A Box of Sand

by Charles Stephenson

  Around noon an Ottoman force, estimated by the Italians to be about 2,000 strong and comprising both men on foot and on horseback, became visible to the south and was watched as it moved towards the defensive perimeter. Those on horseback attempted to exploit a gap between the right-wing of the Grenadiers and the shore, but were thwarted when the defenders shortened their line somewhat and extended it to cover the weak point. Soon afterwards the whole Italian line was engaged in the battle supported by the artillery. The Ottomans advanced in open order, skilfully utilising the ground for cover, to approach the earthworks.

  As is usual, the subsequent events were subject to partisan interpretation. Pol Tristan, a French war correspondent, was on the scene with the Ottoman forces and described what he saw:

  [the attackers] were obliged to cross the zone that was swept by the Italian artillery which had taken up position in front of the oasis. They managed this without heavy loss, and so this kill zone did not prevent the Arabs making contact with the enemy, and they attempted, with a superb contempt of danger, to turn their left wing.

  The Italian infantry, buried, as usual, to the shoulders in trenches [dug the previous day] seemed at first, in my view, to be well protected from the Turkish fire. I was then amazed to see them all of a sudden leap from these works, and retreat three hundred yards only to disappear again in a new trench; their first line of defence had become untenable. In this first trench, which was immediately occupied, wide and plentiful pools of blood abundantly proved the efficient shooting of the Turkish-Arab attackers. Moreover, several dead soldiers, who they had not had time to remove, still lay there.

  This first retreat was to be followed a quarter of an hour later by a second, when the defenders withdrew another three hundred yards into the defences close around the oasis itself. The Italian troops were unsteady and I saw distinctly through my telescope, the officers attempting in vain to rally them under fire. Upon entering the second trench line twelve more dead bodies were found, as well as crates of ammunition, camping equipment and a considerable quantity of clothing.

  Until the evening and even three quarters of an hour after sunset, the fire persisted without interruption on both sides. In the afternoon, we had seen arriving in a hurry along the road from Tripoli, several squadrons of cavalry and a number of Infantry battalions, supported by a battery of Artillery. These troops took up positions on the same front on the edge of the oasis, without attempting a forward movement or a march on the left, which would have undoubtedly given them fire superiority.32

  The reinforcements were under the command of Major General Gustavo Fara, the hero of Bir Tobras, and with their arrival the Italian situation was stabilised. Tristan’s account is largely supported by those of other correspondents with the Ottoman forces, though their timings differ somewhat, but all agree that the attackers almost succeeded in breaking through the defences and that the Italians had suffered a severe shock.

  Official Italian reports of the time stated only that the ‘enemy was attacked and defeated by our troops’ but accounts by pro-Italian correspondents such as McClure told a very different tale of how ‘by sunset the Turks and Arabs were in full retreat and the Italians were left in undisputed occupation of the position they had come to fortify.’ Tristan’s account concurs with the point about the Italians being left in occupation of the position, but he goes on to relate that during the night a reconnaissance was made of the Italian position, and this revealed that the entire force had withdrawn:

  The oasis was completely abandoned! The disorder that had reigned in the Italian trenches, with abandoned equipment and eighteen corpses that had not been removed, allowed us to suppose that the fire of the Arabs had been very deadly for the second phase of the battle and that the Italian losses were considerable.33

  An ‘Arab Joan of Arc’: Selima bent Mogos, or Salima bint Mughus, was a female warrior believed to have been from the nomadic Nuwayil tribe of western Tripolitania from an area close to the Tunisian border. She enjoyed the reputation of being a ferocious fighter who had ‘taken part in all the battles around Tripoli and had been wounded by a bullet in the chest.’

  One somewhat remarkable facet of the battle of Gargaresch concern reports that the Ottoman attack was led by a woman. Alan Ostler of the Daily Express had his account of this ‘War Goddess in Tripoli’ syndicated by many papers. He wrote that as the attackers broke into the first line of trenches:

  At their head was a figure, cloaked and hooded in russet brown, who carried no weapon but a staff of olive wood, and whose voice rang high and shrill above the shouts and rattling rifle fire. The face beneath the russet hood was of so deep a brown as to be almost black. […] The desert men swept up and over the earthworks, and their fearless leader, leaping into the trenches, stooped, plunged an arm elbow deep in blood, and then stood, with a dripping right hand flung upwards, a statue of the Goddess of African Battle. For it was a woman, a Soudanese she warrior […]34

  His tale had been toned down a little when it came to be published in The Arabs in Tripoli, but the presence of this woman is confirmed by other witnesses. The Frenchman Georges Remond, correspondent of the Parisian L’Illustration, had crossed the Tunisian border on 17 January 1912 and was an observer of the attack on Gargaresch. He published an account of this in his 1913 book, and identifies the female warrior as ‘Selima bent Mogos, guerrière de la tribe des Naouaïl.’ He wrote that:

  She had taken part in all the battles around Tripoli and had been wounded by a bullet in the chest. After fifteen days rest with her tribe she came back to take her place among the fighters. Pol Tristan gave her a sabre, which she branded fiercely while singing her war song.35

  Remond also published a photograph of this ‘Arab Joan of Arc,’ as Ostler had called her, with the sword. She has been identified by Richard Pennell as Salima bint Mughus who, he argues, was not from the Sudan but was rather from the Nuwayil tribe. These were a nomadic clan whose territory was based in western Tripolitania around the Tunisian border, and were noted for their history of raiding and resistance.36

  In terms of the battle, there is no definitive account of why the Italians withdrew from a position that they had just fought so hard to keep, other than it was ordered by Frugoni. The implications for morale amongst the Italian soldiery caused by such a withdrawal are not hard to fathom, and of course the opposite held true amongst the Ottoman forces. The decision is made all the more mysterious when it is considered that two days later, on 20 January, Gargaresch was reinvaded. This time the 1st Brigade – the 82nd and 84th Infantry Regiments complete with two batteries of artillery and an engineering battalion and supported by six squadrons of cavalry – traversed the few kilometres to the town and oasis under the command of Lieutenant General Felice de Chaurand. There was no opposition, and the engineers began constructing a defensive system of trenches and redoubts that would be too strong for any force the Ottomans might muster to take on.

  The Italian’s Fabian-like strategy of making only tactical moves in irresistible force was also to be applied in the eastern theatre of the former vilayet, Cyrenaica. There had been no really notable battles or military manoeuvres in that portion of the war zone and, following the initial landings, the invaders did very little beyond consolidate themselves in the coastal enclaves. Nevertheless the principle of overwhelming strength was observed; Caneva’s request for reinforcements at the end of October 1911 saw the 4th Division under Lieutenant General Conte Vittorio Trombi, less the 50th Regiment of the 8th Brigade, despatched to Cyrenaica. Further reinforcements brought Italian numbers there to the 40,000 mark with the largest contingent being some 20,000 strong at Benghazi under Lieutenant General Ottavio Briccola. There were about 15,000 men under Trombi and Major-General Vittorio Zuppelli at Derna, where the former had been appointed governor, and 5,000 at Tobruk under Major-General Vittorio Signorile. (The western theatre got the lion’s share; 55,000 at Tripoli City and environs and 5,000 at Al Khums).

  Derna and hinterland. The
commander of Ottoman forces in Cyrenaica was the later infamous Enver Bey (Enver Pasha), who established his general headquarters at Ayn al-Mansur some 15 kilometres south-east of Derna. The fighting before Derna was centred around possession of the Wadi, and thus control of the water supply which depended upon an aqueduct extending some 3-5 kilometres south of the town. The Italian defences were sited to protect the aqueduct, and two large forts, Piemonte and Lombardia, were constructed. There was some fierce fighting and on occasion the garrison had to depend on water shipped from Italy, but, as elsewhere, the situation became essentially deadlocked with neither side able to prevail. Among the Ottoman officers was Mustafa Kemal, later the Empire’s greatest general and then Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. Reassigned to Ayn al-Mansur on 30 December 1911 he was to command the forces before Derna and Tobruk while Enver oversaw the whole Cyrenaican theatre. (© Charles Blackwood).

  The reinforcements were not confined to conventional forces. Three further aviation units were raised for the Cyrenaica theatre, the first to arrive being the 2nd Aeroplane Flotilla (2a Flottiglia aeroplani) at Benghazi with three aircraft; a Blériot, a Farman and an Italian-made Asteria. Five pilots were assigned to the unit, which left the Italian army somewhat short of qualified aviators. This situation was remedied via an intervention by the Italian sports magazine La Stampa Sportiva at the end of November. The magazine offered to pay for a group of civilian pilots to take part in the war. This unusual measure was approved by the army and eight civilians, together with eight army pilots, were deployed to Tobruk and Derna together with nine Blériot aeroplanes and one Farman. The four civilian pilots sent to Tobruk included the sportsman and politician, Carlo Montu, who was given the rank of captain. As has already been related, Captain Montu made aviation history on 31 January 1912 when he became the first casualty of anti-aircraft fire.

  Meanwhile, the Ottoman forces in Cyrenaica became progressively better led, organised and equipped under the auspices of Enver Bey. According to his account dated 9 January 1912:

  Despite all the unexpected difficulties that are revealed on every side, little by little the situation is stabilized. The organization begins to function. Supply columns of ten thousand camels ensure the provisioning of our forces. […] Each tribe is now commanded by officers. I hope soon to be able to set up a special company of picked Arabs, these will be trained as regular troops.37

  Enver was impressed with the calibre of the tribesmen he encountered, stating they were contemptuous of the infidel soldiers. He became of a similar opinion himself, writing after the battle that took place on 27 December 1911 (see below) that the ‘Italian soldiers are cowards and unwilling or reluctant to fight [kampfunlustig], but I admire their officers who sacrifice themselves.’38 He had little money or equipment to kit out his ‘army’ but developed the technique of living off the enemy to some extent. After the battle referred to above, the booty obtained following the Italian retreat behind the defences at Derna amounted to: two machine guns, 600,000 cartridges, two mountain guns, twenty-five boxes of grenades and ten mules, which, Enver pointed out, ‘I can very well use to tow my guns.’39

  The tribesmen were organised as units under their traditional chiefs, but the higher command devolved onto regular Ottoman officers. Enver was to be promoted to command of the whole of Cyrenaica40 and a general headquarters at Ayn al-Mansur (Ain al-Mansur, Ain Mansur), some 15 kilometres south-east of Derna was established by him.

  My camp is on a high plateau […] In the east there is a deep gorge with almost vertical walls and down a narrow valley shaded by evergreen trees the water of Ain-el-Mansur spring flows to the sea. On the steep slopes on either side of the valley can be seen here and there, cave entrances, which serve as places of concealment for the local tribes. Another wadi, borders the plateau from the west. The plateau is about 300 metres above Derna and covered with huge boulders, between which wild thorny shrubs grow. […] In the middle of our campsite are the white tents of our soldiers, well-ordered in rows, whilst the dark or sand-coloured tents of the Arabs are scattered irregularly, often very cleverly hidden amongst the rocks and bushes. Further back, behind a hill, the tents of the Red Crescent are set up. I have my own tent, which actually consists of two Egyptian tents […] one I use as a bedroom, whilst the other is a reception room. Two rugs cover the ground and a white sheepskin form the seat - the furniture of the ‘salon.’ The bedroom is much more elegant: a portable bed, a small Turkish leather suitcase, and a stone slab that serves as a sink […].41

  This is not quite the ‘great tent with carpets spread on the floor and hung with draperies’ that some have claimed.42 Nevertheless his was a sophisticated administration, and a factory to produce ammunition, a training camp for the tribesmen, and a school for their sons were also set up whilst a printing press produced a propagandist news sheet entitled Al-Jihad.43 Derna and its environs was a fertile area, and its topography had been described in 1864 by two British explorers, Captain R Murdoch Smith of the army and Commander E A Porcher of the navy. Their description gives an excellent indication of the likely course of any struggle for control of the area:

  The town of Derna, with its gardens, covers a small triangular plain, formed by a projection of the seashore from the base of the range of hills […]. The shingly bed of a deep wady, which recedes several miles into the range, divides the small plain and the town into two distinct portions. On the eastern side are the two villages of Upper and Lower Bou Mansour; and on the western, a village on a spur of the hills called II Maghar, Derna proper lying immediately below, and a small detached village, called Gebeli, near the projecting headland. The whole assemblage of villages constitutes the town of Derna […] The beauty and fertility of the little plain of Derna are owing to the copious stream of fresh water which flows down the bed of the wady. Some two or three miles [3-5 kilometres] above the town the water is collected into an artificial aqueduct, by which it is led into the town, and thence distributed over the surrounding fields and gardens by means of small lateral branches. To insure the regular supply to every man’s property, a ‘Chief of the Water’ is appointed, whose duty it is to see that a supply is sent to every district in succession, and to prevent any one from diverting for his own use the stream that for the time belongs to his neighbour. Water-stealing is very properly considered a serious crime, and is punished accordingly.44

  Once the Italians had occupied Derna then it was fairly obvious that any attempts to dislodge or discomfit them would begin with attempts at ‘water stealing.’ In order to prevent or mitigate this, the Italian defences were sited south of the town to protect the aqueduct and water flow, which followed the course of the Wadi Derna, the steep sides of which were filled with vegetation. To facilitate the defence two forts, christened Piemonte and Lombardia, were constructed on the plateau overlooking Derna, east and west of the watercourse respectively.

  Until these forts and the other works were completed, and they were not finished until March-April 1912, the Italian defences were considered somewhat vulnerable and accordingly were subject to attacks by the Ottomans. Probing attacks were recorded on 17 November, and the Italians reckoned that efforts were made to raise a revolt amongst the inhabitants of Derna. These were unsuccessful, but the occupiers believed that the attackers were massing troops for a large scale operation.

  In an attempt to gain further information, and possibly disrupt the attack, powerful reconnaissance units were despatched along the Wadi Derna. On 24 November one of these was advancing along the eastern side of the Wadi when it was ambushed by a large force. The difficulties of the terrain meant that disengagement and retreat was rendered difficult, but the despatch of a battalion of Alpini as reinforcements allowed the column to escape. In an engagement lasting some eight hours the Italians lost 15 killed and 37 wounded.

  The next serious engagement took place on 27 December, when the Ottoman forces destroyed part of the aqueduct and cut off the water supply. Engineers were sent to effect repairs and to
cover them three strong columns of infantry with mountain artillery were despatched; one on each side of the ravine of the Wadi Derna and one along the watercourse. This meant, of course, that each of the three columns was isolated from the other two, and when the right hand column on the west of the ravine was attacked there could be little cooperation from the centre or left. Despite its possession of mountain artillery, the right hand column came very close to being overrun by the Ottoman force and it was only with difficulty that reinforcements were able to reach it. Nevertheless, one battalion of Alpini were able to cross from the left column and strengthen the defenders, and this tipped the balance. The slackening of the Ottoman attack was not however the signal for an Italian forward movement, and the column began to retreat back towards Derna as part of a general withdrawal. Both left and right columns were fiercely attacked during this retreat, but managed to gain the safety of the main defences. The left column though was forced to abandon its machine guns and much other equipment as related above. This abandonment was also noted by foreign correspondents.45 The Italians unquestionably lost this encounter, and the cutting of the aqueduct forced them to rely on water shipped in from Italy. Captain Mahan would almost certainly have been impressed with this example of what ‘Command of the Sea’ could achieve. On the other hand, it is doubtful if he would have equally regarded the strategy that had got Italy into such a mess; reliance on imported water proved a very expensive and cumbersome business that caused serious inconvenience. An intense effort was made then to restore the water supply, and on 30 December a reinforced regiment advanced up the Wadi and managed to clear the area of the enemy. Repairs were made to the aqueduct, but without a large permanent force stationed in the vicinity it remained vulnerable to further attack.