There is some corroboration of this from the writer and correspondent Ernest Nathaniel Bennett. A former MP for Woodstock and fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, he travelled to Tripoli via Tunisia in late November 1911. Bennett was an experienced hand and the author of several books detailing his experiences. Working under a commission from the Manchester Guardian he joined with the Ottoman forces and the next year published an account of his adventures and observations. During the course of his stay he interviewed several of the participants in the attack, and, according to the stories related to him, the members of the 7th Company were found ‘half-dazed’ and many were ‘roused from sleep merely to die.’25 McCullagh, who got his story from Italian survivors, corroborates this to an extent, relating that during the night ‘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.’ He reported their accounts of how, later, ‘when their ammunition was exhausted, they had been most treacherously set upon.’26 Even if the personnel of the 84th Regiment were drawn from Florence rather than Sicily, it is still possible to visualise their discomfiture and fear. That many were taken unawares is perhaps evidenced by noting that most of the deaths in 7th Company were caused by the curved knives of the Arabs. According to Bennett, these did ‘terrible execution.’27
With the taking of Kemal Bey’s House the Italian line was effectively breached and a number of the attackers, generally considered to be in the region of around 250-300 strong, were able to penetrate into the oasis. Though relatively few in number they were able to cause a great deal of confusion by attacking from the rear the Italian positions on either side of the breach, which were occupied by the 4th and 6th companies of the 84th Regiment. Despite causing around 100 casualties within these troops, the attackers were unable to exploit their success due to the effectiveness of the Italian artillery, both land-and sea-based. In particular three batteries based at Bumeliana were effective, though, as on the 23 October, Italian movement within the oasis was somewhat circumscribed by riflemen concealed in the labyrinthine interior.
Nesat Bey was unable to get reinforcements through the gap in the lines due to their approach being interdicted by the gunfire, supplemented by the fire of the machine guns. Troops, including the 1st and 2nd (dismounted) Squadrons of the Lodi Cavalry from the nearby barracks and eight companies of infantry from the 4th and 40th Regiments supported by artillery, were sent into the oasis in an attempt to clear out those attackers that had managed to pass through the Italian line. It took the Italians two days to dislodge some of these, with artillery and explosives freely utilised. Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, the distinguished correspondent under commission to Reuters, recounted how some 30 of the invaders resisted all attempts at expulsion from several houses at the edge of the oasis until, on 28 October, these properties were demolished with high explosive.28
One enterprising officer, commanding a company of the 82nd Regiment sent to reinforce the front line, evolved a method of ameliorating the difficulties of negotiating the seemingly sniper-infested oasis. Finding that the sniping rendered his movements exceedingly slow, the commander, Captain Robiony, adopted a ‘successful stratagem.’ He collected together some 30-40 Arab inhabitants from their houses, including women, children, and the elderly, and put them at the head of his column. ‘The effect was miraculous. All opposition ceased. The houses, the olives, the palms, the fig-trees ceased to vomit fire.’29 Robiony’s force was thus able to continue unimpeded. Several of the war correspondents present witnessed and recorded this event. Those representing Italian papers, such as Giuseppe Bevione of Turin’s La Stampa, were approving. Most foreign correspondents, Otto von Gottberg of the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger for example, differed. The former called Robiony’s act a ‘stratagem that happily succeeded’ [stratagemma riuscito felicemente] whilst the latter commented that ‘neutral witnesses were shocked and outraged’ [Neutrale Augenzeugen waren entsetzt und empört].
Gottberg was to be shocked and outraged further. On the morning of 27 October he was near the cavalry barracks:
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.30
The killing of the inhabitants of the Oasis of Tripoli had not ceased since 23 October, but it intensified following the attack three days later. According to Ashmead Bartlett:
[From 24 -27] October […], 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 undoubtedly many women perished in the confusion […] Although there was no fighting on the afternoon of 27 October, 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 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.31
Such scenes were witnessed and later reported by many more of the correspondents. There can be no doubt that whilst the attack of 23 October had struck a profound psychological blow, the second breaking of the line was shattering. As McCullagh phrased it: ‘For the Italian army this was near being the end of all things […] a disaster to which Adowa would be as but a street accident, and which the House of Savoy could hardly hope to survive.’32 That he believed his command had come close to disaster is borne out by Caneva’s response to the second attack in particular. In an attempt to bolster the strength of the defensive line he decided to shorten it, and on the afternoon of 26 October he ordered that the eastern flank be withdrawn some two kilometres. This was achieved on 28 October, abandoning Fort Hamidije, Fort Sidi Messri, Shara Shatt and al-Heni to the enemy. In order to hold what he had, take back what he had lost, and to make even modest gains beyond that, Caneva requested large-scale reinforcement, and a second Army Corps was swiftly mobilised. By 7 November another 30,000 men had been deployed within the Tripoli perimeter.
According to ‘Kepi’ these ‘were about the two worst military measures that could have been undertaken.’
The first had a still further depressing effect upon the troops, and gave opportunity to the Turkish commander to report sensational victories to Stamboul. The second will only swell the tale of sickness which must be the lot of this great Italian army cooped up in Tripoli.33
The latter point was well made. Supplying the occupying army and population of Tripoli with potable water was a major concern, as the available wells were not of sufficient capacity. Consequently, considerable quantities had to be shipped from Sicily. In addition the sewage system of Tripoli, such as it was, was unable to in any way cope with the additional strain, leading to the inevitable outbreaks of cholera and dysentery. The military hospitals were kept at full stretch and the mortality rate amongst the troops from the former over the three-month period from October 1911 to January 1912 was in the order of 4-5 men per day.34 It was probably much greater amongst the non-military population though no-one bothered to keep accurate figures. In any event this population had been reduced by the actions of the Italians. There is no reliable figure for the number who were killed between 23-27 October, though many of the foreign correspondents estimated it at circa 4,000. Another 3,425 are known to h
ave been deported by the military authorities to the various island penal colonies, mainly those on Ustica, Ponza, Favignana and Tremiti, as well as mainland prisons at Caserta and the Neapolitan fortress of Gaeta.35 These deportations were in many cases little more than a delayed death sentence. Reports in the L’Ora di Palermo of 8 and 9 November 1911 stated that
‘The conditions on Ustica are now extremely alarming. Because of the Arab corpses tossed into the sea from the steamship S. Giorgio not far from the beach, the fish market has been suspended. […] The burial of other Arabs who died of cholera, in shallow graves in the sand on private property, make easy pickings for stray dogs and constitutes a further menace to the public health.’36
Due to the inability of the Italian authorities to admit that they had ever suffered any military setback whatsoever, a recurring theme throughout the course of the conflict, the shortening of the line was presented as conforming to a manoeuvre already planned. According to Irace:
To give our men a rest and also to make the line of defence stronger for the repelling of possible future attacks, the front of our position near Henni, in the oasis, was slightly altered by withdrawing it about one mile. This change in the front had been deemed necessary since the first days of our landing, when it was soon seen that such an extensive defence-line could not everywhere withstand the enemy’s onslaught when he was in considerable force. By restricting the line it not only becomes stronger, but also leaves more men to act in the reserve and keep the oasis clear, and, moreover, to guard us from fresh surprises in the rear.37
One other effect of the withdrawal was to allow the Ottomans to reoccupy part of the oasis. There was a military side to this inasmuch as installations such as Fort Hamidije and Fort Sidi Mesri, the useful equipment of which was destroyed before evacuation, were recovered. Some five pieces of artillery were either found in, or taken to, the former as an ineffective bombardment of the city was attempted on 31 October. This was swiftly silenced by naval gunfire. However in the oasis itself the Ottoman forces, and particularly the Arabs, then discovered the bodies of their people left by the events of the previous days; one of the reasons Caneva gave for the withdrawal itself was ‘because of the effluvium from the unburied corpses’ and McCullagh says that ‘the oasis stank with unburied bodies.’ The only first-hand account of this initial discovery was by Herbert Montagu; indeed he is credited with being the first to publicise the Italian massacres, as the official correspondents based in Tripoli could not, of course, immediately report what they had seen because of the strict censorship. Montagu’s report, dated 2 November, was sent via Dehibat (Dahibat) in Tunisia and appeared in the London papers on 4 November:
I feel it my duty to send you the following telegram, and I beg you, in the name of Christianity, to publish it throughout England. I am an English officer, and am now voluntarily serving in the Turkish army here. […]
Imagine, then, my feelings when, on entering and driving the Italians out of the Arab houses which they had fortified and were holding, we discovered the bodies of some hundred and twenty women and children, with their hands and feet bound, mutilated, pierced, and torn. Later on at (omitted) we found a mosque filled with the bodies of women and children, mutilated almost beyond recognition. I could not count them, but there must have been three or four hundred.
Sir, is this European war? Are such crimes to be permitted? Cannot England do something to stop such horrors? In our civilisation and times you can hardly believe it, but it is nevertheless true. I myself have seen it, and so I know. Even now we are getting news of further massacres of women and children discovered in different farms lately occupied by the Italians.
[…] The idea of the Italians when they slaughtered these innocents was obviously one of revenge, from the way the bodies were mutilated – revenge for their heavy losses in battle. […] Hoping you will do all you can to bring the barbarous atrocities I have mentioned before the British public and authorities.38
This was, justifiably, treated with some suspicion. Montagu was self-confessedly contravening the 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act, which made it a crime for any citizen of the United Kingdom to enlist in a foreign force. Furthermore as a serving British officer he was in danger of losing his commission in disgrace. However, shortly after it appeared and been denounced as a total fabrication by the Italian government and press, it was corroborated by the accounts of McCullagh and von Gottberg. The latter two had ‘sent back’ their credentials as war correspondents to Caneva on 27 October in order ‘to leave an army in which such things were done.’ W T Stead put it rather more strongly: ‘he refused any longer to be associated with an army which had degenerated into a band of assassins.’39 McCullagh in particular then began a campaign in the UK to alert the British public, and the wider world, to the behaviour of the Italian army in Tripoli. For this he was twice challenged to a duel by Italians, one of them being none other than the founder of the Futurist movement, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti wrote a series of articles for the the French newspaper L’Intransigeant about the attacks of 23-26 October 1911, later published as a book, La battaglia di Tripoli [The Battle of Tripoli].40
The Battle of Tripoli – and the twin battles of Shara Shatt and Sidi Mesri are probably best grouped and understood under one heading – was a major turning point in the conflict and had several far reaching consequences. The Italians were faced with what can only have been the shocking realisation that the Arab people of Tripoli were not, contrary to expectations, waiting for them with open arms. From late October onwards then the enemy, or more particularly the Arab component of that enemy, were considered ‘nonbelligerent fighters’ (unlawful combatants) and either slaughtered or immediately deported according to Angelo del Boca.41 This demonization did not extend quite as far with respect to those who had proven their allegiance to the Italian cause. This included Hassuna Qaramanli who had been proclaimed Vice-Governor of Tripoli at the time of the Italian landing. However, a certain amount of suspicion extended even to him and his situation seems to have been nebulous. Despite his ‘official position’ he was often referred to as the Mayor, and according to McCullagh ‘it does not seem to be quite certain what sort of a tenth-rate honorary position the unfortunate man held’. His prerogatives, such as they were, were circumscribed following the Battle of Tripoli: ‘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.’42
The racial-religious animosity stirred up by the Battle of Tripoli was not confined to the Italians. As Herbert Montagu reported it, ‘the Arabs were maddened beyond all restraint by the outrages in the oasis.’43 This clamour was to spread and the correspondent of the London Times was to inform the readership of that organ on 27 March 1912:
From Tunis to Aziziah [Al’Azizah in Lower Egypt] the country rings with tales of wanton destruction committed by the Italians, of the massacre of defenceless men, and the slaying of women and small children, even children at the breast. […] The longer the struggle lasts, the more men will flock to the Crescent from the interior. The Arab version of the massacre, and of other reported excesses upon the part of the Italians, has now travelled into the desert and the Sudan. Recruits and reinforcements, with promises of more, are daily pouring into camp. El Senussi, the mysterious Sheikh, who wields such power in the interior, has formally declared war against the Italians […]44
The situation following the battle indicated that in both military and political terms Italian strategy had proven a failure if not entirely collapsed; Caneva was to report to Rome on 6 November that the situation was quite different from that which we expected to find when we landed on these shores. It would no longer be possible to take possession of the rest of the vilayet without resort to military methods. There was no obvious means by which this could be achieved in any event, and that the Ottoman forces were possessed of a considerable capacity was now palpable. In other words, there was no quick m
ilitary solution to the war once the initial landings had failed to bring about an enemy collapse. The situation on the ground in Tripoli was, militarily, at stalemate. Politically and diplomatically the situation was similar, though there were still moves, with varying degrees of risk attached, which were available.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘The Jaws of the Sahara’
(Le fauci del Sahara)
But around me is a silence of death: a word seems to spring from the horizon: – Back! – Back to all of you who want to violate my secret, you who were not born in my restless dunes, you were not burned by my fire, taught not to wait, against the earth, the passage of my rage … Back! – And these words of challenge rose as knights armed with a deadly struggle, only a few men, naked, implacable as the expanse of sand and the scorching sun … and launched by the jaws of the great desert […]
Domenico Tumiati, ‘Le fauci del Sahara’ in Tripolitania, 19111
CANEVA’S request for reinforcements was swiftly met with two more divisions being mobilised and transported to Tripoli. The first to arrive on 4-5 November was the 3rd Division under the command of Lieutenant General Conte Felice de Chaurand de Saint Eustache. The 4th Division under Lieutenant General ConteVittorio Trombi, less one regiment, was sent to Cyrenaica where Trombi was appointed as governor of Derna. All in all by around the middle of November 1911, there were some 85,000 Italian troops based in the enclaves along the coast. With the reinforcements came another Lieutenant General, Pietro Frugoni. Frugoni had been the commander of IX Army Corps headquartered in Rome, and it was announced there on 5 November that he had left to take command of the newly formed I Special Army Corps (i° Corpo d’Armata Speciale) formed at Tripoli from the 1st and 3rd Divisions. Caneva though remained as Governor and in overall command of the army of occupation. By 20 November the Italian Army in the vilayet was around 90,000 strong, the main components being 16 regiments of infantry (48,000), 3 regiments of Bersaglieri (9,000), 3 battalions of Grenadiers (3,000), and 4 battalions of Alpini (4,000). In addition there were 12 cavalry squadrons (circa 2,500 men) and the equivalent of 4 regiments of artillery (around 6,000 men and some 200 guns of various types) as well as 5 battalions of pioneers and engineers (4,000). Support troops, including units of Carabinieri, made up the rest.
A Box of Sand Page 16