The Death of Hassan

Abstract

The first person to cause a dangerous rift in the Fundamental Pact was not an Italian at all, although there were many Italians who strongly resisted the idea of an understanding with their “Arab brothers”; it was a Libyan, Ramadan al-Shitawi, the lord of the Misratah area. It should be pointed out, nonetheless, that the man who triumphed over Mohammed Safi ed-Din would in all likelihood have refrained from taking harmful initiatives if General Garioni had been left to govern Tripolitania. General Garioni actually enjoyed considerable prestige in the Arab and Berber society of the colony, but his successor, Vittorio Menzinger, was neither a skilled politician nor a man of authority. He was an untalented bureaucrat, without imagination or any particular sense of initiative. It is sufficient to read his reports to the ministry for colonies, drawn up with a stumbling, uncertain vocabulary, to understand that he was absolutely incapable of guiding or controlling the larger situation or carrying forward the application of the Libyan Statute. Moreover, those reports are symptomatic of his bent for intrigue but cheap intrigue. He tended to dabble in entirely counterproductive schemes.