Italy and Africa.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 23, 4 June 1913, Page 2

Italy and Africa.

The Italians have had good cause long since to regret the sinister ambitions that lured them to Africa; but recent cables suply a fresh and terribly ominous commentary upon the invasion of Tripoli. Over-confidence apparently induced the garrison of Derna —a force of 5,000 men, w-ell supplied with artillery and stores—to march out into the desert to disperse a large band of Arabs. The result was what might have been anticipated. Wearied by a night march through waterless country, outnumbered, and attacked on all sides by swarms of desert cavalry, the Italians had to fight their way back to Derna as best they eould. They lost, according to one probable account, 2,000 killed, wounded and captured, all their stores and transport animals, and most of their guns. But, worse than all, the army in Tripoli has lost its prestige; and even if this victory does not encourage the Arabs of Tripoli and the Senuaei throughout Northern

Africa to make common cause against the alien invader, the magnitude of the disaster is quite enough to explain the "deep sense of humiliation"’ which we are told now pervades Italy and its capital. This is not the first time that Italy has learned by bitter experience that Africans can tight well when defending their own country: "In 1895, led on by that belief in her destiny as a colonising nation that has deluded so many Powers, great and small, Italy strove to establish herself in Eastern Africa. An army of nearly 90,000 men was dispatched there, and the country was drained ot its best blood through two fruitless campaigns. Then at Adowa the Italians rashly attacking a superior force in a strong position, were utterly routed, with the loss of 7,000 men and 150 officers killed, and 1,500 prisoners. Italy still clings to Erithrea, a little strip of the Red Sea littoral; but after Adowa public feeling condemned the war so strongly that nearly all the troops were withdrawn. It was partly in the hope of redeeming this failure, and largely with the desire of rivalling the expansion of Erance in North Africa, that Italy attacked Tripoli, But she has evidently found that the task is far harder than she imagined. The Italians are masters of the ground on which they stand; but as soon as ever they leave the shelter of their fortifications they find that their communications with the sea are in danger of being interrupted, and if they pursue the retreating foe into the desert they risk any clay some such furious attack by overwhelming numbers, as has produced this disaster at Derna. It is nothing to the discredit of the Italians that they find the work of conquering Tripoli difficult and dangerous. England has disasters of her own to recall and regret; and the memory of what she suffered in South Africa at the hands of the Zulus, ami in the Soudan from the Dervishes, is enough to arouse sympathy for Italy. Germany fared badly enough in the Herrero war, and France and Spain have found that the occupation of the Barbary States entails heavy losses, even under the most favourable circumstances. It has taken France nearly a century of unremitting labour, with heavy loss of blood and treasure, to subdue Algeria; and the recent history of Morocco, with its many desperate and sanguinary engagements between the natives and the foreigners, is known to all. But, while Italy may console herself with the reflection that she has not suffered much more than the other Powers who have endeavoured to find foothold in Africa, she has still to decide whether the enterprise she has undertaken is likely to be justified by the result. Nothing could justify the utterly unscrupulous character of this wanton act of aggression. But the Italians have now to consider what they have to gain or lose by pro> longing the contest. Tripoli is a large country, for the most part desert; the native tribes are bred to war, and have given full proof of their desperate courage; and the presence of the Senussi —the fanatical Mohammedan sect that, founded in Tripoli forty years ago, has now overrun North Africa — at least suggests that a "jehad,” or holy' war, against the invaders has been proclaimed. What hope has Italy of subduing a country like this? Iler task will be infinitely harder than was France’s in Algeria; and she has fewer men and less money to spare. It is to be hoped that the vehement reaction of public feeling against the war which is certain to be evoked by the news of Derna will produce some effect upon the King and his advisers, and induce them to withdraw in time from this most unfortunate and humiliating enterprise.