The actual operations of the war were too one-sided to be interesting from the military viewpoint. Turkey had no navy which could compete for a moment with that of Italy. Hence the Turks could dispatch no troops whatever to Tripoli, and its defense devolved solely upon the native Arab inhabitants. These wild tribes were brave and warlike and fanatically Mohammedan in their opposition to the Christian invaders. But they were wholly without training in modern modes of warfare and without modern weapons. Their frenzied rushes and antiquated guns were helpless in the face of quick-firing artillery.
The Italians demonstrated their ability to handle their own forces, to transport troops, land them and provision them with speed and skill. That was about all the struggle established. On October 3d the city of Tripoli, the only important Tripolitan harbor, was bombarded. Two days later the soldiers landed and took possession of it. For a month following, there were minor engagements with the Arabs of the neighborhood, night attacks upon the Italians, rumors that they lost their heads and shot down scores of unarmed and unresisting natives. Then on November 5th Italy proclaimed that she had conquered and annexed Tripoli.
The only remaining difficulty was to get the Turkish Government to give its formal assent to this new regime, which it had been unable to resist. Here, however, the Italians encountered a difficulty. They had promised the rest of Europe that they would not complicate the European Turkish problem by attacking Turkey anywhere except in Africa. In Africa they had now done their worst, and so the Turkish Government, with true Mohammedan serenity, defied them to do more. Turkey absolutely refused to acknowledge the Italian claim to Tripolitan suzerainty. True, she could not fight, but neither would she utter any words of surrender. Let the Italians do what they pleased in Tripoli. Turkey still continued in her addresses to her own people to call herself its lord.
This course satisfied the ignorant Mohammedans of Constantinople, who knew little of what was really happening; and so it enabled the Young Turk party to retain control of the political situation at home. The dissatisfaction of Italy, however, increased, until she withdrew her earlier pledge to Europe and set her navy to the task of seizing one after another the Turkish islands lying in the eastern Mediterranean, After some months of this leisurely appropriation of helpless territories, the Turks yielded the point at issue. In October of 1912 they signed a treaty of peace with Italy granting her entire possession of Tripoli. By this time the Turks had become involved in their far more deadly struggle with the united Balkan States; and the Government was able to offer this new strife to its subjects as its excuse for yielding to the Italians. Turkey, though she still holds a nominal authority over Egypt, ceased to have any real power over any part of Africa. She retained only a European and Asiatic empire.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE
THE MOVEMENT COMES TO THE FRONT BY ITS TRIUMPH IN CALIFORNIA A.D. 1911
IDA HUSTED HARPER JANE ADDAMS DAVID LLOYD-GEORGE ISRAEL ZANGWILL ELBERT HUBBARD
When future generations look for an exact event to mark the triumphal turning-point in the progress of the woman-suffrage movement, they will probably select the election which took place in the great American State of California in October, 1911. Other States had given women votes before, but they were smaller communities, where the movement could still be regarded as an eccentricity, a mere whimsicality. When, however, California in 1911 granted full suffrage to her women, almost half a million in number, the movement became obviously important. The vote of California might well turn the scale in a Presidential election. Moreover, other States followed California's example. Woman suffrage soon dominated the West, and began its progress eastward. The shrewd Lincoln said that no government could continue to exist half slave and half free; and the axiom is equally true of a divided suffrage. There can be little question that woman suffrage will ultimately be adopted throughout the Eastern States, not because of force, but through the ever-increasing pressure of political expediency.
Hence we give here an account of the progress of the woman-suffrage cause up to the California election as it appeared to the prominent suffragist writer, Ida Husted Harper, and to the honored suffragist leader, Jane Addams. The peculiarities of the movement in England seem to necessitate separate treatment, so we present the view of its antagonists as temperately expressed by Britain's celebrated Minister of the Treasury, David Lloyd-George, and the defense of the "militants" by the noted novelist, Israel Zangwill. Then comes a summary of the entire theme by that widely known "friend of humanity," Elbert Hubbard.
For permission to quote some of these authoritative utterances which had been previously printed, we owe cordial thanks to the publishers or authors. Mrs. Harper's summary appeared originally in the American Review of Reviews, and Miss Addams's comments in The Survey of June, 1912. Both Elbert Hubbard's words and those of Lloyd-George are reprinted from Hearst's Magazine of August, 1912, and August, 1913.