The Abyssinian crisis led to the failure of the League of Nations - Essay Example

The Abyssinian crisis led to the failure of the League of Nations When the guns of the First World War finally became silent at 2300hrs on 11th November of 1918, there were subsequent calls for peace. Without wasting any time, leaders of thirty two countries met in France with the objective of forming an organization that would ensure there was peace in the world. This organization is commonly known as the League of Nations, which is the predecessor of the United Nations. The League of Nations was categorical that members must maintain peace among themselves and with other countries in the world. However, in 1935, one League member, Italy, attacked another member, Abyssinia. There were clear signs that Italy would attack Abyssinia but nothing was done by the League of Nations to prevent the attack. It seemed like the League was biased towards countries which led to that attack and several others that eventually led to the fall of the League of Nations. The Failure of the League of Nations to solve the Italy and Abyssinian crisis discredited the League significantly and is probably one of the reasons the League of Nations failed in the subsequent years. The League of Nations When the World War One finally came to an end in November 1918, many people in the world did not want to experience or have their future generations experience the horrors of war ever again. Leaders from Europe, United States and other world countries met in France in 1919 to come up with an organization that would safeguard the world from wars. The main working principles of the League of Nations were disarmament of the countries and provide security to the League members like an alliance. Under these terms and conditions, no League member would attack another League member. In the case of disputes among the members of the League, democratic process would be used to solve the dispute amicably under the oversight of the other members of the League of Nations. Events Leading to Italy-Abyssinia Crisis of1935 Italy was one of the most powerful countries immediately after the World War One. Benito Mussolini, the Italian Prime Minister of the time envisioned a large Italian empire that would be ruled by him. In this case, he was looking for regions to expand the Italian invasion to. The large empire would provide the much required material for the Italian industries and Military as well as provide regions for expanding population to settle in. A large empire would also play an important role in instilling national pride and prestige. In fact, Winston Churchill had lamented that countries that were dependent on many war commodities like Italy would consider getting unhampered imports (Florian 7). Italy also felt left behind by its European peers in the scramble for Africa in especially the Easy African region. The country has possessions in East Africa were not resourceful as its peers and wanted to expand. It is also claimed that the Battle of Adowa, in which Italian troops were defeated by Abyssinian troops was of great shame and Mussolini wanted to revenge the attack. In fact, it is thought that he was looking for reasons to regain glory by defeating Abyssinia (Mendum and Waugh 19). A German official was quoted saying that Mussolini was not moving his troops in Africa back to Italy without glory. There were Italian troops in Somalia and Libya at the time (Kelly and Lacey 78). An opportunity for Benito Mussolini to do exactly what he was waiting for arose in December 1934 during the Wal Wal dispute. It is claimed that on 22nd November 1934, Ethiopian troops arrived at the Wal Wal fort and demanded that the Somali-Italian troops there to withdraw from the fort as it was in Ethiopia. The head of the fort refused but the Ethiopian troops persisted for the following days. Tensions were high and between 5th and 7th December 1934, there were collisions between Ethiopians and Italians and Somalis. None of the two parties involved in the incident claimed responsibility. The Italian government demanded that the Ethiopian administration apologize, salute the Italian Flag and have the soldiers involved in the incident punished. Haille Selassie refused to give into the demands of the Italian government. On January 1935, Ethiopian troops clashed again with the Italians near Wal Wal and killed five people (Shinn and Ofcansky 412). Response to the conflict by the League of Nations When the Wal Wal incident occurred, most countries in the League of Nations knew that an attack by Italy was in the making. Italy had commented that there would be serious consequences for Abyssinia for the attack and for not apologizing. Haille Selassie also knew that Italy would attack and went to the League of Nations personally to request for assistance in solving the conflict. Nothing much was done to prevent the looming war. This incident is said to be the main cause of the disintegration of the League of Nations. The Italy-Abyssinia war was a consequence of earlier agreements between the European powers. For a long time, the European powers were looking for more land for economic purposes like obtaining raw materials. As such, the countries had agreements that would govern the economic interests of each of the countries in the foreign lands. Notes exchanged between Britain and Italy in 1925 indicates all this. According to those notes, Britain did not have any objection of Italy expanding its economic interests in Ethiopia as long as River Nile flowed freely into Sudan and Egypt which were British colonies. France also had an agreement with Italy that as long as the railroad in Djibouti was in good form, then France had no interest in what Italy did in Ethiopia. Around that time, France was looking forward to ending rivalry with Italy and could not discredit what Italy was doing openly (Baer 2). In fact, most historians and law experts agree that the fall of the League of Nations to solve the Italy Abyssinia conflict was because of self interest of the major members. Britain had to protect its interests in Sudan and Egypt while France was protecting its interests in Djibouti. France and Britain were the major members of the League of Nations at the time (Holt 1390). Mussolini therefore knew that France and Britain would not do much when he attacked Abyssinia. At the time of the conflict, some of the major world countries had either left the League of Nations. The United States and Germany were not members at the time of Italy- Abyssinia conflict; they had left the League of Nations years before (Mendum and Waugh 20). Law experts claim that the League of Nations could not last as it lacked proper international law which affected the cooperation and coordination among the members (Eloranta 1). As such, some of the members would violate the international laws and nothing much would be done to them. The League of Nations terms and conditions were violated by Italy and Abyssinia during the disputes. Each nation was to work democratically to resolve any disputes. Instead, the two countries attacked each other. This led to a much bigger war which led to the annexation of Abyssinia by Italy. While it was against the international law at the time, the other European powers could not do much. After all, they also had territories in Africa (Parfitt, 860). The ultimate solution the League came up with was sanctions against Italy. However, the sanctions were limited and could not have a major impact on Italy. At the same time, Britain and France did not know exactly how to respond to the conflict. It had emerged that Germany was working with Mussolini and was re-arming which was contrary to the League of Nations principles. But Germany could not do anything as it was not a member of the League at the time. It also emerged that France and Britain could not come up with a comprehensive solution to their limiting foreign policies at the time. France looked up to Britain to make changes in the policies but it did not happen (Brody 44). These issues made it practically impossible to solve this conflict. The inability of the League of Nations to solve the Italy-Abyssinia conflict raised more questions than answers. Other countries observed that the League was biased in some way. At the same time, if the organization could not solve such small disputes, what would happen when large disputes between countries occur? It was evident beyond reasonable doubts that the League would not achieve its major objectives of preventing a war. From the time of the Italy-Abyssinia conflict, most people knew that the League would not last for long. Some authors claim that that incident discredited the League of Nations as a peacekeeping organization (Kelly and Lacey 80). Years later, other countries started their own demands on foreign policy which led to the total break out of the League of Nations. Another war was inevitable and started just about half a decade from the Italy Abyssinia incident. The Abyssinian crisis of 1935 was probably the major reason why the League of Nations disintegrated. This organization responsibility was to ensure there was no other war in the world. However, it was unable to solve a small dispute between Italy and Abyssinia. This subsequently led to a bigger war which was characterized by violation of international laws. The League of Nations tried to solve the conflict but the major players, Britain and France had their hands tied with the agreements they had with Italy. The League was unable to solve the dispute which discredited its purpose and roles leading to fail of the organization. Works Cited Baer, George. Test Case: Italy, Ethiopia, and the League of Nations. Stanford: Hoover Press, 1976. Print. Brody, Kenneth. The Avoidable War: Pierre Laval and the Politics of Reality, 1935-1936. Piscataway: Transactional Publishers, 1999. Print. Eloranta, Jari. “Why did the League of Nations fail?” Cliometrica 5.1(2011): 27-52. Print. Florian, Matthew. “The League of Nations: Exercise in Futility”. Spring 2009. Web. 09 December 2013. Holt, Andrew. “No more Hoares to Paris’: British foreign policymaking and the Abyssinian Crisis, 1935”. Review of international studies 37.3 (2010): 1383-1401. Print. Kelly, Nigel and Lacey, Greg. Modern World History for OCR Specification 1937: Core. Oxford: Heinemann, 2001. Print. Mendum, Alan and Waugh, Steve. Revise Modern World History for AQA Specification B. Oxford: Heinemann, 2001. Print. Parfitt, Rose. “Empire des Negres Blancs: The Hybridity of International Personality and the Abyssinia Crisis of 1935–36”. Leiden Journal of International Law 24.4 (2011): 849-872. Print. Shinn, David and Ofcansky, Thomas. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2013. Print. Read More