Abyssinia 1935

A Second blow to the League of Nations.

Italy under Mussolini was another country that felt it had to expand its borders. Mussolini had said he did not want to be made a prisoner of the Mediterranean. He looked at the map of Africa and saw the British and French had major parts of it. He saw no problems with taking Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) for Italy.

The map on the left shows how Africa had been divided by the three European powers.

Like Japan, Italy made up a reason to invade. The Italians had wells at a place called Wal-Wal. They claimed Abyssinian troops had attacked them and they had to defend themselves. In October 1935 Italian troops invaded. The force and the one-sided war (the Abyssinians were fighting with spears) made many people want a solution. 

The pictures of a village being attacked and the modern weapons of the Italians were seen as being unjust by many people in Britain and France. Was this hypocrisy on their part? Both France and Britain had done similar things in the past.

Haile Selassie went to the League for help. They were slow and not very eager to get involved. The British and French even tried to do a secret deal with the Italians to solve the problem.

Eventually the League began to use sanctions (stopped trading with Italy) to make them leave Abyssinia. These were badly organised and the important goods like coal, oil and steel were not effected. It was clear that most League countries were not prepared to put themselves out.

Later Mussolini said that if the sanctions had been used he would have had to give up after two weeks!

All of this was of great interest to Adolf Hitler. As chancellor of Germany he was watching what was going on with a view to testing the League himself.

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