Cadorna’s account of his early days in office as Chief of Staff sometimes reads as if he had no idea of the state of the organisation of which he had been a member since 1866, a general officer since 1898 and had become a senior corps commander of in 1910. Nevertheless there can be little doubt that his inheritance was unenviable. The reforms that Pollio and Spingardi had been attempting to carry out had been disrupted by the campaign in North Africa, and the effects of this were still very much in evidence. The equipment and stores needed for a European campaign were in disarray following the need to deploy far larger forces in North Africa than had been anticipated and supply them adequately for a far longer period than had been foreseen. As well as absorbing a huge amount of matériel, a large proportion of the army’s artillery was also located in the theatre leaving a critical shortage to the home-based forces. One further factor was that most of the best officers were stationed in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, and their units had been assembled piecemeal from the forces based in Italy, leaving what remained in a state of disarray.66
To Cadorna the need to reorganise for a European war overrode all other considerations and he began withdrawing units and equipment from Tripoli and Cyrenaica in order to bring the army up to strength.67 The result could be little more than to encourage the resistance, and by April 1915 the revolt had spread over the entire Tripoli region and the Italian hold, such as it was, was becoming tenuous. An example of this was the Battle of Gasr Bu Hadi (al-Qardabiya) near Sirte fought on 29 April 1915 when a column some 3,000 strong, about two-thirds of which were ascari, led by Colonel Antonio Miani marched out to attack the Senussi camp at Gasr Bu Hadi, south of Sirte. The Italian force was attacked relentlessly almost the whole day whilst marching in close formation and was eventually pushed into a narrow defile. By evening the Italians were surrounded and attempted to retreat to Sirte. The retreat was chaotic and severe casualties were inflicted; out of 84 officers, 19 were killed, and 23 were wounded, whilst 479 of the troops (237 Italian and 242 ascari) were killed and 407 (127 Italian and 280 ascari) wounded. All the impedimenta was abandoned to the attackers, including the machine guns, six batteries of artillery, and all the ammunition and the provisions.68
Faced with the double blow of a rapidly swelling revolt and a shrinking force with which to counter it, the Italians simply retreated. Between mid-June and mid-July 1915 all the outlying garrisons and forces began perforce to withdraw into the coastal enclaves, and even some of these were abandoned. The whole retreat was carried out under continuous attack, and the matériel losses were enormous; Del Boca calculates that the resistance captured ‘37 cannons, 20 machine guns, 9,048 rifles, 28,021 cannon shells, 6,185,000 cartridges for rifles and machine guns, 37 trucks, and 14 broadcasting and receiving stations.’69 The casualties were also grim, and according to the best estimates calculated afterwards amounted to ‘5,600 dead, several thousand wounded, and about 2,000 prisoners.’70
The seriousness of the situation as viewed by the head of government is perhaps revealed in a letter of 3 July 1915 from Salandra to the minister for colonies, Ferdinando Martini. In his missive Salandra refers to the massacre that had taken place on 18 June 1915 when an Italian column, in attempting to evacuate Tarhuna some 80 kilometres to the south-east of Tripoli City, had been surrounded. He further notes that a similar fate was expected to befall those garrisoning Beni Ulid, which was a further 70 kilometres away than Tarhuna. He asks Martini, rhetorically perhaps, if we can ‘passively allow events to run their course?’ Martini and the local commanders in North Africa would, of course, have liked to have deployed reinforcements to the theatre. Cadorna however would have none of it and is alleged to have responded to such requests by remarking that ‘the war will be won in the Alps and not in the African deserts’ (La guerra si vince sulle Alpi e non nei deserti d’Africa). Though there seems to be no evidence that he actually said this, it nevertheless encapsulates his strategic view. Whilst this was undoubtedly a correct position, in the grand scheme of things it was a disaster for Italy’s position in Tripoli and Cyrenaica; as Salandra put it to Martini: ‘our losses in terms of material and morale are almost as great as those of Adowa.’71 For an Italian Prime Minister to have used the ‘A’ word to a former governor of Eritrea – Martini had been appointed in 1897 and served for ten years – is perhaps evidence of how bad he thought things were. They were however to get worse. Cyrenaica and Tripolitania were, as far as Italy was concerned, reunited in the gubernatorial sense when General Giovanni Ameglio, who had been appointed governor of Cyrenaica in October 1913, also took over Tripolitania at the end of July 1915. He ordered the evacuation of all interior positions and several of the coastal enclaves as well. When Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 21 August 1915 both states found themselves in an almost identical situation to that which had pertained following the initial landings in 1911. It was indeed back to square one with a vengeance, though this time those stirring up the locals had been reinforced. According to a postwar appraisal by Colonel Arturo Vacca Maggiolini:
[The] Germans and Turks worked to great effect throughout the European war, conducting an active and skilful campaign which destroyed the last shreds of Italian prestige and fanned the flames of the most ferocious hatred and the blindest fanaticism, against us. We became for the Arabs of Tripolitania the most despicable creatures in all creation, and it became a just and meritorious action to exterminate us and expel us from the sacred soil of Islam.72
Although Italy and Germany had been ‘unofficially’ at war since the former’s declaration against Austria-Hungary of 23 May 1915, the matter became official on 28 August 1916. Though the main military effect of this was to be felt in the Alpine region in the Battle of Caporetto (Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo), fought 24 October-19 November 1917, it also had an impact on the North African theatre.73 This was mainly via the Mediterranean U-Boat campaign of the German and Austro-Hungarian navies, which not only allowed small numbers of, mainly Ottoman, officers to be landed in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, but also supplies of weapons and munitions. Indeed, the situation in Cyrenaica was if anything worse because the Senussi were better organised, or at least rather less fragmented, than the resistance fighters in Tripolitania. Del Boca quotes an Italian prisoner, Lieutenant Ettore Miraglia, captured at Beni Ulid, who later wrote that he had seen submarines arriving every fifteen days carrying Ottoman officers who were sent to assist the resistance.74 This is almost certainly a gross exaggeration, and though they were undoubtedly useful in the transport role the primary mission of the U-Boats was to sink Allied ships. In that they proved deadly until, in 1917, convoy systems and other measures, including a flotilla of Japanese destroyers, were introduced to the theatre. One aspect of this campaign was the near starvation level to which the Italian garrisons were reduced at times. According to Pàntano: ‘The troops were in an incredibly physically depressed state […] food was so short that they resorted to eating the dogs and cats found in the oasis […] The meat ration was reduced to 200 grams per week.’75 Since it is certain that the Arab inhabitants were not eating better than the Italians one can only imagine their state.
One effect of the arrival of Ottoman officers in Cyrenaica was the opening of a western front against Egypt. The senior Ottoman officer despatched was Nuri Killigil (Nuri Pasha), the brother of the former commander in Cyrenaica and now Ottoman Minister of War, Enver Pasha. He was joined by another officer of Mesopotamian origin, referred to as ‘Gaafer, a Germanised Turk of considerable ability’ by Lieutenant-General Sir John Maxwell in a 1916 report.76 The person in question is now better known as Jafar Pasha Al-Askari and whilst Maxwell was certainly correct about his abilities, he was less accurate about his background.77 Jafar was to lead the Senussi in an attack on Egypt from Cyrenaica, the idea being to exert pressure on the western border thus expediting an attack on the Suez Canal in the east from the Ottoman territory of Palestine. They also hoped to cause an uprising among the overwhelmingly Muslim population of Egypt against w
hat had become the Sultanate of Egypt when the British deposed the Khedive in 1914 and proclaimed a Protectorate.78
That trouble was brewing in respect of the Senussi, and western Egypt had become evident to the British in late 1915. On 5 November the German submarine U35 torpedoed the British auxiliary patrol boat HMS Tara (formerly the London & North Western Railway passenger steamer SS Hibernia used on the Holyhead to Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) route) off Sollum. There were 93 survivors from a crew of 104 and these were rescued by the commander of the U-Boat, the all-time greatest submariner in terms of sunken targets, Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, who towed their lifeboats to Port Bardia (Bardiyah) some 20 kilometres to the north-east. There the unfortunate Holyheadians, for most of the crew had transferred with the steamer, were handed over to Nuri Bey and the Senussi. Two of the senior officers, the former captain of the Hibernia, Lieutenant Edward Tanner RNR and the captain of the Tara, Captain Rupert Gwatkin-Williams RN, were taken to visit Nuri along with their interpreter, Vasili Lanbrimidis. Gwatkin-Williams later left a description of Nuri: ‘a dark-eyed gentle-looking man, somewhat slightly built, and with a straggling black beard; he is an ardent antiquarian and naturalist, and spoke much of the ancient ruins in the interior.’ He also noted that the Ottoman commander ‘did what he could for us, but it did not amount to much.’79 Indeed, the prisoners, together with four of the crew of the horse transport Moorina, sunk on 7 November by the U35, were to be held by the Senussi until St Patrick’s Day (17 March) 1916, whilst the strong representations made to the Senussi for their release immediately following their capture were greeted by ‘feigned ignorance.’
Ignorance on the part of the British as to the intentions of the Senussi could not however be maintained, for in the middle of the month they made active hostile moves. Sollum was attacked by the Senussi regular troops, originally trained by Enver, on the night of 14 November, and on 17 November attacks were made against positions at Sidi Barrani some 95 kilometres east of the border with Cyrenaica.80 The campaign, whilst it did succeed in tying up some British and Allied forces was ultimately a disaster for the Senussi for several reasons. One of the foremost was that they attempted to engage in modes of warfare, such as taking and holding ground, more suited to a regular army. As was observed by a certain Archibald Wavell, who wrote a history of the Great War campaigns in the theatre, this was a grave error: ‘It is usually a fatal mistake for irregular leaders to cramp their natural methods of warfare by adopting the training and tactics of regular armies. The Senussi’s so-called regulars were no match for the British troops, and were easily defeated.’81 Another reason for their failure concerned technology and in particular the advent of reliable motorised vehicles and aircraft. Indeed, the campaign against the Senussi saw some of the earliest successful usage of methods of penetrating the desert using airpower, mainly for reconnaissance, and armoured vehicles.82 The British Royal Naval Air Service famously developed their Rolls Royce Armoured Car in 1914 for use in Belgium, but because they were unsuitable for the conditions that developed on the Western Front most were transferred to Army control and found themselves in the Middle East in 1915. There they became of great utility; according to T E Lawrence ‘a Rolls in the desert was above rubies’ and ‘they were worth hundreds of men to us.’83 They were though quite heavy, and because they could not easily cross stony areas of desert lighter vehicles, based on the Ford Model T chassis and armed with Lewis Guns, were also extemporised.84
One example demonstrating that the old style of warfare was being superseded by a new methodology came with the rescue of the prisoners from Tara and Moorina, which could not have been accomplished in any other way. Following the defeat of the Senussi forces and the reoccupation of Sollum on 14 March 1916, during which manoeuvre aircraft directed the light armoured car battery under Major the Duke of Westminster onto an enemy force completely smashing them, a number of prisoners fell into British hands. Intelligence gathered from interrogation suggested that the unfortunate seamen were being held at Bir Hakeim (Abyar al Hakim), a remote oasis in the desert and the site of an old Ottoman fort. As the crow flies, the oasis is about 160 kilometres west of Sollum and some 60 kilometres south-west of Tobruk. It was decided to attempt to rescue them, a task which was entrusted to the armoured car battery (sometimes referred to as a Brigade), which would be accompanied by a number of unarmoured vehicles; forty-three in all. It was stuff from a ‘Boy’s Own’ adventure; the vehicular column covered nearly 200 kilometres before it found the oasis, whose exact location was largely a matter of conjecture, at 15:00 hours and totally surprising the Senussi guards. Most of these perished whilst attempting to flee, according to Gwatkin-Williams, but there were no casualties amongst the 92 surviving prisoners or the rescuers and the entire column, complete with the former prisoners, returned safely to British-held territory.85 It was most definitely one of those ‘Deeds that thrilled the Empire’ and the Duke of Westminster certainly deserved the Distinguished Service Order that he was awarded for leading the mission.
There was though a much larger implication. The Western Desert Force in general, and the Duke of Westminster in particular, had demonstrated unequivocally that Pàntano’s words of only a year or so previously, about ‘the silent desert’ being ‘hostile’ to outsiders, no longer applied. No longer were Europeans ‘prisoners of that immensity’ where the desert tribes could find sanctuary. The perhaps primitive vehicles originally manufactured by FIAT and Isotta Fraschini were capable of evolution, and what could be done with Rolls Royce and Ford vehicles could also be done with improved Italian designs. Likewise, and particularly following the technological quantum leap consequent upon the Great War, the basic aircraft types of 1911-12 led to hugely improved machines. That these technologies rendered penetration of the desert a practical proposition to Italian arms was something that the peoples of what would become Libya in 1934 were to find out to their immense cost. The Italian reconquest (reconquista) that began in the 1920s and continued into the 1930s was a brutal campaign. Some indication of the harshness of it may be adjudged by noting that, according to figures compiled by Italy, the population of Cyrenaica dropped from 225,000 in 1928 to 142,000 in 1931.86 Giorgio Rochat calculates that between 1923 and 1936 the number of dead in Cyrenaica was between a lower limit of 30,000 and an upper of 70,000.87 Angelo Del Boca estimates that the total deaths in both Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were in the order of 100,000.88 Whichever figures are the more accurate it is indisputable that, in any event, the slaughter was on a large scale. It is then perhaps ironic, though hardly surprising, to note that during the majority of this period Italy was governed by the ex-socialist and former campaigner against the Tripoli War, Benito Mussolini now reinvented as Il Duce.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Retrospect: The Italian Army and the Politicians, 1911-1912
‘When I was military attaché in Rome an impressive Alpini brigadier asked me who were the ten greatest British generals. I thought for a moment then answered that there wouldn’t be much debate about the top five, but for the rest…
He stopped me and with a sigh said: “The point is, we don’t have a single one. How do you think that makes an Italian officer feel?”’
Brigadier Allan Mallinson quoted in History Today, July 20111
A Regiment of Italians well entrenched, under cover of the Fleet big guns, see on the horizon a frieze of wandering Bedouins. Arrives, with orders to attack, the Colonel. He takes off his helmet and shouts Eviva L’Italia! All the regiment follow suit. Then he shouts: Avanti! Avanti! The entire regiment rises as one man, shouts Avanti and… remains where it was! Somehow it reminds me of railway travel in Italy.
Rudyard Kipling writing to Colonel H W Feilden, 29 January 19132
THOUGH it was by any standards something of a military sideshow in terms of what had gone before it, and particularly so in relation to what came later, the Italian Army, despite seemingly winning, did not emerge from the Italo-Ottoman War with any great credit. This was recogn
ised within some of the more thoughtful branches of the Italian military, perhaps most notably by Luigi Capello, considered by some to have been Italy’s best general during the First World War.3 Though his reputation was largely destroyed in 1917 following the Battle of Caporetto, Capello later wrote of the campaign in North Africa as disastrous because of the ‘enormous waste of materials.’ He went on to point out the ‘no less disastrous devaluation of our military reputation.’4 Luigi Cadorna compared his own position as Chief of Staff unfavourably with those of his Prussian/German counterparts. Whereas they led an ever victorious army, he was ‘the leader of the army of Custoza and Adua.’5 Cadorna’s reputation disappeared at the same time as Capello’s and from much the same cause. However, to quote Paul Kennedy, ‘the general antimilitarism of Italian society, the poor quality of the officer corps, and the lack of adequate funding for modern weaponry raised doubts about Italian military effectiveness long before the disasters of Caparetto.’6 ‘Long before’ could of course encompass the pre-unification era and the famous, and inaccurate, ‘Italians don’t fight’ quip.7 In reality, the entire history of the struggle to attain Italian unification comprises military struggles of varying kinds, though they were not of the sort that led to decisive battles with overwhelming victories and were often against other ‘Italians.’
The army that was sent to North Africa was in need of modernisation and reorganisation. This had been recognised and a process of improvement begun, when it was interrupted by the decision to go to war. Italy’s army was organised, trained, and equipped, albeit poorly in the latter context, to fight a European style conflict in conjunction with its allies in the Triple Alliance. The conflict that developed in Tripoli was very different, and unsurprisingly it found some difficulty in adapting to it at the tactical level. At the operational level the plans drawn up for intervening, as reviewed in August 1911, did not envisage moving beyond the seizure of the coastal towns. The occupation of the hinterland and beyond was to follow via political action. Intelligence, both political and military, was hopelessly misleading in predicting that there would be little resistance and therefore fighting, and when combat became necessary it is hardly surprising that the army as constituted was unable to undertake it effectively. The rising in and around the Oasis of Tripoli, the Battle of Tripoli, came as a very unpleasant shock to the invaders, and the repression and atrocities that followed it further alienated the two sides. Indeed, the last strand of Italian pre-war strategy had collapsed with the mutual fear and hatred engendered by the battle and its aftermath and, consequently, all hopes of the conflict being a short, let alone victorious, war.
A Box of Sand Page 40
