The Daily News. WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 1, 1911. THE ITALO-TURKISH WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 112, 1 November 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 1, 1911. THE ITALO-TURKISH WAR.

While economists and humanitarinns wore arguing that war was a social and financial crimp, war came. .While German finances were profoundly affected and many German people ruined at the mere prospect of war, Italy sprang at the throat of Turkey, with Tripoli as an excuse. The one nation, picturesque, artistic, lazy, if you like, the other ''the unspeakable Turk," steeped to the chin in infamy and every social crime, cruel, callous, utterly unfeeling. The Italian people, passionate and perhaps a little decadent, have been rather sleepily content with a vivid past—a history rich with color and romance, a history which is the Continuation of the greatest of all history—that of the Roman Empire. And so these people found that the martial spirit which has latterly merely manifested itself in display and picturesque .swagger sprang into vivid life at the real call to arms, and eagerly Italy jumped to punish the Turk—a task desired by every soldier in Europe, eager to bring retribution to the world's most refined cut-throats. Turkey, with a history of war, tumult and victory behind her. making a record of astonishing achievement, was. like the France of IS7O, not ready. Indeed, in the opening chapter of what will possibly prove to be a long and vicious struggle, Turkey sought hard to prevent the blow falling. Despite international sentiment, which argued for a possible world peace, Italy, roused to fever heat, as every nation has roused and will rouse again, set out on one of the most difficult tasks she ever undertook. To the Turk fighting is the breath of life. At no time in Turkey is bloodshed unfamiliar, and at no time is the quality of mercy exercised. The hope for a purified Turkey lies in her utter defeat, and the civilised world will watch those dreadful days in Tripoli anxious for the outcome. AV'liat

war means is not to be gained by a perusal of scraps of cablegrams. The mere fact that on last Thursday six thousand Turks and Arabs were killed and wounded probably interests the average reader less than the fact that a negro boxer "ouled" a white man. It Cleans that thousands of men died or are dying ghastly deaths, torn to ribbons with shell, perforated with bullet,, gashed with steel, blind and bleeding, left in the field of battle to die of thirst, while their victors celebrate the glorious triumph. It means that in thousands

(if Ttalian, Turkish and Aral) homes there 1 i are stricken women and fatherless child- I ren; it means that the peaceful non-com- i liatant is bearing the brunt, and must, ! willy-nilly, have others' quarrels settled 1 in his fields. It mean 3 that the way of i man in the ante-Christian period is the way of man in these "enlightened" days, and that human passions are as they were except that science aids hate with the most ghastly devices for making widows and orphans. It means that the war between Turk and Italian is a pattern of all wars and that as Tripoli is the cemetery for thousands, so may any country be. We read without a flicker of an eyelid that "the Italians charged with the bayonet when the enemy were within 50 yards." To realise the horror of a bayonet charge you must suppose that your own men are in it. you must imagine your Jim or your George of your Peter dying disembowelled, a ghastly tribute to the skill of some soldier. If you do this you will begin' to understand what war it. You read, too, that a few shells from the warships fell among the enemy's cavalry—nothing more. Merely a trifle. Just a few limbs thrown into the air, inconceivable confusion, the loss of a squadron or two of the men you knew—and a burial party. Just a trifling incident in a day—worth at least a line and a-half of cablegram; and the world is becoming civilised rapidly! You don't see the women and children in Italian homes when you read that three companies of the Bersaglieri were annihilated. And it is better so; and because nothing of the kind ever happens in Xcw Zealand we cannot realise the terror of a simple sentence: "Italian officers were captured, mutilated and then hanged." There is no pity in , ,waj\ It means nothing to us that the Senoussi tribesmen are being stirred up to fight a "holy .war" in the Tripolitan hinterland, but to the Italians it means facing a new foe who have no fear of death, who neither give quarter nor expect any. and who will as cheerfully throw themselves against Italian bayonets as .you would against a feather mattress. Yesterday in Xcw Plymouth a man picked up a daily paper. It contained the account of these terrible happenings in Tripoli, of inconceivable pain and slaughter and gruesome mutilations. It contained the news that China was in the throes of civil war—millions of people affected, many starving, countless thousands of men, women and children dying. He threw the paper down. ''There's nothing in the rag!" he said. "Perhaps the horse you backed didn't start!" essayed his companion. Could war between two nations or a civil war among the unthinkable millions of China be of so much importance as the winner of the Farmers' Plate or the doings of Dick Arnst? Another phase. The war in Tripoli is at a low .estimate costing two already impoverished countries three million pounds a week. This means that Turkey and Italy—and, of course, their respective people—will be bled for.the next century to pay the total cost. It means that the sins«of the fathers will be visited on the pockets of the children unto the sixth and seventh generation, and that the whole'civijised world must • take its share in the financial loss. Turkey's unpreparedness is a grave lesson to the people of the British Empire, and is an object lesson to the people who have believed that war is at an end to "keep their powder dry." The war contains all the necessary elements for a , prolonged aid hWter conflict, especiallv

now that the wild tribesmen of the hi„terlaiid who are adept at every kind of gnerrila strategy and cunning are to take the field. It is to be noted that no comment on the position has yet been made by British Ministers, and it » hoped that there may be no complications endangering the peace of Europe although it is obvious that .little 'is needed to set Europe ablaze.