BATTLE IN TRIPOLI.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1378, 2 March 1912, Page 5

BATTLE IN TRIPOLI.

/ FIVE HUNDRED ARABS SLAIN, By Telezraph-Presa A»soclatlon-Oopyrl*lit (Rec. March 1, 9.40 p.m.) Rome, March ■ 1. The occupation of Margheb near Khotns in Tripoli, is officially announced. The Italians secretly assembled at daybreak in silenco and advanced to the foot of the heights when a dash was made on the position held by the Turks and Arabs. A desperato resistanco was offered until a bayonot chargo killed the majority of the' defenders, including Turkish commanders and an Arab chief. An hour and a half after the commencement of. the fight, the Italians were entrenched on the heights. Five hundred Turks and Arabs attacked these positions throughout the day. Tho Italians replied with a murderous fire from maohino guns and artillery at point-blank range. Torriac execution was dono and the enemy was finally. driven after 500 Arabs had been killed.

The strength of the Turkish garrison in Tripoli has never been definitely established, but there certainly weTe twolve battalions of infantry, two regiments of cavalry, and either three or four batteries of the Nizam, or Regulars, in North Africa when the campaign began; they ap pear to have been considerably under war strength, and probably did not make up a total of more than 9000 of nil ranks. The Redif, or second lino troops, is a new institution in this part of the Turkish dominions, and is recruited locally; its numbers do not apparently exceed 5000, and it is almost untrained, but rifles are known to be plentiful. It is, of course, quite impossible to mako. any estimate of the 'numbers of Arabs who might collect for a combat, but the strength of the, irregular forces whioh have been delivering intermittent attacks upon the Italian positions at Tripoli seems to have been a great deal exaggerated in some reports. ' " In the view of a recent English military writer, it will be imperatively necessary for Italy to gain possession of all the country between Tripoli and Khoms-a distance of sixty miles along tho coast— and for a depth of twenty miles or so, so as to show the enemy, that the troops which have been so long acting on the defensive are capable of carrying out effective military operations. It is when Italian foroes, which must be strong enough to deal with considerable hostile bodies, cot' to two or three marches distant from their base that the transport question will become so difficult to deal with, and that it will be borne in upon their commanders that they aTe not fighting merely aguinst Turks and Arabs, but that they are also £ghting against nature. '