ish reply did not meet the Italian demands a state of war was declared as from 2 130 P.M. on Sept. 29.
Military action was slow to succeed the formal declaration of war: the political situation had developed so rapidly that the diplo- mats had far outrun the soldiers. On Sept. 3 at the close of the Italian grand manoeuvres, the 1889 class of conscripts had been dismissed, leaving only the 1890 class with the colours. On Sept. 23 the 1888 class was called up, and two days later secret mobilization orders were issued. It was no doubt in the belief that Turkey would yield to pressure that the ultimatum was presented more than a week before an expeditionary force could be dispatched from Italy. In the interval the Italian navy had to act alone, at first by demon- stration and later in earnest.
On Sept. 28 an Italian squadron appeared off Tripoli, and the following morning an officer landed and informed the acting Vali that if a satisfactory answer were not received from' the Porte that afternoon a state of war would begin. Next day, the news of Turkey's refusal having arrived, the blockade of Tripoli was declared, and the Turkish authorities were notified that if the town were not sur- rendered in three days it would be bombarded. Most of the Italian subjects resident in Tripoli had already left and those who remained were taken off on the morning of Sept. 30. Next day the cable between Tripoli and Malta was cut.
Meanwhile hostilities had begun elsewhere. On Sept. 29 and 30 Italian destroyers, under the command of the Duke of the Abruzzi, sank two Turkish torpedo boats off Prevesa, on the coast of Epirus, and on Oct. I Adml. Aubry left Augusta to go in search of the Turkish fleet, which the declaration of war had found at Beirut. He had with him the two battleships " Roma " and " Vittorio Emanuele " and the torpedo cruiser " Agordat," and on the way he was to pick up the battleship " Napoli," which was in the narrow seas between Sicily and Tripoli, and the two cruisers " Amalfi " and " Pisa," which had been sent to Derna, in Cyrenaica, to destroy the wireless station there. But the orders given to Adml. Aubry were suddenly countermanded. Instead of steaming for the Aegean in order to intercept the Turks, he was sent to Tobruk, which was occupied by a detachment of sailors on Oct. 4. Tobruk, which had been much discussed as a potential naval base, was thus the first point on the long coastline of Turkish N. Africa to be occupied by the Italians. The first detachment of the expeditionary force, moreover, which left Naples on the evening of Oct. 5i was sent to Tobruk instead of to Tripoli.
The renunciation of the attempt to cut off the Turkish fleet was a political move. The Italian Government believed that the Porte would soon realize that it was impossible to defend the Tripolitan provinces, and would be willing to enter into some arrangement which would satisfy Italian aspirations and save the face of Turkey. In these circumstances there was a natural disinclination to embitter relations by the destruction of the Turkish fleet. Another reason was the desire to localize the conflict, if a real conflict had to come. Italy was well aware that in declaring war against Turkey she ran the risk of stirring up further trouble, and if hostile operations could be confined to the African coast, the danger of other complications would certainly be lessened.
On Oct. 2 Adml. Thaon de Revel, who commanded the Italian cruiser squadron, landed in Tripoli under a white flag and again demanded the surrender of the town. The Turkish authorities, after a good deal of discussion, declined, and next day the Italian fleet bombarded the obsolete fortifications for about two hours. There was a mere show of resistance. The bulk of the Turkish garri- son had already begun to leave Tripoli, and by the next day, in pursuance of the last orders received from Constantinople, all the troops had retired into the sandy plains. At noon the German con- sul reported the evacuation of the town. He stated that the Arabs had begun to pillage, and asked that troops should be landed at once. Next day a force of 1, 600 sailors was disembarked, and two days later Adml. Borea-Ricci assumed the governorship of the town and received the submission of about a hundred sheikhs and other men of position, among them Hasuna Pasha Karamanli, lineal representative of the family which had ruled Tripoli prior to the Turkish occupation, and mayor under the Turkish regime. A week elapsed between the landing of the sailors and the arrival of the expeditionary force, and during this time the sailors, besides patrolling the town, had to hold a defensive line some 8 m. in length. If the Turks had chosen to attack, they could almost cer- tainly have retaken Tripoli. But they made better use of the time allowed them. When the Turkish garrison retired from the town and the Italian sailors landed, the majority of the Tripolitan chiefs were ready to make submission. They had no love for the Turk, and little objection to a new overlord. Two men turned the scale in favour of resistance by supporting the efforts of Neshat Bey, the Turkish commander in Tripoli^Ferhat Bey, deputy for Tripoli, and Suleiman el Baruni, a Berber from Fessato, who was deputy for the Jebel region. Each was possessed of great influence in his own district, and was able, first, to prevent the submission of the tribesmen, and, as time went on, to bring native levies to support the Turkish regular troops.
The first Italian transports appeared off Tripoli at dawn on Oct. II, and the disembarkation at once began. But bad weather
made it difficult to land guns, stores and transport, and it was not until Oct. 20 that all the equipment had been put on shore. 1 he expeditionary force consisted of some 9,000 rifles with a few field and mountain batteries and two squadrons of cavalry, but this force had only a very limited radius of action owing to lack of transport. The conviction that the Turks would not receive support from the native tribesmen, and consequently, would never retreat toward the interior, had limited the transport organization to what was neces- sary for a two days' march. General Caneva, who was in command of the troops in the two provinces and had assumed the governor- ship of Tripoli, was practically tied to his base. He was faced by an unexpected situation, caused by the retreat of the Turks, but all his information was to the effect that the Italian occupation would be welcome to the Arabs and Berbers. He believed that he could deal with the Turks at his leisure. He had not yet realized that the Turkish garrison was now a nucleus round which a formidable resistance was being built up, and that already a reaction against the invader was imminent.
Meanwhile Derna, Horns and Bengazi (Benghazi) had been occupied. At Derna and Horns the Turkish garrisons retired south- ward after a short bombardment. At Bengazi the Italian landing was opposed, and the town was only occupied after a long day s fighting, the Italians, who had disembarked to the south of the little port, losing over 100 men. There was no further fighting in the Bengazi district for a considerable time, but both at Derna and Horns there were sharp encounters during the first few days after the landing of the troops.
The blow against the Italians in Tripoli came unexpectedly. During the early days of the occupation the belief that the Arabs would never make common cause with the Turks led to an over- confidence and lack of vigilance. There was little apprehen- sion of an attack now that the Italian troops were in great su- periority over the Turks, and the conviction that the Arabs were friendly led to no hindrance being placed upon communications between the town and the surrounding country. Arabs, and sup- posed Arabs, came and went freely. It was due to over-confidence also that the disarmament of the natives was not pursued with vigour or system until it was too late. In this way it was possible for the Turks, and those Arabs who were opposed to the coming of the Italians, to arrange for a rising behind the lines which should coincide with an attack.
To the west and south the Italian lines faced the open, rolling plain, but on the east, for a distance of two miles, they ran through the wide strip of palm groves and fruit gardens that stretches east- ward from the town for nearly a dozen miles. Against this part of the line the Turks and Arabs, favoured by the thick vegetation, attacked suddenly on the morning of Oct. 23, simultaneous demon- strations being made on the south and west. The attack upon the regiment of Bersaglieri who held the long line in the oasis was car- ried out with decision and was aided by a simultaneous attack from a number of natives within the lines. On the left, by the village of Shara Shat, two companies were overwhelmed and cut to pieces, and the rest of the regiment was hard put to it to hold its own. Supporting troops were sent up from the town, but they had to fight their way through the network of gardens, sniped by those of the local Arabs who had joined in the fight, and the much greater number who had come through the gap made by the destruction of the two companies at Shara Shat. The fighting lasted all day, but in the evening the assailants were, finally driven off.
There was much excitement in the town during the morning, and a few Italian soldiers were killed, one of them by a kavass of the German Consulate. The streets were rapidly cleared, and there was a good deal of firing by the troops, mostly in the air. A few Arabs were shot out of hand, and the kavass above mentioned was executed after a summary trial. In the oasis, not only to the east of the town, but behind the southern lines, sniping went on all day, and the order was given that the oasis within the Italian lines should be cleared of its inhabitants, and that those found in arms against the Italians should be shot. The oasis was cleared during the next few days, and several thousand Arabs were brought into the town. There was a good deal of sniping, especially at first, and those who were found in possession of arms were either shot or brought into Tripoli under guard. Undoubtedly, innocent persons were killed during these days, but they were not very many, and most of them were shot by mistake in the confused bush fighting that succeeded the first inrush at Shara Shat. In all, according to the figures fur- nished by the Arab authorities, a little over 400 inhabitants of the oasis lost their lives. There were some cases of excess on the part of the Italian troops. Careful subsequent investigation showed that they were very few.
The European press, and especially that of England and Ger- many, was filled with messages which multiplied the number of Arabs killed by ten, and assumed that they were practically all unarmed and harmless peasants. It was soon realized that there had been gross exaggeration, and European opinion changed, but the fact that the repression had been eyere, and that some inno- cent persons had been killed, was exploited to the utmost by the Turks in Tripoli and their supporters. Many men of the Tripoli district fought against Italy for a year in the mistaken belief that their families had been massacred.
