Note 882 — Chapter V · UNNEUTRAL SERVICE

Accordingly, in January 1912, during the Turco-Italian War, the Italian gunboat Volturno, after having overhauled, in the Red Sea, the British steamer Africa going from Hodeida to Aden, took off and made prisoners of war Colonel Riza Bey and eleven other Turkish officers. Although the Declaration of London is not yet ratified by Great Britain, she did not protest. The case of the Manouba ought likewise to be mentioned here. This French steamer, which plies between Marseilles and Tunis, was stopped on January 16, 1912, by an Italian cruiser in the Mediterranean, and twenty-nine Turkish passengers, who were supposed to be Turkish officers on their way to the theatre of war, were forcibly taken off and made prisoners. On the protest of France, the captives were handed over to her in order to ascertain whether they were members of the Turkish forces, and it was agreed between the parties that the case should be settled by an arbitral award of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague, Italy asserting that she had only acted in accordance with article 47 of the Declaration of London.