Some Arabs collaborated with the Italians, mainly in the city of Tripoli, but those in the interior of Libya largely supported the Turks due to their shared religion.
On 23 October 1911, Italian troops were attacked by a 10,000-strong[citation needed] Ottoman force while marching through the Mechiya oasis, at a place called Sciara Sciat.
[2] I saw (in Sciara Sciat) in one mosque seventeen Italians, crucified with their bodies reduced to the status of bloody rags and bones, but whose faces still retained traces of their hellish agony.
Though the Italians allegedly took measures to prevent news of this action from reaching the outside world[citation needed], foreign press correspondents covered the event in detail.
[1][5] This negative coverage factored into the British Parliament's decision later that month to take a more pro-Turkish course, rejecting a proposed Anglo-Italian Mediterranean agreement.
They were murdered in the streets, in their houses, farms, gardens, and according to a peculiarly horrible narrative by a British officer serving with the Turkish forces, in a mosque, where several hundred women and children had taken refuge.