It is now time to introduce a new belligerent, one whose name has not yet appeared in these records— the Senussi brotherhood, a tribe of Mohammedans forming a kind of religious fraternity and inhabiting the great stony plateau Icnown as the Libyan Desert in North Africa, between Egypt and the Italian territory of Cyrenaica, which, together with Tripoli, had become Italian by the war with Turkey in 1911-1Z After the close of that war, the Turks had not withdrawn the whole of their forces from that territory as agreed upon by the Treaty of Lausanne. Those troops which re mained— either forgotten or neglected—con tinued a spasmodic and desultory campaign against the Italians with the aid of Arab tribe-s horn the interior. Those tribes inhabiting the Libyan Desert acknowledge in a loose way the authority of the Senussi of Sollum, an author ity more religious than political. In November 1904 the British government had notified TurIcey and Italy that the western frontier of Egypt ran up to and included Sollum. During the Tripolitan war the Italians established a block ade of the Cyrenaic.an coast to some 100 miles east of Sollum, to which the British government objected. The Italian claim was waived and an Egyptian force occupied the fort of Solhun in December 1911. For the following three years an irregular warfare had been conducted by these Arabs against the Italians, as rawboned, and also against the extension of French rule in the Central Sudan. When the Eur War broke out the Turks had on their sicrra Northern Africa a respectable force of at least 30,000 men, consisting of a nucleus of TurIcish troops, with Arab, German and Turlcish officers, some 5,000 well-trained Senussi, and a liberal supply of field artillery and machine guns. Con sidering that Turkey possessed not an inch of territory in Africa in 1914, it must be regarded as remarkable that such preparations could have been made under German auspices on Italian and Egyptian (British) territory. Hitherto the Grand Sheikh of the Senussi, Sidi Ahmed Sherif, had lived on terms of friendship with Anglo-Egyptian authority; he and his people were not opposed to British rule in Egypt, and his official representatives lived in Cairo in cordial relations with the government. By the end of 1914 the whole interior of Cyrenaica was held by the Senussi, and when Italy entered the war in May 1915 the Italian army of occupation fell back to the coast, leaving the inland tribes men to their own devices. Signs of unrest soon began to appear, due to the intrigues of Nuri Bey, a half-brother of Enver Pasha, who came to Tripoli to negotiate with the Senussi and the Tripolitan Berbers. He met with little success at Sollum, for he had nothing to offer beyond promises. The subsequent arrival of Gaafer Pasha, a German convert to Islam, with money and arms, altered the case. By November 1915 all was ready, with Gaafer Pasha in charge of the campaign. The chief danger to be feared on the British side was that a °holy war° in western Egypt might spread disaffec tion in that region. From Alexandria a rail road runs along the coast for about 150 miles westward to Mersa Matruh, a Mediterranean port; beyond that there lay the Egyptian forts of Sidi Barani and Sollum, respectively 150 miles and 200 miles from Mersa Matruh. The garrisons were withdrawn from the forts to Matruh, where a considerable force was con centrated, consisting of a New Zealand brigade then training in Egypt, detachments of the Aus tralian Light Horse and the British Yeomanry, and the 15th Sikhs, Indian infantry, altogether about 3,000 men. In November 1915 the Senussi made a swift raid over the frontier; they were joined by the Bedouins of the Walid Ali tribe, and quickly overran nearly 200 miles of E:g. tain territory. An advanced force of 1,200 Arabs reached the outskirts of Matruh on 13 Dec. 1915, and were driven back with heavy loss. On Christmas Day an on slaught by 3,000 Arabs was completely routed by the British infantry, the cavalry sweeping up most of the enemy's transport and supplies. Another attempt was made by the Arabs on 13 Jan. 1916, which also failed; on the 23d Major-General Wallace, reinforced by part of a South African brigade, fell upon the enemy in two columns and inflicted a crush ing defeat on 4,500 Turks and Arabs, driving them back in utter confusion. Before long the tribesmen quarreled among themselves; many of them came half-starved into the British lines and hewed to be protected against their former allies. The south Africans and the Dorset yeomanry under Brig.-Gen. H. T. Lulcin pur sued the fleeing enemy and defeated him again when attempting a stand at Barani. The Dor sets °with one yell hurled themselves upon the enemy, who immediately broke," reported Col onel Souter, who commanded the Dorsets. , (In the midde of the enemy's lines my horse was killed under me, and by a curious chance its dying strides brought me to the ground within a few yards of the Senussi general, Gaafer Pasha)) (26 Feb. 1916). The Pasha and his whole staff fell prisoners to the British. On 9 February General Peyton took command of the operations and proceeded to follow the enemy np to Sollum on the Italo-Egyptian frontier. The British columns were supported by units of the navy operating along the coast, landing supplies and munitions where required. British aeroplanes kept the oases spread through the desert under constant observation while a trans port train of 2,000 camels kept all units pro vided with necessaries. Large numbers of Bed ouins and prominent sheikhs deserted from the enemy and appealed to General Peyton for pardon. On 9 March a general move began from Barani in the direction of SoHum; the first column, comprising all the infantry and slow moving troops, started with orders to secure a foothold on the inland plateau by the Nagb Medean Pass. These were followed by two battalions of infantry, a camel corps company and some armored cars under General Lulcirt along the top of the escarpment, while the re mainder of the forces pushed ahead by the coast. In the morning of 14 March both col
umns approached Sollum. Aviators reported that the enemy was evacuating his camps; a hostile carnp was located some 20 miles to the west, where the armored cars, under the Duke of Westminster, were sent. In the engagement which followed here all the enemy's guns and machine guns were captured, together with a number of prisoners including Turldsh officers. The only British casualty was one officer slightly wounded. Sollum was reoccupied, and the northern column of the enemy was eliminated. In about three weelcs the country had been cleared for 150 miles, the Turkish commander and all his artillery captured, and the rest of his troops scattered far beyond the Egyptian frontier. It was lmown that, somewhere about 75 miles west of Sollum, within Cyrenaica, about 95 British prisoners were held by the Senussi. These were survivors from two Brit ish vessels torpedoed off the coast in the pre vious November. To effect their deliverance the DuIce of Westminster was dispatched on 17 March with a light armored car battery and some motor ambulances. A distance of 120 miles had to be covered through an unknown country against an enemy of unknown strength, but the expedition returned safely with all the prisoners rescued. The Senussi campaign was over. The Walid Ali tribes surrendered in such numbers that it became a serious problem for the British to supply food and provide a special branch of administration for their protection and control. Meanwhile, a subsidiary campaign had been in progress in the western Sudan, where Ali Dinar, Sultan of Darfur, had ruled since 1899 under British-Egyptian suzerainty. This potentate assumed a defiant attitude when Turkey entered the war and prered to attack Kordofan. In May 1915 an Egyptian force under Colonel Kelly defeated the Darfur troops amd occupied El Fasher, the capital. Ali Dinar fled westward,- he was pursued, overtalcen 6 November at Sugai, in French Central Africa, and killed. With his death the rebellion was crushed.
From the burning, waterless deserts of Africa we return to the frosty Caucasus and that region beyond known as Transcaucasia, where we left the broken Turkish force re treating through the snowdrifts before the Rus sians in January 1915. During that winter the Turks had been carrying out a aeries of whole sale massacres and deportations among the hap less Armenians, whose country then belonged, split into three unequal portions, tp Turkey, Russia and Persia. A representative meeting of Russian Armenians assembled in Tiflis, Cau casus, during August 1914, was promised auton omy for Russian Armenia by the imperial gov ernment, to take effect after the war if their people would loyally support Russia in the con flict. The propoaal was agreed to, and nearly 200,000 Armenians served with the Russian colors. A similar meeting of Turkish Arme nians was held about the same time in Erzenun, at which a delegation of the Turkish Com mittee of Union and Progress attended. Here, also, a promise of autonomy was offered on the twofold condition that the Turlcish Armenians not only should support Turkey in the war, but also induce the Russian Armenians to rise against Russia. If these terms were accepted, the three severed portions of Armenia were to be reunited under Turkish suzerainty. The Turkish Armenians, however, were quite willing to remain loyal to their government, but de clared their inability to agree to the other pro posal, that of incitmg their compatriots under Russian mle to insurrection. There was a deep significance behind the Turkish proposal; the plan was to draw the Persians, Kurds, Tatars and Georgians into a holy war against the Allies, and in order to carry this project it was necessary to inalce sure of Armenia, for if that country were hostile its geographical position would hamper co-operation between the Mohammedan races mcluded in the scheme.
The rejection by the Turkish Armenians of that one condition led to serious consequences for themselves and incidentally proved of in estimable benefit to the Allies, for if the whole nation had gone against Russia, that country might have encountered defeat instead of vic tories early in the war, with the result that the Central Powers could have transferred large armies from the Eastern to the Western Front already in 1915 instead of 1917. From the moment of Turkish participation in the war the destruction of Armenia was decided upon. The ghastly story of how this program was carried out has been vividly described by many author ities and eye-witnesses, notably, American mis sionaries, Mr. Henry Morgenthau, United State,s Ambassador in Turkey, Lord Bryce and Dr. Harry Stuermer, a former German army officer and war correspondent ((Two Years in Con stantinople'). Thousands of the Armenian pop • ulation of Asia Minor were either killed on the spot during 1915 or else deported into the most inhospitable parts of the Turkish Empire, there to die of starvation, exposure and exhaustion. The total number of those who were thus done to death is not exactly lcnown, but it was large enough to brand the procedure as gone of the most shamelessly brutal race massacres of all time) ((War Cyclopedia,) issued by the United States government, 1917). The instigators of these atrocities, which spread over the first eight months of 1915, were Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey; the latter told Mr. Morgenthau in Con stantinople, gI am taking the necessary steps to make it impossible for the Armenians ever to utter the word autonomy during the next fifty years? Irregular bands ravaged the distnct around Erzernm and Bayazid, slaughtering mercilessly and driving the wretched survivors into Russian territory. Many thousands were butchered like sheep at Bitlis, Diarbekr, Angora, Van, Trebizond, Mush, Jebel Musa, Urfa and Mosul. It was estimated that over half a million perished, While great numbers of women and children were sold mto slavery. It was the climax of five centuries of Turkish domination.