Ending The War.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 6, 1912:
Roman Clerical Paper Prints Authoritative Terms of Peace.
    ROME. Sept. 19.— The Corriere d' Italia, the clerical journal, has received from its Geneva correspondent, who is in close touch with the Italian and Turkish commissioners who are attempting to find a basis on which Rome and Constantinople may be able to negotiate peace, a memorandum of four clauses which he authoritatively declares are those upon which the official negotiations will be based. They are:
    1. Turkey, without recognizing the sovereignty of Italy in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, agrees to withdraw her troops and not hinder Italy in her expansion toward the interior.
    2. Italy recognizes the religious rites of the Caliphate in Libya, together with all the privileges and guarantees given to the Caliphate in Mussulman countries.
    3. Italy will make a loan to Turkey of $120,000,000, inextinguishable and unredeemable.
    4. As guarantee for the loan Turkey leaves in the possession and under the administration of Italy the twelve islands occupied by her during the war.
    It will thus be seen that the negotiations are proceeding in a manner similar to the Russo-Japanese negotiations at Portsmouth. At the latter place all had been adjusted except the question of indemnity, which allowed the Russians to put the question to the Japanese: "So you would continue the war solely for the sake of money?" In the present case the Turks may say to the Italians; "So you would continue the war solely because we give you the Aegean Islands you have taken and you do not want them?"
    But it is just that point that embarrasses Italy. The Powers would not permit her to keep those twelve islands. At present it is known in official circles here that Italy has every intention of keeping Rhodes and Stampalia, two of the Islands, and is sounding the Powers on ceding the others to Greece.
    An eminent writer on foreign politics some months ago stated in the Italian Press that there was a clause in the Treaty of the Triple Alliance providing that in the case of any one of the parties to the Alliance taking Turkish territory, the other contracting parties were at liberty to recompense themselves from the same source. Special exceptions were made, however, for Austria in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and for Italy in the case of Tripolitania.
    No provision could be made, therefore, for such an unforeseen case as that of the Aegean Islands. Should Italy therefore occupy them by right of conquest, Austria and Germany would, the writer said, be entitled to recompense themselves to the same extent in other parts of the Ottoman Empire.
    The only possible way for Italy to remain in possession of the islands, therefore, without precipitating the desires or Germany and Austria for territorial aggrandizement, is to administer them by private arrangement with Turkey, but replacing them under Turkish sovereignty.
    From a strategical point of view Rhodes and Stampalia in Italian hands would be of inestimable value to Italy. Together with Taranto, Syracuse, and Tobruk they would form a maritime "Quadrilateral " for the protection of her Mediterranean possessions as important as the historic "Quadrilateral" of Mantua, Verona, Legnano, and Peschiera for the defense of her northern provinces. From a commercial point of view the Northern Italians would prefer to see the Aegean Islands retained by some peaceful arrangement with Turkey.
    It will take very many years before a big trade can be built up with Libya, however prosperous the new provinces may finally become. The natural market for Italy is the Levant, and her merchants have never realized this so acutely as to-day, when the Levant is closed to them and their mills are lying idle, and they are praying that the war may end and at the same time end the crisis in their own affairs. Rhodes in the hands of the Italians would be turned unto a great depot for Italian goods to flood the Levant, and already leading merchants have sent Commissioners to the island to report on the prospects. In the case of a future Mediterranean war Italy's trade with the Orient would not be stopped, because she could call on the depot at Rhodes.