To accomplish her purpose, Italy worked along two lines. She tried to make her economic position so strong in Tripoli that the country would virtually belong to her and be exploited by her without any necessity for a change in its political status, until Arabs and Berbers, choosing between prosperity under Italy and poverty under Turkey, would of their own accord expel the Turks. Foreseeing a possibility of failure in this plan, she at the same time prepared for a forcible occupation of the country.
Immediately after the Anglo-Boer War, the Italian Ministries of War and Marine began to make a study of the question of transporting troops and landing them under the cover of a fleet. Tourists who were in Italy during the summer of 1904 will remember the famous dress rehearsal of the Tenth Army Corps.
Some six thousand men, completely provided with horses, ammunition, artillery, and provisions, were embarked in eleven hours. The convoy put to sea, escorted by a squadron of battleships and torpedo-boats, in two columns of five transports each. Despite a heavy swell, these troops and all their stores were landed in the Bay of Naples in sixteen hours. I wonder if many who were watching and applauding on that memorable day understood why Italy was practising so assiduously landing from transports,—and under the protection of the fleet. For what war was she preparing in time of peace? In 1907, the Minister of Marine announced in the Italia Militare that Italy could send seventy thousand troops upon a distant expedition oversea and one hundred and fourteen thousand for a short journey not exceeding two nights at sea!
The peaceable conquest of Tripoli was cleverly conceived, and has been faithfully tried. Branches of the Banco di Roma were established at Tripoli and Benghazi, and, for the first time since the days of Imperial Rome, a serious attempt was made to develop the agricultural and commercial resources of the country. The natives were encouraged in every enterprise, and managed in such a way that they became—in the vicinity of the seaports and trading-posts, at least—dependent for their livelihood upon the Banco di Roma. Italian steamship lines, heavily subsidized, maintained regular and frequent services between Tunis and Tripoli and Benghazi and Derna and Alexandria. The more enterprising natives travelled for a few piastres to Alexandria, and the object-lesson of contrast was left without words to work its effect upon them. The admirable Italian parcel post system—one of the most successful in Europe—extended its operations into the hinterland and captured the ostrich feather trade. The Italians began to talk of making secure the routes to Ghadames and Ghat and Murzuk, and of establishing for the interior postal and banking facilities that these regions could never hope to have under Turkish administration. Railways were contemplated as soon as they could be financed entirely by Italian capital.
The Italian schemes were working beautifully when the birth of New Turkey in the revolution of July, 1908, changed the whole situation. The indolent and corrupt officials of the vilayet of Tripoli and sandjak of Benghazi, whose attention had been turned from Italian activities by Italian gold pieces, were replaced by members of the Union and Progress party. These new officials, owing to their utter inexperience and their sense of self-esteem, may have been no better than the old ones; probably they proved as inefficient, for executive power is not inherent in the Turkish character. But they were men who had passed through the fire of persecution and suffering for love of their fatherland, and the renaissance of Turkey was the supreme thing in their lives. Their patriotism and enthusiasm knew no bounds. Their ambitions for Turkey may have been far in advance of their ability to serve her. But criticism is silent before patriotism which has proved its willingness to sacrifice Life for country.
One can imagine the feelings of the Young Turks when they saw what Italy was doing. It is easy enough to say that they should have immediately reformed the administration of the country and given to the Tripolitans an efficient government. Reform does not come in a twelvemonth, and the Young Turks had to act quickly to prevent the loss of Tripoli. They took the only means they had. They began to thwart and obstruct every Italian enterprise, to extend the military frontiers of Tripoli into the Soudan, to bring all the Moslem tribes of Africa into touch with the Constantinople khalifate.
Italy saw her hopes being destroyed as other colonial hopes had been destroyed one after the other. Representations at Constantinople were without effect. The more her ambassador tried, the more he realized the hopelessness of his case. Surely it was a fruitless diplomatic task to persuade Young Turkey that her officials in Tripoli and Benghazi should be forbidden to hinder the onward march of Italian "peaceable conquest." The Italian economic fabric in Tripoli, so carefully and so patiently built, seemed to be for nothing. Austria-Hungary had begun the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire by the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. No Power had successfully protested, much less the helpless Turks. So Italy began to prepare her coup.
The crisis could not be precipitated. Italian public opinion, wary of colonial enterprises since the terrible Abyssinian disaster, and opposed to the imposition of fresh taxes, had to be carefully prepared to sustain the Ministry in a hostile action against Turkey.