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 TRIPOLI

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TRIPOLI

and Turks, the Anglo-Egyptian Government, at the equest of the SuUan of Turkey, occupied the Bay of Solium with the adjacent territory, and thus annexed to Egypt 219 miles of coast-hne, with a depth as yet unknown. About the same period France took pos- «(ession of various contested points in southern Tripoli, n( it ulily the oases of Janet and Bilma. These frontier moililications have considerably reduced the terri- tiiiy of Tripoh and its hinterland. The frontier on till' Tunisian side has since 1886 been at Lower Adjir; th:it on the Egyptian side, between Tobruk and the Bay of Solium.

rripoli comprises two very distinct parts separated by tli(^ Greater Syrtis desert; the vilayet of Western Tripoli (Tarabulus el-Gharb) and the autonomous .■^aiijak of Benghazi. To the vilayet of Tripoli is at i:\clied the sanjak of Murzuk, capital of Fezzan, v.liH'h communicates with the desert regions of the Sahara and the Egyptian and French Sudan. The vilav't of Tripoli comprises (1) the region of the oases sit uatcd near the coast and separated from each other liy sand deserts; (2) the region of the Jebel-Gharian (.\lount of the Grottos) or plateau, which is reached oiilv through wild gorges partly cultivated and popu- lai I il ; (3) lastly, the desert, with a few oases, the most iiii|Hirtant of which is Ghadames, the ancient Cyda- II111-. The population of the coast is exclusively Arab aiiil sedentary, save for small Jewish colonies; the .]( lii'l-Gharian is inhabited by the Berbers, the ancient LiWvans; beyond are the nomadic Arabs, very differ- i'i;i in customs and character from the sedentary A: il>s. The total population of the vilayet, including IV, ,:an, which is chiefly inhabited by negroes, cannot ( jcid 800,000. On the sea-shore there are a few ■\]llas;es, such as Tripoli, Khoms, and Missurata, the cliirf towns of the large oases, and others such as Zaiizur, Zuara, Tagiura, etc., which are surrounded 1)\ small oases. The climate of Tripoh is dry and VI ry hot. Save in the oases and some valleys of the .lilii'l-Gharian the soil is very poor, and often even barnn. In the oases of the coast and the interior, as alsii in the villages of the Jebel-Charian, date palms, oli\ I', hg, banana, orange and citron trees are grown, as well as wheat and barley.

'the present vilayet of Tripoli consists of only a por-

tiiiii (if the ancient Tripolitana, namely, the eastern

part. The Roman province of this name extended

flirt lier along the western side to Lake Triton and

I, -~iT Syrtis, that is, beyond Gabes in Tunisia. The

■ in;; in of this province was the confederation of the

t li" !■ I'unic cities, Oca, or Tripoli, Sabratha (ruins of

I Ir ^ame name), and Leptis Magna, or Khoms, which

ri -nil deration is mentioned by Ammianus Rlarcel-

hi i^ (XXVm, 6, 1) in the fourth century of our

ind which seems to have existed since the very

lation of the three cities (Movers, "Die Phoni-

. II, 2, 482). Since 2r> b. c, when Augustus reor-

il and merged into a single province Africa

and .\frica Nova, Tripolitana formed a part

if. The organization lasted until Diocletian,

• ' iuidcd Africa into six or seven distinct provinces,

ah iiimpriscd in the Dioecesis Africae; thenceforth

'I I ii'iUtana formed a separate province. It belonged

■ Romans until 4.5o, when, after his successful

iiiion against the city of Rome, Gen.seric took

-sion of it. In .533, as soon as it learned that

irius was preparing for an expedition, Tripoli-

ii'Volted against the Vandal dominion and went

o the Emperor Justinian. Towards the end of

ixth century, under the Emperor Mauritius,

ilifana was separated from Africa and attached

I a;vpt (Gelzer, "(Jeorgii Cyprii dcscriptio orbis

romani", LI, LXIV).

In 04.3 the Arabs had subdued the eastern part of Tripolitana, taken Trii)oli by storm, and pillaged Sabratha. They returned definitively about 670. Thenceforth TripoUtana belonged successively to the

Aglabites (801-909), the Fatimites (909-1050), then to the Zeirites and Hafsids of Tunis, from the four- teenth century. Ferdinand the Cathohc captured Tripoh in 151, and transferred the city and country to Charles V, who abandoned them to the Kniglits of Malta (1530-51); but in 1551 the renegade Sinan Pasha and Dragut took possession of them, and annexed the whole province to the Ottoman Empire. In 1714 Ahmed Bey, called the Great, achieved inde- pendence and founded the dynasty of Karamanhs, a descendant of whom, Hassun Pasha, has just been made Mayor of Tripoh by the Italians. In 1835, at the request of the Trijjolitans themselves, who were being molested by the tribe uled-Shmans, the Porte reasserted its ancient rights, lantied troops, and made the country a vilayet immediately subject to Constan- tinople. In 1840 the Turks added to it Fezzan, the Phazania of the Romans, and the present sanjak of Murzuk, which had been independent under the Beni-Khattab, next subordinated to the Sultans of Kanem (twelfth to fourteenth century), then to those of Morocco (sixteenth century), finally paying tribute to the beys of Tripoli. In recent years they have likewise extended their dominion to the oases of Ghadames, Rhat, etc., and sought to hnk their ter- ritory directly with Wadai and the other Mussulman States of Central Africa. The Anglo-French Con- vention of 21 March, 1899, determined the zones of influence in the country of these two nations, conse- quently terminating the victorious progress of the Vah of Tripoh.

Besides the vilayet of Tripoli, Tripolitana is repre- sented by the autonomous sanjak of Benghazi, di- rectly subject to Constantinople. This sanjak con- sists of the ancient Cyrenaica, lying between Egypt and the Gulf of the Greater Syrtis. Cyrenaica, later the plateau of Barca, consisted chiefly of five Greek cities forming the Pentapolis Libyca, the alternative name of the region. These were Cyrene, now Gren- neh, four leagues inland; Barca, which gave its name to the whole plateau, and situated five leagues from the sea; Teuchira, later Arsinoe and now Tocra; Hesperides, later Berenice, or Benghazi; ApoUonia, now Marsa Susa, which served as a port for Cyrene. In the direction of Egypt there were other cities on the coast, Ptolemais (Tolmeita), Naustathmus (Marsa-al-Halal), Darnis (Derna), Axydis, etc. On the Egyptian side the frontier was marked by Greater Chcrsonesus (Ra,s et-Tin), on the west by the altars of the Philenes at the eastern corner of the Greater Syrtis. In the south Cyrenaica included, at least theoretically, Phazania, or modern Fezzan, and the oasis of Augila. The sanjak of Benghazi, formed in 1879, is very little known, apart from some points on the coast where European travellers have been able to penetrate. It measures possibly 63,302 square miles, exclusive of the desert region, and has about 300,000 inhabitants. The country is divided into two dis- tricts, that on the coast, which is incredibly fertile, though ])oorly cultivated, and that of the plateaux, a very poor region, at an average height of 1640 feet, and inhabited chiefly by nomad Bedouins. Beyond stretches the desert occupied by the Sheikh of the Scnoussi, a Mussulman sect very hostile to Christian- ity, and who.se religious influence is felt throughout Africa and a port ion of .\rabia.

Consequent upon an ultimatum based upon trivial reasons, Italy declared war against Turkey 27 Sept., 1911, and declared its intention of taking pos.session of Trijjoli and Cyrenaica. By a decree of 5 Nov. following. King Victor Emmanuel III proclaimed the annexation of these two provinces and their depend- encies to the Kingdom of Italy. It only rem.ained to take possession of the country. At pres(>iit after more than seven months of war, and although they have put in the field an army of 100,000 men, the Italians now occupy only five points on a coast 1242 miles in