A Box of Sand

by Charles Stephenson

  […] To my mind Italy should not occupy Tripoli except when circumstances will make such a course absolutely indispensable. In Tripolitania Italy finds the element which determines the balance of influence in the Mediterranean, and we could never allow this balance to be disturbed to our damage.36

  Though couched in diplomatic terms, Tittoni was telling the senate that as long as no other power gained any territory in the Mediterranean, then he saw no reason for Italy to take formal control of Tripoli. He went on to point out that this did not mean that Italian influence there should be neglected:

  But, if we do not wish to occupy Tripoli at present, that does not mean that our action there should be nil. It is evident that the rights we have upon Tripoli for the future must give us, even at present, a preference in the economic field, in directing our capitals to that region and in promoting commercial currents and agrarian and industrial enterprises. We count upon doing this with the full consent of the Sublime Porte,37 with which we are in the best relations, and which should have the greatest interest in facilitating Italy’s peaceful and civilizing action.38

  Tittoni listed some aspects of this peaceful and civilizing action:

  Italian importation in Tripolitania, which in 1899 amounted to 1,626,000 lire, today amounts to 2,618,000 lire. It is not much, but some progress has been made. In the same way the exportation from Tripoli to Italy has risen to 979,418 lire. The postal service has been better developed by us, also the Royal Schools, which have at present about eleven hundred pupils, and the subsidized ones two hundred. That these schools have had a useful effect is shown by the fact that in Tripolitania, after Arabic, Italian is the language which is most spoken, and it has become so necessary that also other nations have had to adopt it in their schools, because it is an indispensable instrument for whoever in that country wishes to employ his abilities under any form.39

  The implication in the above statements was that if Italy’s economic interests in Tripoli were small, they were in any event secondary to political interests. Tittoni made this explicit in a debate in the Chamber of Deputies that took place over two days on 12-13 May1905.

  [I]f Tripolitania may be for us of small economic value, it must not be forgotten that economic penetration in that region comes second to our political interest, and the latter, as every one recognizes, is of the very first importance.40

  Nevertheless, as he had assured the Senate on 10 May, the ‘care of the Government’ was, at least for the moment, directed towards ‘our work of economic penetration in Tripolitania.’41

  The most visible agent for economic penetration, also known as peaceful penetration (penetrazione pacifica), was the Bank of Rome (Banco di Roma). The bank was founded on 9 March 1880 by three aristocrats with close ties to the papacy, and remained rather parochial inasmuch as it largely confined its activities to Rome and the immediate area. In 1892 Ernesto Pacelli, members of whose family had been officials in the Papal States and who had refused to serve under the auspices of the Italian state, joined the bank, becoming president in 1903. Pacelli was the uncle of Eugenio Pacelli, who became the controversial Pope Pius XII in 1939, and was a close confidant of Pope Leo XIII. The latter entrusted him to a large degree with the papal finances and this injection of capital allowed the bank to expand its activities. However its close ties with the papacy, (it became known as ‘the bank of the Vatican’), made it an object of some suspicion vis-à-vis the Italian government.42 This estrangement, it has been claimed, was overcome by the expedient of co-opting Romolo Tittoni, the brother of the Foreign Minister, onto the board in 1904. This appointment also instigated a new policy, initiated by Tittoni, whereby, during a period of ‘frenetic expansion’ lasting around six years, the bank sought to expand and increase its presence ‘in the areas that international diplomacy had set aside for Italian control, in particular Libya.’43

  By 1907 the bank had begun making investments in Tripoli, recruiting Enrico Bresciani, an Italian financier and businessman who had worked for several years in Somalia, as its local agent.44 Difficulties were encountered, inasmuch as Ottoman laws placed restrictions on foreign ownership of land and businesses. These were partially overcome by way of diplomatic pressure in the long term and, in the short, by purchasing an existing mercantile venture, complete with land, from the Arbib family of Tripoli; Jewish merchants with joint British-Italian nationality.45 This transaction was attended with some difficulty,46 but expansion was nevertheless rapid thereafter and the total value of the capital put into Tripoli by the Bank of Rome up to 1911 was about four to five million dollars. These involved ‘a whole series of the most diverse undertakings:’ a coastal shipping line, which linked various ports on the Tripolitanian coast, and businesses such as olive oil processing, flour milling, and alfa, or esparto, grass pressing – ‘largely exported to Great Britain for paper making.’47 Indeed, at the onset of the Banco di Roma’s interest in the area, processed esparto grass was Tripoli’s leading export commodity.48 By 1911 it owned ‘an enormous Esparto Grass mill, the most colossal building in all Tripolitania.’49

  Expansion indeed seemed rapid; during its first year of operation the bank opened branches at Benghazi (Bengasi, Bingazi), Homs (Khoms), Zlitan (Zletin), Misurata (Misratah), Zawara (Zwara) and Derna.50 Despite it being illegal, the bank also began acquiring land, either through foreclosing on mortgages or via an agent. These private measures, as they might be termed, were paralleled; the Italian government established schools and post offices in the province. However, despite official encouragement few Italians were prepared to settle, or start businesses, there. This is perhaps unsurprising given the conditions. The American explorer and writer Charles Wellington Furlong visited the area in 1904-5 and later published his observations.51 According to him:

  […] the oasis of Tripoli, [is] a five-mile tongue of date-palms along the coast at the edge of the Desert. Under their protecting shade lie gardens and wells by which they are irrigated. In this oasis lies the town of Tripoli. It is beyond this oasis that the Turks object to any stranger passing lest he may be robbed or killed by scattered tribes, which the Turkish garrisons cannot well control.52

  Tripoli is a land of contrasts – rains which turn the dry wadis [river beds] into raging torrents and cause the country to blossom over night, then month after month without a shower over the parched land; suffocating days and cool nights; full harvests one year, famine the next; without a breath of air, heat-saturated, yellow sand wastes bank against a sky of violet blue; then the terrific blast of the gibli, the south-east wind-storm, lifts the fine powdered desert sand in great whoofs of blinding orange, burying caravans and forcing the dwellers in towns to close their houses tightly.53

  Through lack of rain the Tripolitan can count on only four good harvests out of ten. This also affects the wool production, and in bad years the Arab, fearing starvation, sells his flocks and his seed for anything he can get.54

  The Scottish geographer and author Arthur Silva White had assessed the area some two decades previously, and his assessment shows that little had changed by the time of Furlong’s visit:55

  […] in Tripoli, along the remainder of the Mediterranean coast [from Tunisia] up to the Nile Delta, except in the peninsula of Barka [Cyrenaica] and the narrow coastal zone in its neighbourhood, we encounter a soil of almost universal barrenness, favourable for little else but the growth of marketable grasses, vegetables, and Tropical fruits. The steppes and deserts extend in many places right up to the sea, and are backed, at a very short distance inland, by stony plateaus. The terrible Libyan Desert itself advances to the coast-line and encroaches upon the Nile Delta.56

  […] the Turkish province of Tripoli is so barren that, beyond esparto grass, fruits and vegetables, its products are not at present of any considerable value. The port of Tripoli is, however, the terminus of the caravan-trade across the Sahara, and the oasis of Murzuk, in Fezzan, is another important trade-centre. Fez and Morocco city are other centres of the caravan-traffic of th
e Sahara, the principal ‘commodity’ of which would appear to be slaves.57

  Furlong was of the opinion however that under a ‘Christian European power’ the introduction of the ‘artesian well’ would allow Tripoli to be ‘reclaimed from the desert.’58 Presumably the trade in slaves would have to be abandoned, but in any event the Bank of Rome lost heavily, suggesting, as one scholar has put it, that the ventures were essentially political in aim:

  […] neither well managed not necessarily conceived of as likely to be profitable in their own right; rather, it appears, that the directors hoped to receive subsidies and government financial business in exchange for promoting Italian interests in areas staked out for Italian colonization.’59

  Indeed, it has been convincingly argued that the Bank of Rome was the Italian government’s ‘chosen instrument’ to carry out its policy of peaceful penetration. The intended aim of this policy being to create an increasing Italian presence in the area such as would eventually absorb Libya without the necessity of resorting to force.60 If this was indeed the policy of the Italian government, then it was a dismal failure. As Eugene A Staley put it:

  The desert sands of Tripoli were not too enticing, however, and most of the ‘economic interests’ had to be created by the Banco di Roma. The Italian population of the whole region in 1911 was hardly a thousand, and scarcely two hundred of these had come from Italy.61

  Nevertheless, the quest for diplomatic approval of Italy’s ‘rights’ continued, with the Russians being brought into the arena. Alexander Izvolsky, Russian Foreign Minister from 1906, engineered a royal visit by Nicholas II to Italy in October 1909. The Tsar met with King Victor Emmanuel III at the Castle of Racconigi, during which visit their respective foreign ministers Tittoni and Izvolsky concluded a secret agreement. Known in English as The Racconigi Bargain, the relevant article of this agreement stated that ‘Italy and Russia pledge themselves to regard with benevolence, the one Russia’s interests in the matter of the Straits [the Bosphorus and Dardanelles], the other Italian interests in Tripoli and Cyrenaica.’62 This ‘bargain’ was kept secret; the Russians failed to inform Britain and France and Italy likewise neglected Germany and Austria-Hungary.

  The Eastern Mediterranean. The borders between Egypt and Cyrenaica, and Tunisia and Tripolitania, were not well delineated beyond the coast, and not even there with any great exactitude. This was a matter of little import until the Italians occupied Tobruk and the British feared the creation of a naval base there, whereby Italy would be able to dominate the adjacent coastline and local sea area. This included the only other decent anchorage for several hundred kilometres at the Bay of Sollum. Accordingly, the logic went, if Italy had Tobruk then Britain, via Egypt, would have to have the use of Sollum. This small port was however garrisoned by the Ottomans. To the intense annoyance of Italy, Britain did not move to occupy Sollum until after it had negotiated the matter with the Ottoman government. France also took advantage, occupying the Oasis of Djanet in the far south-west of Fezzan. (© Charles Blackwood).

  It is of course impossible to judge how the two strands of Italian policy, if it can be called that, towards Tripoli and the Ottoman Empire – the seeking of diplomatic acquiescence in terms of rights on the one hand and peaceful penetration on the other – would have played out had not there been a conjuncture of other factors.

  The first of these was the ‘Young Turk’ revolution of 1908. The CUP proved keener to resist ‘peaceful penetration’ and this was given effect when a new Governor (vali) was appointed in October 1910. He quickly made his presence felt, as was made clear in a statement by Antonino Paternò-Castello, the Marquis of San Giuliano (marchese di San Giuliano) who had become Italy’s Foreign Minister on 1 April 1910. According to San Giuliano:

  […] the new Vali, Ibrahim Pasa, declared quite frankly […] that he would offer unceasing and systematic resistance against all Italian initiative, and he made it clearly understood that these were the instructions of his Government. Hence all Italian proposals and attempts to obtain concessions such as aqueducts, wireless installation, road-making, etc., were simply rejected. In defiance of our treaties the Turks hindered our subjects from acquiring land and from conducting any other similar operations. At Homs, Bengasi, and Derna the natives willing to sell land to the Italians were menaced, and revenge was taken under futile pretexts on those who disobeyed. Contrary to definite agreements, every possible obstacle was put in the way of our archaeological and mineralogical missions. The same opposition was raised against all other Italian enterprises, such as mills, oil-presses, and especially against our shipping. The terrorized natives, fearful of the revenge threatened, dare not avail themselves of any of our benevolent institutions or enterprises.63

  Antonino Paternò-Castello, marchese di San Giuliano. The Italian Foreign Minister, Antonino Di San Giuliano, as he was more usually known, had the tricky diplomatic task of steering his and Giolitti’s foreign policy in respect of Tripoli and war with the Ottoman Empire between the competing interests and demands of the Great Powers, particularly as these related to the potentially unstable Balkan region and Ottoman rule there. Insisting that Italian policy was based on maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, whilst simultaneously waging war on it in order to force it to disgorge Tripoli, was a delicate business. (Author’s Collection).

  This was of course provocation, or at least deemed so by Italy, but it did not necessarily constitute a case for war. What furthered that particular case at least to some extent was the more or less contemporaneous rise of a jingoistic movement that quickly gained popularity. This was the Italian Nationalist Association or ANI (Associazione Nazionale Italiana). Founded by nationalist writers Enrico Corradini and Luigi Federzoni at Florence in 1910, the organisation organised a vigorous pro-colonial policy, which it saw as only being realisable through war. Indeed, according to Corradini’s keynote speech to the three hundred delegates of the First Congress of the ANI in December 1910, war was a prerequisite for what he termed ‘national redemption:’

  […] there are proletarian nations as well as proletarian classes; that is to say there are nations whose living conditions are subject to great disadvantage, compared to the way of life of other nations, just as classes are. Once this is realised, nationalism must, above all, insist firmly on the truth: Italy is, materially and morally, a proletarian nation. What is more, she is proletarian at a period before her recovery. That is to say, before she is organised, at a period when she is still groping and weak. And being subjected to other nations, she is weak not in the strength of her people but in her strength as a nation. […] Nationalism […] must become, to use a rather strained comparison, our national socialism. That is to say that just as socialism taught the proletariat the value of the class struggle, we must teach Italy the value of the international class struggle. But international class struggle means war. Well, let it be war! And let nationalism arouse in Italy the will to win a war […] In a word, we propose a means of national redemption which we sum up in the expression ‘the need for war.’64

  No great powers of perception are required to see great similarities between such utterances and those of a later era in Italian politics.65 Certainly many of the personalities associated with the ANI, including Corradini and Federzoni, were not disadvantaged during Mussolini’s regime.66 As per Corradini’s address, and as is now known to be a common tactic of jingoistic political movements, the ANI framed part of their appeal in terms of grievance. According to them Italy had suffered from humiliation in the past that needed to be avenged; events such as the ‘loss’ of Tunis to France and the defeat at Adowa were examples.67 Seizure of Tripoli would avenge the political loss of face vis-à-vis Tunis whilst the triumph of Italian arms would do likewise in respect of Adowa. That 1911 was the half-centenary of the founding of the Italian state was a matter also exploited, as was the long standing Italian ‘holy mission’ to acquire the area.68 The arguments, if they may be deemed such, of the ANI began to gain traction with t
he Italian public and, much more importantly, with the political class. A tipping point came when existing liberal and conservative parties agreed to adopt the nationalist position, and, aside from parliamentary pressure, organised grass-roots demonstrations in favour of war.69

  The Italian government, from 30 March 1911 under Giovanni Giolitti for the fourth time, found itself in a political bind. On the one hand Giolitti was pledged to political reform, one of the main planks of which was a move towards universal manhood suffrage. On the other however, his government found itself on the wrong side of ‘public opinion’ when warning parliament that invading Tripoli, and thus violating Ottoman sovereignty, could well trigger a European war.70 It would also involve a complete volte-face in foreign policy. San Giuliano put it thus in June 1911: ‘Our policy, like that of the other Great Powers, had for its foundation the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.’71 There were further, domestic, problems occasioned by a weakening of the Italian economy, which caused problems with both industrialists and trade unions.72 Victor Emmanuel III signalled his affinity with the nationalist cause when he attended the Colonial Institute’s second Congress of Italians Abroad (Congresso degli Italiani all’ Estero) held in Rome during June 1911. Delegates from 84 cities in 22 countries attended the Congress, which deliberated issues concerned with Italian emigration. The predominant matter they concerned themselves with was however that of Tripoli. Federzoni put forward a resolution for energetic military action to guarantee Italian rights in the province, and this was approved unanimously.73 Ciro Paoletti has argued that ‘Gioletti did not like wars. He considered them useless, especially when it was possible to negotiate.’74 Indeed, Gioletti is reported as arguing that: