rritory along the African shore of the
Mediterranean.

For over a thousand years the Mohammedans, as represented by either
Arabs or Turks, held control of this southern half of the classic
Mediterranean Sea. During the past century France, England, and Spain
have been snatching this land from the helpless Turks, and
Europeanizing it. Only the barren, desert stretch between Egypt and
Tunis remained. It seemed almost too worthless for occupation. But a
few Italian colonists had settled there, and Italy resolved to annex
the land.

Few wars have ever been so obviously forced by a determined marauder
upon a helpless victim. Italy wanted to show her strength, both to her
own people and to assembled Europe. Hence she prepared her armies and
then delivered to Turkey, the nominal suzerain of Tripoli, a sudden
ultimatum. The Turks must do exactly what Italy demanded, and
immediately, or Italy would seize Tripoli. The "Young Turks" offered
every possible concession; but Italy, hurriedly rejecting every
proposition, made the seizure she had planned.

The strife that followed had its _opera-bouffe_ aspect in the utter
helplessness of far-off Turkey, incapable of reaching the seat of war;
but it had also its tragic scandal in the accusation of cruelty made
against the Italian troops. It had also, in the Balkan wars and other
changes which sprang more or less directly from it, a permanent effect
upon the political affairs of Europe as well as upon those of Africa.

WILLIAM T. ELLIS[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission from _Lippincott's Magazine_.]

There are conversational compensations for life in the Orient. Talk
does not grow stale when there are always the latest phases of "the
great game" of international politics to gossip about. Men do not
discuss baseball performances in the cafes of Constantinople; but the
latest story of how Von Bieberstein, the German Ambassador, bulldozed
Haaki Pasha, the Grand Vizier, and sent the latter whining among his
friends for sympathy, is far more piquant. The older residents among
the ladies of the diplomatic corps, whose visiting list extends "beyond
the curtain," have their own well-spiced tales to tell of "the great
game" as it is played behind the latticed windows of the harem. It is
not only in London and Berlin and Washington and Paris that wives and
daughters of diplomats boost the business of their men-folk. In this
mysterious, women's world of Turkey there are curious comp