwhile the 
 Arabs in the city were kept in a constant state of 
 excitement by hearing, continually and distinctly, 
 the crackle of their kinsmen's rifles in the Desert, by 
 seeing Turkish shells strike General Caneva's house, 
 by seeing Arab rifle-balls kill soldiers in the market- 
 place and in front of the American Consulate. 
 
 I regret that I must add that General Caneva was 
 perhaps rather too careful of his own person. He 
 
 lived in the old citadel of Charles the Fifth and was 
 
 « 
 
 never visible. He never went about among the 
 troops. He never came into personal contact with 
 the bulk of his officers. 
 
 Especially after he had become convinced that 
 the friendly Arabs were really hostile, General Caneva
 
 310 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 manifested such a frenzy, as I can only call it, for 
 protecting his own person that the Arabs, accustomed 
 to look for personal bravery above all things in their 
 own leaders, were filled with contempt, while the 
 Italian soldiers and officers were not much edified. 
 
 At first he seemed to be afraid to come ashore at 
 all, and remained, it is said, in a transport. Towards 
 the end of October he did venture to come ashore, but 
 it was whispered that he used to go back to his trans- 
 port at night, so that he might have a good start 
 with the news in case the Arabs rushed the town in 
 the darkness. It looked as if he were really a " New 
 York Herald " correspondent, after all, and wanted 
 to reach Malta first with his cable in case anything 
 happened. 
 
 Even when ashore, he remained hidden all day 
 somewhere in the huge grey citadel on the edge of 
 the sea. But as soon as shooting began at the out- 
 posts hurried preparations were made to put this 
 citadel in a state of defence. The glass in the windows 
 was broken so that the soldiers could more easily 
 fire through. The castello was surrounded with 
 troops, lines of sand-bags were laid in the open 
 ground-floor windows, as well as in the gateways 
 and the doorways of the citadel ; and, behind those 
 bags, soldiers lay prone on the ground as if they were 
 in the firing-line. The flat roofs were crowded with 
 troops, also prone, their fingers on the trigger. The 
 courtyards bristled with bayonets. The flat roofs 
 of all the neighbouring houses were grey with soldiery. 
 The steam-launch got up steam, so that if the worst 
 came to the worst the Generalissimo might be able 
 to make a " bolt." 
 
 Those preparations for a last stand at the front 
 door of the Governor's house (while His Excellency
 
 CANEVA OVER-CAREFUL 311 
 
 escaped by the back door) caused an extremely bad 
 impression among the Arabs as well as among the 
 Italian soldiers. 
 
 The only reason the Arabs could see for all this 
 preparation was General Caneva's certainty that the 
 Desert Arabs would be in the city within a few 
 moments, and his desire to have time to get off in 
 his steam-launch before they rushed the citadel. Such 
 extreme precautions on the part of a Commander- 
 in-chief have seldom been seen in war since the days 
 when the Byzantine Emperors (who also claimed 
 to be " the heirs of ancient Rome ") sent out their 
 eunuchs in charge of armies. General Caneva's 
 explanation would probably be that, if he exposed 
 himself freely in the streets, his death at the hand of 
 a fanatical Mohammedan would be almost certain, 
 and that enough fire-arms remained among the town 
 Arabs to make it possible for them to rush the citadel 
 in case it were not properly guarded. But he himself 
 was to blame for not having made it his first duty, 
 as soon as he landed, to seize every rifle and every 
 cartridge in the town. Proclamations were not 
 enough. There should have been a house-to-house 
 search, and everything in the shape of a fire-arm 
 should have been seized. That done. General Caneva 
 could have omitted those extravagant preparations 
 for the defence of his own residence, which rendered 
 him an object of ridicule to the whole native popu- 
 lation, and which must have seriously damped the 
 spirits of his troops. 
 
 Those troops had never been in the best of humour 
 since the day they landed, and, in order to cheer 
 them up, a military band used to perform regularly 
 every evening at the Bumeliana well. But unfortu- 
 nately the Turks nearly landed a shell one day in
 
 812 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the big drum, and never after that did the band play 
 at Bumeliana to cheer up the soldiers. It played 
 near the castello to cheer up General Caneva. It is 
 to Herr von Gottberg that I am indebted for this 
 instructive story. 
 
 To make things worse, the bad example of this 
 invisible Generalissimo was imitated by all the 
 higher officers. The Division Commander had 
 fortified himself in a house nearly opposite that of 
 the Commander-in-chief, and never went to the 
 front save as a guest, a rare visitor. During the 
 pogroms at the end of October no officer of the rank 
 of captain, or of any rank above that, was to be seen 
 with the troops. Yet if ever there was a time when 
 the elder officers should have been on the spot in 
 order to keep the younger officers as well as the men 
 under proper control, it was then. I know that I 
 have made this remark several times already, but I 
 shall probably make it again, for it cannot be repeated 
 too often.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 CANEVA'S MISTAKE ABOUT THE '^ SUBMISSION " 
 OF THE ARABS 
 
 I HAVE tried to show how General Caneva erred by 
 over-carefulness. Now, he is generally supposed to 
 be a very prudent and knowing commander, but, 
 as a matter of fact, his carelessness and his child-like 
 ignorance in some directions were astonishing. In 
 some things he displayed quite a touching simplicity. 
 
 His initial mistake was in thinking that the Arabs 
 had submitted. I shall deal with this mistake at some 
 length, as it has a direct bearing on the massacres, 
 for naturally there would have been no accusations 
 of treachery if the Italians had not been convinced 
 that the Arabs had sworn allegiance to them. 
 
 To find the origin of this mistaken optimism we 
 must go back a long way. Four months before the 
 war, just about the time that the Italian Minister for 
 Foreign Affairs publicly declared that there were no 
 difficulties between the Italian Government and the 
 Porte, the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs unloosed 
 a horde of spies and jingoes on Tripolitania. Those 
 men took all conceivable forms. Some of them were 
 postal officials ; some of them were newspaper cor- 
 respondents ; but all of them were violent supporters 
 of the new policy of Nazionalismo. Thus, long 
 before the rupture, Signor Enrico Corradini, one of 
 the founders of the Nationalist school, travelled all 
 
 313
 
 314 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 over Tripolitania and afterwards pointed out in a book, 
 " L'Ora di Tripoli," how useful this Turkish vilayet 
 might be made to Italy, how it would employ Italian 
 emigrants, how it would be prosperous like Tunis, 
 how even its deserts could be made to blossom like 
 the rose. Signor Giuseppe Bevione, another violent 
 Nationalist, also visited Tripolitania in the spring 
 of 1911. I do not say that those two gentlemen were 
 actually in the employ of the Italian Foreign Office, 
 but their reports must have been read at Rome, and 
 their presence, as well as that of many other Italian 
 publicists in Tripoli, some months before Signor 
 Giolitti had discovered that he had any grievance 
 there at all, is rather significant. 
 
 But the leading agents of the Italian Government 
 in ante-bellum Tripoli were Vice-Consul Galli and 
 Captain Verri. The former was a small, Napoleonic- 
 looking Florentine ; the latter a long, thin, military 
 man. It is a significant indication of the direction 
 taken by Italy's aspirations that both these men 
 should have been previously employed in Italia 
 irredenta, which, as is well known, the Italian Nation- 
 alists claim as part of Italy. 
 
 I hope that Signor Galli's reports from Italia 
 irredenta^ were more in conformity with the facts than 
 were his reports from Tripolitania, for in the latter 
 reports he seems to have given Rome the idea that 
 the Arabs were all anti-Turk and would welcome 
 the Italians with open arms. 
 
 Such mistakes are perpetually made, of course, by 
 
 ^ The excellent Tyrolese troops of Austria-Hungary would reach 
 Venice in a couple of days after the outbreak of an Italo-Austrian 
 war. During a walking-tour in the Dolomite Alps a few years ago, I 
 was enormously impressed by the efficiency of the Austro-Hungarian 
 soldiers in the South-east Tyrol. But on the other side of the frontier 
 the Italian garrisons live on those vain delusions of their prowess which 
 have cost them much in TripoHtania.
 
 CANEVA'S MISTAKE 315 
 
 agents who are sent out in this way — even by Enghsh 
 agents. Those agents are so anxious to make their 
 names historical that they simply cannot say to their 
 Government : " It is better to wait." They see a 
 favourable and extraordinary conjunction of cir- 
 cumstances which may never occur again, and 
 in their optimism, their enthusiasm, their intense 
 desire that their Government should act at once, 
 their judgment becomes hopelessly warped, they 
 overlook the difficulties, exaggerate the facilities, 
 persuade themselves that the " downtrodden " natives 
 will welcome the invaders. And they do this all the 
 more readily when they know that this is the only 
 kind of report which their Government wants, that 
 any other kind of report would only lead to their 
 recall and disgrace. 
 
 This danger was all the greater in the case of 
 Consul Galli, since he is a man of obstinate, over- 
 bearing, and self-sufficient character, and a fanatical 
 Nationalist. To give the reader an idea of his char- 
 acter, I need only mention the fact that after the troops 
 had landed and he himself had been made head of 
 the Civil Government, he suddenly ceased to under- 
 stand any language but Italian. Only a day earlier 
 he would condescend to converse with the corre- 
 spondents in French or even in a sort of English ; 
 but as Bismarck, though a good linguist, insisted, 
 after Sedan, on speaking only German on official 
 occasions, so Consul Galli insisted on speaking only 
 Italian on account of Admiral Faravelli's great 
 victory over a few antiquated Turkish forts on 
 October 3rd. 
 
 But I am anticipating. Before the war Galli 
 had succeeded in gathering around him a number 
 of Arabs who said that they were chiefs or had
 
 316 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 been chiefs. One or two of them may have been 
 telHng the truth, but a more extensive experience 
 of Northern Africa would have taught the Consul 
 that, though it is easy to get an Arab to sell his 
 country, it is quite another matter to make him 
 " deliver the goods." 
 
 The bulk of these renegades were so well broken 
 in, however, that Galli could trot them out like a 
 music-hall troupe at every function which took 
 place in Tripoli after the Italian landing. Signor 
 Gain's Arab marionettes appeared in their long 
 white robes and performed their celebrated kow-tow 
 when Commander Cagni entered the city. Signor 
 Galli's supers turned up promptly when General 
 Caneva took over the command. Their presence 
 added a graceful Oriental touch to Italian reunions ; 
 and they always put in an appearance so quickly 
 that it seemed as if the Consul kept them housed 
 somewhere behind his Consulate, had them on call, 
 so to speak, and could summon them at any moment 
 by merely pressing an electric button. Even when 
 their innocent countrymen were slaughtered by 
 thousands in the oasis towards the end of October, 
 this faithful Old Guard turned up at Galli's bidding 
 and signed a protest against the accounts of these 
 massacres that were published in the foreign papers. 
 Could sycophancy go further than that ? 
 
 Chief among these men was Prince Hassuna 
 Pasha, the last representative of the great Kara- 
 manli family which had once taken Tripoli from the 
 Turks and ruled it as an independent State until 
 about forty years ago, when the Turks retook it. 
 Hassuna Pasha, of whom I have already spoken 
 in Chapter III, Part IV, is a tall, black-bearded 
 man of ample presence. His features are regular,
 
 CANEVA'S MISTAKE 317 
 
 his appearance is striking. He dresses well in Euro- 
 pean style, with a frock-coat, but with a fez instead 
 of a tall hat. For a long time past he had been 
 exceedingly anxious to sell his country. I have 
 already shown that in 1890 he was in communication 
 with Crispi with the object of facilitating the ac- 
 quisition of Tripolitania by the Italians. Ever since 
 that time he has probably been in receipt of a salary 
 from Rome. 
 
 For a long time before the war Karamanli had 
 been in close communication with Galli, but so far 
 from having any right to speak, as he did, for all 
 the Arabs of Tripolitania, he could not act as spokes- 
 man for the members of his own family — in so far, 
 at least, as their direct transference of allegiance 
 from the Khalifa to the King of Italy was concerned. 
 He has an only son who was last October in the 
 Desert at the head of the Turkish Cavalry. A few 
 days before I left Tripoli the father sent a message 
 to his son asking him to come back, swear allegiance 
 to the invaders, accept wealth and honour at their 
 hands. The son's answer was worthy of an ancient 
 Roman. He said, " Yes, I will soon come back, but 
 it will be at the head of my Turkish horsemen ; and, 
 when I come, you will be the first man I shall hang." 
 
 This, then, was one of the principal Arab sup- 
 porters of Consul Galli. Even after the Arab 
 " revolt " at Sharashett the Consul continued to 
 be invincibly optimistic. He was recalled to Rome 
 to give an account of the situation, and the head- 
 line " Uottimismo del Console Galli,'' which appeared 
 in all the Italian papers at that time, indicates his 
 confidence in the Arabs. " Le notizie riferite dal 
 cav. Galli sono confortevolissime specie per quel eke 
 riguarda la fedelta della popolazione araba della
 
 818 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 dud di Tripoli." (The news brought back by Consul 
 Galli is most comforting, especially as regards the 
 fidelity of the Arab population of the city of Tripoli.) 
 
 From this it will be seen that the Consul, once so 
 ready to swear that all the Tripolitan Arabs would 
 greet the Italian invaders as long-lost brothers, 
 now confined himself to vouching for the Arabs of 
 Tripoli city. He was certainly on the safe side now, 
 for there are not many real Arabs in Tripoli city, 
 the population being mostly composed of Jews, 
 Maltese, Greeks, Levantines, Syrians, and of other 
 mixed and parasitical races such as we find clinging 
 everywhere to the fringe of the Ottoman Empire, 
 besides a large collection of nondescripts of no definite 
 nationality. 
 
 When asked to account for the oasis revolt, Consul 
 Galli airily explained to the Rome correspondent 
 of the " Corriere della Sera " that it was " the 
 result of intrigues and menaces on the part of the 
 Turks, who made the Arabs believe that a strong 
 Ottoman army was about to reoccupy Tripoli." 
 
 The Consul then switched off the conversation 
 to Derna, where he declared that " the soldiers live 
 in common with the Arabs, and where both are in 
 cordial solidarity against the Turks." 
 
 In view of the dreadful and almost continuous 
 fighting that has since taken place at Derna, we can 
 understand why Consul Galli was recalled in disgrace 
 from Tripoli. A political prophet of this kind is a 
 perilous possession for any country. 
 
 But Consul Galli was not the only false prophet. 
 Captain Verri, a military spy Avho came to Tripoli 
 in disguise before the bombardment, also prophesied 
 smooth things. He is said to have been so upset 
 by the brutal way in which events falsified his
 
 CANEVA'S MISTAKE 319 
 
 predictions that, on October 26th, he committed 
 suicide in the Desert just outside the Itahan trenches. 
 His friends maintain, it is true, that it was a Turkish 
 bullet that killed him. I have already described 
 the incident. 
 
 Thus the agents of Italy in Tripolitania were 
 unanimous in declaring that the campaign would 
 be a walk-over, a " passeggiata militare." A Socialist 
 deputy even said that it would not cost a penny 
 nor the life of a single soldier. 
 
 I am sorry to have to add that the Press was 
 largely responsible for this wrong impression. I 
 might even say that the long and tenacious campaign 
 for the taking of Tripoli which was conducted by 
 the Italian daily papers, had a great deal to do 
 with the hounding on of this timid and unmilitary 
 people into war. The Chauvinism of the daily Press 
 is in all countries a new danger which the nations 
 must seriously take into account, and the danger is 
 particularly great in Italy owing to the fact that the 
 leading journalists in that country are litter at i and 
 impressionists who are peculiarly irresponsible, who are 
 peculiarly out of touch with realities. These writers had 
 constantly before them the name of imperial Rome. 
 They could not, under the circumstances, have had 
 a worse inspiration. Italy should try to imitate 
 the excellent example of some practical, progressive, 
 and peaceful country like modern Denmark, not 
 the sinister example of ancient Rome. She should 
 drop the delusion about making colonial empires, 
 and go in for making butter. The future belongs 
 to the nations of farmers and shopkeepers. 
 
 Even on the question of the Arab attitude and 
 of the strategical plans which should be followed, 
 the Italians seem to have been considerably in-
 
 320 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 fluenced by the Press. They were confirmed in their 
 opinion that the Arabs were disgusted with Turkish 
 rule and would welcome the Italians among them. 
 Able journalists detected a certain indifference and 
 impassibility on the faces of the Arabs whenever 
 Turkey was mentioned, and, hastily translating this 
 into words, they asserted that Tripolitania was 
 sick to death of Ottoman oppression. They even 
 declared that the Senussi would welcome with open 
 arms the soldiers of Italy. 
 
 Misled by these statements, which seemed to 
 confirm the confidential reports of its most trusted 
 secret agents, the Italian Government had been won 
 over absolutely to the " passeggiata militare " view. 
 It reasoned in this way : The Turks have in Tripoli 
 only four regiments of regular Infantry whom they 
 can reinforce with a certain number of redifs, several 
 squadrons of cavalry, and a few batteries of artillery. 
 In all, they cannot place more than 15,000 soldiers in 
 the field against us. We, on the other hand, can at 
 once send against them an army corps of about 
 40,000 men, which will be amply sufficient to beat 
 an army that cannot be reinforced, owing to our 
 blockade of the coast. 
 
 But the gravest question of all — the friendship 
 or neutrality of the Arabs — was left out of account 
 not only by the journalists, but even by the Govern- 
 ment and the leaders of the army. 
 
 The unexpected Arab rising against the in- 
 vaders was therefore the iceberg on which the 
 Italians suffered shipwreck. I must admit, how- 
 ever, that in her delusions on the subject of the 
 Arabs, Italy was encouraged, to some extent, 
 by history — at any rate, by the old histories which 
 the Chauvinist Italian litterati seem to have read.
 
 CANEVA'S MISTAKE 321 
 
 The Arabs have ever oscillated between two secular 
 hates, their hate of the Turks and their hate of the 
 Infidel. They have frequently fought against the 
 Turks with as much fanaticism as they fight against 
 Europeans. It was owing to his Arab soldiery that 
 Mehmed Ali was able, in the first half of the last 
 century, to beat the armies of the Sultan of Stamboul 
 and to place Turkey in great danger. The Arabs in 
 the Yemen have been fighting ever since against 
 the soldiers of the Padishah. But it was not by 
 men of Consul Galli's stamp that the proud Arab 
 skeikhs could be won over. Besides, the Italians 
 were not much respected by the Arabs. There were 
 in Tripolitania too many cheap labourers of Italian 
 nationality. This may seem, by the way, to be a 
 cheap sneer on my part, but it is a profound truth 
 with a most important bearing on the present con- 
 flict. The fact that labourers from Sicily worked in 
 Tripolitania for the same wages as an Arab made the 
 Arabs consider all Italians as coolies, as people who 
 could not be regarded as Europeans at all, and who 
 were on quite a different plane from the other nations 
 north of the Mediterranean. All along the northern 
 and eastern coasts of Africa it is the same story : the 
 natives regard the Italians as not quite civilised. 
 This is, of course, a gross libel on a great race, but it 
 would be an error in the journalist or the historian to 
 let a false sense of squeamishness prevent him from 
 stating it. 
 
 " There is another very strong motive," says 
 a correspondent of " The Times " (April 11th), 
 " which incites the Arab to regard an Italian oc- 
 cupation of Tripoli with disfavour ; it is the wide- 
 spread belief that Italy is poor. An Italian here
 
 822 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 or in Tunis will work for as little as an Arab. The 
 Arab is no fool in what concerns himself personally. 
 He thinks that a people as poor as he believes his 
 would-be conquerors to be would not respect his 
 title to his small possessions, and would create a 
 killing competition for him in all those occupations 
 wherein at present he gains a meagre existence. . . . 
 The leaflets dropped by the Italians from their 
 aeroplanes stating . . . that Italy was the greatest, 
 the strongest, and the richest power in Europe . . . 
 are laughed at. Among other beliefs the Arabs 
 hold is one that the Italians themselves are far 
 behind the rest of Europe, and many of them 
 quite as much in need of civilisation and instruc- 
 tion as the Tripolitans. Whether public opinion 
 in Tripoli has been cleverly cultivated by the 
 astute Turks, or whether it results from prejudiced 
 imagination and chance, it is not worth while to 
 discuss. For Turkish interests it could not have 
 been better formed by the cleverest and best 
 organised department in the world. It has arrayed 
 the people like one man against the invaders, and 
 quadrupled Italy's difficulties." 
 
 This question of Italian cheap labour certainly 
 makes Italy's position in Tripolitania difficult. 
 Wherever Europeans rule Asiatics it is rather through 
 prestige than through force, and prestige is lost as 
 soon as the white Sahib is found sweeping the streets 
 alongside the coolie. Spain, a poor country, had 
 constant difficulties in Cuba and the Philippines 
 where America, richer though with a smaller army, 
 has had no trouble. Portugal has perpetual turmoils 
 in her colonies. England and France have practically 
 no difficulty with the vast African and Asiatic popu-
 
 CANEVA'S MISTAKE 323 
 
 lations which they rule, because these two countries 
 are wealthy and because their white emigrants do not 
 compete with the manual labourers of the conquered 
 territories. The great distance at which India and 
 Indo-China lie from the countries which dominate 
 them is a positive advantage to these paramount 
 Powers, surrounding, as it does, with a sense of 
 mystery the white stranger from over the sea. And 
 even in Tunis and Algeria the French are a class 
 apart from the cheap Arab and Italian labour which 
 does all the rough work. Even the Turks did not 
 compete with the Tripolitans to any large extent in 
 manual and casual labour. The only Turks in 
 Tripolitania were functionaries and soldiers. 
 
 With Italy it will be entirely different, and one of 
 the Turkish military leaders was right when he said : 
 " This war is a question of extermination, the exter- 
 mination of the Arabs or the extermination of the 
 Italians. There is not room in Tripolitania for both." 
 Thus, Italy's very proximity to Tripolitania, on 
 which she based her absurd ultimatum, is a draw- 
 back. If the new colony is flooded with cheap Italian 
 labour, the prestige of Rome will at once go to the 
 dogs. If there is no Italian emigration to Tripoli- 
 tania, the colony will only be a white elephant, for 
 assuredly English and French money will never be 
 invested in such a shaky speculation. And here I 
 might refer the reader to the Riforma Sociale, in 
 which Luigi Einaudi, the jingo economist of the 
 Corriere delta Sera, now confesses that foreign capital 
 is indispensable for the development of Tripolitania. 
 But I am afraid that Italy will wait a long time 
 before any foreign capitalist nibbles at such an un- 
 enticing bait as the Libyan Desert, especially when 
 he sees that, in the same article, Signor Einaudi
 
 324 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 maintains that " it is perhaps indispensable, so as to 
 gain over the bulk of the population, which reflects 
 little and reasons less, to diffuse a moderate dose of 
 illusion regarding the wealth of the new colony." 
 
 I have already shown that Italy was in many ways 
 fortunate in the time she chose for her raid. The 
 Turkish garrison had never been so low, the com- 
 mander of the troops was absent, while the attention 
 of all Europe was engrossed by the Moroccan question. 
 But one thing was against Italy, the hatred of the 
 Turks by the Tripolitans had already become an old 
 story. Perfect peace was reigning in the vilayet 
 when the Italians came. The Turks held it peacefully 
 with 10,000 soldiers, while the Italians will not be 
 able to hold it with 200,000. A few months before 
 the war Mahmud Shefket Pasha, the Turkish War 
 Minister, was proposing to arm the Tripolitan Arabs. 
 This measure was really equivalent to Home Rule, 
 and it was to prevent it taking practical shape that 
 the Italians declared war when they did. At least, 
 this was one of many reasons. 
 
 The Arabs of Tripolitania were quite pleased with 
 the Turkish " yoke " — at least they are fighting 
 desperately at the present moment in order to keep 
 it on their necks. General Caneva was wrong, there- 
 fore, in thinking that they were on his side. " II 
 iradimento degli Arabi e stato certamente una sorpressa " 
 (" The treason of the Arabs has certainly been a 
 surprise "), wailed all the Italian papers after October 
 23rd. There was no treason, and the opposition of 
 the natives should not have been a surprise. General 
 Caneva' s idea that the Tripolitans would march with 
 him against " the common enemy," the Turk, was 
 one of the maddest ideas ever entertained by a 
 military commander. For as Mohammedans the
 
 CANEVA'S MISTAKE 325 
 
 Tripolitan Arabs are the strictest of the strict, and 
 their only quarrel with the Turks was that the latter 
 were too lukewarm in the faith, too friendly with 
 the Infidel. That the Arabs of Tripoli could under 
 any circumstances ally themselves with Christians 
 against their own co-religionists is unthinkable. It 
 was the natural thing for the Arabs to oppose the 
 invaders, and if Consul Galli had prophesied other- 
 wise, the Arabs were not to blame when those pro- 
 phecies came wrong. 
 
 Bearing in mind, therefore, the misapprehensions 
 as to the Arabs under which General Caneva laboured 
 when he came to Tripoli, the subsequent story is 
 easy to understand. First we have the grandfatherly 
 proclamations ; then the liberty allowed to the Desert 
 Arabs to slip inside the Italian lines ; then the sudden 
 change on the part of the Italian commander from 
 imbecile benignity to ferocious cruelty. 
 
 The Proclamations would form a very amusing 
 little book. The Italian commander seems to have 
 discovered somewhere a rare volume, which I expect, 
 by the by, to see re-issued by some enterprising 
 publisher ere the present craze for Napoleonic 
 literature has died out. I refer to the remarkable 
 series of proclamations which General Buonaparte 
 addressed to the Mohammedans of the Nile valley 
 on the occasion of his Egyptian expedition. In 
 those proclamations Napoleon said that he had 
 come to free the Egyptians from the yoke of the 
 Circassian beys. He quoted the Koran freely in 
 order to show that the Mohammedans should obey 
 him. He frequently appealed to Allah the Merciful, 
 the Compassionate. He wrote throughout in the 
 ultra-pious, semi-religious style of a devout Moslem 
 administrator.
 
 826 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 General Caneva did the same. He began his pro- 
 clamations with the stereotyped Mohammedan phrase : 
 " In nome de Dio clemente e misericordioso, regnando 
 sul gran paese d'ltalia Sua Maesta il Re Vittorio 
 Emanuele III che Dio conservi e renda sempre piu 
 grande e glorioso." He had come to release the 
 people from " the servitude of the Turks," and " to 
 punish the usurpers." I have been ordered, he said, 
 by the King of Italy ("to whom Allah grant length 
 of days ") to " protect you against those foreign 
 usurpers, the Turks, and against every one else that 
 may attempt to enslave you." He described the 
 Turk as " the common enemy." 
 
 He never mentioned the King of Italy without 
 adding some phrase such as " just and glorious," 
 " whom God preserve," " whom Allah keep in 
 his guard," " che Bio henedica,'" " che Iddio pro- 
 teggar 
 
 He invited them to " pray in your mosques for 
 the greatness of the Italian people, for the glory of 
 the Italian king, che Dio salvi, who have taken you, 
 the population of these countries, under their tutelage 
 and protection, and who intend that their name 
 shall be feared by your enemies, but loved and 
 blessed by you." 
 
 He promised to govern by " the Book," the " Laws," 
 the " Sunna," and the " Sheriat." Like Napoleon, 
 he quoted freely from the Koran in order to show 
 that the Arabs should obey him. " Remember," he 
 said, " that Allah has declared in the Book : ' To those 
 who do not make war on your religion and do not 
 drive you from your country, you should do 
 good. You should protect them because God 
 loves benefactors and protectors.' Remember also 
 that it is written in the Book : ' If they in-
 
 CANEVA'S MISTAKE 327 
 
 cline to peace, accept it, and place your trust in 
 Allah.' " 1 
 
 He even attempted a little poetic flight when he 
 described the white, red, and green of the Italian 
 flag as symbolical of faith, love, and hope. 
 
 So far as the Mohammedans were concerned, the 
 publication of these rigmaroles only made matters 
 worse. It was only adding blasphemy to injury. 
 It was a case of a clumsy Infidel parodying the sacred 
 writings. 
 
 Here ends abruptly the resemblance between 
 General Caneva and General Buonaparte. Napoleon 
 followed up his proclamations by deeds. He boldly 
 advanced into the interior, and victory crowned 
 his arms. Caneva fortified himself as close to the 
 shore as possible, and now, after the lapse of more 
 than half a year, he still stands shivering under the 
 guns of his battle-ships. 
 
 After the battle of the Pyramids many of the Arabs 
 did believe Napoleon to be really assisted by the 
 Prophet, for this warlike race admires valour in 
 others and is powerfully impressed by it. But after 
 Sharashett and Sidi Messri there were few, indeed, 
 even among his own troops, who put their trust in 
 Lieutenant-General Carlo Caneva. 
 
 There was one who did, however, and that was 
 General Caneva himself. Until October 23rd he 
 believed his own proclamations, he believed that the 
 Arabs regarded him as a father, and this led, firstly, 
 to his failure to disarm them, and, secondly, to his 
 
 * The Sheikh of the Senussi can quote Scripture too. In a recent 
 letter to Enver Bey he only cited one short text, but every word was 
 a ton weight. It was this, " God will destroy the murderers." He is 
 not confining himself, however, to quoting the Koran. He is also 
 developing a taste for music, and has imported a large number of 
 extraordinarily heavy pianos. But I don't think that the Italians 
 will like the tune which those " pianos " play.
 
 828 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 slackness in letting them enter his lines whenever 
 they had a mind to do so. Any Turkish officer who 
 chose to don a turban and an Arab robe could stroll 
 in from the Desert and examine the Italian defences 
 — and this at a time when the journalists in Tripoli 
 were exposed to a double-barrelled censorship, one 
 at Tripoli, the other at Rome ; and were sure that 
 if one barrel missed them the other would be sure 
 to hit. The Italian Censor interrupted telephone 
 messages between Milan and Paris every time the 
 word Tripoli was mentioned. He prohibited the 
 foreign correspondents going to Chiasso in order to 
 send off their telegrams, lest by any chance these 
 telegrams would, after they had appeared in the 
 papers, be re-transmitted to Constantinople and then 
 sent on to Nesciat Bey via Tunisia. He even seized 
 letters in the post. Mr. Donohoe tells me that on 
 calling one morning on the Censor he found on the 
 latter' s table a letter which he had posted that 
 morning and which he had fondly supposed to be 
 then on its way to London. Yet all this time 
 General Caneva benignantly permitted swarms of 
 spies to examine his defences, and then ride into the 
 desert to report about them ! 
 
 Caneva was, as I have said, deceived by his 
 Government on the subject of the Arabs ; neverthe- 
 less he himself cannot be regarded as entirely blame- 
 less in this matter. 
 
 The attitude of the Arabs was the greatest factor 
 in the military problem before him ; but from the day 
 he landed until the day he was surprised in the rear, 
 he paid absolutely no attention to that vitally im- 
 portant subject. 
 
 Before October 23rd Caneva's plan had evidently 
 been to send an expedition as soon as possible to
 
 CANEVA'S MISTAKE 329 
 
 Gharian. As soon as the Bersaglieri had reached the 
 front it was confidently given out night after night 
 that, next time the Turks came to attack, they would 
 be cut off ; and many a correspondent lost his sleep 
 while foolishly waiting up at the front for this capture 
 to take place. Then the air was full of talk about 
 the Great Desert Expedition. The Commander- 
 in-chief announced that he would take no journalists 
 with him on that expedition, whereupon the Italian 
 journalists sent a collective protest to Rome and the 
 newspapers made collective war on the War Office. 
 An enormous amount of printing-ink was consumed 
 in this way. Really it might have been better em- 
 ployed, for more than six months have now elapsed, 
 yet the Great Desert Expedition has not yet started 
 and there is small prospect of it starting for nine 
 months yet, if ever it starts at all. 
 
 The Great Desert Expedition was knocked on the 
 head, of course, by the events of October 23rd. That 
 day showed that the Turks had succeeded in most 
 cleverly turning to military account the religious 
 fanaticism of the Arabs. The Italians have ever 
 since been besieged in Tripoli, Benghazi, Tobruk, 
 Homs, and Derna, and are unable to venture out- 
 side the range of the guns on the battle-ships. The 
 " Vossische Zeitung " correspondent at Azizia gives a 
 graphic account of the stalemate in Tripoli. General 
 Caneva is, he says, exactly where he was after the 
 first occupation of the coast, with the additional dis- 
 advantage of an army greatly depressed by inactivity. 
 *• The Italians send out the Askaris (native troops) : 
 the Askaris surrender. They recruit Arabs : the 
 Arabs are captured. Swarms of spies and agents 
 are sent out, only to be destroyed. Appeals and 
 proclamations are scattered by the thousand. The
 
 880 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 enemy laughs till his sides ache." He adds that the 
 Arabs are stealing even the material for the railway 
 which has been begun. Here they are certainly 
 doing a service to the Italian taxpayer, for that rail- 
 way is a gigantic folly. It starts from Tripoli. It 
 has no other terminus save the Sahara. It has no 
 object save to run down the mobile and fleet-footed 
 Arab, to pursue the mirages of the Desert.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 CANEVA'S NEGLECT TO DISARM THE ARABS 
 
 I HAVE said that, besides being over-cautious, General 
 Caneva was not cautious enough. The first thing 
 he should have done on landing was to seize all the 
 arms in the town, then to place a powerful reserve 
 in the city and to thoroughly patrol the streets. But 
 he made no serious attempt to collect arms from the 
 natives, and, incredible as it may seem, he placed all 
 his soldiers save his personal guards out at the front, 
 a couple of miles off. He actually kept no reserves in 
 the town. The policing and patrolling of the city he 
 left to the Arab gendarmes who had served the 
 Turks, and who were still allowed to go about with 
 rifles and with belts full of very ugly-looking dum-dum 
 bullets. I really think that General Caneva intended 
 to be magnanimous, but a weak man is sometimes 
 magnanimous in the wrong way. He begins with a 
 neglect of precaution which would make a boy scout 
 laugh, and winds up with a cruelty which would make 
 Abd-ul-Hamid's hair stand on end. 
 
 I shall now, even at the risk of wearying the reader, 
 go thoroughly into this question of the non-seizure 
 of arms, for General Caneva's negligence in this matter 
 afterwards cost thousands of innocent people their 
 lives. 
 
 The Italian marines occupied the city of Tripoli 
 on October 5th. At their head was a very competent 
 
 331
 
 332 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 officer, Captain Cagni, the associate of the Duke of 
 the Abruzzi in Arctic travel. A few hours after he 
 landed, Cagni asked Prince Hassuna Karamanli to 
 see about the collection of arms from the natives. 
 The Prince probably sent a crier through the streets 
 to tell the people in a friendly way that all arms must 
 be forthwith surrendered. He offered two talleri 
 (about one scudo) for rifles surrendered on that day, 
 one tallero next day. Those not given up before the 
 third day he would take without compensation. On 
 the first day more than a thousand rifles with am- 
 munition for them were brought to the Comando. 
 Five hundred were brought the second day. On the 
 third day, and for some time afterwards, rifles con- 
 tinued to come in though no reward had been offered 
 for them. As I shall explain later, most of these 
 rifles had been looted from the Turkish barracks by 
 the Arabs after the Turks had left the city, and 
 before the Italians had come in. For whenever there 
 is a chance of looting, the Arab desires fire-arms 
 next after money. If there had been Arabs at the 
 looting of Peking in 1900, they would have collected 
 rifles and left the precious jade figures and other 
 artistic treasures of the Manchu emperors to the 
 Europeans. Next after a pedigree Arab stallion 
 there is nothing the Bedouin lusts for so much as a 
 good new Mauser rifle with a nice shiny barrel. As 
 a rule, its high price and the suspicion of his rulers 
 put it out of reach; but his lonely and dangerous 
 manner of life and the inadequate police protection 
 which he enjoys under Ottoman rule, make him 
 value it exceedingly for strictly practical reasons. 
 
 As will be seen later, this fact has an important 
 bearing on my subject. It accounts for the great 
 number of rifles and the large quantities of ammuni-
 
 CANEVA'S NEGLECT 333 
 
 tion which were afterwards found concealed in Arab 
 houses, and which invariably led to the death of the 
 householder. 
 
 But the town Arabs quickly surrendered their 
 weapons to Commander Cagni. " Dominati dal 
 nuovo potere che appariva, gli Arabi si separavano 
 senza lamenti dalla nuova arma lucente, che e per la loro 
 gente oggetto inuguagliato di desiderio e d'amore.'' 
 (" Dominated by the new power that appeared, 
 the Arabs surrendered without a sigh the new, 
 shining rifles which are for their race unequalled 
 objects of desire and of love.") So says an Italian 
 writer who saw those rifles surrendered. 
 
 But every European in Tripoli knew that all the 
 rifles in the hands of the Arabs had not been sur- 
 rendered. One English resident told me so about 
 the middle of October. He added that the Italian 
 authorities knew of this fact also, but thought that 
 it was sufficient to keep a register in which were 
 entered the names of all the Arabs who possessed 
 arms. My friend assured me, however, that this 
 register did not contain the names of half the Arabs 
 who had arms. 
 
 It is easy to understand why Commander Cagni 
 did not succeed in getting all their rifles from the oasis 
 folk. His public crier did not go into the oasis. 
 The oasis Arabs did not come to town, and con- 
 sequently knew nothing of the order regarding the 
 surrender of arms. Moreover, with only 12,000 men 
 under his command to keep back a possible 4000 
 Turks and hold a dangerously long line, Cagni could 
 not possibly institute a house-to-house search. His 
 men were overwhelmed with work as it was, and 
 hardly able to walk from want of sleep, otherwise 
 this distinguished sailor would soon have got posses-
 
 384 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 sion of every rifle owned by natives inside the Italian 
 sphere of occupation. 
 
 What he did, however, showed that he had a clear 
 idea of the danger, both to the Italians and to the 
 friendly Arabs themselves, of his leaving arms in the 
 hands of the natives. 
 
 At Benghazi and in Cyrenaica, General Briccola 
 took the same view of the matter. Not only did he 
 order the surrender of all arms ; he also took care 
 that his troops searched most carefully for rifles in 
 the houses, gardens, and in all places where weapons 
 could possibly have been hidden — even in the 
 mosques. When General Caneva did issue some 
 vague orders about the advisability of the natives 
 letting the paternal Italian visitors take care of their 
 arms for them, he contented himself with pasting 
 up those orders in one or two places on the town 
 walls. Now, many of the Arabs cannot read their 
 own language, and the oasis Arabs remained at home, 
 and consequently did not know about this proclama- 
 tion. 
 
 No steps were taken to make it known among the 
 illiterate Arabs. I myself employed a pro-Italian 
 native to get news for me, and I naturally mixed 
 with the Italians, with my journalistic colleagues, 
 and with all sorts of people in order to acquire every 
 kind of information bearing on the situation ; but I 
 never heard even as much as a whisper about this 
 proclamation of General Caneva' s, while I was in 
 Tripoli. I first became aware of it in Italy after I 
 had left Tripolitania, early in November. 
 
 But even if this proclamation had been posted up 
 on every house in Tripoli instead of on one or two dead 
 walls, that would not have been enough. More 
 energetic measures should have been taken to collect
 
 CANEVA'S NEGLECT 335 
 
 arms. The Arabs are a suspicious race ; they are not 
 accustomed to European ways ; and the order to hand 
 in their rifles may have only excited the alarm of 
 the few natives who chanced to see it. Most of the 
 weapons had originally been stolen from deserted 
 Turkish barracks ; and the owners may have thought 
 that, if they brought in their booty, the foreigners 
 would only punish them for having looted. 
 
 There was another reason, moreover, why the 
 Arabs should be reluctant to part with their arms — 
 even those Arabs who knew that they had been 
 ordered to do so. As I have already remarked, 
 those arms had been necessary for them under the 
 Turkish regime with its inefficient police. Under 
 that regime they had had, to a large extent, to 
 protect themselves as all people have still to do in 
 the outlying parts of the Ottoman Empire. Under 
 the Caneva regime things were even worse so far as 
 an adequate policing of the town and the oasis was 
 concerned. The Commander-in-chief talked much 
 in his proclamations of his paternal solicitude for the 
 natives, but, as a matter of fact, he proved himself 
 to be simply a barrack-room martinet with no 
 capacity for civil government and no idea that he 
 had any duty vis-d-vis of the thousands of ignorant 
 and helpless natives whose obedience he claimed. 
 The worst scoundrels of the old Turkish police force 
 had remained in town, had been taken into the 
 Italian service, and to them alone was entrusted the 
 policing of the city and the suburbs. There was an 
 army at the front, a fleet in the harbour, but between 
 the two was chaos. There was practically no civil 
 government in the town ; and despite the twenty 
 thousand armed men at his elbow, the average 
 native in the oasis stood in much more danger from
 
 386 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 robbers and native policemen than he had ever stood 
 in under Turkish rule. 
 
 It would have been better, therefore, for all parties 
 if, instead of spending his time composing Koranic 
 proclamations, the military Governor had tried to 
 inspire a feeling of security in the town. In any case, 
 if he wanted to disarm the people, a house-to-house 
 search was essential, especially as General Caneva 
 knew that not one-tenth part of the rifles stolen from 
 the Turkish arsenals during the interregnum had 
 been surrendered. What prevented him from order- 
 ing his soldiers to make a minute visitation of the 
 native houses, as General Briccola had done ? He 
 had plenty of soldiers for this purpose ; and if he 
 did not wish to withdraw his troops from the firing- 
 line, though they had very little to do there early 
 in October, he might have made use of the blue- 
 jackets and of his numerous civil assistants. Why 
 was there no " revolt " and repression in Derna, 
 Benghazi, Homs, Tobruk, and the other places oc- 
 cupied by the Italians ? Because at all these points 
 the various Italian commanders had disarmed the 
 natives. In like manner there would have been no 
 " revolt " and no " repression " at Tripoli if General 
 Caneva had taken the most ordinary precautions 
 there with regard to the disarmament of the oasis 
 Arabs, whose flimsy and isolated hamlets could, 
 moreover, have been very easily and speedily ex- 
 amined. In searching for arms in the simple, one- 
 roomed huts of the Tripoli oasis the Italians would 
 have had no trouble such as they might experience 
 in the narrow and tortuous streets of a great city. 
 
 The fault rests not so much, perhaps, with General 
 Caneva himself as with his political advisers and 
 with the Government at Rome. Both the advisers
 
 r. -J 
 
 - X 
 
 I H 
 
 X O
 
 CANEVA'S NEGLECT 337 
 
 and the Government had received such optimistic 
 and rosy accounts of the good dispositions of the 
 Arabs that they thought it would be a great pity to 
 disturb the poor dear natives by entering their homes 
 and possibly interrupting them at their tea in order 
 to search for rifles. Consul Pestalozza concurred in 
 this matter with Vice-Consul Galli. It was thought 
 that a rough, coarse search for arms by a ribald 
 soldiery might provoke adverse comment in native 
 circles. No wonder that an Italian newspaper after- 
 wards described this policy as : Machiavellismo latte e 
 miele i cui frutti sono staii di rivoltd e di sangue, e 
 quanta sangue ! (Milk - and - honey Machiavellism 
 whose fruits have been revolt and blood, and how 
 much blood !) 
 
 General Caneva had, I repeat, come to Tripoli under 
 a complete misapprehension which led him to imagine 
 that, by neglecting to disarm the natives, he was 
 acting with a wise magnanimity and toleration. He 
 imagined that he was a deliverer ; and, when Consul 
 Galli's well-trained troupe of bogus Arab chiefs 
 kow-towed and performed before him, he was pro- 
 foundly convinced that the great heart of the people 
 welcomed him almost as a god. 
 
 What a wild rush to the opposite extreme when the 
 alleged revolt took place ! A collection of the pro- 
 clamations issued at this time would only give a 
 faint idea of the mercilessness and injustice with 
 which the Arabs were treated. 
 
 " Si pubblica in questo momento," wires one 
 correspondent, Corrado Zoli, " un bando del Govern- 
 atore che intima il disarmo assoluto della popolazione 
 araba e turca prima del calar del sole, pena la im- 
 mediata fucilazione." (" There is published at 
 this moment an order of the Governor for the com-
 
 388 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 plete disarmament of the Arab and Turkish popula- 
 tion before sunset, under pain of instant death.") 
 " II generale Caneva," according to the official 
 cable, "ha fatto eseguire un rigoroso disarmo degli 
 abitanti dell' oasi stessa ed in citta. (" General 
 Caneva has had carried out a rigorous disarmament 
 of the inhabitants of the oasis and the city.") 
 
 Now, I think that this " rigoroso disarmo " might 
 much better have been carried out earlier. It might 
 have been carried out during Caneva' s benignant 
 period, when the soldiers were foolishly familiar 
 with the natives, as Latin races are prone to be when 
 they go a-colonising. All the arms could then have 
 been collected without much trouble, and nobody 
 on either side would have lost his life or even his 
 temper. 
 
 But it was now, at the most unsuitable time 
 possible, that the search for arms began. Few of 
 the oasis natives who were in possession of arms 
 heard of General Caneva's " twenty-four hours " 
 proclamation. 
 
 Even if they had heard of that proclamation, they 
 could not have benefited by the exiguous time- 
 limit allowed, for if they had set out from their 
 houses carrying arms which they intended to sur- 
 render they would have been shot by the first soldier 
 who met them. There was no possibility of ex- 
 planation, as there seemed to be only two or three 
 interpreters in the entire army. 
 
 But, as a rule, the unfortunate oasis Arabs seem 
 to have made little or no attempt to give up their 
 rifles. Frightened by the executions, they remained 
 cowering all day in their isolated huts and knew 
 nothing of the new departure until the soldiers came 
 to search for arms — and to kill them. Those soldiers
 
 CANEVA'S NEGLECT 339 
 
 came, in most cases, without officers, and in every 
 case without interpreters. All attempts of the Arabs 
 to explain matters were treated as insults and 
 answered by savage blows on the face and kicks in 
 the stomach. 
 
 Now, to entrust ignorant privates, during such 
 a period of intense excitement, with the delicate 
 work of searching for arms among people whom 
 they regarded as traitors and murderers was simply 
 to give them thousands of blank death-warrants. 
 Those soldiers were mostly Sicilians, almost beside 
 themselves with rage for what they regarded as the 
 treacherous murder of their comrades and kinsfolk, 
 almost mad with thirst for revenge. They even 
 killed people in whose houses arms of any kind were 
 found. Some of the fire-arms discovered during 
 this search may have been kept with a bad intention, 
 but a good many were old muzzle-loading heirlooms, 
 and a good many had simply been looted. Ancient 
 flintlocks such as are to be found in every Arab 
 hovel and in every caravan led in many cases to their 
 owner's death. 
 
 It may be maintained that the soldiers were 
 ordered simply to arrest people found in possession 
 of arms ; and proclamations of General Caneva's 
 may possibly be produced to bear out this statement. 
 But no matter what the proclamations said, the fact 
 remains that the soldiers took the law into their own 
 hands and killed every Arab in whose house they 
 found arms. In proof of this I need only point to 
 the Italian newspapers themselves. They were filled 
 at this period with accounts of houses being searched, 
 arms discovered, the householders shot. There was 
 never any mention made of a trial or even of the sus- 
 pected parties being brought before an officer. In one
 
 340 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 case a correspondent tells how he sympathised with 
 some poor Arabs whose house was being searched, 
 when he saw their humble clothes, articles of food, and 
 cooking utensils being thrown about. The soldiers 
 were going to turn away, satisfied that there were no 
 arms concealed, when suddenly they came on a 
 knife and some cartridges. Then, hey presto ! what 
 a change ! Without further ado the Arabs were 
 immediately put against a wall and shot. 
 
 The " Stampa " of Turin is a jingo Italian 
 paper. It has ardently supported the war since the 
 beginning, it is on notoriously friendly terms with 
 Signor Giolitti. It is a serious and authoritative 
 organ, yet it published on October 27th, the follow- 
 ing account of an execution written on October 26th 
 by its Tripoli correspondent, a personal friend of 
 Signor Giolitti's : 
 
 " I felt it my duty to assist at the shooting of 
 several of those (oasis Arabs who had been seized 
 and condemned to death because arms were found 
 in their houses). A man and his wife, two mag- 
 nificent types of the Bedouin race, and, besides, 
 intrepid carriers of arms, had been placed against 
 the usual wall. At the distance of a few paces 
 from them lay in an attitude of atrocious suffering, 
 but really dead and stiff, the body of a Sudanese 
 who had fired point-blank at a medical officer. 
 The two newly captured Arabs, the man and the 
 woman, did not show for a single instant any fear 
 or reluctance. They did not take their eyes from 
 one another. They held one another affectionately 
 by the hand. Then they recited a prayer. They 
 turned their backs to the rifle-barrels that were 
 levelled at them. Then a dry word of command :
 
 CANEVA'S NEGLECT 341 
 
 ' Fire on the man ! ' An explosion, a flash ! The 
 woman had to let go the hand of her husband, for, 
 after having swayed a second, he had fallen to the 
 ground like lead. But she was not terrified. She 
 awaited her own death without a tremor. Another 
 shout : ' Fire on the woman ! ' Another abrupt 
 explosion, and the woman's brains spurted out." 
 
 At first the Italian papers saw nothing wrong with 
 this paragraph, but when the English Press quoted 
 it, with expressions of disgust, some of them fell 
 upon the " Stampa " for publishing it. Note well, 
 they did not object to the deed, they objected to 
 any account of it being published. Through how 
 many hundreds of columns of similar " copy " have 
 not the blue pencils of the censors and of the sub- 
 editors gone since this war began ! For, of course, 
 it is not right that the Italians should know what it 
 really is, this ferocious war which they are waging. 
 Telegrams from the battle-field should only speak 
 of the " disciplina, la calma, 1' energia " of our " valo- 
 rosi " and of " 1' eroismo dei nostri Bersaglieri " (the 
 heroism of our Bersaglieri). It is very, very in- 
 discreet to publish anything that may tend to excite 
 sympathy with the enemy. 
 
 In his official report. General Caneva says that on 
 searching the oasis he found " arms hidden every- 
 where and huts filled with provisions and ammuni- 
 tion." He says that " the huts were burned, it 
 being impossible to provide for the prompt removal 
 of the cartridges." 
 
 Signor Giolitti says that " many of the dwellings 
 in the oasis, when set on fire, exploded like powder- 
 magazines, so large were the stores of arms and am- 
 munition hidden in them." Signor Barzini tells us of
 
 342 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 " one house from which were taken 250 kilogrammes 
 of ammunition, 800 kilogrammes of explosives, and 
 a Turkish flag." 
 
 All the other Italian correspondents have similar 
 tales, and, judging by those tales, it is clear that 
 Tripoli was all one big bomb. 
 
 Writing in the " Corriere della Sera " of October 
 12th, Luigi Barzini says that " the sack of the 
 forts has put into circulation a quantity of ex- 
 plosives which the people handle with all the 
 audacity of ignorance. One may everywhere see 
 Jewish boys playing with live projectiles and with 
 live shrapnel shells." Other Italian writers were 
 amazed at the enormous quantity of projectiles and 
 explosives of every kind which the Turks had accumu- 
 lated. Besides the full powder-magazines, there were 
 in the forts two great stores of powder which might 
 have lasted (we are told) throughout a long war. 
 
 Was it not stupendous carelessness on General 
 Caneva's part thus to leave huts full of ammunition 
 just in the rear of his line ? Imagine any General 
 of ordinary capacity committing such a blunder. 
 The chunk of Tripolitan territory which Caneva 
 occupied was so exiguous, the number of soldiers 
 under him was so great, that a fairly efficient search 
 could have been carried out in a few hours. And 
 Caneva had had a fortnight to do it ! 
 
 As a matter of fact, there never was a town so 
 bursting with unofficial arms and explosives as 
 Tripoli was at this time. The oasis was full of 
 arms. The city was overflowing with rifles. Cart- 
 ridges were as common as dates. Gunpowder was 
 as plentiful as salt. If my own trunks had been 
 searched at this time, quite a number of Turkish 
 and Italian cartridges would have been discovered.
 
 CANEVA'S NEGLECT 343 
 
 The Italian cartridges I had found out at the trenches, 
 the Turkish cartridges I had picked up in the Cavalry 
 Barracks, where the Turks had left behind them 
 from 50,000 to 100,000 rounds of Mauser ammunition. 
 
 This superabundance of illegal arms and ammuni- 
 tion in Tripoli is easily explained. On the evening 
 of October 2nd the Turkish troops had all left Tripoli, 
 with the exception of a few fortress artillerymen. 
 The bluejackets, under Captain Cagni, did not take 
 possession of the town until October 5th. The Jews 
 and the Arabs of the town and the oasis had thus 
 three clear days in which to plunder the arsenals, 
 the gendarmery stations, the post-houses, the bar- 
 racks, and even the Konak, or Governor's residence. 
 Some weeks afterwards I visited the Cavalry Barracks 
 on the edge of the oasis, and Colonel Spinelli laugh- 
 ingly pointed out how the natives had, during the 
 interregnum, stolen even the glass from the windows 
 and the handles from the doors, carried off hat-pegs, 
 tables, carpets, and latches. In short, they had 
 appropriated everything that they could lay hands 
 on, and, during the first few days of the occupation, 
 one could see Arabs selling all kinds of loot to the 
 Italian sailors — putties, note-paper, knapsacks, etc. 
 
 I have already pointed out the great desire all 
 Arabs have to possess a rifle. Naturally, therefore, 
 the rifles and ammunition left behind by the Turks 
 were most sought after. A large number of rifles 
 had been left behind, and the Arabs immediately 
 seized upon those treasures, not necessarily to use 
 them afterwards against the Italians, but to sell 
 them, if possible. 
 
 Some people may say : " This is a far-fetched theory. 
 Surely the Turks would first send all the rifles and 
 ammunition into the Desert." Well, they did not;
 
 344 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 evidently they had not time to do so. When I 
 visited the Cavalry Barracks on the occasion already 
 referred to, I found there, as I have just pointed 
 out, hundreds of boxes of rifle and machine-gun 
 cartridges. A great deal of this ammunition had 
 been stolen, but before the Arabs could cart away 
 all of it the invaders had taken possession of the 
 Cavalry Barracks. Sometimes an Arab stole only 
 ammunition ; sometimes he specialised in rifles. 
 
 In the batteries, the citadel, and all over the town 
 this looting of explosives went on during the bom- 
 bardment until there was a trail of gunpowder along 
 the streets and quite respectable powder-magazines 
 in many of the houses. At one time there was some 
 danger that an Italian shell might ignite this trail 
 and blow up half the town. Behind the English 
 cable-office on the Marina an Arab blew himself up 
 by accidentally applying a light to a large quantity 
 of explosive matter which he had diligently collected ; 
 and the explosion caused consternation for a time, 
 as it was at first supposed to have been caused by a 
 projectile from one of the battle-ships. 
 
 Seized by the prevalent collecting craze, even the 
 Arab servants of Europeans could not resist the 
 temptation to surreptitiously convey rifles, shells, 
 and gunpowder into their masters' houses. Mr. 
 Wright, an Englishman who represents in Tripoli 
 the Eastern Telegraph Company, suddenly found 
 one day, during the interregnum, that there was about 
 a quarter of a ton of high explosive in his cellar. 
 It had been industriously collected by his Arab 
 servants, who had stolen it, not because they wanted 
 to blow up the Italians when they entered the city, 
 but because they had been urged on by that ant- 
 like craze for accumulation which is as marked a
 
 CANEVA'S NEGLECT 345 
 
 characteristic^of the Arab as it is of his cousin the 
 Jew. It was the only loot left in the forts when 
 they arrived, and everybody else was busy carrying 
 it off. 
 
 Mr. Wright dealt with the situation in a masterly 
 manner. He instantly went down to the servants' 
 quarters and gave his " boys " one hour to have all 
 that explosive sent out of the house. At the end of 
 the hour there was not an ounce of gunpowder on 
 his premises. Had General Caneva behaved like 
 that English telegraph operator, the horrors of 
 October 23rd-27th would not have taken place, 
 or would have been very limited in scope. As it 
 was, every Arab possessing even an empty cartridge 
 was put to death, though undoubtedly much of the 
 ammunition found in the Arab houses had been 
 brought there simply as loot and not for offensive 
 purposes. 
 
 On visiting the fort of Sharashett, some days after 
 the bombardment, I found some dozen Arabs busily 
 engaged in extracting the explosive matter from 
 unexploded shells. As they only used a hammer 
 and chisel in this dangerous work, I rapidly put a 
 hill between them and myself and only regarded 
 them afterwards through binoculars. The Italians 
 also contemplated them with much amusement 
 and also at a respectful distance. By some miracle 
 or other these men escaped being blown to pieces 
 until October 23rd, when the Italians, seized by a 
 sudden suspicion that there was a gigantic con- 
 spiracy against them, began shooting every Arab 
 who had powder in his possession, and probably 
 shot the Sharashett powder-seekers as well. At all 
 events, those powder-seekers disappeared after that 
 date from history.
 
 346 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Mark the abrupt transition from criminal slackness 
 to criminal severity. On October 22nd those Arabs 
 in the Sharashett fort and the other forts had been 
 extracting powder, not literally under the noses of 
 the Italians — for, like myself, the Italians, as I have 
 said, preferred watching these proceedings from a 
 safe distance — but, at least, with the connivance of 
 the invaders. On October 23rd any of these same 
 Arabs who was found with powder in his possession 
 was put to death. To this rule there was no exception. 
 
 Undoubtedly General Caneva blundered badly 
 when he omitted to collect their arms from the 
 natives. Signor Bevione, the jingo and Nationalist 
 author whose dedication of his book on the war 
 to Signor Giolitti shows that he views the Tripoli 
 raid in the proper official light, is forced to confess 
 that " the military authorities made a most grave 
 mistake in not requiring the natives to give up 
 their arms on the first day." 
 
 An even more pro-war journalist than Signor 
 Bevione is M. Jean Carrere, the Rome correspondent 
 of " Le Temps " ; but even he declares, in an inter- 
 view which appeared in the " Secolo " on October 
 26th, that the invitation to the Arabs to surrender 
 their rifles in return for a compensation of ten lire 
 was insufficient. He thinks that " a thorough 
 search " of the oasis should also have been made. 
 
 And the "Secolo" thinks that "it may have 
 been an error to have left the Arabs their rifles, or 
 not to have kept them at a distance from the scene 
 of operations."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 HOW THE ARABS GOT IN THE ITALIAN REAR 
 
 Since I returned to England many Italians have 
 called on me to point out that the attack on the 
 11th Bersaglieri on October 23rd was a full justifica- 
 tion for the killing of the oasis Arabs which followed. 
 They were evidently under the impression — and I 
 think that a good many English people are under 
 the same impression — that those Bersaglieri were 
 playing with the Arab children somewhere far inside 
 what I shall call the Italian oasis, when suddenly 
 the children's fathers and mothers crept behind 
 them and treacherously cut the soldiers' throats. 
 Nothing could be further from the truth. The 11th 
 Bersaglieri were on the extreme edge of the Italian 
 line. Hardly any Italian force was further from the 
 city than they. And the attack which inflicted 
 such loss on them was made by the fighting Arabs 
 outside. Some Arabs inside took part in it, but most 
 of these also were desert Arabs, who had previously 
 traversed the Italian lines during what I have called 
 General Caneva's benevolent period. Signor Luigl 
 Barzini, the extremely jingo and anti-Arab cor- 
 respondent of the " Corriere della Sera," admits 
 this himself in an article Avhich appeared in that 
 paper on November 6th (page 4, col. 2). In that 
 article he acknowledges that the attack on the 
 Italian rear on October 23rd was made, after all, 
 
 347
 
 348 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 by fighting Arabs who had thus slipped through, 
 their rifles concealed underneath their loose, flowing 
 robes. 
 
 The same admission as to the continual presence 
 of Turkish officers in the town was made to me by 
 the American Consul in Tripoli. As early as October 
 9th he told me that he had met in the street Turkish 
 officers of his acquaintance. They were disguised 
 as Arabs, but they talked to him freely. An English 
 resident also met disguised Turkish officers in the 
 bazaar. A Turkish soldier even came to his house 
 once, asking for food. " The Times " correspondent 
 admits that disguised Turkish officers were " con- 
 stantly " in the town. Thus we have very important 
 evidence — English, American, and Italian — to prove 
 that the enemy was able to slip through the Italian 
 lines. It was men that had thus slipped through 
 who were responsible for the attack on the Italian 
 rear which occasioned such terrible reprisals. It 
 is possible, of course, that a few " friendlies " may 
 have joined in this attack, but I do not believe that 
 they numbered more than one hundred in all. The 
 Italians say that they numbered thousands, but I 
 have already shown the extraordinarily unbalancing 
 effect of panic on the judgment of the Italian officers, 
 soldiers, and civilians. To put the matter in a nut- 
 shell — General Caneva committed great mistakes 
 of omission ; and when the natural consequences of 
 these mistakes showed themselves, he punished not 
 the real culprit — himself — but the innocent oasis 
 Arabs. 
 
 He had been warned that there were emissaries of 
 the enemy in the town. On October 20th a Franciscan 
 friar had told him that Turkish agents were at work 
 among the Arabs trying to bring about an insur-
 
 HOW ARABS GOT IN THE REAR 349 
 
 rection. The Commander-in-chief went no further 
 than to reinforce the patrols, which walked the 
 streets all night with fixed bayonets. But nothing 
 occurred that night, and Caneva forgot all about the 
 warning which he had received. 
 
 Even the newspaper correspondents showed better 
 judgment than he, though they had not at their 
 disposal, as he had, an elaborate system for obtaining 
 information. On October 22nd the Tripoli corre- 
 spondent of the " Secolo " telegraphed that things 
 looked very ugly among the oasis Arabs and that a 
 great Arab attack might be expected at any moment 
 from outside. Even as early as October 17th the 
 " Secolo " published a long telegram sent on the 
 previous day by its correspondent Corrado Zoli, 
 and dealing with the dangerous native elements 
 which were allowed, through General Caneva' s 
 carelessness, to accumulate in the city, and which 
 threatened at every moment to bring about an 
 explosion. 
 
 " To understand the situation at this moment," 
 writes Signor Zoli, " the reader must remember 
 that when we say the Arabs have submitted to the 
 new Italian Governor, we allude only to those 
 Arabs who are known to Hassuna Pasha and 
 indicated by him to us as representing the native 
 population in the interior of the walled city and 
 in the immediate neighbourhood. But besides 
 these, who may be called the notables of the new 
 colony, there are other natives who, now that the 
 terror of the bombardment is past, have come 
 to the city from distant places. Crowds of 
 ragamuffins and of unknown persons swarm in the 
 streets, insinuate themselves into every nook and
 
 350 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 cranny, observe, listen, get hungry, offer their 
 services, and are not inscribed in any register. 
 
 " Among this crowd are humble, serviceable men, 
 such as one finds in every port of the Levant. But 
 one not unfrequently encounters energetic and 
 silent specimens of that strange population of 
 the African desert which knows the routes and the 
 distant oases, people who deceive but are not 
 deceived, people who are capable of leaving the 
 beaten caravan paths and conveying news to an 
 immense distance with a rapidity inconceivable 
 to the European accustomed to consider the great 
 difficulties of travelling in countries swept bare by 
 the Saharan wind. 
 
 " That the Turkish army has tried to keep in 
 some sort of touch with the city through Bedouin 
 caravans is certain. And it must not be supposed 
 that all the arms and ammunition landed by the 
 Derna were put on camels' backs and immediately 
 sent into the interior. Part of that cargo may be 
 hidden in some unknown locality." 
 
 Signor Zoli then deals with a very large caravan 
 of camels laden with food-stuffs which had been 
 seized on the previous day when about to leave 
 Tripoli for some unknown destination. 
 
 "There is reason to believe," he says, "that the 
 forty camels seized yesterday in the market-place 
 intended to convey barley to detachments of Turkish 
 soldiers stationed nearer to us than the central 
 Turkish camp at the foot of the Gharian mountains. 
 . . . The men of that arrested caravan will be care- 
 fully watched, for it is feared, and not without 
 reason, that under the festive and loyal Tripoli 
 basking in the full light of the sun, tranquil in the
 
 HOW ARABS GOT IN THE REAR 351 
 
 protection of its new armed population, proud of 
 being guarded on sea by a long and imposing 
 girdle of cruisers, there exists a subterranean 
 Tripoli whose labyrinths it would not be easy to 
 explore." 
 
 Until October 23rd General Caneva was extremely 
 lax about letting Arabs or people who said that they 
 were Arabs pass through the lines at any point, 
 either to enter or to leave the city. Between Shara- 
 shett and Henni a whole company of Turkish soldiers 
 could have slipped through the dense oasis under- 
 growth at night without the sentinels being any the 
 wiser. 
 
 On October 22nd, the eve of the " revolt," I drove 
 out to Sharashett with a colleague, Herr von Gott- 
 berg, and only met one sentry at a cross-roads. We 
 showed him our passes and were allowed to drive 
 on towards Amrus. Near a mosque, at some distance 
 outside the Italian line, we found a large number 
 of white-robed Arabs sitting on the ground under the 
 palm-trees. They had been engaged in some dis- 
 cussion before they saw us, but were perfectly silent 
 as we passed by. They did not cast very pleasant 
 looks at us, but, in a little hamlet which we passed 
 somewhat further on, the crowd of Arabs collected 
 on the village green scowled at us so malignantly 
 that von Gottberg hastily asked me if I had brought 
 my revolver with me. Of course, I had left it at 
 home. It always happens thus with a revolver. 
 The weapon in question would have been of little use 
 to me, however, if those Arabs were the gentry whom 
 I now suspect them to have been. Neither of the two 
 groups looked like the ordinary village assembly. 
 There was not enough variety among them in the
 
 352 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 matter of age and physical condition. There was no 
 bhnd beggar, no cripple and no corpulent hodja. 
 There were no boys playing about and no children. 
 No veiled maidens drew water from the wells. 
 All of those Arabs were determined-looking, hardy 
 men in the prime of life, all save one vigorous ancient 
 with a long grey beard and a glittering eye which 
 transfixed us as that of the "Ancient Mariner" 
 transfixed the wedding guest. All devoured us with 
 their looks in a way which seemed to indicate intense 
 anxiety as well as intense hate. 
 
 In a palm-grove we found a youth and an old man 
 — both of them evidently local people — getting 
 down dates. My companion gave them a small coin 
 and signified that he would like to buy some of the 
 fruit. They filled his hat, and when he turned to go 
 the youth ran after him. Von Gottberg thought at 
 first that he wanted more money. On the contrary, 
 he wanted to give my companion another hatful of 
 dates. 
 
 The two large groups of Arabs may very possibly 
 have been the Turko-Arabic force which slipped in 
 behind the backs of the Italians that very night and 
 cut two companies of the Bersaglieri to pieces next 
 morning. Their arms were probably inside the 
 mosque and the houses. 
 
 We had made this excursion, my friend and I, in 
 order to learn the Italian defences in this direction. 
 Von Gottberg, who is a military man, was much 
 exercised in his mind as to the strength of the Ber- 
 saglieri on the left, and he concluded that Sharashett 
 was covered not only by several companies on the 
 spot, but also by a fairly strong force stationed at 
 Amrus. But there were no troops at Amrus. 
 
 At Sharashett there are two parallel roads to
 
 HOW ARABS GOT IN THE REAR 353 
 
 Amrus and Tagiura, not far distant from one another, 
 and bordered by luxuriant date-palms and olive 
 plantations. They join, I believe, a little outside of 
 Sharashett. 
 
 According to Signor Bevione, the road running 
 along the sea was left entirely unguarded because 
 the Bersaglieri had a vague impression that the battle- 
 ships lying off that point were watching it, while the 
 fleet understood that the Bersaglieri were looking after 
 it. Some jealousy between the naval officers and 
 the crack infantry regiment may have been at the 
 root of the misunderstanding, and a certain amount 
 of stiffness on both sides may have prevented 
 explanations. 
 
 VonGottberg and I found this road quite unguarded. 
 It was apparently dominated, however, by an Italian 
 cruiser which was about a mile off, but looked much 
 nearer on account of the clear atmosphere and the 
 bright sunshine. 
 
 Signor Giuseppe Bevione thinks that it was along 
 this seashore road that the fighting Arabs passed 
 on their way during the night of the 22nd in order 
 to attack the Italian rear. He thinks that the four or 
 five hundred men who attempted this encircling 
 movement could have thus gradually passed the 
 Italian line. They began to filter through two or 
 three days before and to take up positions in the 
 dense undergrowth. 
 
 This statement is now, he says, accepted by all 
 the Italians (ormai accettata da tutti) owing to the 
 fatto gravissimo (most grave fact) that " on the 
 morning of the 23rd the look-out men on board the 
 ships anchored in the harbour observed a very rapid 
 and unaccustomed influx of Arabs from the oasis 
 towards Tripoli along the road which runs parallel to
 
 354 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 the sea and which was then absolutely devoid of 
 troops. Those Arabs were the irregulars, who thus 
 tranquilly completed the envelopment of our extreme 
 left and proceeded to the posts which had been 
 allotted them in the rear of our line." 
 
 The same writer admits that those irregular troops 
 were " Arabs from the interior who have never made 
 submission to us. They have been enlisted and paid 
 by the Turks, as irregular forces of the Sultan." They 
 " were even perhaps commanded by Turkish officers 
 dressed in Arab costume. . . . When the Turks, 
 having immobilised the bulk of our forces elsewhere 
 by means of feigned attacks, commenced a frontal 
 assault on our lines at Sharashett, the Arab detach- 
 ments of the enemy, which had succeeded in entering 
 our lines, threw themselves against our rear, and 
 thus caught us between two fires. Nor is it impossible 
 that the desperate resistance against the reinforce- 
 ments from the 82nd Regiment which was made by 
 the Arabs at the Feschlum cross-roads, that is, in 
 the most favourable strategic point, and which 
 prevented these reinforcements from advancing, 
 had been organised and commanded by some dis- 
 guised Turkish officers." 
 
 Here, then, we have the greatest defender of 
 General Caneva admitting that the so-called revolt 
 of the oasis Arabs was simply a successful flank- 
 ing movement on the part of irregular Turkish 
 troops. 
 
 What are we to say, then, of those denunciations 
 even in the English Press of the " friendlies " who 
 rose in the rear of their benefactors ? " Kepi," who 
 describes this fight in " Blackwood's " of December 
 last, says that at Sharashett " a few of the Arabs 
 succeeded in breaking through the Italian lines,"
 
 HOW ARABS GOT IN THE REAR 355 
 
 and that this handful afterwards provoked an in- 
 surrection among the " friendly " Arabs. 
 
 But the Italians themselves admit that this rear 
 attack was carried out by four or five hundred Arab 
 soldiers of the Turkish Sultan, who had been able, 
 owing to the gross carelessness of the Italian com- 
 mander, to slip round by the sea-coast. Instead of 
 a few Arabs getting through and being joined by 
 hundreds of friendlies, hundreds of Arabs got through 
 and were joined by a few friendlies. 
 
 Where, then, is the treachery ? Where, then, is 
 the justification for those tears of blood v/hich have 
 been poured out in " The Times " and elsewhere for 
 those poor, confiding- Italians treacherously taken 
 in the rear by the peaceful Arabs who had submitted 
 to their rule and accepted bread from their hands ? 
 
 It would be expecting too much from human nature, 
 however, to expect that all the oasis Arabs should 
 remain tranquil. They, too, had their grievances. 
 There are well-founded reports of Arab women 
 having been foully ill-used by Italian soldiers ; and, 
 in any case, some excitable oasis Arabs must have 
 been carried away by patriotic and religious feelings 
 when they saw their victorious compatriots from the 
 desert amongst them with rifles in their hands. A 
 hundred reasons made such defections inevitable, 
 though I doubt if " defection " is the right word to 
 use. Fanaticism, the instinct of imitation, the 
 certainty that a decisive Turkish victory was assured, 
 the fever of battle ineradicable from the Arab mind, 
 the thirst for loot. One might as well try to keep a 
 torrent from flowing downhill as to keep some of the 
 young oasis Arabs from joining that band of their 
 countrymen which had just cut to pieces two com- 
 panies of the best soldiers in Italy. General Caneva
 
 356 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 cannot blame them. He might as well blame gun- 
 powder for exploding when a match is applied to it. 
 It was his duty to keep the match from getting there, 
 and in that duty he failed signally and criminally. 
 
 Probably some of those insurgent " friendlies " 
 did fire on the Italian rear or on isolated Italian 
 soldiers. They were shot for it, and justly. But 
 Italy should be the last country in the world to 
 raise up her hands in horror at such " treachery." 
 I have little sympathy with Italian revolutionists, 
 but that vigorous old Syndicalist Cipriani, was right 
 in exploding with wrath when somebody spoke in 
 his presence of " Arab treachery." 
 
 " Treachery," he shouted, " what treachery ? 
 Can we find a grosser or more stupid sophism than 
 that of the Nationalists when they speak of treachery ? 
 Ah, perdio ! Here it is a question of one country 
 sending its soldiers, without any decent motive, 
 into the house of another people in order to make 
 itself master there. It is a question of a people being 
 forced to bend the knee and to promise obedience 
 under the menace of cannon ready to bombard and to 
 exterminate them. What value has a promise ex- 
 torted under such conditions ? 
 
 " The Italian people should at least remember 
 that when we had Austria on our neck we did to the 
 Austrians as the Arabs do to us to-day. We did more. 
 Austrian spies were stabbed, and every Austrian 
 soldier on garrison in any Italian city had to look 
 well to his back or he would have a dagger in it. He 
 had to take very good care not to find himself after 
 nightfall outside his barracks, in any deserted lane 
 or on any bridge. If he did not take care, he was sure 
 to be killed, thrown into the river, stoned to death. 
 To such an extent did these assassinations go on
 
 HOW ARABS GOT IN THE REAR 357 
 
 that when the Austrian Kaiser saw his Itahan 
 garrisons return decimated to the home country, 
 year after year, he exclaimed that the occupation 
 of Lombardy, Venetia, and the Vassal dukedoms 
 cost him more than a great [annual] defeat in the 
 field. 
 
 " Treason on the part of the Arabs ! Is not this 
 the very word which the Aulic Councillors used — in 
 the name of His Apostolic Majesty — in order to 
 condemn to hard labour and to death our own 
 martyrs ? The victims of the Spielberg, the men 
 hanged at Belfiore, were they not, forsooth, con- 
 demned for treason as w^ell as for high treason ? 
 The father of my excellent friend Ernesta Cassola, 
 the leader of the Brescian people during the Ten 
 Days — was he not sentenced for treason-felony ? 
 But if Austria condemned those heroes, history 
 has glorified them, and this very year official Italy 
 gave them an apotheosis — this very year, a short 
 time before she herself went to Tripoli in order to 
 commit there worse crimes than Austria ever com- 
 mitted amongst us. 
 
 " There are certain inalienable rights, and among 
 them is the right of defence against an overpowering 
 invader. It is never treason to combat pro aris et 
 focis, no matter how one fights, no matter what are 
 the arae and foci for which one combats." 
 
 The attack of the Arabs upon the Italian Red 
 Cross has been enlarged upon in " The Times " as 
 the act of savages. Sometimes, however, the Italian 
 Red Cross hospitals were practically in the firing- 
 line. Early on the morning of the 26th I visited the 
 Italian line between Sharashett and Henni while 
 fighting was going on and found a small first-aid 
 station, with several Red Cross flags waving over it.
 
 358 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 situated in an Arab cabin within a hundred yards 
 of the front. An Arab bullet whizzed from time to 
 time past this hospital, but there was never any heavy 
 fire concentrated on it, though the Arabs would have 
 been well within their rights if they had attacked 
 it, for it should not have been there. 
 
 It is true that a Red Cross hospital well inside the 
 oasis was attacked, but I am doubtful if the wild 
 Arabs who assailed it had any idea that it contained 
 only sick and wounded men. 
 
 The flag conveyed little information to them, 
 for some of the Italian flags also bear the cross. 
 Indeed, it is probable that the blood-red emblem of 
 Christianity which floated over the roof awoke in 
 their memories traditions of the crusaders ; and that 
 they regarded the surgeons with Red Cross badges 
 on their arms as a corps of Christian Janissaries 
 more than usually fierce. In the "Berliner Tageblatt " 
 (April 10), Dr. Goebel, the leader of the German Red 
 Crescent with the Turks in Tripoli, says that he and 
 his assistants would have been massacred by the 
 Arabs if they had worn Red Cross badges. 
 
 On the other hand, I am prepared to make 
 allowances for the Italian soldiers who several times 
 at night shot Arab women who, not knowing Italian, 
 did not stop when the sentinel summoned them to 
 do so. The " Corriere d'ltalia " tells of two women 
 having been thus killed and two wounded on 
 October 16, In war a great deal of sad but excus- 
 able killing of innocent people is almost inevitable. 
 
 An awkward question for the Turks is the question 
 of uniform. Some of the Arabs killed in the oasis 
 were found to be really Turkish soldiers with Turkish 
 uniforms underneath their Arab dress. This proves 
 pretty clearly that they at least were not those peace-
 
 HOW ARABS GOT IN THE REAR 359 
 
 ful but " treacherous " oasis Arabs of whom we have 
 heard so much. But even if they had been caught 
 alive in the rear of the ItaHans, the latter would be 
 justified, according to the rules of war, in shooting 
 them. It seems to me, however, that the Turkish 
 officers and soldiers fighting in the Desert against 
 the Italians are quite right in wearing whatever kind 
 of uniform they please. If a Turkish officer does not 
 dress like the vast majority of the men he commands, 
 he is sure to be singled out by the Italian marksmen. 
 He may even be mistaken for an Italian and shot by 
 his own men. Besides, it is impossible for him to 
 renew his uniform when it wears out. And it is 
 equally impossible for him to dress all his Arabs in 
 Turkish military costume.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES - 
 
 After what I had seen on October 26th, I decided 
 that I could not stay with an army which went in 
 for murder on such a large scale as the Italian army, 
 and accordingly I determined to send back my 
 papers as correspondent to General Caneva. I was 
 so disgusted with the massacres, and especially 
 with the way in which the Italian authorities had 
 allowed the sick women and children of the Arabs 
 to die on the ground, that I wrote to General Caneva 
 a most violent letter in which I stated that I refused 
 to associate any longer with " an army which is 
 no army, but a gang of marauders and a band of 
 assassins." 
 
 On October 28th I showed this letter to Mr. Alvarez, 
 the British Consul-General, but he was horrified at 
 the strength of the language which I made use of, 
 and begged me to modify it. He promised that if I 
 did so he would himself accompany me to call upon 
 the General and make personal representations to 
 him in regard to the atrocities of which I had been 
 an eye-witness. 
 
 I declined this offer, as I foresaw that nothing 
 good would come of it — only a barren interview, a 
 vague promise to make inquiries, and the certainty 
 of being kicked out ignominiously, inside of a week, 
 on some trumped-up charge, with the result that all 
 
 360
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 361 
 
 my subsequent testimony about the massacres would 
 be rendered valueless. But I did modify the lan- 
 guage of my letter to General Caneva. In fact, I tore 
 up the letter and wrote, in English, a fresh one, which 
 ran as follows : 
 
 Tripoli, 
 
 October 28thy 1911. 
 To His Excellency 
 
 General Carlo Caneva, 
 Commander-in-chief of the Army 
 of Occupation. 
 
 Your Excellency ! 
 
 I beg to return to Your Excellency the en- 
 closed papers which I have received from the 
 Italian military authorities here. As I deem it 
 my duty to criticise the treatment of natives during 
 the past few days, I cannot any longer continue to 
 accept favours from the authorities whose actions 
 I criticise. 
 
 I remain. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 Francis McCullagh. 
 
 I got no direct answer from the General, but soon 
 received a message from the censor through another 
 correspondent to call at his office in the Castello. 
 Von Gottberg, who had also returned his papers, 
 received a similar communication. We both answered 
 the censor by letter in French, saying very politely 
 that, having ceased to be correspondents accredited 
 to the Italian Army of Occupation, we could no 
 longer maintain any official relations with the censor 
 and could not call on him in his official capacity.
 
 362 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 We thanked him, however, for all he had done for 
 us and said that we would be delighted to see him 
 as a private individual at any time. If the Italian 
 authorities wished to communicate with us, they 
 might do so through our respective Consuls. 
 
 We received no answer to this communication, and 
 left a few days afterwards without having heard any- 
 thing further from the censor. No attempt was made 
 to hasten or retard our departure, and no unpleasant- 
 ness was shown us. All the Italian correspondents 
 had evidently heard of what we had done, and one 
 of them, Signor Tullio Giordana, tried to argue with 
 me. He did not deny the truth of my story, but he 
 told me horrible tales of Arab cruelty towards the 
 Bersaglieri. On von Gottberg a more serious attempt 
 was made. A mysterious Italian visitor tried to 
 arrange through the German Consul to have an inter- 
 view with him, and when that attempt failed, the 
 stranger called at the house of the German dragoman, 
 where my friend was staying. He asked to see von 
 Gottberg, but refused to send up his card or even to 
 give his name or the business on which he had come. 
 My colleague consequently refused to see him, so 
 that he remains a mystery. 
 
 From Malta I wired an account of the massacres 
 and of the general situation to London ; and a few 
 days after reaching Naples I found that this account 
 had been wired back to the papers there. 
 
 To some papers my messages came in a designedly 
 exaggerated mistranslation. I was made, for in- 
 stance, to say that the Italian troops went out killing 
 all the blind beggars in the city. Another paper sug- 
 gested that I must have been drunk when I wrote 
 my Malta despatch. All attacked with the most 
 savage invective, not only myself, but the other
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 363 
 
 British correspondents who had dared to send mes- 
 sages similar to mine. 
 
 Signor GioHtti even asserted that neither I nor 
 my colleagues had ever been to Tripoli at all, that 
 we had concocted our despatches in Malta. This 
 assertion will be found in the " Corriere della Sera " 
 for November 10th, in the report of an interview 
 granted by the Premier to Dr. Christopher Pflaum, 
 correspondent of the " Deutsche Tages Zeitung " 
 of Berlin. 
 
 " During the entire war," said Signor Giolitti, 
 " Italy has been too gentle rather than too severe 
 and I can absolutely deny, therefore, the accusa- 
 tions of cruelty made by London and Berlin cor- 
 respondents who, instead of being at the front, are 
 living quietly in Malta." 
 
 This fable about our having been all the time in 
 Malta has since been repeated. It was repeated by 
 Mr. Richard Bagot, the novelist, in a letter which 
 was published in the " Spectator " on February 10th. 
 Mr. Bagot asserted that : 
 
 " The journalists and others who describe in 
 such glowing language Italian cruelty in the 
 suppression of the Arab revolt were many miles 
 away from Tripoli during that suppression. The 
 few journalists and other civilians who were present 
 have unanimously testified to the fact that no such 
 acts of cruelty ever took place." 
 
 I need hardly say that Mr. Bagot is mistaken. I 
 could call hundreds of witnesses to prove that I was 
 in Tripoli until the end of October last. 
 
 I shall only mention one, Signor Tullio Giordana, 
 the correspondent of the " New York Herald " in
 
 364 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Tripoli. Being a strong supporter of this war, Signor 
 Giordana attacked me in the " New York Herald " 
 (Paris), November 9th, but he admitted that I was 
 in Tripoli when the massacres occurred, and that I 
 voluntarily returned my papers to General Caneva 
 by way of protest against those massacres. 
 
 Nearly all the non-Italian correspondents who were 
 in Tripoli at the end of October witnessed those 
 massacres and described them. If we leave the 
 Italians out of account as being prejudiced witnesses, 
 we find that the denials came in almost all cases 
 from journalists, novelists, and others living in 
 Italy, France, and England. 
 
 We have Signor Marconi, Lord Roberts, Mr. 
 Richard Bagot, Mr. Garvin of the "Pall Mall Gazette," 
 and the Duke of the Abruzzi. Luigi, Duke of the 
 Abruzzi, wired as follows from Taranto to the " New 
 York American " : 
 
 " My indignation at the libellous accusations 
 levelled against the Italian troops in Tripoli by 
 certain newspapers in New York is unbounded. As 
 a matter of fact, our soldiers' treatment of the 
 Arabs was humanitarian to an extreme degree, 
 their very kindness to the Arabs was the cause of 
 their undoing. The conduct of these Arabs in 
 turning upon the Italians and trying to massacre 
 them after having been received and succoured on 
 terms of friendship and equality was nothing less 
 than base treason. I hope the ' New York Ameri- 
 can,' with its acknowledged sympathy for all 
 peoples who are engaged in fighting for the cause of 
 justice and truth, will place these facts in their true 
 light before the great American public." 
 
 I quote this cablegram in full, as it is typical of
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 365 
 
 all the others. I give in italics, by the way, the words 
 " fighting for justice and truth," as they are rather 
 amusing when applied, as the Duke applies them, 
 to the proceedings of General Caneva in Tripolitania. 
 The Duke had been at Taranto when the massacres 
 took place. Of what earthly good, then, was his 
 evidence even if he were ten times a Duke ? 
 
 Of what value would such evidence be in, say, a 
 murder trial, especially if all the people who had 
 been on the spot and had seen the crime committed 
 had been unanimous in fixing the guilt on one man ? 
 Hysterical denials from that man himself, from his 
 relatives, and from admirers in distant lands 
 would, I take it, have little effect on an English 
 jury. 
 
 Prominent among the journalists who denied the 
 massacres is Monsieur Jean Carrere, the Rome 
 correspondent of the " Temps." I shall take his case 
 as typical. 
 
 Monsieur Carrere was not in Tripoli when the 
 massacres occurred. While staying in Naples 
 early in November, on my return from Tripoli- 
 tania, I noticed that all the Italian newspapers 
 were full of what they called a complete vindi- 
 cation of Italy's honour and a crushing exposure of 
 la malafede, la ignoranza, V odio of those English 
 hirelings of the Turks who had accused General 
 Caneva' s troops of murdering innocent Arabs. The 
 " vindication " in question was especially written 
 for the Italian Press. It was from the pen of 
 M. Jean Carrere, and it took the form of a long 
 article asserting, in most violent and dogmatic lan- 
 guage, that the massacres did not occur, and raking 
 up all the " atrocities " that have been laid at 
 England's door since the burning of Jeanne d'Arc.
 
 366 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Incidentally, I suppose, we, the British correspon- 
 dents, were denounced as liars, perjurers, swindlers, 
 and spies. M. Carrere visited Tripoli some weeks 
 later, and is now the great authority on that oasis 
 " repression," which he did not see. 
 
 Another witness is the " New York Herald " of 
 Paris. When my account of the massacres was 
 published in the " Westminster Gazette," the editor 
 of the " New York Herald " wired to his local cor- 
 respondent to investigate my statements. I have 
 already pointed out that this correspondent is an 
 Italian jingo who would certainly have shown me no 
 mercy if what I had said was untrue. But as he could 
 not deny the accuracy of what I had written, he 
 confined himself to saying that I had failed to take 
 into account the provocation which the Italians 
 had received. I may add that if I had not been in 
 the oasis that day he would certainly have wired 
 that fact to the " Herald." It would have been easy 
 to ascertain if I had been all day in town or not, as 
 Tripoli is a small place with one small hotel, wherein 
 nearly all the correspondents were at that time 
 lumped together. I refer to this point because Mr. 
 Richard Bagot declared six months afterwards, in 
 the " Nation," that I had not been in the oasis at 
 all that day. This charge had never been made 
 before. Would it not have been made instantly by 
 forty Italian correspondents if it were true ? 
 
 But the utmost that was said at the time against 
 my friends and myself was that Ave had not had the 
 courage to go outside the Italian lines into the Desert 
 in order to see the manner in which the Italian dead 
 had been mutilated. Signor Luigi Barzini made this 
 statement in the " Corriere della Sera " of November 
 13th, and, I think, in the " Daily Telegraph " of the
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 367 
 
 same date. But, as I have already pointed out in a 
 previous chapter, there was fighting going on when I 
 visited the advanced posts, and I came back into 
 the oasis and saw the massacres. Mr. Barzini and 
 his friends remained at the front and did not see the 
 massacres. I have reasons for beheving too, that some 
 of my Enghsh colleagues, who afterwards tried to 
 take up what they thought to be a " moderate " and 
 " judicial " attitude, were also at the front most of 
 the time and saw only the smallest fraction of the 
 slaughter that went on between them and the town. 
 
 So much for the " Herald " correspondent, A 
 third witness is Mr. Martin Donohoe, of the " Daily 
 Chronicle." Mr. Donohoe was quoted, first in the 
 " Stampa " of Turin and afterwards all over Italy, 
 as saying that there had been no massacres at all. 
 Great stress was laid on his testimony by the Italian 
 Press. The " Corriere della Sera " declared that 
 that testimony was " precious," that Mr. Donohoe had 
 rehabilitated the character of the Italian soldier. 
 In the screaming headlines which gave prominence 
 to this statement we were told that a truthful English- 
 man had at last killed the whole calumny. 
 
 But Mr. Donohoe had left Tripoli before the date 
 on which the massacres took place ; and, speaking 
 on his behalf, the " Chronicle " has formally and 
 publicly denied that he made any such statement as 
 that attributed to him. But I presume that, in spite 
 of that denial, Mr. Donohoe still continues to figure 
 in Italy as the one brave, truthful Englishman who 
 declared that there had been no massacre. 
 
 Other witnesses, possibly, to the same effect are 
 Italians who represented English newspapers in 
 Tripoli. Reading these men's testimony without 
 knowing their names, the English reader might well
 
 368 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 have been excused for believing that a fair proportion 
 of EngHsh and American journalists denied the 
 massacres. Those Italian representatives of English 
 papers would have been at once expelled from Tripoli 
 if they had confirmed the reports about a massacre. 
 But, to do them justice, I do not think that this had 
 much weight with them. They were out all day 
 at the front where there was fighting, but no mas- 
 sacres ; and if they saw any of that " indiscri- 
 minate slaughter " to which " The Times " corre- 
 spondent refers, they either looked on it from a 
 different point of view from us or else were so enraged 
 at what they regarded as the treachery of the Arabs 
 that they could not judge the matter impartially. 
 As for the British correspondents, if they had con- 
 cealed the truth they could have remained in Tripoli 
 for a long time, enjoying the hospitality of officers, 
 the applause of patriotic Italians all over the world. 
 Their disclosure of what happened banished them 
 not only from Tripoli, but from the pleasant climate 
 of Italy, where they might otherwise have continued 
 to represent their papers — banished them (if I may 
 use the expression) to a London grey with November 
 fogs. 
 
 I have now given the evidence on the Italian side. 
 It is almost entirely the evidence of absentees. 
 What have we on the other side ? We have im- 
 partial Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen, Germans, 
 Austrians, and Frenchmen who were all in Tripoli 
 when the massacres took place, and who, to their 
 own regret and horror, witnessed those massacres. 
 We have Renter's correspondent, Mr. Ellis Ashmead- 
 Bartlett. We have Mr. Grant, a canny and hard- 
 headed Londoner of Scotch descent, who, being 
 extremely anxious to remain in Tripoli, said as
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 369 
 
 little against his hosts as he possibly could, but felt 
 that it would be a crime to keep entirely silent. 
 Then we have " The Times " correspondent, the 
 " Daily Telegraph " correspondent, and the " West- 
 minster Gazette " correspondent. All these are 
 Britishers. In other words, all the British corre- 
 spondents said that wanton murder had been com- 
 mitted. 
 
 " The Times " correspondent did not, it is true, 
 go so far as the rest of us. This was because he had 
 been at the front and had seen only the smallest 
 fraction of the massacres carried out by the Italians 
 in the oasis. Yet even he declared that parts of the 
 oasis had been turned into " human abattoirs " ; 
 that " the Italians having set themselves to cow 
 the Arabs, the floodgates of blood-lust were opened, 
 and in many cases the men got beyond control, and 
 the innocent suffered with the guilty." Writing in 
 the " Daily Telegraph " of the innocent oasis Arabs, 
 Mr. Bennet Burleigh declared that " many unques- 
 tionably have been wantonly murdered." 
 
 Yet General Caneva denies that a single innocent 
 Arab was killed ; while Mr. Richard Bagot tells us 
 that " the most searching investigations carried out 
 by Italian officers and civilians of the highest honour 
 and integrity have failed to bring to light one single 
 case in which any Arab either has been ill-treated 
 or put to death unless convicted of treachery." 
 
 If this is true, all the non-Italian correspondents 
 must have fabricated the news which they sent. 
 But that they could not possibly do so will be the 
 verdict of any reader who has accompanied war- 
 correspondents in the field. Collective action by 
 doctors, by lawyers, or by the clergymen of any one 
 denomination is possible, but, owing to the nature 
 
 2 B
 
 870 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 of their calling, collective action of this kind by war- 
 correspondents is impossible. The great, the primary 
 object of each of them is to steal a march on the 
 others. If one of them sends false news the others 
 will lose very little time in denouncing him. 
 
 Of my own testimony I do not care to speak, but 
 my contributions to the " Westminster Gazette," 
 reprinted in the present volume, show that when I 
 arrived in Tripoli it was with strong prejudices in 
 favour of the Italians. 
 
 Among the German correspondents we have Herr 
 von Gottberg, a Prussian officer who has long been 
 connected with the " Lokal - Anzeiger " and who 
 enjoys a high reputation in Berlin as a military critic. 
 In addition to von Gottberg, we have five other 
 Germans, not local Italians writing for German 
 papers, but Germans permanently connected with the 
 greatest organs of the Press in the Fatherland and 
 in Austria-Hungary. 
 
 Some of these Germans are very superior men. 
 Two of them are military officers ; one of them, 
 Herr Krause, is a Doctor in Philosophy. Two of them 
 speak Arabic fluently. Besides, there was the 
 German Consul, Dr. Tilger, a very able man, knowing 
 Italian, Turkish, and Arabic, standing in every way 
 head and shoulders above his consular colleagues, 
 constantly quoted on the Continent as the greatest 
 authority on every aspect of Tripolitan life. Dr. 
 Tilger knew the Italians well ; he had lived twenty 
 years among them. He also knew the Arabs well, 
 and was, consequently, able to obtain from Arab 
 sources particulars of atrocities whereof the corre- 
 spondents knew nothing. I am told that his report, 
 which is now in Berlin, confirms every word which 
 I wrote on the subject of the massacres in the " West-
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 371 
 
 minster Gazette " and the " Daily News." I think 
 that it goes beyond anything whicli I wrote. Besides 
 the testimony of Dr. Tilger we have that of his 
 dragoman, who also speaks Italian, Arabic, and 
 Turkish, as well as German, and who went about 
 among the Arabs on the days of the massacre and 
 conversed with them. 
 
 Among the French correspondents we have M. 
 Cossira, whose evidence I quote elsewhere. 
 
 If, as Mr. Richard Bagot and other apologists of 
 the Italians assert, not a single innocent Arab was 
 killed by the Italians, then the story of the massacre 
 was a gross libel. The libel would have been so gross 
 that every foreigner in Tripoli would have denounced 
 it. Why did not the Italian Government and the 
 pro-Italian newspapers in this country go to Tripoli 
 itself for evidence ? Why did they not appeal to 
 the Consular body, to the English and German resi- 
 dents of Tripoli city ? Why did they appeal instead 
 to people who had not been in Tripoli at the time ? 
 Because they Avere well aware that all the foreigners 
 in Tripoli knew of the atrocities. 
 
 If there had been no atrocities the English Consul 
 in Tripoli would have said so. Instead of that, he 
 sent to the Foreign Office a statement to the effect 
 that atrocities had been committed. The Italian 
 Press vilified and abused him for sending that state- 
 ment. While General Caneva was holding a Te 
 Deum in the Cathedral to celebrate his " victory," 
 four Italian correspondents — Barzini, Castellini, 
 Piazza, and De Frenzi — had the impertinence to 
 enter the British Consulate in order to cross-examine 
 the British Consul-General regarding the statement 
 in question. The Consul-General would have been 
 justified in showing them the door, but he explained
 
 372 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 that his statement had not been intended for pubUca- 
 tion. 
 
 The telegram regarding this affair is dated " Tripoli, 
 November 14th," and is published in the " Corriere 
 della Sera." It will be noticed that the above- 
 mentioned Italian correspondents make absolutely 
 no attempt to deny the massacres. They only say 
 that the Bartlett-Davis-Grant document " is dis- 
 honest inasmuch as it does not mention the terrible 
 facts which rendered absolutely necessary and urgent 
 the repression of the Arab revolt, inasmuch as it 
 fails to mention the greater repressions furnished 
 by English Colonial history." 
 
 To the latter part of this question the British 
 Consul-General boldly replied that " of those repres- 
 sions mentioned in English Colonial history, England 
 is ashamed." Signor Luigi Barzini, who sends this 
 despatch, scoffs at the British representative " who 
 said that he was ashamed of the conduct of his nation 
 in the most glorious wars of conquest." 
 
 Of course, this brave and outspoken Consul- 
 General has been sent elsewhere and has been re- 
 placed by an official from Constantinople who has 
 been for the last three years at loggerheads with the 
 Young Turks. British diplomatists in Paris and 
 Vienna can safely scoff at the present Liberal Cabinet, 
 apologise for it, refer to it as a stop-gap. Sir Edward 
 Grey promotes them. But let a British Consul- 
 General say a brave and honest word which is not 
 only the very essence of Liberalism, but which also 
 represents the opinions of ninety-nine per cent of 
 the Conservatives in these Islands — Sir Edward Grey 
 takes fright immediately, yields to Italian remon- 
 strances, and, in a panic, recalls him. 
 
 This argument between the Italian correspondents
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 373 
 
 and the British Consul-General was on the spot, in 
 Tripoli itself, and it will be noticed that there in 
 Tripoli the Italians make no attempt to say, — as 
 Mr. Richard Bagot and others far from the scene 
 are so ready to say, — that not a single Arab was 
 wrongfully put to death. In Tripoli city the Italian 
 defence is: (1) "The Arabs attacked us treacherously," 
 (2) " You British did worse things in your Colonial 
 wars." To the second argument I would answer 
 that two wrongs do not make a right. To the first 
 I would reply that if the Arabs did wrong, the Italians 
 should not have done wrong. But the Arabs did 
 not make a treacherous attack on the Italian rear. 
 I hope that I have already made this point clear. 
 
 Thus all the members of the local Consular corps 
 knew that atrocities were committed. All the non- 
 Italian correspondents have borne witness to those 
 atrocities. 
 
 I might add that all the evidence I adduce to 
 prove the massacres comes from men who were con- 
 nected with the Italian army. All the British and 
 German correspondents I have mentioned had been 
 favoured with passes from General Caneva. Con- 
 sequently they were likely, not to malign the Italian 
 army, but to close their eyes to that army's faults and 
 to develop a hatred of the Arabs. This is always the 
 case in war, especially in war with a savage and 
 fanatical enemy. A correspondent is naturally 
 inclined to believe anything bad of the foe, to excuse 
 any harshness on the part of his hosts. On this 
 account I purposely refrain from quoting Turkish 
 testimony against the Italians or even the testimony 
 of Englishmen on the Turkish side. 
 
 A word in conclusion about the alleged Arab 
 atrocities. It is not impossible, of course, that the
 
 374 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Arabs, furious at the massacre of their own kinsmen 
 by the ItaHans, should retahate by torturing and 
 mutilating such of the invaders as fell into their 
 hands. Nevertheless, there are some points about 
 this story which need to be cleared up. It is not suf- 
 ficient that all the Italian and some of the English 
 correspondents try to make our hair stand on end 
 by blood-curdling stories of the mutilations inflicted 
 on the Italian dead. Some correspondents are too 
 prone to write what will please the army to which 
 they are attached, so that the censor will, by way of 
 quid pro quo, let them have special interviews with 
 the army chiefs and permit them to get out their news 
 first. And foreign business-men, settled in a place 
 like Tripoli, are very often found romping into the 
 Press in frenzied support of the invaders, not because 
 they love justice, but because they want to stand 
 well with the new-comers, and to benefit commercially. 
 The permament, forty-years-in-the-country man 
 of business is often a representative of doubtful 
 value to a newspaper. When he does happen to 
 remember the name of the paper to which he is 
 " accredited " and devotes a few moments to the 
 work of dictating a hasty cablegram to it, that 
 cablegram is not unlikely to be influenced, uncon- 
 sciously of course, by his business pre-occupations. 
 Without laying themselves open to any accusation 
 of partiality or boycott, the Italians could ruin any 
 business-man in Tripolitania who did not actively 
 take their part. His caravans would " dry up " 
 mysteriously, his customers would fall away, he 
 would find himself high and dry above the currents 
 of local commerce. Yet such men sometimes serve 
 not one newspaper but many. Next to the craze for a 
 "scoop, ' ' the craze for having ' ' our own correspondent ' '
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 375 
 
 in every corner of the world is the bane of modern 
 journalism. This latter craze necessitates very often 
 the employment of business-men, who differ from 
 real " special correspondents " in this, that (1) they 
 have first got to consider their business interests, 
 and (2) they have got to remain behind and face 
 the music. 
 
 We should not, therefore, attach too much im- 
 portance to reports of Arab atrocities which are 
 sent from Tripoli by correspondents who have 
 identified themselves with the Italians. And, in 
 the present instance, as I have already pointed out, 
 these reports are open to grave suspicion. 
 
 On October 28th the Italians evacuated El Henni 
 after having buried there the dead who had died 
 in the battles of the 23rd and 26th. When they 
 returned to El Henni a month later, on November 
 26th, they found that some of the dead bodies had 
 been disinterred. Now, even if we admit that the 
 Arabs disinterred the bodies in order to strip off the 
 clothes, as they might very likely do, there is nothing 
 so very terrible in that. The Arabs are a very poor 
 people, to whom cloth, buttons, and buckles are 
 pearls of great price. I remember how an Arab 
 soldier, with whom I travelled in the interior of 
 Morocco, saved up my empty tins (which had con- 
 tained tinned meats) in order to make cups of them. 
 And, as Mr. Ernest N. Bennett puts it, " if clothes 
 and boots are badly needed by the living, why on 
 earth bury them in the ground ? " Even if the corpses 
 were afterwards mutilated, this is certainly not 
 worse than the wholesale murder of innocent people in 
 which the Italians indulged. But the Italians declare 
 that the corpses in question were not those of soldiers 
 who had been buried, but those of soldiers who had
 
 376 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 been captured alive and then tortured to death. 
 They describe the expression of agony on the faces, 
 they tell how the eyelids of one corpse were sewn up ; 
 how another soldier had evidently been buried 
 alive and a third crucified. They brought personally 
 conducted parties of foreign journalists to see these 
 gruesome sights. They had them photographed. 
 They published in English, and probably in other 
 European languages, long illustrated descriptions of 
 this find. 
 
 I felt, long before, that some such discovery was 
 coming. Even on October 26th I heard the Italians 
 describe the mutilations which they did not discover 
 until a month later. Considering the extraordinary 
 craftiness and cunning which one sometimes finds in 
 the character of the Sicilian and the Neapolitan, and 
 which I noticed myself in Tripoli, we should not be 
 too eager to credit the lurid accounts of Arab ferocity 
 with which, by way of counterblast, the Italian Press 
 has been deluged. 
 
 Moreover, it is extremely doubtful if the particular 
 mutilations which the Italian correspondents describe 
 with such gusto and in such detail, — it is extremely 
 doubtful if the sewing up of the eyelids, etc., would 
 remain after a month of hot rainy weather. Decom- 
 position would set in very rapidly and would be 
 assisted in its work of destruction by the dogs, 
 carrion-birds and beasts of prey. The " Daily Mail " 
 correspondent in Tripoli tells us of " the expression 
 of agony on the faces " — on the faces of corpses that 
 had been exposed for a month in such a climate ! 
 Is not this ridiculous ? 
 
 I have already spoken of " The Times " military 
 correspondent in Tripoli. I have shown how pro- 
 Italian he has been. Well, writing in " Blackwood's
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 377 
 
 Magazine " for January, 1912, this correspondent 
 thinks that the accounts of the Arab atrocities have 
 been " overstated." ..." Men who are said to 
 have been buried aHve are probably Itahan corpses 
 that the Turks hastily interred for sanitary reasons. 
 It is quite possible that some of the so-called mutila- 
 tions were due to the packs of dogs which infest the 
 oasis. Moreover, it is hard to believe that the evidences 
 of brutality, as described in the Italian journals, 
 could have survived in the minuteness of the detail 
 given, after the exposure of a month of North African 
 sun and torrential rain." 
 
 " The Times " correspondent refers to " the packs 
 of dogs which infest the oasis." Owing to the de- 
 struction of practically all the houses in the oasis 
 there must have been many such packs, and they 
 must have been starving. Nothing is more likely 
 than that they scraped away the sand which lightly 
 covered the Italian corpses. In the " Secolo " of 
 November 29th we find evidence in support of this 
 theory. It is taken from the " Giornale di Sicilia," 
 whose correspondent in Tripoli gives the following 
 description of the burial of a Red Cross soldier : — 
 
 " I entered the [Mohammedan] cemetery with 
 Bedi Farug, an Arab fisherman and a friend of 
 mine. . . . Suddenly my attention was attracted 
 by a tomb which seemed to be new and on which lay 
 some palm-fronds, still green. A little tablet on 
 the tomb bore this inscription in Italian : 
 
 " Einilio Matteo Sibille, soldato delta Croce Rossa 
 Italianai morto il 15 ottobre 1911." 
 
 " Bedi Farug noticed my surprise, and being a 
 species of living newspaper and knowing every- 
 thing which happens, he said to me, ' This was a
 
 378 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 little soldier. He died [of illness] while attending 
 to his brethren. A little before his death he re- 
 ceived a letter from his mother. Another soldier 
 sat down by his bedside and read the letter for 
 him. Death was then near. The little Italian soldier's 
 eye was dim, but his heart was alive. He was 
 troubled by the words of his mother, who had not 
 known that he was ill and who said that she ex- 
 pected him to come back to his native mountains 
 in good health and with the satisfaction of having 
 done his duty." 
 
 The soldier died, but his companions " did not 
 wish to bury him on the seashore where those horrible 
 dogs scrape away the earth and tear the corpses to 
 pieces " (ma poi non volevano seppellirlo alia spiaggia 
 dove quegli orribili cani scavano le fosse e fanno 
 scempio dei cadaveri.) 
 
 The local Mohammedan Mollah who had taken an 
 affection for the sick soldier, who was, by the way, 
 a Piedmontese, begged the Italians to " bear the 
 ashes of your comrade into our burial-ground of 
 Dab-il-si-Did. You can always find it there if ever 
 you want to take it back to Italy." 
 
 The soldiers, we are told, " were very glad at this, 
 and thanked the Mollah." They then buried their 
 comrade in the Moslem burying-ground. " At the 
 foot of the tomb some little flowers had been planted. 
 ' These,' said Bedi Farug, with simplicity, ' have 
 been put there by our women ! ' " 
 
 I only quote this to show that, in the opinion of 
 the natives, corpses buried in the sand, as the Italian 
 corpses at Henni were buried, are pretty certain to 
 be mangled by dogs. If it is so at ordinary times, 
 when the dogs are fed, what must it be when, owing
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 379 
 
 to the massacre or the flight of their owners, hundreds 
 of dogs are running about masterless and half- 
 starved ? Moreover, there is another danger. There 
 is danger of corpses buried in the sand being un- 
 covered by the torrential rains of the rainy 
 season. Among the villages in the oasis are a 
 number of Moslem burial-grounds which have in 
 many cases been walled in to save the graves 
 from the swift water-courses formed in November. 
 Now, in last November the rainy season was so 
 particularly rainy that the water rushed through 
 part of the city in a small river, pouring into the sea 
 near the Castello. And it was after this that the 
 bodies were found. And once the water had uncovered 
 them, the dogs would certainly not leave them alone. 
 Then the Italians found them and raised an outcry 
 in Europe in order to excuse their own massacres 
 towards the end of October. From the Tripoli 
 correspondent of one prominent London paper came 
 a very naive telegram : — " It was these mutilations 
 which caused the Italian reprisals in the oasis on 
 October 23rd-27th." But on October 23rd-27th 
 the Italians were in occupation of El Henni and had 
 no corpses " on view," so to speak. They buried all 
 their dead before retreating. When they returned 
 they found the corpses of their soldiers hanging from 
 the trees, whereupon they assured the English corre- 
 spondents that it was on account of those Arab 
 atrocities that they had murdered thousands of oasis 
 Arabs a month previously ! The whole thing is a 
 strange muddle, and I, at least, cannot make sense 
 of it. I can very well understand, however, why 
 the Italians " find " so many of their comrades 
 " crucified." " Crucified " is, as I have already pointed 
 out, a good word. It appeals to the prejudices of
 
 380 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Christianity. It will rouse England and America. 
 Thus the Italian leaders make use of the Christianity 
 in which they do not believe, first in order to make 
 their own soldiers drunk with religious fanaticism ; 
 secondly, in order to excite Europe against the Turks 
 and Arabs. It is a clever business, well worthy of 
 the countrymen of Machiavelli. 
 
 In the same way their reported adoption of Arab 
 children, their alleged kindness to Bedouin babies 
 found deserted in the oasis, and all the other acts of 
 kindness which have been so trumpeted by the Roman 
 and Milanese Press, are simply instances of clever 
 Press " business." Until the end of October, the 
 Arab children in the oasis were treated by the Italians 
 as if they were dogs. I have elsewhere shown how 
 at least one such child was left on the ground to die. 
 The Italian soldiers had no more compassion on 
 those children than they would have had on young 
 vipers. But once an outcry was raised about their 
 barbarity, there was a sudden change. The word 
 went forth early in November that soldiers were to 
 be photographed with " rescued " Arab babies on 
 their knees, and that long, sentimental tales were to 
 be attached to the photographs. In this way the 
 English and Germans, with their curious and inex- 
 plicable affection for these dirty brats, would be won 
 over, would be got to believe that the Italians were 
 humane, were bubbling over with the milk of human 
 kindness. 
 
 Facile Italian pens produced in abundance inter- 
 minable stories of heroic Bersaglieri, who had, at 
 the risk of their lives, rescued Turkish infants and 
 adopted them. Lachrymose tales were circulated 
 of rough bluejackets who shared their food with 
 Arab mites whom they had picked up in the desert.
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRES 381 
 
 Photographs were produced by the score showing 
 black children seated on the knees of Italian soldiers, 
 while, in the background, officers and Red Cross 
 nurses tried desperately hard to "look pleasant." 
 London newspaper offices were deluged with these 
 "proofs" of Italian benignity. All this is humbug. 
 It is manufactured stuff, turned out to order for 
 the English, American and German market. The 
 soldiers would sooner wring the necks of these black 
 children than play with them or seat them on their 
 knees. 
 
 Besides, even if this sudden affection were genuine, I 
 would have nothing to say in favour of it. If the 
 Germans desolated Yorkshire with fire and sword, no 
 Yorkshireman would feel flattered in the least if he 
 saw in " Die Woche " photographs of German soldiers 
 with " adopted " Bradford children on their knees.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 THE CHURCH, THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 
 
 The last chapter of this ill-omened Italian adventure 
 has yet to be written. God grant that anarchy and 
 civil war may not write it in characters of blood and 
 flame within the fair borders of Italy herself. 
 
 For it is only too probable that the Socialists and 
 Terrorists, in the production of whom Italy enjoys 
 such an ill repute, will eventually be the only gainers 
 by this war. Even if General Caneva wins a military 
 triumph, the raid will nevertheless prove a disaster, 
 for Tripolitania will always be a burden to its owners, 
 and in a few years, perhaps in a few months, the 
 revolutionist will be able to say with perfect truth : 
 " Didn't I tell you so ? " 
 
 And when Italy recovers from her present debauch 
 of jingoism and blood, she will, I am afraid, turn for 
 consolation to the man with the red flag. That 
 sinister personage is the only Italian who has kept 
 his head during the sanguinary revel, the only 
 man who has told the exact truth, and given a 
 perfectly just and accurate account of the situation. 
 Perhaps there is one other Italian who is not blind 
 to what is going on and who, remembering the fate 
 of his father, shudders when he hears the cries of 
 " victory." That man is the King of Italy, who was, 
 
 382
 
 CONCLUSION 383 
 
 I am told, greatly averse to the present adventure, 
 but who must now, of course, as a constitutional 
 monarch, behave as if he approved of it. There is 
 still another Italian who has not lost his head, but, 
 occupying as he does an extraterritorial position. 
 His Holiness can scarcely be regarded as an Italian 
 at all. 
 
 To the gentleman with the bomb belongs, therefore, 
 the sole credit of having remained cool and sane. The 
 " Avanti " has published a caricature showing a 
 ward in a fever-hospital. The beds of all the political 
 parties are occupied by delirious patients whose 
 temperature is somewhere near boiling-point. One 
 bed alone is unoccupied, that of the revolutionists. 
 Any one who has studied the revolutionary periodicals 
 of Italy since September last must admit that this 
 boast is fully justified. While all the clerical and 
 monarchist papers have been indulging in the wildest 
 dreams of conquest, the " Avanti " has pointed out 
 that " the day will soon come when by far the 
 greater part of the literature of this period will seem 
 brutal and barbarous even to those who now pro- 
 duce it in a state of violent excitement and jingoist 
 frenzy and to those who devour it and excite them- 
 selves by it. Like all kinds of intoxication, this 
 intoxication of jingoism — more especially this in- 
 toxication of jingoism — leaves the brain confused 
 and obtuse and the mouth bitter. 
 
 " When sobriety returns, Italian ' civilisation ' 
 will look at herself in the glass, and will perhaps be 
 horror-stricken at her own appearance. When that 
 day comes we, at least, can say that we did not 
 encourage our country in her mad debauch, that we 
 did not urge her on to fresh excesses." On October 1st 
 the "Avanti" denounced the war-fever as a case of
 
 384 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 " colossal, collective aberration," and said that Italy 
 had been made drunk with the crude alcohol of a 
 "bastard patriotism." ^ 
 
 Every word of this is justified. Before the raid 
 the Socialist Press pointed out, day after day, with 
 the most cold and deadly logic, that the contemplated 
 occupation of Tripolitania was a mistake from 
 every point of view, that the new territory would 
 not attract Italian emigration, that it would always 
 be a burden on the Roman Exchequer, that, before 
 providing railways, schools, and water-works for 
 the Libyan desert, the Italian Government should 
 provide those necessities for large areas in the home 
 country which were without them. 
 
 When General Caneva massacred the oasis Arabs 
 who possessed fire-arms, the " Avanti " showed in 
 the most convincing manner that Caneva himself had 
 erred in failing to disarm the natives ; and it showed 
 that at Benghazi, General Briccola had had no trouble 
 with his " friendlies " owing to the fact that he had 
 adopted on the day he landed the simple precaution 
 of collecting their rifles from them. 
 
 In the same way the " Avanti " was the only 
 paper in Italy to point out how trifling were the 
 Italian successes. While even the great " Corriere 
 della Sera " was working itself into paroxysms of 
 excitement over the ridiculous bombardment of 
 Tripoli, the " Avanti " coldly pointed out the weak- 
 ness of the Turkish batteries there and the impos- 
 sibility of any serious resistance. In short, the 
 jingo Press reminded one of nothing so much as a 
 hilarious reveller whose tongue has been loosened, 
 whose imagination has been inflamed, and whose 
 reasoning powers have been impaired by a large 
 
 * In the appendix I give a specimen of that alcohol.
 
 CONCLUSION 385 
 
 dose of some crude intoxicant. The Socialist and 
 Anarchist Press, on the other hand, reminded one 
 all along of a sharp, cool, cynical lawyer with all 
 his wits about him. In the conflict between the two 
 the position of the imperialist was both ludicrous 
 and pathetic. ^ 
 
 Nobody would deplore more than myself the 
 triumph of the revolutionists in Italy and the over- 
 throw of the monarchy, but it is undeniable that 
 this Tripoli adventure tends to bring us nearer to 
 such a consummation. The revolutionists know 
 that, though their friends are now few, the pendulum 
 is sure to swing their way before long. It is signi- 
 ficant that they continually tell of Lloyd George 
 having been once compelled to escape in a police- 
 man's clothes from a pro-war mob, and being now 
 the most powerful Minister in the British Cabinet. 
 It would be more to the point, however, if they dwelt 
 on the almost successful revolution in Russia which 
 followed the Tzar's unfortunate Manchurian war. 
 Indeed, the probabilities are that, for the future, 
 every unsuccessful campaign waged by a Continental 
 
 1 In the " Avanti " of October 1st the reader will find a most able 
 and eloquent denunciation of the raid. "Some people tell us, ' says 
 this organ, "that this will not be really a war at all, that there wall 
 be a few shots, a blockade by the fleet, the simple landing of an army 
 corps, and that all will then be over. And perhaps this thought is 
 behind the whole enterprise ; doubtless this conviction led to the war 
 being prepared and decided upon. By exalting the prowess of Italy's 
 military forces and ridiculously under-estimating the Turkish forces, 
 our rulers have, as it were, administered morphia to a section of 
 public opinion in this country and have rendered it insensible to the 
 direct and indirect perils of the situation. . . . But we consider it our 
 duty to warn the working classes of the dangers that await them. We 
 invite them to strengthen their organisations in order to make head- 
 way against the forces which threaten the life, the future, the liberty 
 of the country. Let once this aggression succeed and those forces, 
 proud of having inveigled the Government and the nation into this 
 military adventure, will be convinced that even in the matter of 
 domestic politics they can safely carry out their imperialist and jingo 
 programme," 
 
 2 C
 
 386 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 State will be invariably followed by a revolutionary 
 upheaval in that State itself. 
 
 As for the position of the Church in this war, the 
 Vatican is impartial and even opposed to the conflict, 
 but unfortunately a great number of the bishops 
 and priests, acting on their own responsibility, have 
 warmly approved of it. 
 
 The Government naturally tries to make as much 
 as possible out of this clerical approbation so as to 
 arouse the religious fanaticism of its soldiers and get 
 as much fighting out of them as possible. Efforts 
 have accordingly been put forth to make this most 
 unholy raid look like a holy war, a Crusade, ap- 
 proved of by Mother Church, against the Infidel. 
 The campaign was begun by vainglorious talk about 
 the substitution of the Cross for the Crescent. Bishops 
 took this same unfortunate line in their pastorals ; 
 and postcards printed in Italy bear the picture of a 
 Bersagliere planting a flag with a cross on it upon 
 the minaret of a mosque. There is something very un- 
 pleasant in the sight of religion being thus used for 
 the benefit of a marauding expedition, engineered 
 by men who in very many cases have no religion 
 themselves. In the Franciscan Church at Tripoli 
 I have seen officers strolling about the building while 
 Mass was being said, admiring the architecture, 
 pointing to the pictures, but not genuflecting before 
 the high altar, and even turning their back on it 
 sometimes, to the scandal of the whole congregation. 
 I have seen them laugh and chat as not even a party 
 of Cook's tourists would have done in an Italian 
 church, yet those are, forsooth, the men who try, 
 for military reasons, to excite the private soldier 
 with religion before sending him into action. Their 
 conduct is worse than that of the Russian officers
 
 CONCLUSION 387 
 
 in the Caucasus, who, according to Tolstoi, used to 
 prime their Cossacks with drink before sending them 
 out to kill people. 
 
 Some high ecclesiastics seem to have been jingoist 
 either through conviction or else because they suc- 
 cumbed to the social influences brought to bear on 
 them by Signor Pacelli, the head of the Banco di 
 Roma, and himself a strong Catholic. 
 
 Speaking at an aristocratic wedding-breakfast 
 in Rome — at a breakfast which followed the marriage 
 of the Princess Odescalchi — Cardinal Vannutelli 
 referred to a victory gained over the Turks by Prince 
 Eugene of Savoy and then used the following words : 
 
 " To-day Italy completes her mission of civil- 
 isation, for at Tripoli she plants the Cross on a 
 land where the Crescent once waved." 
 
 His Eminence concluded by hoping that Italy 
 would complete her task in Tripolitania. 
 
 Next day the " Osservatore Romano," the official 
 organ of the Vatican, repudiated this ill-advised 
 speech in the following note : 
 
 " No small number of Catholic newspapers and 
 several ecclesiastical and political speakers who 
 have recently discussed the Italo-Turkish con- 
 flict, have expressed themselves in such a way as 
 to lead the public to believe that the war is a holy 
 war, undertaken in the name and with the support 
 of the Christian religion and of the Church. 
 
 " We are authorised, however, to declare that 
 the Holy See is not responsible for such interpre- 
 tations. Moreover, wishing to remain outside 
 the present conflict, it cannot support it and even 
 deplores it."
 
 888 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Again, when a " patriotic " subscription was got 
 up for the troops in Tripoli, the Pope forbade the 
 bishops to contribute to it and the bishops forbade 
 the priests. The Vatican also condemned the preach- 
 ing of anti-Islamic sermons in the churches, and it 
 seems to have done its best, in every way, to rescue 
 the clergy from the jingo wave. 
 
 Signor Pacelli, of the Banco di Roma, is a friend 
 of Baron Sonnino, the Conservative leader and the 
 proprietor of the clericalist " Giornale d' Italia." 
 Consequently, towards the middle of last year, the 
 " Giornale d' Italia " opened a campaign against 
 Turkey in the name of Christianity and the Higher 
 Patriotism of the Italian people. And, according 
 to the frequent practice under such circumstances 
 of many so-called religious papers edited by laymen, 
 it became out-and-out jingo, it outdid the mili- 
 tarists themselves in its worship of brute force, and 
 it covered with vulgar abuse every foreign corre- 
 spondent w^ho ventured to differ from it. 
 
 Notwithstanding, therefore, the impartial attitude 
 of the Pope, and the opposition to the war of one 
 Catholic newspaper in Milan, the Church in Italy 
 will probably suffer in the reaction which will per- 
 haps take place after this war. And no doubt it 
 will suffer more on account of calumnies than on 
 account of true accusations regarding the support 
 which individual ecclesiastics have given the jingoes. 
 For both the militarists and the anti-militarists 
 stoop to falsehood in order to show that the 
 Church is behind the raid. The militarist papers 
 propagate the story that the Pope sent a rose to the 
 Italian Admiral before he sailed ; and they are always 
 reproducing the remarks of some " alto personaggio 
 del mondo clericale " regarding the enthusiasm which
 
 CONCLUSION 389 
 
 is displayed for the expedition at the Vatican. The 
 revolutionaries, on the other hand, assert that the 
 Banco di Roma is an ecclesiastical concern, run largely 
 by money from the Vatican itself ; and accordingly 
 they denounce the whole war as a clericalist, money- 
 making adventure. This is quite untrue, but, at 
 the same time, it may injure both the Church and 
 the Throne in the eyes of the lower classes. A 
 similar statement was made by the Spanish revolu- 
 tionists regarding the Melilla expedition, and, whether 
 it was true or false, that statement led indirectly to 
 the Barcelona riots and the death of Ferrer. 
 
 In the great cathedral of Pisa on October 11th 
 there was an imposing religious service for the 
 22nd Infantry Regiment which was leaving for Tripoli. 
 At the end of the service the National Anthem was 
 played and greeted with " tm applauso irrejrenahile " 
 — exactly as if the sacred building were a music-hall. 
 Cardinal Maffi, Archbishop of Pisa, afterwards 
 addressed the soldiers. Pointing to the flags which 
 had been captured from the Saracens by the mediaeval 
 republicans of Pisa, and which now hang on the 
 cathedral walls, the Archbishop hoped that the 22nd 
 would bring back other flags to cover with new 
 glory " V Italia, la terra nostra." 
 
 There was a similar send-off in Viareggio, a similar 
 jingo sermon, and the playing of the royal march 
 on the organ, " tra la cntusiastica commozione dei 
 presenti." 
 
 It was noted by the Press that this is the first 
 occasion on which the Italian National Anthem has 
 ever been played in an Italian church. But surely 
 the Italian clergy have chosen a bad time for bringing 
 about even a partial rapprochement with the State. 
 The hand they grasp is wet with innocent blood.
 
 390 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 In one of his pastoral letters Monsignor Bonomelli 
 declared that the war in Tripoli was a war " for the 
 triumph of justice and civilisation. It is not blind 
 nor arbitrary action. It is not a thirst for conquest 
 which has induced Italy, already too patient and too 
 often deceived, to have recourse to arms. It is the 
 necessity of self-defence, the necessity of protecting 
 our economic interests and of vindicating our national 
 dignity." 
 
 The bishop concluded by saying that he approved 
 of and encouraged the expedition to Tripoli, because 
 " next to the tricolour rises the Cross ; next to the 
 work of civilisation stands religion, which has freed 
 the world from slavery." 
 
 It is certainly a pity that, having freed the world 
 from slavery, religion did not proceed to free the 
 world from war, which is almost as great a scourge, 
 Christianity would have done so, I think, if it had re- 
 mained united. But in every war that is now waged 
 by a Christian country a section of the clergy is 
 absolutely jingo, while the peace-makers are nearly 
 all of them members of non-Christian and even anti- 
 Christian organisations. During the South African 
 conflict we in this country heard war described to us 
 from clerical lips as an " oratorio," and were called 
 upon to rejoice in "war's red rain." In a recent 
 book, " The Passing of War," the author. Canon 
 Grane, an Anglican clergyman, confesses that, where 
 war is concerned, " the breach between the creed and 
 conduct of Christendom is peculiarly flagrant " ; and 
 the " Athenaeum " agrees with him that the attitude 
 of English clergymen in time of war is very bad. 
 " For one who lifts his voice against violence and 
 against the wholesale extermination of human life, 
 there are scores who openly or covertly fan the
 
 CONCLUSION 391 
 
 flames of passion and hatred, in direct violation of 
 the very essence and spirit of their creed." On the 
 Continent anti-MiUtarist is a synonym for anti- 
 Christian. 
 
 At Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Professor Eugenio 
 Vallega, a celebrated preacher, discoursed on the 
 war in a theatre which was ornamented with Italian 
 flags. 
 
 Monsignor Carli, Bishop of Sarzana, hopes in a 
 circular letter to his clergy and people that " the 
 blessed flag may be terrible to the enemies of the 
 Christian name and a certain pledge of victory. Then 
 our soldiers and the Italian people will chant a hymn 
 of exultation ; and our ships, guided by the Divine 
 assistance and freed from every peril, can return 
 tranquilly to their posts, happy and victorious." 
 
 It would be difficult, of course, for the clergy of a 
 country to stand apart from their fellows during the 
 progress of a war. And yet, on the other hand, it 
 pains one who knows what a mixture of finance, 
 massacre, and muddle this Tripolitan adventure 
 really is, to find for example the Vicar-General of 
 Naples ordering the exposition of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment as long as the war lasts, and the Franciscan 
 Fathers in Tripoli singing a solemn Te Deum in 
 honour of General Caneva's " victories " of October 
 23rd and October 26th. 
 
 Are the Socialists and the Syndicalists alone to 
 struggle against war ? Why do not the Christian 
 Churches take a step in the same direction by at 
 least forbidding religious thanksgivings in churches 
 for the slaughter of human beings ? 
 
 In some rare cases, of course, such rejoicings are 
 legitimate. It was different " when Hofer roused 
 Tyrol." Friar Haspinger was in the right place
 
 392 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 when he led his mountaineers against the French. 
 And no Christian can criticise the martial chants of 
 the heroic Montenegrins in their squat little Basilica 
 of stone, hard by the graves of their old Prince- 
 Bishops. 
 
 But why should any Christian ecclesiastics continue 
 to chant like blind pipers in the wake of specula- 
 tive banks or millionaire wire-pullers or Agnostic 
 politicians ? They might as well sing Te Deums to 
 celebrate successful swindles on the Stock Exchange. 
 
 It would be only a waste of time for me to indulge 
 in prophecies as to how the war is likely to terminate. 
 For there never was a war quite like this one. The 
 French took twenty years to subdue Algeria, though 
 Algeria had not the support of Constantinople or of 
 the surrounding Mohammedan populations. 
 
 In the " Neue Freie Presse " of March 10th Field- 
 Marshal von der Goltz writes an extremely interesting 
 account of the situation at that time in Italy's new 
 " possession." It is a candid and truthful state- 
 ment, but, as usual, the Italians were furious about 
 it, so furious that a semi-official paper advised the 
 King of Italy to complain on this subject to Kaiser 
 Wilhelmwhen, about that date, the two monarchs met. 
 Von der Goltz said that after the first five months 
 the great Franco-Prussian War had been decided, 
 whereas the first five months of the Italo-Tripolitan 
 War had left things practically as they had been on 
 the first day. The Italians are still, to all intents and 
 purposes, on the coast-line cowering under the guns 
 of their fleet. This means that they have done 
 nothing, for the German Field-Marshal quotes with 
 approval the statement of the traveller Gerhard 
 Rohlfs that " the stronghold of Tripoli is its hinter- 
 land." Von der Goltz points out that there are
 
 CONCLUSION 393 
 
 chunks of Tripolitania as large as the whole German 
 Empire which the invaders have not even seen yet, 
 
 " The roads from Tripoli to the Tchad and from 
 Benghazi to Wadai are both of about equal length, 
 namely, 2000 to 2200 kilometres, that is, as far 
 as from Moscow to the Swiss frontier. From Tripoli 
 to the generally recognised southern border of the 
 Turkish vilayet is 1400 kilometres in a straight 
 line, that is to say, the distance between Moscow 
 and Cracow. Some Turkish posts are still further 
 south. Caravans need months to go thither, 
 months to return. Owing to the long halts in the 
 oasis, a caravan generally takes a year and a half 
 or two years for the whole trip, outwards and home 
 again." 
 
 The Field-Marshal's comparison between Russian 
 and Tripolitan distances is ominous. The year 1812 
 saw a great army lost in Muscovy's deserts of snow. 
 Shall the year 1912 see another great army lost in 
 Tripoli's deserts of sand ? 
 
 Von der Goltz seems to think that it will, if the 
 Italians advance. He points out what extraordinarily 
 good soldiers the Arabs have proved themselves to 
 be. They have not only picked up in an incredibly 
 short space of time everything that can be learned 
 about modern fire-arms, but they have become 
 excellent shots. The bravery and stubbornness which 
 they have displayed in their contests with the Italians 
 are " geradezu erstaunlich." They seem to regard a 
 rush on the Italian lines much in the same light as 
 a Londoner would regard a rush to Margate. They 
 feel refreshed and invigorated by it — if they survive. 
 There are nearly a million and a half of these Arabs, 
 and every man between sixteen and sixty is capable
 
 394 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 of bearing arms, for nature and the hardships of 
 desert life have mercifully relieved them of the 
 cranks and the valetudinarians. If the Italians 
 study the last campaign which those Tripolitans 
 fought they may get some idea of what is before them. 
 In 1835 the Turks seized Tripoli and overturned 
 the dynasty of the Karamanli without the slightest 
 difficulty. But the resistance in the interior, and 
 especially in Fezzan, lasted a whole year. And this 
 though there was no question of religious difference 
 as there is now, though there were no such charges 
 of massacre made against the Turks as are now made 
 against the Italians. 
 
 Those massacres in the oasis constitute a most 
 important military factor in the present campaign, 
 and any writer on the war who did not give them 
 great prominence would make a serious mistake. 
 Writing from Senit Beni-Adam in " The Times " 
 of April 11th, a correspondent of that paper says 
 that " from Tunis to Aziziah the country rings with 
 tales of wanton destruction committed by the Italians, 
 of the massacre of defenceless men, the slaying of 
 women and small children, even children at the 
 breast. ... As to whether the tales of bloodshed 
 . . . are true, partly true, or wholly false, is a matter 
 of no importance from the point of view of their 
 effect upon the war. The point is that the Arabs 
 believe them implicitly, that these tales have pene- 
 trated into the ends of the Desert and the Sudan 
 (where reinforcements are consequently beginning 
 to arrive in larger and larger numbers), and that they 
 have aroused in their believers an undying hatred of 
 the Italians." 
 
 From the purely material and strategical points 
 of view the oasis massacres were, therefore, a tre-
 
 CONCLUSION 395 
 
 mendous mistake. The corpse of each innocent man, 
 woman and child murdered by the Itahans in the 
 oasis will cost the murderers literally ten times its 
 weight in gold, ten times its weight in Italian dead. 
 It is a heavy price to pay for a wilderness of sand, 
 especially when the purchasers don't get the wilder- 
 ness after all. 
 
 To return to von der Goltz, the old German Field- 
 Marshal sees no way out of the difficulty except for 
 the Italians to run a railway right down to the south 
 of Fezzan ; but he admits that such a railway will, 
 owing to its enormous length, be liable to be broken 
 in a hundred places. 
 
 The Italians have forgotten the Syrian adage of 
 Napoleon, — an adage which, by the way, the great 
 Corsican himself forgot when he attacked the Russian 
 steppes, — " Never make war against a Desert."
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 If the reader wants to get a good idea of the monstrous 
 length to which the cult of the cannon has been carried 
 by Italian jingoes I would advise him to read " la Bataille 
 de Tripoli," by the " poet " Marinetti. My own atten- 
 tion was drawn to it by a cultured Irish lady who is as 
 disgusted as I am myself at the present domination of 
 Rome by Rome's own barbarians. 
 
 Describing the fighting on October 26th, Marinetti 
 tells how he went to the house of Genial Bey in order 
 " to embrace the ensanguined brow of this soldier who 
 hugs in his arms his hot rifle, as a mother embraces a 
 feverish child. . . . An artilleryman . . . stammers 
 painfully, with his torn jaws : ' Eight ! I have killed 
 eight of them ! ' But nothing equals the epic splendour 
 of this sergeant who, his mouth closed by bloody gashes, 
 lifts his two hands towards me each instant to indicate 
 by his ten outspread digits that he has killed ten." 
 
 The deaths referred to were probably the murders of 
 innocent, unarmed people, though the jingo poet does 
 not seem to realise that such was the case. 
 
 To my mind this adoration of slaughter is almost as 
 great a sign of degeneracy as the Futurist movement 
 itself. Healthy nations take it for granted that their 
 soldiers and their sailors have ordinary male courage : 
 it is only morbid and cowardly degenerates who go into 
 paroxysms of excitement and sing wild paeans when 
 they see an artillerist pointing a cannon at an enemy 
 three miles off and unable to reply. In his " Canzone 
 dei Trofei," d' Annunzio falls into raptures about the 
 firing of a gun, though there was, under the circumstances, 
 
 397
 
 398 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 no more danger in that than there would be in working 
 the handle of a village pump in Surrey. Following 
 d' Annunzio (at a very great distance), Marinetti cele- 
 brates with a tremendous eruption of very bad poetry 
 the bursting of Italian shrapnel-shells among the Turks, 
 the " deluge of lead, the grand deluge of Italian force." 
 (" Que c'est beau ! Quelle chance ! Une joie delirante 
 serre ma gorge. . . . Bravo ! . . . Bravo ! . . . Gloire a 
 vous, beaux fantassins du 40e. . . . Salut a vous, im- 
 petueux major Bianculli, capitaine Vigevano, capitaine 
 Galliani ! . . . Salut a toi, lieutenant Vicinanza, heros 
 au corps de caoutchouc") 
 
 The absurdity of all this wretched bombast will be 
 more apparent when we remember that the " beautiful 
 foot-soldiers," the " impetuous Major BianculH," and 
 *' Lieutenant Vicinanza, thou hero of the india-rubber 
 body " all ran like deer before the Arabs, and that the 
 result of the whole engagement was an Italian retreat. 
 
 But this does not affect Signor Marinetti. He ad- 
 dresses the stars ; he wishes that he could turn himself 
 into a projectile so that he could burst among the 
 " execrated " enemy : in language that is hardly decent, 
 he makes love to the cannon. The machine-gun is "an 
 elegant and fatal woman ..." " une femme char- 
 mante, et sinistre, et divine." 
 
 The brothel and the slaughter-house seem to furnish 
 this Italian gentleman with all his comparisons. When 
 the shells strike the Desert, " Le sable enormement 
 creuse rebondit, se redresse en gonflant une colossale 
 nudite de femme aux crevantes mamelles. . . . Cette 
 fois I'immense corps de sable improvise dresse en plein 
 ciel un profil plus humain. Ses gros seins noirs coulent 
 en reglisse de fumee et son ventre roule volumineuse- 
 ment une danse solennelle. ..." 
 
 When we realise that the men who write this sort of 
 drivel are not only circulating without a keeper, but are 
 dictating the policy of Italy, we shall understand the 
 danger to which Europe is exposed.
 
 APPENDIX 399 
 
 Speaking of the anti-war party, Signer Marinetti 
 declares that : 
 
 " We have recently knocked down with our fists in 
 the streets and at public meetings our bitterest adver- 
 saries, spitting at the same time in their faces these 
 firm principles : . . . 
 
 " (3) The tiresome memory of Roman glory must 
 at length be wiped out by an Italian grandeur a hun- 
 dred times greater. . . . 
 
 "... We invite the Italian Government, now be- 
 come Futurist, to increase all the national ambitions 
 by despising the stupid accusations of piracy and pro- 
 claiming the birth of PanitaHanism." 
 
 THE END.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abruzzi, Duke of, 364, 365 
 
 Aerenthal, Baron von, 32 
 
 Aeroplanes, Italian, 122-5, 203, 
 225, 246 
 
 Agadir, 24 
 
 Agedzia, 124 
 
 Agelat, 245 
 
 " Agenzia Italiana," the, viii 
 
 Ain Zara, 119 
 
 " Alam," the, 29 
 
 Albatross, the, 51 
 
 Alexandria, 22 
 
 Algeria, 42 
 
 Ali Frefer, 290 
 
 Alliance Franraise, the, 23 
 
 Altina, Lieutenant, 149, 150 
 
 Alvarez, Mr., 360, 371-3 
 
 American Consul, the. See 
 Mr. Wood 
 
 American correspondents, 368. 
 See also Signor TullioGiordana 
 
 Amrus, 351-3 
 
 Annexation Bill, the, 40 
 
 Apulia, 40 
 
 Aquilina, Chevalier, 57-9 
 
 Aquilina, Julius Caesar, 57 
 
 Arab boy, sick, 262-6, 271-3 
 
 Arab girl, sick, 267 
 
 Arab massacres, 134, 144-50, 
 172, 177, 202, 232, 233, 243, 
 244, 249-62, 268-70, 274-98, j 
 308, 338-340, 345-7, 360, 364- I 
 74, 384, 394, 395 ! 
 
 2D 40 
 
 Arab prisoners shot, 141-3, 148, 
 163, 186, 187, 234, 235, 254, 
 255, 258, 260, 276-81, 285-7, 
 340, 341 
 
 Arab women and children, 228- 
 30, 232, 252, 253, 255, 257, 
 259, 262-7, 271-3, 275, 277, 
 282-4, 291, 292, 295, 297, 298, 
 340, 341, 380, 381 
 
 Arabi Pasha, 42 
 
 Artbauer, Herr Otto, xii, 291 
 
 Ashmead-Bartlett, Ellis, xvi, 
 112, 253-8, 266, 368, 372 
 
 " Athenaeum," the, 390 
 
 Austrian correspondents, 368, 
 370 
 
 " Avanti," the, xxi, xxii, xxiii, 
 25, 40, 383-5 
 
 " Avanti " correspondent. iSee 
 Signor Guarino 
 
 Azilat, 107 
 
 Aziziah, 329, 394 
 
 B 
 
 Bagot, Richard, 9, 232, 363, 
 364, 366, 369, 371, 373 
 
 Baldari, Signor, 18, 21 
 
 Banco di Roma, the, 14-21, 25, 
 76, 133, 205, 261, 387-9 
 
 Banco di Roma, Director of the. 
 See Signor Pacelli 
 
 Banco di Roma, Inspectors- 
 General of the, 17
 
 402 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Banco di Roma, Solicitor of the, 
 
 17 
 Banco di Roma, Vice-President 
 
 of the, 16 
 Barzini, Luigi, 108, 110, 111, 
 
 269, 318, 342, 347, 366, 367, 
 
 371, 372 
 Basilicata, the, 40 
 Bedi Farug, 377, 378 
 Bedouins, 40, 140, 148, 178, 
 
 305, 332, 350 
 Bedouin village, the burnt, 
 
 261-73 
 Belli, Signor, 21 
 Bellini, Lieutenant, 232 
 Benadir, 41 
 Ben-Garden, 225 
 Benghazi, xxi, 16, 18, 25, 165, 
 
 239, 289, 296, 329, 334, 336, 
 
 384, 393 
 Bennett, Ernest N., 30, 55, 217, 
 
 223, 375 
 Berbers, the, 65, 79 
 " Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger," the, 
 
 XV, 55, 266, 271, 276, 292, 
 
 370 
 " Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger" cor- 
 respondent. See Otto von 
 
 Gottberg 
 " Berliner Tageblatt," the, 358 
 " Berliner Tageblatt " corre- 
 spondent. See Dr. Gottlob 
 
 Adolf Krause 
 Bersaglieri, the, 69-72, 74, 76, 
 
 78, 100, 108, 120-2, 131-3, 
 
 135, 137, 139, 141, 148, 
 
 157, 196, 197, 241, 250, 252, 
 
 256, 281, 282, 291, 329, 341, 
 
 352, 353, 362, 380 
 Bersaglieri, 11th, 122, 131-3, 
 
 135, 137, 139, 141, 148, 
 
 157, 227, 347 
 
 Bevilacqua, the Very Rev. 
 Father Giuseppe, 263, 264, 
 266, 271 
 
 Bevione, Signor Giuseppe, 53-5, 
 99, 144, 229, 268-70, 314, 
 346, 353 
 
 Bianculli, Major, 398 
 
 Bir Tobras, 30 
 
 Bizerta, 22 
 
 " Blackwood's Magazine," 138, 
 251, 354, 376, 377 
 
 Boccioni, Signor, xii 
 
 Bomba, Gulf of, 22, 23 
 
 Bonelli, Captain, 108 
 
 Bonomelli, Mgr., 390 
 
 Borea-Ricci, Admiral, 95, 303 
 
 Boridga, Signor, x 
 
 Borsa, Signor Mario, xix 
 
 Bosphorus, the, 33 
 
 Bou-Kamesch, 55 
 
 Bresciani, Signor, 15, 16, 18-21 
 
 Briccola, General, 334, 336, 
 384 
 
 Brin, the, 47, 48, 108 
 
 British Ambassador in Rome, 
 29 
 
 British Consul, 78, 165, 371 
 
 British Consul-General. See 
 Mr. Alvarez 
 
 British correspondents. See 
 Ellis Ashmead - Bartlett, 
 Bennet Burleigh, " Daily 
 Mail " correspondent, Mr. 
 Davis, Martin Donohoe, 
 Thomas E, Grant, Mr. Garvin, 
 Mr. Magee, Percival Phillips, 
 "The Times" correspondent, 
 "Westminster Gazette" cor- 
 respondent 
 
 Brucchi, Captain, 132 
 
 Bumeliana, 85, 97, 100-2, 104, 
 105, 107-9, 111, 191, 121,
 
 INDEX 
 
 403 
 
 122, 124, 260, 274, 282, 291, 
 311, 312 
 Burleigh, Bennet, xv, 162, 259, 
 260, 369 
 
 Cacace, the corvette, 107 
 
 Caetani, Signer, 19 
 
 Cagni, Captain, 95, 99, 102, 
 103, 105, 107, 111, 316, 332, 
 333, 343 
 
 Cairo, xxvi, 28 
 
 Caneva, Lieut. -General Carlo, 
 ix, X, xviii, 8, 10, 18, 20, 29, 
 30, 83, 96, 99, 107, 112-14, 119, 
 124, 127, 134-40, 144, 145, 
 150, 158, 160-3, 168, 170, 
 172, 173, 199, 201-4, 211-13, 
 215, 219, 222, 226, 240, 251, 
 254, 265, 266, 267, 270, 287, 
 289, 292, 300, 308, 309-13, 
 316, 324-9, 331, 334-8, 341, 
 342, 345-9, 351, 354, 355, 
 360, 361, 364, 365, 369, 371, 
 373, 382, 384, 391 
 
 " Canzone dei Trofei," 397 
 
 Carabinieri, the, 209, 236 
 
 Caracciolo, Captain, 236 
 
 Carafa d' Andria, Captain 
 Senator, 179 
 
 Carli, Mgr., Bishop of Sarzana, 
 391 
 
 Carlo Alberto, the, 47, 49, 107, 
 122, 130, 204 
 
 Carrere, M. Jean, 346, 365, 366 
 
 Cars-el-Azizie, xvii 
 
 Castellini, Signor, 371 
 
 Cattaro, 9 
 
 Cervera, Admiral, 50 
 
 Chauvinists, the, x, xi, xx, 4, 
 169, 170, 319, 320 
 
 Chiappiroli, Captain, 179 
 
 Chiasso, xx, 328 
 
 Cipriani, Hamilcar, 7, 11, 356 
 
 " Come Siamo Andati a Tripoh," 
 268 
 
 Constantinople, 31-4, 64, 74, 
 104, 106, 176, 188, 328, 372 
 
 Corradini, Signor Enrico, 214, 
 223, 313, 314 
 
 " Corriere della Sera," the, 
 vii, xviii. 111, 323, 342, 347, 
 363, 366, 367, 372, 384 
 
 " Corriere della Sera " corre- 
 spondent. See Luigi Barzini 
 
 " Corriere d' Italia," the, 358 
 
 Cossira, M., 253, 371 
 
 Crispi, 9, 299, 317 
 
 Cyrenaica, 20, 28, 39, 68, 165, 
 334 
 
 D 
 
 Dab-il-si-Did, Burial-ground of, 
 378 
 
 " Daily Chronicle," the, 367 
 
 " Daily Chronicle " correspon- 
 dent. See Martin Donohoe 
 
 " Daily Graphic," the, xiv, xv 
 
 " Daily Mail," correspondent, 
 376 
 
 " Daily Mirror," the, xxvi 
 
 " Daily Mirror " correspondents. 
 See Thomas E. Grant, Mr. 
 Magee, and Percival PhiUips 
 
 " Daily News," the, xxvi, 270-2, 
 371 
 
 " Daily Telegraph," the, 162, 
 259, 260, 366, 369 
 
 " Daily Telegraph " corre- 
 spondent. See Bennet Bur- 
 leigh 
 
 Dani Saada, 288 
 
 D' Annunzio, Gabriele, xxiv, 7, 
 8, 193, 230, 302, 397, 398
 
 404 
 
 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Dardanelles, the, 33 
 
 Dardo, the, 107 
 
 Dario, Sardi, xxi 
 
 Davis, Mr., 254, 372 
 
 De Felice Giuffrida, Signer, xvi, 
 
 xvii, 113, 149, 159, 190, 304, 
 
 305 
 De Frenzi, 371 
 Defterdar, the, 62, 93 
 De Luca Aprile, Signor, x, 136, 
 
 377, 378 
 Derin, Basilio, 135 
 Derna, the, 48, 51, 70, 99, 167, 
 
 350 
 Dema, 166, 239, 289, 296, 318, 
 
 329, 336 
 Dervishes, 107 
 " Deutsche Tages Zeitung," the, 
 
 363 
 " Deutsche Tages Zeitung " 
 
 correspondent. See Dr. Chris- 
 topher Pflaum 
 di Palma, Lieutenant, 236 
 Donohoe, Martin, 252, 328, 367 
 Duff, M. B., 38 
 
 E 
 
 " Eco di TripoH," the, xxiv 
 
 Eighth Turkish Infantry Regi- 
 ment, 132 
 
 Eighty-fourth Italian Infantry 
 Regiment, 128, 130, 212, 217, 
 219, 227, 230, 231, 354 
 
 Eighty-second Italian Infantry 
 Regiment, 138, 139 
 
 Einaudi, Luigi, 323, 324 
 
 El Henni, 375, 379 
 
 Emanuele Filiberto, the, 47, 49 
 
 Emilio Matteo Sibille, 377, 378 
 
 Encke, Herr, 19, 25 
 
 English Sponge Trust, the, 18 
 
 Entente Cordiale, the, 23 
 Enver Bey, 55, 56, 140, 327 
 Eritrea, 41 
 
 Eugene of Savoy, Prince, 387 
 " Excelsior," the 253 
 " Excelsior " correspondent. 
 See M. Cossira 
 
 Faitini, Captain, 232 
 Falcon, Loren90, 265 
 Fara, Colonel, 30, 112, 133, 136, 
 
 138. 139, 240, 241 
 Faravelli, Admiral, 47, 53, 60, 
 
 61, 103, 315, 388 
 Ferruccio, the, 48, 50 
 Feshlum, 354 
 
 Feshlum mosque, the, 139 
 Fethi Bey, 77, 170, 205 
 Fezzan, xvii, 114, 394, 395 
 Fezzanis, the, 80, 179, 182, 183, 
 
 274, 277, 279, 280 
 Fifth Italian Artillery, 176 
 Filiberto, the, 109 
 Financial Agent, the Turkish, 
 
 62, 93 
 
 First Regiment of Italian En- 
 gineers, 179 
 
 Foreign Office, the, 29, 30, 265, 
 371 
 
 Fortieth Italian Regiment, 127, 
 130, 235 
 
 " Fortnightly Review," the, 26 
 
 " Frankfurter Zeitung," the, 
 260, 272 
 
 " Frankfurter Zeitung " corre- 
 spondent. See Dr. Walter 
 Weibel 
 
 French Cavass, the, 156 
 
 French Consul, the. See M. 
 Seon
 
 INDEX 
 
 405 
 
 French correspondents, 156, 368. 
 ^ See also M. Cossira, M. Jean 
 
 Carrere, Reginald Khan 
 French Vice-Consul, the. See 
 
 M. Theuillet 
 Frugoni, General, 138 
 Futurists, the, xii, 171, 244, 
 
 397, 399 
 
 G 
 
 GaUi, Signor, 34, 126, 176, 177, 
 196, 239, 301, 314-8, 321, 
 325, 337 
 
 Galliana, Captain, 398 
 
 Gandolfi, Captain, 220 
 
 Gargaresh, 119, 121, 122, 129, 
 131, 133, 137, 169, 195, 205, 
 291, 308 
 
 Garibaldi, the, 48, 50, 51 
 
 Garvin, Mr., 364 
 
 Gazr-Gefari, xvii 
 
 Gemal Bey, 211, 212, 214, 
 216, 217, 220, 229, 231, 245, 
 270, 397 
 
 German Cavass Hussein, the, 
 176-87, 280 
 
 German correspondents, 177. See 
 also " Frankfurter Zeitung " 
 correspondent. Otto von Gott- 
 berg. Dr. Gottlob Adolf 
 Krause, Herr Mygind, Dr. 
 Christopher Pflaum, " Vos- 
 sische Zeitung " correspond- 
 ent. Dr. Walter Weibel. 
 
 German Consul, the. See Dr. 
 Alfred von Tilger 
 
 Gharian, xvii, 100, 113, 133, 
 245, 329, 350 
 
 Gharian Mountains, 350 
 
 Ghea, xvii 
 
 Ghirza, 39 
 
 Giolitti, Signor Giovanni, 11, 12, 
 
 19, 42, 136, 268, 273, 301, 314, 
 
 340, 341, 346, 363 
 Giordana, Signor Tullio, 136, 
 
 362-4, 366, 367 
 " Giomale d' Italia," the, vii, 
 
 xiii, XXV, 15, 129, 237, 388 
 " Giomale di Siciha," the, 377, 
 
 378 
 " Giornale di SiciHa " corre- 
 spondent. See Signor De 
 
 Luca Aprile 
 Giovanni, Manillo, 131 
 Goebel, Dr., 358 
 Golzio battery, the, 221 
 Granatei, Lieutenant, 232 
 Grande, Consul, 300 
 Grandolfi, Captain, 232 
 Grane, Canon, 390 
 Grant, Thomas E., xiii, 100, 254, 
 
 257, 272, 368, 372 
 Great Desert Expedition, the, 
 
 329 
 Gregory, Dr., 38 
 Grey, Sir Edward, 25-7, 29, 32, 
 
 42, 372 
 Grossi, M., 38, 39 
 Guarino, Signor, 169 
 Gurgi, oasis of, 125 
 
 H 
 Hakki Bey, 33 
 Hamidie, Fort, 47, 48, 50, 107, 
 
 239, 242, 239 
 Hassuna Pasha, 195 
 Henni, 102-22, 133, 135-9, 205, 
 
 222, 228, 240-2, 281, 351, 
 
 357, 378 
 Hombert, Captam, 212 
 Horns, 23, 329, 336 
 Hunter of the Sea, the, 49, 70 
 Hussein, the German Cavass, 
 
 176-86, 280
 
 406 
 
 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Ibrahim Pasha, Marshal, 15, 
 34, 102 
 
 " II Nazionahsmo," 9, 10 
 
 Ir'reh, the, 78 
 
 Itahan Consul. See Consul 
 Grande and Consul Pestalozza 
 
 Italian Consul, the (at Dema), 
 166 
 
 Italian ^correspondents, xviii, 
 166, 167, 169, 182, 218, 270, 
 342,376. >S'eealsoLuigiBarzini, 
 Signor Boridga, Signor Castel- 
 lini, Zoli Corrado, De Felice 
 Giuffrida, De Frenzi, De Luca 
 Aprile,Tullio Giordana, Signor 
 Guarino, Signor Piazza, 
 " Stampa " correspondent 
 
 Italian Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs, 313 
 
 Italian Ministry of War, the, 
 207 
 
 Italian Vice-Consul, the. See 
 Signor Galli 
 
 Italian War Office, 71, 138, 329 
 
 Jewish Territorial Organisation, 
 
 38 
 Jews murdered, 288 
 Jews, the, 77, 79, 80, 88, 127, 
 
 148, 155, 157, 158, 182, 199, 
 
 288, 318, 342 
 
 K 
 
 Kahn, Mr. Reginald, 110 
 Kajimaken, 222 
 Kaimaken, Castle of, 133 
 Kaiser, the, 26, 392 
 Karamanh, the, 51, 75, 80, 195, 
 242, 394 
 
 Karamanli, Prince Hassuna 
 
 Pasha, 18, 299-307, 316, 317, 
 
 332, 349 
 Karamanli, Jussef, 299 
 " Kepi " of " Blackwood's 
 
 Magazine," 354 
 Khalifa, the. See the Sultan 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 8, 261 
 Kitchener, Lord, 26, 28-30 
 Krause, Dr. Gottlob Adolf, xi, 
 
 272, 370 
 
 " La Bataille de TripoH," 397 
 Landolina, Captain, 220 
 Lankester, Sir E. Ray, 173 
 " Lavaro," the, x 
 " Lavaro " correspondent. See 
 
 Signor Boridga 
 Lebda, 67 
 Leghorn, xxi 
 Leptis, 66, 67 
 " Le Temps," 365, 366 
 " Le Temps " correspondent. 
 
 See M. Jean Carrere 
 Liaozang, battle of, 237 
 Libyan desert, the, 384 
 Lodi Cavalry, the, 128, 220, 230, 
 
 232 
 Luzzatti, Luigi, 41 
 
 M 
 Maffi, Cardinal, 389 
 Magee, Mr., 145, 162, 163 
 Mahdi, the, 42 
 Mahmud Shefket Pasha, 32, 33, 
 
 324 
 Mahomed Moussa Bey, Major, 
 
 168 
 Malta, 22 
 Maltese, the, 153, 154, 155, 165, 
 
 207.
 
 INDEX 
 
 407 
 
 Maltese Inn, the, 135 
 Manera, Lieutenant, 236 
 Marconi, Signer, 364 
 Marinetti, Signor F. T., xii, 4, 
 
 171, 397-9 
 Marsa-Tobruck, 25, 26 
 Massaua, 15 
 " Mattino," the, 24 
 Mathuisieulx, M, de, 38, 40, 54 
 Meshia, the, 39, 87 
 " Messaggero," the, xvi, 159, 229 
 " Messaggero " correspondent. 
 
 See Signor de Felice 
 Messri,Fort, 120, 121, 122, 236, 
 
 242, 250 
 Merdoum, 39 
 Milan, 388 
 Misurata, 245 
 Mohammed Mosuri, 291 
 Moizo, Captain, 122 
 MoUah, Mohammedan, 378 
 Monteil, Captam, 38 
 " Morgenpost," the, 272 
 " Morgenpost " correspondent. 
 
 See Herr Mygind 
 " Morning Post " correspondent. 
 
 See Mr. Davis 
 Morocco, 79, 130, 375 
 Munir Pasha, General, 34, 62, 
 
 93, 97, 102, 164, 167 
 Mygind, Herr, 272 
 
 N 
 Naples, 103 
 
 Naples, Vicar-General of, 391 
 "Nation," the, 232, 366 
 Nationalists, the Italian, xxiii, 
 
 4-12, 29, 31, 144, 169, 293, 
 
 313, 314, 356 
 Nefed, 39 
 Nosciat Bey, Colonel, xxiii, 61, 
 
 61-3, 93, 97, 105-7, 129, 164, 
 
 182, 220, 221, 227, 250, 306, 
 328 
 
 " Neue Freie Presse," the, xii, 
 43, 169, 392 
 
 " New York American," the, 
 177, 178, 302, 364 
 
 " New York Herald," the, 237, 
 364, 366 
 
 " New York Herald " corre- 
 spondent. See Signor Tullio 
 Giordana 
 
 " New York World," the, xxvi 
 
 Ninety-third Italian Regiment, 
 113 
 
 Norton, Richard, xiv 
 
 " Novoe Vremya " correspon- 
 dent. See Colonel Pavloff 
 
 " Nuovo Giomale," the, xiii 
 
 O 
 
 Oasis of Death, the, 195, 201-26, 
 
 228-36, 242-5, 249-73, 274- 
 
 87, 290-5 
 Oasis, the, 100, 101, 104, 120 
 Oasis, the Tripoh, 132, 134-52, 
 
 333, 338, 340, 342, 351-3, 355, 
 
 358, 359, 377 
 Odescalchi, Princess, 387 
 " Ora," the, xix 
 Orsi, Lieutenant, 217-9 
 Osmanii, the, 65, 68, 97, 154, 
 
 301 
 " Osservatore Romano," the, 
 
 387 
 
 Pacelh, Signor, 15, 197, 387, 388 
 
 " Pall Mall Gazette " correspon- 
 dent. See Mr. Garvin 
 
 Panther, the, 24 
 
 Papal Nuncio in Constantinople, 
 the, 64
 
 408 
 
 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Partenope, the, 107 
 Pavloff, Colonel, 158 
 Pertusio, First-Lieutenant, 108 
 Pervinquiere, M., 39 
 Pestalozza, Consul, 337 
 Pflaum, Dr. Christopher, 363 
 Phillips, Percival, xix, 100, 101 
 Piazza, Captain, 122 
 Piazza, Signor, 371 
 Pietro Verri, Captain, 238, 239, 
 
 240, 241 
 Pisa Cathedral, 389 
 Pope, the, 23, 62, 63, 133, 383, 
 
 387-9 
 Preveza, 35 
 Punzio, Captam, 131, 132 
 
 R 
 
 Reschid Effendi, 97 
 
 "Return of the Romans," the, 
 
 65 
 Reuter's correspondent. See 
 
 Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett 
 Re Umberto, the, 47-53, 71, 
 
 224 
 Rieci, Admiral Borea-, 95, 303 
 Roberts, Lord, xxvi, 364 
 Robiony, Captain, 228, 232 
 Rohlfs, Gerhard, 392 
 " Roma," the, 162 
 Rome, viii, 34, 103, 104, 137, 
 
 138, 387 
 Russian correspondent. See 
 
 Colonel Pavloff 
 
 S 
 Sabratha, 67 
 
 Salvatore, Evangelista, 131, 132 
 Sania, 290, 291 
 
 Santa Maria Capua Vetera, 391^ 
 Saraceni, the, 132 
 Sardegna, the, 47, 49, 108, 109 
 
 Sardinia, 40 
 
 Sarzana, Bishop of. See Mgr. 
 
 Carli 
 Savino, Captain, 130, 221 
 "Secolo," the, xix, 113, 149, 
 
 346, 349-51, 377 
 " Secolo " correspondent. See 
 
 Zoli, Corrado 
 Senit Beni-Adam, 85, 394 
 Senussi, the, 194, 249, 320, 327 
 Seon, M., 155, 156 
 Sfax, 225 
 
 Sharashett, 105-7, 119, 120, 122, 
 125, 129, 131, 133, 136, 137, 
 152, 184, 186, 190, 205, 227, 
 228, 241, 308, 317, 345, 346, 
 351-4, 357 
 Sharashett, battle of, viii, ix, 
 
 xxi, 201, 203, 211, 327 
 Sicilia, the, 47, 49, 105, 122, 
 
 127, 186, 204 
 Sicily, 40, 114 
 Sidi Ben Nur, xvii 
 Sidi el Masri, 291 
 Sidi Messri, xvii, 119-201, 203, 
 
 241-3 
 Sidi Messri, battle of, 211, 212- 
 
 27, 327 
 Sidi Said, 223 
 Sighele, Scipio, 9, 10 
 Sixth Italian Infantry Regiment, 
 
 202 
 Socialists, the Italian, xvi, xvii, 
 
 289, 382, 384, 385, 391 
 Soffedjia, the, 39 
 Sokra, 290, 291 
 Solaroli, Lieutenant, 232 
 Sonnino, Baron, 15, 388 
 Spanish Vice-Consul, 59 
 " Spectator," the, 363 
 Spinelli, Colonel, 219, 227, 230, 
 343
 
 INDEX 
 
 409 
 
 "Stamps," the, 144, 340, 341, 
 
 367 
 " Stampa " correspondent, the, 
 
 340 
 Stead, W. T., xii, 266 
 Sudan, the, 394 
 Suez Canal, 28 
 Sultan of Turkey, the, 31, 33, 
 
 43, 56, 75, 99, 317, 355 
 Sultanie, Fort, 47-9, 51, 52, 91, 
 
 125, 127 
 Suni-ben-Adin, 126, 129 
 Syndicalists, the, 391 
 Syracuse, 112, 114 
 
 Tadjura, 238 
 
 Tagiura, xvii, 131, 245, 291, 
 
 353 
 Tamaio, Captain, 214 
 Tanjura, 250 
 Taranto, 365 
 Tarhuna, 245 
 Tchad, the, 393 
 Terrorists, the, 382 
 " The Passing of War," 390 
 " The Ship," 7 
 Theuillet, M., 92-4, 96, 97 
 " Times," the, 30, 202, 252, 
 
 295, 321, 322, 355, 357, 394 
 " Times " correspondent, xviii, 
 
 xix, 202, 203, 252, 348, 
 
 368, 369, 376, 377 
 " Times," a correspondent of 
 
 the, 295, 321, 322, 394 
 Tittoni, Signer, 16, 33 
 Tobruk, 296, 329, 336 
 Tonnino, Baron, 15 
 Touaregs, the, 77, 78, 182 
 " Tribuna," the, xvi 
 " Tribunali," the, xix, xx 
 
 Triple Alliance, the, xxv 
 
 Tripoli, City of, xvii, xxiii, 15, 
 
 16, 20-2, 25, 47, 48, 51-4, 
 
 57-63, 65-7, 69-83, 90-9, 
 
 104, 106, 108, 113, 114, 119, 
 
 120, 122-5, 137, 145, 152-72, 
 176-93, 195-9, 204-40, 242, 
 270, 288-90, 293, 296, 305, 
 308-12, 318, 329, 331, 336, 
 343, 348, 361, 371, 373, 384, 
 393 
 
 Tripoli-Misura, xvi 
 
 Tripoli oasis, 84, 85, 92, 101, 120, 
 
 121, 134, 135, 139, 144-50, 
 190, 206, 213-5, 220, 228, 229, 
 232-4, 245, 249, 250, 258-72, 
 274-98, 333, 338, 340, 341, 
 346, 353 
 
 " Tripolitania and Italy," 38 
 Trotter, Dr., 38 
 Tunis, 23, 25, 157, 225, 394 
 Tunisia, 41, 42, 55, 78, 328 
 Turkish doctor, a, 111, 112 
 Turkish Minister for War, 34 
 Turkish Political Agent, 62 
 Twenty-second Italian Infantry 
 
 Regiment, 227, 228, 229, 230, 
 
 389 
 
 Vali, the, 15, 102, 165 
 Vali, castle of the, 52 
 Vallogii, Professor Eugenio, 391 
 Vannutelli, Cardinal, 387 
 Vareae, the, 60, 51 
 Venice, 41 
 
 Vercelli, Lieutenant, 181 
 Verri, Captain Pietro, 50, 51, 
 
 238, 239. 314, 318 
 Viaroggio, 389 
 Vicinanza, Lieutenant, 195, 398
 
 410 
 
 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT 
 
 Victor Emmanuel, King, 4, 8, 
 133, 134, 170, 187, 261, 301, 
 326, 382, 392 
 
 Vigevano, Captain, 398 
 
 " Vincenzo Perisio." jSee Captain 
 Pietro Verri 
 
 Vischer, Dr. Adolph, 39 
 
 Von dem Borne, Lieut.-General, 
 54 
 
 Von der Goltz Pasha, Field- 
 Marshal, 43, 392, 393, 395 
 
 Von Gottberg, Otto, xv, 25, 91, 
 153, 199, 229, 265-8, 271, 
 272, 274-6, 287, 292, 351-3, 
 362, 370 
 
 Von Loehow, Herr, 19, 25, 125, 
 126, 128 
 
 Von Tilger, Dr. Alfred, 55, 92-4, 
 96, 97, 176, 185, 267, 362, 370, 
 371 
 
 " Vossische Zeitung," the, 149, 
 293, 329 
 
 " Vossische Zeitung" correspon- 
 dent, 170, 293, 329 
 
 W 
 
 Wadai, 393 
 
 Weibel, Dr. Walter, xi, 199, 
 260, 268, 272 
 
 Weickert, Herr, 19, 25 
 
 " Westminster Gazette," the, 
 xxvi, 65, 270, 366, 370, 
 371 
 
 " Westminster Gazette " corre- 
 spondent, 369 
 
 Wood, Mr., 61-3, 172, 348 
 
 Wright, Mr., 344, 345 
 
 Yovmg Turks, the, 4, 31, 219, 
 372 
 
 Zanzur, 127, 238 
 
 Zoli, Corrado, 230, 337, 338, 
 
 349-51 
 Zouara, 168 
 
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