Who's Boss in Tunis?

After 42 years of bitterness and four years of protracted negotiations, the sting has been drawn from the major cause of ill-feeling between Italy and France, by the conclusion of an agreement regarding Tunis.

In 1878 at the Congress of Berlin France was encouraged by Bismarck to seize Tunis. Three years later the French took advantage of native disturbances to occupy the center of the ancient Carthaginian empire. Italy had long regarded Tunis as her own property, where 50,000 Italians lived and prospered. As Bismarck had planned, this act by France drove Italy into alliance with Austria and Germany.

In 1915, the Treaty of London, which won Italy to the side of the Allies, promised rectification of the frontier between Tripoli (Italian) and Tunis, in Italy's favor. France cedes Italy two oases and a strip of territory. Italian schools in Tunis will enjoy equal privileges with the French. Italy will receive 600,000 tons of phosphates a year from French African colonies. The railways running from Tunis to Tripoli are to give reciprocal advantages to freight and passengers.