436 



The Review of Reviews. 



Tlic Italians landed and occupied the forts. For 

 a moment it seemed as if the sudden irresist- 

 ible attack had stunned the defenders. It was 

 only for a brief moment. 'I'he Italian bulletins, 

 lying after the fashion of bulletins, represented the 

 Arabs as welcoming their deliverance from the 

 Turkish despotism. Not even a bulletin, however, 

 can disguise the fact that after the first moment of 

 paralysis and dismay the Arabs, rallying round the 

 remnant of the Turkish garrison, actually resumed 

 the offensive against the Italians, and were givmg 

 them a great deal of trouble. This, I confess, came 

 as a surprise to Europe. We knew that the Desert 



Photograph />}'] 



A Snapshot of our Editor in Constantinople. 



wouui iiold its own ; but that the sons of the Desert 

 would actually attack, and that not without success, 

 the Italian positions on the coast, where they were 

 under the guns of the fleet, was not expected any- 

 where in Europe, least of all in Italy. 



Then it was that the Italians, 



The Atrocities irritated by finding their primrose 



the Italians. P^'^' °' triumphant conquest 



suddenly converted into a vid 



dolorosa filled with their wounded and their dead, 



abandoned all the restraints of civilisation and gave 



way to an orgy of savagery from which mankind 



would fain avert its eyes in shame. They began by 



shooting in cold blood every Arab found with a rifle 



in his possession, under the pretext that they were 

 "rebels" ("/-^wZ/w"). Rebels against whom ? Tripoli 

 is not yet annexed. The Sultan is the legal Sovereign 

 to whom these Arabs owed allegiance. To 

 shoot patriots in cold blood merely because 

 they have not given up their arms was bad. 

 But worse remained behind. Finding that the 

 fusillade, in which they massacred prisoners and 

 disarmed peasants, failed to strike terror into 

 the hearts of the Arabs, rather, indeed, provoked 

 them to assume the offensive, in which the Italians 

 lost heavily, the Italians lost their temper, and 

 before the horrified eyes of the civilised world in the 

 twentieth century loosed upon the 

 population of the oasis of Tripoli 

 all the bandogs of hell. 'I'his was 

 no frenzied onrush of panic and 

 passion. The Italian authorities 

 deliberately ordered a systematic 

 mas.sacre which lasted three days, 

 from the 24th to the 27th October. 

 The war correspondents, seasoned 

 to the horrors of war, were appalled 

 at the atrocities committed when 

 Hell was let loose in the interests 

 of Italian conquest. 



Of course the 

 The Retrogression usual official dis- 

 Barbarism. claimer followed. 



But the evidence 

 of English eye-witnesses is con- 

 clusive. ']"he Times correspondent 

 says : — 



Italians having set themselves to cow 

 the Arabs, the flood-gates of blood and 

 lust were opened, and in many instances 

 the men got beyond control and the 

 innocent sulTcred with the guilty. 



The nienioiy of this awful retribution 

 will take long to live down. Even 

 making allowances for the exigencies of the military situation, 

 there is every possibility that the hideous severity of this 

 retribution will give rise to a war of sanguinary and pitiless 

 reprisals upon the unfortunates who fall by the way. War 

 is merciless. I have witnessed one of its most merciless 

 lih.ases. 



Reuter's correspondent says : — 



Parfies of soldiers penetrated throughout every portion of the 

 oasis, shooting indiscriminately all whom they met, without trial, 

 without appeal. For three days the popping of rifles marked the 

 progress of the troops. Innocent and guilty were wiped out ; 

 many of those killed were fjuite young, and many women 

 perished in the confusion. It is impossible to state the nuuibers 

 of the persons thus shot, but scarcely any. escaped. Nothing 

 more deplorable than the scenes in Tripoli has been witnessed 

 in war for many a day. 



This is only the beginning, the opening scene of 



\L. .V. .1. 



