Faravelli was ordered to demand the surrender of the Ottoman garrison and, in case of refusal, to commence hostilities; the admiral complained that the Army troops were not yet ready to be sent ashore and the landing parties of his ships were numerically insufficient, but Rome sent another telegram urging immediate action.

The only Ottoman warship present in Tripoli, the gunboat Seyyad, was scuttled by her crew during the bombardment, and the steamer Derna suffered the same fate (she was later raised and commissioned into the Italian Navy as an auxiliary ship).

This ruse managed to delay Ottoman counterattacks for a week; in the meantime, Admiral Raffaele Borea Ricci d'Olmo, who had been appointed provisional Governor of Tripolitania, tried to keep good relations with the Arab leaders of the city, who accepted the occupation without much opposition.

[9][10] On the night between 9 and 10 October the Ottoman troops, supported by Libyan irregulars, attacked the Italian positions in the area of the Bu Meliana wells, south of Tripoli, the main source of water for the city.

This attack prompted the Italian commands to speed up the transport of the Army troops to Tripoli, in order to reinforce the scarce Navy forces that were still holding the city; the armoured cruiser Varese and the troopships America and Verona, being the fastest ships in the troop convoy that had sailed from Italy, detached from the convoy and proceeded towards Tripoli at a higher speed.

On the following day, the remainder of the convoy also reached Tripoli; with these reinforcements, the Italian forces occupying the city grew to 35,000 men, under the command of General Carlo Caneva.

[11] Most of the Turkish garrison, however, remained intact; having retreated into the desert, as planned beforehand, they established bases outside of the range of the warships' guns and started recruiting Arab volunteers.