Italy's war for a desert, being some experiences of a war-correspondent with the Italians in Tripoli

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ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT

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ITALY'S WAR
FOR A DESERT

BEING SOME EXPERIENCES OF
A WAR- CORRESPONDENT WITH
THE ITALIANS IN TRIPOLI
BY FRANCIS McCULLAGH

Author of "With the Cossacks," "The Fall of Abd-ul-Hamid," etc.

HERBERT AND DANIEL

95 NEW BOND STREET, LONDON
W.

Published May

DEDICATED TO MY

COLLEAGUES AND FELLOW-CORRESPONDENTS
BRITISH, GERMAN, AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN

RUSSIAN, AND FRENCH

WHO WERE NOT AFRAID TO TELL

THE TRUTH ABOUT TRIPOLI

260912

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 BOMA

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
Office and Caneva's treatment of the Arab " traitors " —
"The Times" and the Italian defeat at Bir Tobras —
Why Mahmud Shefket Pasha left Tripoli undefended-
Italy's fear that Turkey would build up a navy — Turkey's
proposal to form territorial ftrmy '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-

vii

viii ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT

tion will not have Tripoli even as a gift — Dr. Vischer —
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
EnverBey , » * .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 BETTJBN OF THE BOMANS

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 OP THE BEBSAGUEBI

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 CONQUEBED TUBE

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
Bumeliana — 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 Turks
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 Bersaglieri 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 triumphal music of the
conquerors . - • - . ,. . . . Page 135

CHAPTER HI

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 OP 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 Italian 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 murdering Italian 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 -penal ties — 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 under-
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
— Difficulty 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

K Italian reinforcements arrived in time — Arabs, " women,

<k 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

regards this as " un' idea genialissima " — 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 . . ; . i .. . V> . . . 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 tactfulness of the proverbial bull
in a china-shop " . . . . . . Page 274

CHAPTER III

HASSUNA 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

CANEVA OVER-CAREFUL

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 bulk of his officers — 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

CANEVA'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 makes 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
Egypt — 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 ARABS

The disarming of the Arabs a measure of extreme importance —
Captain Cagni disarmed some of the town Arabs, but could
not attend to the oasis 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 — Signor 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 FOB 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, Austria-
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 . . Page 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 righting for — On the other hand, the Monarchist and
Clericalist 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 pendulum — 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 Signor
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

FACING PAGE

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, Dorna 69

The Landing of the 4th and 5th companies of the llth Ber-

saglieri, afterwards cut to pieces in the Oasis, October 23rd 71

The Bersaglieri marching from the landing-jetty ... 72

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
Arab 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

xvi

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

xvii

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 which
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, Signer De Luca Aprile of the " Giornale di
Sicilia," and Signor Bordiga of the " Lavoro." I do
not know how many he has deported 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 Signor 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
hi? name, but whom I suspect to be the London
correspondent of the " Giornale d' Italia." 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 town. 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 archaeologist,
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 but. The Censor would not allow it to pass
on any account.

xxvi ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT

About the middle of October Reuter'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 " Reuter's imaginings,"
and, personally attacking Reuter'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.

Signer 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 air 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 show, 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 ammo del corrispondenti esteri verso
i colleghi italiani." My friend Mr. Percival Phillips
was 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 would 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 JEgean 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. Signer
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 Signer 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 Blucher. 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. llth 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
d1 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 blinded as the " Giornale
d' Italia " 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 Italians now, because
the Italians 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 NAZ10NALISMO

To most Englishmen, there are two surprising things
in the present Turko-Italian 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.1

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 world 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 Caesar, 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 modern 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' Annunzio.
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 cement 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 sd,"
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 NAZIONALISMO 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.
;t 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 unpardonable 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 Signer
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 visited
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 clique. Or,
perhaps, I should say that it is the work of one clique
which has "roped in" a great number of other
cliques. 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-offices !

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 per intraprendere la campagna
in favore deW 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 bosks.

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 Signer 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
1 Vide General Caneva's proclamations pastim.

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 Signer 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, Signer 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
great 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 : " Non 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 Italian swoop on Tripoli
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 Horns made it a rule
to pour contempt on anything 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-espies, 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 known
for a long time, will perhaps never be known. But
even the Socialist "Avahti" 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, would 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-
d-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
hostilities. 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 : 4 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

32 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 regime, 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
Bosphorus. 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 Signer Tittoni.
His wife is an Italian, he has many personal friends
in Italy, and until September last he had been firmly
D

34 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
llth, 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

36 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

38 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 deW 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 Signer 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
wrould 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 prottges,
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
Erin, 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 Erin, the Emanuele Filiberto and the
Carlo Alberto. On the Erin 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 Erin division was to destroy the

47

48 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT

central fortifications. The Re Umberto 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 Erin 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-

LIGHTHOUSE SMASHED BY SHELLS OF BATTLESHIPS.

To face p. 48. 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 de*bris 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 atto), 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

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-

THE BOMBARDMENT 53

sistance anywhere. The Italians themselves are lost
in admiration at the daring and seamanship which
they displayed in this attack on Tripoli.

" The bombardment," cries Signer 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 Umberto 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

i

V

I

ir

'A

F

\ I

•

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 Signer 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
they 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 necessity 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 ROMANS1

HOTEL MINERVA, TRIPOLI,

October 13th.

At Tripoli of Barbary the sun is going down,
The shadows of a southern eve are falling on the town,
The voice of the muezzin sounds from the minaret,
The 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 latticed courts.
But vain the curses, prayers and tears, the angry looks and black,
In thunder speak yon battleships ! (( 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 Arabic,
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,

1 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 Caesars.

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 Caesars emit mysterious light,
Mars with a blood-red radiance hangs in the sky at night,
Fallen 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
fora 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

70 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.

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 I5th<

THE procession of the Bersaglieri passes Turkish
cafes. The habitue's 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 with 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
cafes ', 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 who 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 on 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 like 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 rdles were re-

84 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT

versed, and the town was Turkish, the Italians 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 djelldba by means
of a twisted band of linen 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."
• ••»••

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

e very-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 town 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 resolve 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

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 llth," says Signer 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 Italian policy 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 zapti6 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 £AM£ 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 ringer 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

162 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 Munjr 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

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 llth 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 Italians are. They
attributed to the Italian 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 place
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 Italian 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 sette 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 Italian, 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. Signer 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 Italians 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 were 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 Weridel'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 flat 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 r61e. 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 y 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, Von 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 28rd, 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 Italian 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 Lochow'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 diabolico, and reproached the Turks
for having prepared it con rafflnata 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

K

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 llth 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 Tripoli 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 wheeled to the left in order to attack
the white castle of the Kaimakan at Henni, where
Colonel Fara of the llth 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 was 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 Cane va 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 llth Bersaglieri 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

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 this
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 ! 1

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

1 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
da-te-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.1

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,

1 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
Bersaglieri 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 where 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
workmen ; 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 Italian line 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 I (Surrender !) Viva
V Italia I " 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 which 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.

""• • • I

THE MAN-HUNT IN THE OASIS 147

The words " Vino e Liquori " were carved on a
stone over the lintel of the door, and from a little
balcony hung an Italian flag. Another Italian 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 caf 6 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 fondak 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 Italian 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.

44 The most important witness for the prosecution
was Lieutenant Altina, who, according to his own

1 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 inter essa 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 zaptiS.

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 " momenta d' alarme in citta"
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-
M

162 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT

ing around the carriage. The orderly executed the
command, and the crowd in falling back gave rise to
confusion, and hence to a universal flight."1

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

1 This was Caneva's story for the Italian 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 Italian
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 ire volte civiltd al Hondo " (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 Grseco-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

1 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 1888-year
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 down
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.1

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

1 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, Golli,
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

tinued for a long time ; there were no officers of
higher rank than lieutenant 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 Signer Galli, formerly Italian Vice-Consul
in Tripoli, now head of the Civil Government. Signer
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 for 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 momenta 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 down 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 baraccano
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 — Puoco ! —
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 Tripoli. 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 tutte le armi e le munizioni
alle autoritd 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.

1 88

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 va la?" 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 juoco ! " (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.

Viva I' Italia !

Viva Tripoli italiana!

Viva la marina I

Viva P esercito !

Vim U Re!

Viva la f otto 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 del 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 cruelty. 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

o

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
per mezzo di una escavazione sotterranea.

I 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 they 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
della rivolta e della repressione " (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.1

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

1 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 Italian 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 were 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 military bearing, his curt salute,
his curt message, made the Italians 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 jny 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 ? 9 or dine del Minister o della 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 townspeople,
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 Italian
line at Sharashett, the Italians 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 lie
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 84th 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.

Boom ! 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 die avevano
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 line in the oasis before
that line 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.'1

" 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 gia
sulla trincea quando i soldati iniziavana il fuoco.
(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 conjusione
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 T;hey 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
Genial 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 Genial 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 'Hah ! "

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 combattimento ").
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 Genial 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 will 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

•53

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 cattivo,
furioso nemico (the bad, furious enemy), as Signer
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, like 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 Caesar 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 llth Bersaglieri
had been his object at Sharashett on the 23rd.

Lieutenant Franchini reoccupied Genial 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 missions (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 anU 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 liberal-minded
of the Italian writers who deal with this war, Signer
Giuseppe Bevione. Signor Bevione thinks that
Captain Robiony's idea was " urC 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 Genial Bey's house, and who
should have been considered as regular Turkish
soldiers.1

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-

1 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 gehorte, 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 : " Gelungene Kriegslist." (Messaggero vom 28. Oktober.) Neutrale
Augenzeugen waren entsetzt und emport. 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 " (Strattagemma Hiuscito), 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 " adopero uno Strattagemma die riusci felicemente. Egli raccolse
una quarantines di Arabi fra uomini e donne ed alcuni abitanti che si
trovavano nei giardini dell' oasi e li costrinse a marciare innanzi 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
bandiera verde del Profeta (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 " bandiera
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.1

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, Englishmen 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 " handier a verde del
Profeta" 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 MessrL

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
valor e. 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 Stcessel 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 Stcessel 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 Tripoli 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 sue-
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, " plena 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 strewn 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 ritornato
ancora nella nolle 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 now 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 Genial
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 killing 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

BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 253

indiscriminately all whom they met, without trial,
without appeal."

44 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
Reuter, 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 arid 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

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.

44 1 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 4 snap-shotted '
instances where soldiers and officers indiscrimin-
ately fired upon these unfortunate natives. At any

26$ 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

BURNT BEDOUIN ENCAMPMENT.
Naked woman left to die. She was dead the next day.

REMAINS OF BURNT ARAB VILLAGE.

To face p. 262. Photos by Autjw,

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.

DYING ARAB. SENTINELS ON GUARD.

SOLDIERS JEERING AT DYING NAKED ARAB WOMAN, WHOM I

FOUND DEAD AT THE SAME SPOT ON THE FOLLOWING DAY.

To face p. 265.

Photos by Author.

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 Lorenco 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.1

1 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 Italian 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
Reuter 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 General 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 : ' Dafur sollen in London Versammlungen
einberufen und Protestreden im Parlament gehalten werden ! *

" ' Recht so ! Aber zunachst werfen wir dem General unsere Papiere
vor die Ftisze ! '

'"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 uplifted 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 would 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.

PULLING ABOUT A CORPSE.

MURDERED ARAB VILLAGER.

To face p. 266. Photos by Author.

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

» I • •* J * *

1 1 1

• I

ARAB CARRYING OFF HIS OLD MOTHER.

To face p. 268.

DYING ARAB GIRL.

Photos, by Author.

BURNING THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE 269

towards heaven. A horde of ragamuffins, crowded
together like 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 miserdbile 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 English 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
where 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
was 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 28th :

"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 26th. 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 Italian 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 Bumeliana 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

^

MURDERED ARAB.

EXAMINING A CORPSE TO SEE IF IT NEEDS ANOTHER BULLET.

To face p. 275. Photos, by Autlioi

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 nock 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

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 I 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
were 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.

A PILE OF FIFTY MEN AND BOYS.

To face p. 286.

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 Tripolitan 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
u

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
religion for the removal of hairs from the arms.
And this razor is never less than two inches long ! "

Even as late as November llth, 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

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

«' t" • * <

MINARET DISGUISED WITH PALM-FRONDS so AS TO PREVENT IT SERVING

AS A MARK FOR TURKISH ARTILLERY.

To face p. 297.

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 cTintelligenza o cTenergia " (" 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 light 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 del Caramanli brutalmente spodestata dai

HASSUNA KARAMANLI 303

turchi e il modo come il Caramanli allora dominante fu
attratto 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 ! x 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

1 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.

304 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 allo
stretto necessario nei riguardi esclusivi degli usi locali."
(" 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 cilia e
delle campagne (the chief of the municipality of
Tripoli and recognised head of the Arabs of the city
and of the country).

De Felice 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 del 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,

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 " amico deW
Italia, Hassuna Pascid, 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 humility 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

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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

312 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

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
irredenta1 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

1 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 Tripolitania.

CANEVA'S MISTAKE 315

agents who are sent out in this way — even by English
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
telling 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. Signer
Galli' 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 " L'ottimismo 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 che
riguarda la fedeltd della popolazione araba della

318 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT

cittd 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 who 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 Italian 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 'ati 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 llth),
" 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

322 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 328

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 della 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, Signer 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
tradimento 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 hi
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.

326 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' Italia 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 Dio benedica," " 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.' " i

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

1 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.

328 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,
Horns, 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

330 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

33i

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 taller i
(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
genie 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-

334 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 Caneva1 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-a-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

336 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, Horns, 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

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 stall 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-

338 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT

plete disarmament of the Arab and Turkish popula-
tion before sunset, under pain of instant death.")
'Ml 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

1 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 : 4 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 "!' 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
llth 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 llth
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 Luigi
Barzini, the extremely jingo and anti-Arab cor-
respondent of the " Corriere della Sera," admits
this himself in an article which 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
blind 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.

Von Gottberg 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

2 A

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 hi 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 which 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 Italian
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 well 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 Italians, 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 28th, 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 Giolitti 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. Carr£re 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 fa,ct 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 we 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. Signer 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 believing too, that some
of my English 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 English 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

370 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 Hen
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 othei
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 which 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 were well aware that all the foreigners
in Tripoli knew of the atrocities.

If there had been no atrocities the English Consul
in Tripoli w%uld 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 publica-
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-Da vis-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 wai* 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

3T4 ITALY'S WAR FOR A DESERT

Arabs, furious at the massacre of their own kinsmen
by the Italians, should retaliate 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 alive are probably Italian 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 :

" Emilio Matteo Sibille, soldato della Croce Rossa
Italiana, 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

3T8 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 bury ing-ground. " At the
foot of the tomb some little flowers had been planted.
4 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." l

Every wqrd 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

1 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 will
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."

388 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 who 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 llth
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 " un applauso irrefrenabile "
— 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 " Z' 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 entusiastica 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-Militarist 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 llth, 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 Italians 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 Gemal 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
(T 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 Bianculli," 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 Fimmense corps de sable improvise dresse en plein
ciel un profil plus humain. Ses gros seins noirs coulent
en , reglisse de f umee 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 Panitalianism."

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 Franqaise, the, 23

Altina, Lieutenant, 149, 150

Alvarez, Mr., 360, 371-3

American Consul, the. See
Mr. Wood

American correspondents, 368.
See also Signor Tullio Giordana

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,
308, 338-340, 345-7, 360, 364-
74,384,394,395 |

2 D 401

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. See
Signor Guarino

Azilat, 107

Aziziah, 329, 394

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, llth, 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

Erin, 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, Signer, 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 Tripoli,"
268

Constantinople, 31-4, 64, 74,
104, 106, 176, 188, 328, 372

Corradini, Signer 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

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 Phillips

" 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, Signer, x, 136,

377, 378

Derm, Basilio, 135
Derna, the, 48, 51, 70, 99, 167,

350
Derna, 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 Tripoli," 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, Lorenco, 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.
c. 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

Galli, Signer, 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, Signer Giovanni, 11, 12,

19, 42, 136, 268, 273, 301, 314,

340, 341, 346, 363
Giordana, Signer Tullio, 136,

362-4, 366, 367
" Giornale d' Italia,'* the, vii,

xiii, xxv, 15, 129, 237, 388
" Giornale di Sicilia," the, 377,

378

" Giornale di Sicilia " corre-
spondent. See Signer 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, Signer, 169
Gurgi, oasis of, 125

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, Captain, 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 Nazionalismo," 9, 10

Ir'reh, the, 78

Italian Consul. See Consul
Grande and Consul Pestalozza

Italian Consul, the (at Derna),
166

Italian [correspondents, xviii,
166, 167, 169, 182, 218, 270,
342,376. See also LuigiBarzini,
Signer Boridga, Signer Castel-
lini, Zoli Corrado, De Felice
Giuffrida, De Frenzi, De Luca
Aprile,Tullio Giordana, Signor
Guarino, Signor £f* 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

Kahn, Mr. Reginald, 110
Kaimaken, 222
Kaimaken, Castle of, 133
Kaiser, the, 26, 392
Karamanli, 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 Tripoli," 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, Signer 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 Signer de Felice
Messri,"Fort, 120, 121, 122, 236,

242, 250
Merdoum, 39
Milan, 388
Misurata, 245
Mohammed Mosuri, 291
Moizo, Captain, 122
Mollah, Mohammedan, 378
Monteil, Captain, 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
Nesciat Bey, Colonel, xxiii, 51,

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 Signer Tullio
Giordana

" New York World," the, xxvi

Ninety- third Italian Regiment,
113

Norton, Richard, xiv

" Novoe Vremya " correspon-
dent. See Colonel Pavloff

" Nuovo Giornale," the, xiii

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 Tripoli, 132, 134-52,

333, 338, 340, 342, 351-3, 355,

358, 359, 377
Odescalchi, Princess, 387
" Ora," the, xix
Orsi, Lieutenant, 217-9
Osmanli, the, 65, 68, 97, 154,

301
" Osservatore Romano," the,

387

Pacelli, Signer, 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, Signer, 371
Pietro Verri, Captain, 238, 239,

240, 241

Pisa Cathedral, 389
Pope, the, 23, 62, 63, 133, 383,

387-9

Preveza, 35
Punzio, Captain, 131, 132

R

Reschid Effendi, 97
" Return of the Romans," the,

65
Renter's correspondent. See

Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett
Re Umberto, the, 47-53, 71,

224

Ricci, 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

Sabratha, 67

Salvatore, Evangelista, 131, 132

Sania, 290, 291

Santa Maria Capua Vetere, 391j

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

"Stampa," 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, Signor, 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,
16, 20-2, 25, 47, 48, 51
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
Vallega, Professor Eugenio, 391
Vannutelli, Cardinal, 387
Varese, the, 50, 51
Venice, 41

Vercelli, Lieutenant, 181
Verri, Captain Pietro, 50, 51,

238, 239, 314, 318
Viareggio, 389
Vicinanza, Lieutenant, 195, 398

410

ITALY'S WAR

Victor Emmanuel, King, 4, 8,
133, 134, 170, 187, 261, 301,
326, 382, 392

Vigevano, Captain, 398

" Vincenzo Perisio." See 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 Lochow, 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

FOR A DESERT

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

Young Turks, the, 4, 31, 219,
372

Zanzur, 127, 238

Zoli, Corrado, 230, 337, 338,

349-51
Zouara, 168

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"This romance has qualities of a rare charm, and its old-world atmosphere is as
sweet as lavender." — The Daily Telegraph.

"Its atmosphere is fragrant, and its whole tone attractive." — The World.

Oliver's Kind Women

By PHILIP GIBBS, Author of " The Street of Adventure."
Crown 8vo., (>/. Popular edition, 2s. net

"Virginia Garland was a woman of indomitable spirit and fine sensibility, one
of the best realised and the best worth realising characters in modern fiction — a
sensitive spring of finely polished steel might describe her roughly — but she cannot
be fully known save in Mr. Gibbs' lull-length portrait of her. . . ." — Morning Post.

The Hermit of Dreams

By the HON. MRS. LINDSAY. With Three Drawings by
CLAUD SHEPPERSON

Beth, Incense and Myrrh, The Trembling of the Scales, The
Story of Innocent Heart, Mary had a Little Lamb.

Crown 8vo. 3j. 6d. net

"A book of absorbing interest. At the first assault she has carried the difficult
citadel of literary achievement and has planted thereon her distinctive flag."
—Tablet.

"Five stories instinct with mystic charm, with grace, beauty and reverence.
They are told by the tall, emaciated, suffering Hermit, and they seem to bring
the three worlds — the Past, the Present, and the Future — very simply, clearly,
naturally and beautifully close to one another and to us. It is a little book to
stir thought, to give comfort and to win affection." — The Bookman.

The Land of the Yellow Spring
and other Japanese Stories

By F. HADLAND DAVIS
5/. net

"Stories which are all poems in prose, beautifully conceived and carefully
executed. Lafcadio Hearn would have welcomed these ardent studies of exotic
romance." — Morning Post."

ILLUSTRATED BOOKS

Our Nursery Rhyme- Book

Selected by LETTY and FRANK LITTLEWOOD, with a
Preface by S. R. LITTLEWOOD, and Twelve Coloured
Illustrations by HONOR C. APPLETON [In the Press

5.r. net

Perrault's Fairy Tales

Newly translated by S. R. LITTLEWOOD. With Twelve
Coloured Illustrations by HONOR C. APPLETON

5.r. net

" Children will certainly welcome them with delight." — Daily Chronicle.
"Miss Honor Appleton's delicate pictures in colour make this charming book
very charming indeed. "—Times.

Songs of Innocence

By WILLIAM BLAKE. With a Preface by THOMAS
SECCOMBE, and Twelve Coloured Illustrations by HONOR
C. APPLETON

Small Quarto. 5j. net. Popular edition, 3/. 6</. net

"It is a joy to handle this truly lovely volume, which all lovers of childhood
should possess." — The Child.

The Baby of the Future

By H. D. TRAILL. Reprinted by kind permission of the
Proprietors of Punchy and Illustrated in Colour by HONOR C.
APi'LETON x,. nct

The Story of Santa Glaus

By S. R. LITTLEWOOD [/» the Press

The Story of
Pierrot

By S. R. LITTLEWOOD. With
Seven Black and White i Illustra-
tions, and Cover Design by
SIDNEY FILMORE.

Is. net

"It is the best literary shillingsworth we have
seen of recent years." — Evening Times.

ILLUSTRATED BOOKS

An Artist in Corfu

By SOPHIE ATKINSON. With 14 Coloured Illustrations
and Cover Design and End-Papers by the Author.

1&. net

On ancient and modern authority the author claims that the
little-known island is one of the lovliest spots of Greece, and supports
her claim with enthusiastic pen and a choice of dainty water-colours.

"The water-colour drawings are highly accomplished, full of light and colour,
and 30 indeed is her text." — The Times.

"A very attractively got-up work." — Westminster Gazette.

Brittany and the Bretons

Written and pictured by GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS
1&. net

" Tastefully printed and got up, and a valuable souvenir of one of the most
characteristic and i.iteresting provinces of France." — The Athenaum.

Wives and Daughters

By MRS. GASKELL. With a Preface by THOMAS SEC-
COMBE, 8 Coloured and 60 Black and White Illustrations
by M. V. WHEELHOUSE. [In the Press

Dancing : Ancient and Modern

By ETHEL L. URLIN

Charmingly Illustrated. 3*. §d. net

"This book exhibits remarkably wide and original research." — Illustrated
Sporting and Dramatic Nevus.

"A dainty little book, the writer of which has compiled interesting accounts of
typical dances — primitive, antique, mediaeval, modern, religious, military — and
describes the dances of various nations. Enhanced by some admirably chosen
illustrations, mostly after great masters." — Torkshire Post.

In the Fighting Days at Sea.
A Book for Boys

By EDWARD FRASER
With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6<£

"The narrative picks out the deeds of derring-do of sailors from the earliest
times down to the present day, and the book is one that should interest any youth
with a thought of taking to the water as a profession." — Scotsman.

HERBERT & DANIEL, 95 NEW BOND STREET, W.

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