THE ITALIANS IN TRIPOLI.
[To THE EDITOR 01? THE "SPECTATOR.")
you allow me to enter the strongest protest in your columns against the altogether unwarrantable and peculiarly deplorable calumnies against the humanity and honour of the. Italian troops in Tripoli which certain English journals have permitted to appear in their pages, and to which, I fear, a, certain number of English people, unacquainted with the character and temperament of the Italian soldier, have been duped into giving some credence? To describe the very necessary lesson which General Caneva, the Italian Com- mander-in-Chief, was compelled to administer to Arabs guilty of the most dastardly treachery and of the most revolting acts of barbarism perpetrated on wounded officers and men, from whom they had received nothing but extraordinary kindness, as " massacres " is as absurd as it is untrue. That a certain number of innocent men and a very limited number of possibly innocent women may have perished among the guilty is probable. The same thing, unfortunately, occurs on nearly every occasion when armed force has to be employed to quell an in- surrection, even if that insurrection be in an English town. The truth is that throughout their dealings with the Arab population of Tripoli the Italian soldiers have behaved with almost unexampled generosity, kindness, and chivalry. That a stern revenge was taken on Arabs guilty of repaying this attitude by cowardly assassination was not only natural, but also just and politic. Countless instances are forthcoming of Italian officers and private soldiers exposing their lives to un- necessary risk in order to place in safety Arab children. More than one of these cases has come under my personal knowledge through private letters written by Italians serving in Tripoli; and these letters, I may add, were written imme- diately after the so-called " massacres," and, therefore, at a moment when their writers could not have known of the atrocious charges brought against the Italian Army by certain organs of the foreign Press and by certain individuals who bare permitted themselves to be deceived into believing those charges. Anyone possessed of the slightest knowledge of the Italian character must know that while tenderness to children is one of its most salient points—a tenderness which is apt to be carried to excess—brutality to women is so rare, even among the lowest and most vicious of the population of the towns, as to arouse the fiercest indigna- tion when any example of it comes to the popular knowledge.
I will not dwell upon the fact of the ingratitude shown by those English who bring such charges towards the one and only nation in Europe that at the time of the Boer War refused to join in that orgy of calumny which was directed against our own soldiers, and which not only refuted them, but loyally and systematically exposed the source and the motives of those calumnies. But I should like to ask why the testimony of General Caneva, who is known to be a humane and high-minded officer and a gentleman in every sense of the word, supported as it is by the official denial of the Italian Prime Minister, by letters from officers and private soldiers, and lastly, at the time of writing, by Arab chiefs themselves, are not to carry more weight with our English sentimentalists than the scandalous misrepresenta- tions of the truth which are accepted with scarcely a word of doubt, and which emanate either from Malta or from some other source well known to be as corrupt and poisoned as was the Hague at the time of the South African War. I am con- vinced that if these sentimentalists could realize the-sorrow and mourning which Arab treachery, brought about by Turks who have taken good care to protect themselves from all risks of Italian retaliation, has brought to countless Italian homes, even they would pause to consider whether their sentimentality has not got the better of their reason.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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