A Box of Sand Page 10
[…] while European public opinion worried much of the dangers of the Moroccan crisis, our action would have attracted smaller attention […] waiting for the resolution of the Moroccan issue, meant the issue of Libia [Tripoli] would be itself introduced into the diplomatic field [and] Great Power consent would have been subject to negotiation and conditions that would have much complicated the matter.98
At roughly the same time as the British Foreign Secretary was telling his ambassador to the Ottoman Empire to pass on his understanding of the Tripoli situation, his Italian counterpart was sounding opinion from Italy’s ambassadors to the various Great Powers. Some discretion was required of these diplomats, as they were required to ascertain the attitudes of the states they were accredited to in the event of Italian action in Tripoli, without giving away the fact that such action was forthcoming. Despite, in particular, Germany’s friendly policy towards the Ottoman Empire (politica turcofila99), but probably because the intent behind the inquiries was kept well concealed, none of the replies were wholly negative; Giolitti specifically remarks on the ‘cordial attitude of England, France and Russia.’100 However during an interview between San Giuliano and Ludwig Ambrozy, the Austro-Hungarian Charge d’affaires at Rome, on 28 August the former had disingenuously argued that no immediate occupation was being considered provided legitimate Italian economic interests could be satisfied. Referring to the Italian press campaign, Ambrozy had replied that it was ‘a little too much to ask Turkey to promote the Italianisation of the economic life of Tripoli, when daily the press contests her right to the undisturbed possession of these provinces.’101 Indeed, such was the intensity of the campaign at this time that the British Ambassador was positive that public opinion in Italy, as expressed by the press, would cause the downfall of the government if it failed to do in Tripoli what it was perceived France was likely to do in Morocco.102 This press agitation intensified during September, when even those influential organs that had previously been neutral as regards Tripoli began pressing for action.103
The decision to definitely go to war has been traced by scholars as, according to Malgeri, occurring on the 14th, or, as per Bosworth, the 15th September 1911.104 This was the occasion when it was agreed between San Giuliano and Giolitti that, despite the potential disapproval of its Allies in the Triple-Alliance, whom they kept especially in the dark, military action would commence in November.105 However, on 2 September, San Giuliani, after being so informed by the deputy chief of the naval staff, had already warned Giolitti that the vagaries of late autumnal weather made a naval expedition at that time problematical.106 Having originally forgotten this perhaps he then remembered it the following day; in any event that was when he suggested that the date be brought forward to October.107
At more or less the same time, messages from Italy’s diplomats stationed in the capitals of the other Great Powers began to show various degrees of comprehension and alarm amongst those powers at what was afoot. Perhaps the most forthright was ventured by Germany, as Giolitti related it in his memoirs:
On the eve of the day on which hostilities were to begin, the Foreign Minister of Germany, Kiderlen-Wàchter, called our ambassador, Pansa, and tried persuading the Italian government not to declare war on Turkey, postulating the danger of perturbations in the Balkans and of the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.108
Childs unearthed the original of Pansa’s communication, dated 23 September, in the Italian archives, and it is rather more explicit than the version that made it into Giolotti’s memoirs:
[…] Italian military action and […] an Italo-Turkish war […] could have the gravest repercussions, provoking the separation of Crete, new risings in Albania, rebellion in the Yemen and perhaps an aggression by Bulgaria with the danger of the destruction of the Ottoman Empire […] in the presence of this eventuality there was room to consider if there were not some way to satisfy Italy’s aspirations in the future, who in the first place wanted to guarantee against the peril of Tripoli being occupied by another power.109
It may be recalled that the 1891 agreement with Germany, and the similar 1902 arrangement with Austria-Hungary, over Tripoli had stated that consultation would take place before any Italian move on the territory. These conditions, if they may be called that, would be disregarded if Italy suddenly invaded unilaterally. This did not seem to concern Giolitti who had already warned the military, under the Minister of War, General Paolo Spingardi, and the Chief of Staff, General Alberto Pollio, in August 1911 that an invasion was a probability in the near future. He had also told Pollio to calculate the forces necessary to accomplish it.110 Pollio, who had been appointed to his position in 1908, was a cerebral and scholarly soldier who had penned several works of military history including a work on the Battle of Custoza. He and Spingardi, who had been Minister for War since December 1909, were faced from the start with instituting and carrying through far-reaching army reforms, and these were far from complete when they were informed of the need to organize an expedition to Tripoli.111
Nevertheless, it cannot be argued plausibly that such a venture had to be extemporized at short notice. The problem, whilst still theoretical, had been the object of much study, with plans to carry it out dating back as far as 1884. These were updated following the defeat at Adowa in 1896, where deficient planning was deemed to have been a cause of the disaster, and two detailed studies were completed the following year. Further revisions were made in 1899, 1901, 1902, and again when the Tangier, or First Moroccan, Crisis of 1905-6 erupted. All of these plans were essentially variations on the same theme; the military expedition would, after landing, confine itself to occupying the various ports and significant coastal towns. A force of circa 35-40,000 men would be required for this operation, and there were no plans beyond taking the coastal areas or for advancing into the interior. That the possibility of having to carry out the mission was in Pollio’s mind before the crisis erupted is evidenced by his actions early in 1910. On 22 February he had distributed Circular 219 to army headquarters throughout Italy. This contained details relating to the mobilisation of an expeditionary force to Tripoli should the necessity arise, and there was a heavy correspondence on the matter throughout the latter part of 1910 and 1911 right up until September.112
One document, Study for the Occupation of Tripolitania, produced in August 1911, considered ‘all the complex problems’ and ‘studied the eventualities that might arise’ following the seizure of the initial coastal objectives. These included defending the Italian held territory from counter-attack from ‘the Turkish part of the country’ and measures to protect convoys. Further advances were to be limited to consolidating occupation of the coast by occupying secondary objectives. The military occupation of the hinterland was to proceed only by degree, and then only after the appropriate political and administrative action had been completed by the new regime installed in the capital, Tripoli.113 In other words, pacification, if it were required, of the interior would only take place, and then gradually, after the war with the Ottoman’s had been won.
Giolitti was to later claim that, following his August 1911 meeting with Pollio, he had advised the Chief of Staff that his initial estimate of the number of troops required to successfully carry out the operation was insufficient. According to Giolitti, writing in 1922, Pollio’s initial estimate was that 22,000 (ventiduemila) would suffice, which he advised should be increased to 40,000 (quarantamila). He also observed that ‘in reality’ the number of men required eventually exceeded 80,000 (ottantamila).114 Since Pollio died in 1914 he could not give his version. It is though probably safe to conclude that Giolitti’s memory was playing him false when he composed his memoirs. It seems unlikely that Pollio would explain a plan to him that was so at variance, in terms of numbers, with previous, and long standing, versions. Further, it might be thought a curious coincidence that the number of men settled on at Giolitti’s alleged insistence was much the same as the number the General Staff had been planning to utilize for over a decad
e.
It is also the case that Pollio knew what he was facing, at least in terms of topography and enemy numbers, via information collected by the General Staff’s intelligence office. The formal establishment of an intelligence section, Ufficio I, of the General Staff did not occur until 1900. Its growth was small; it employed only three agents outside Italy in 1906 and had no deciphering or code breaking section until 1915.115 This was undoubtedly due to the tight financial leash upon which it was kept. A new officer, Silvio Negri, a Colonel in the Bersaglieri, was appointed to head Ufficio I in July 1905, in which position he was to remain until September 1912.116 The majority of the intelligence work was directed towards the north-east of the state where lay the border with Austria-Hungary. However, from 1906, Colonel Negri also gathered information on Tripoli, utilising the information gathered by Italian geographers and similar, to produce detailed maps of the territory, particularly the coastal areas where any Italian landings would take place.117 What seems to have been neglected though is any appraisal of the likely attitude of the local population to a change of colonial masters, which, as will be seen, was to be a matter of no small consequence.
Unaware of the behind-the-scenes machinations of the government, the Italian press campaign had, by 24 September, reached a crescendo. The papers were full of the suffering being occasioned to Italians in Tripoli, claiming that they were in fear of being massacred by armed mobs egged on by militant imams preaching vitriolic hatred of infidels.118 This was all nonsense, of course, but San Giuliano seems to have used this supposed ‘explosion of fanaticism’ in Tripoli, fomented as he claimed by Turkish officials, to inform the ambassadors to the Great Powers that the Italian government might be obliged to take action.119 Others, both in government and otherwise had, of course, deduced that Italian action was imminent. For example, The New York Times of 25 September 1911 carried a report, sent by ‘special cable’ from London the previous day:
The quarrel between Italy and Turkey over Tripoli has developed with surprising suddenness. The Italian Government has called the reservists of 1908 back to the colours, and warships and troops are ready to sail for Tripoli. […] Italian merchant ships are leaving Turkish ports without waiting for complete cargoes […] The ostensible cause of the trouble between the two powers is the treatment of Italian subjects and Italian trade in Tripoli […] The Turkish Government on its part has for some time been dispatching arms and munitions of war to Tripoli […]120
Though the press has never been noted for its accuracy, the last point made in the piece had some veracity. Though sources differ, sometimes considerably, the Ottoman garrison in Tripoli and Cyrenaica, which consisted of the regular 42nd Division, had a nominal strength of around 12,000. However, this division had been ‘raided’ in January 1911 in order to provide manpower for suppressing a rebellion that had broken out in Yemen. Accordingly, there were only about half that many, and possibly only about a quarter, available in September 1911.121 There were also a number of territorial troops, reservists, and the like, amounting to several thousand. In order to assist this weak force a shipment of 20,000 modern rifles, probably ‘Turkish Model 1893’ Mausers, plus two million rounds of ammunition, and several light artillery pieces were dispatched aboard the steamer Derna on 21 September. The shipment arrived at Tripoli on 25 September and was no doubt swiftly unloaded.122
This was the only military action, if it may be called that, taken by the Ottoman government prior to the outbreak of war. Indeed, Ottoman passivity in the face of what was an obvious and building crisis is, in retrospect, astonishing. As one Turkish scholar has stated it: ‘the Sublime Porte officially kept repeating that, “Italy had no intentions on Tripoli” until war was actually declared by the latter.’123 Even in the diplomatic sphere the Ottoman’s appeared very slow to realize the threat from Italy. However on the same day as the Derna docked, the German ambassador to Istanbul, the former State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein, discussed the Tripoli situation with Ibrahim Hakkı Pasa, the Grand Vizier. Germany would be placed in an awkward position if conflict arose; its politica turcofila in terms of one state would have to be reconciled with its formal alliance with the other. This was a situation that Marschall, who had been ambassador at Istanbul since 1897 and who had overseen the recent growth of friendly relations with, and German presence in, the Ottoman Empire, sought to avoid. He was it seems pushing at an open door, in the sense that Hakki was prepared to concede almost anything – Italy could construct railways, roads, ports and the like – ‘consonant with the character of the country as a Turkish province.’124 Whilst Marschall passed this information on to his government, Hakki reiterated it to the Italian chargé d’affaires, Giacomo De Martino whom he saw next. This information was passed to San Giuliano on 26 September, the same day that Marschall met De Martino to impress upon him that Italy should avoid military action. His reasons being similar to those that his superior in Berlin was attempting to impress on the Italian ambassador there: the danger of perturbations in the Balkans and of the break-up of the Ottoman Empire. Also on 26 September, the Ottoman chargé d’affaires in Rome reinforced Hakki’s point about concessions to San Giuliano.125
Thus, as Childs points out, San Giuliano and Giolitti knew on that date that a peaceful resolution was possible, but rejected such a solution.126 Or, as Raymond Poincaré, the soon to be Prime Minister (1912) and then President of France (1913), unequivocally stated it: ‘To the belated Turkish overtures Italy replied with a blunt ultimatum, in which she announced a military occupation of Tripoli.’127 Indeed, it was on 26 September that San Giuliano ordered his staff at the Consulta (the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from its location in the Palazzo della Consulta adjoining the Piazza del Quirinale) to finalise the ultimatum, which was undeniably bluntly phrased and full of disingenuous humbug (the full text, and that of the Ottoman reply, can be found in Appendix A). The essentials of it though were contained in the penultimate paragraph:
The Italian Government, therefore, finding itself forced to think of the guardianship of its dignity and its interests, has decided to proceed to the military occupation of Tripoli and Cyrenaica. This solution is the only one Italy can decide upon, and the Royal [Italian] Government expects that the Imperial [Ottoman] Government will in consequence give orders so that it may meet with no opposition from the present Ottoman representatives, and that the measures which will be the necessary consequence may be effected without difficulty. Subsequent agreements would be made between the two governments to settle the definitive situation arising therefrom. The Royal Ambassador in Constantinople has orders to ask for a peremptory reply on this matter from the Ottoman Government within twenty-four hours from the presentation of the present document, in default of which the Italian Government will be obliged to proceed to the immediate execution of the measures destined to ensure the occupation.128
This was telegraphed to De Martino on 27 September, and he duly delivered it to an apparently surprised Hakkı at 14:30 hrs on 28 September.129 The ‘dignified and concilitary’ Ottoman reply, which was in total contradistinction to the hectoring tone of the Italian text, was delivered within the twenty-four hour period. It sought to offer assurances, and argued that differences between the two governments were the results of easily adjusted misunderstandings:
Reduced to its essential terms the actual disagreement resides in the absence of guarantee likely to reassure the Italian Government regarding the economic expansion of interests in Tripoli and in Cyrenaica. By not resorting to an act so grave as a military occupation, the Royal Government will find the Sublime Porte quite agreeable to the removal of the disagreement.
Therefore, in an impartial spirit, the Imperial Government requests that the Royal Government be good enough to make known to it the nature of these guarantees, to which it will readily consent if they are not to affect its territorial integrity. To this end it will refrain, during the parleys from modifying in any manner whatever the present situation o
f Tripoli and of Cyrenaica in military matters; and it is to be hoped that, yielding to the sincere disposition of the Sublime Porte, the Royal Government will acquiesce in this proposition.131
No reply, unless it immediately conceded the unfettered right of Italy to occupy Tripoli, could have satisfied San Giuliano and Giolitti, or indeed Italian ‘public opinion.’ Indeed, it is doubtful if even that would have sufficed. They wanted a war, not, as Clausewitz had it, as a continuation of politics by other means, but as a matter of policy in order to satisfy ‘public opinion.’ Accordingly, on the day the reply was received, De Martino handed the following text to the Ottoman government:
[…] the period accorded by the Royal Government to the Porte with a view to the realisation of certain necessary measures has expired without a satisfactory reply […] The lack of this reply only confirms the bad will or want of power of which the Turkish Government and authorities have given such frequent proof […] The Royal Government is consequently obliged to attend itself to the safeguarding of its rights and interests as well as its honour and dignity by all means at its disposal. The events which will follow can only be regarded as the necessary consequence of the conduct followed for so long by the Turkish authorities. The relations of friendship and peace being therefore interrupted between the two countries, Italy considers herself from this moment in a state of war with Turkey.131
There is an Arabic saying to the effect that ‘he who takes a donkey up a minaret must take it down again.’ Giolitti and San Giuliano, with much additional pushing from Italian ‘public opinion,’ had then quite easily carried their donkey to the very top of the Tripol minaret; they were to discover that getting it down again was a somewhat more complex, and infinitely more arduous, task.