‘We are witnessing a clash between two worldviews, two understandings of justice and political life’

Mussolini’s attack on Ethiopia in 1935 caused more than half a million deaths by the end of the Italian occupation in 1941. Why were the sanctions imposed on Italy only half-heartedly enforced?

In a speech broadcast on 2 October 1935, Benito Mussolini declared, ‘Ethiopia, we have waited 40 years – enough is enough!’ The Duce felt that the time had come to avenge Italy’s humiliating defeat at the battle of Adwa in Ethiopia in 1896. Frustrated at having only received ‘crumbs from the colonial feast’, Italy saw the conquest of Ethiopia as a way of securing a seat at the table alongside other European powers. After several months of diplomatic tension and military preparation, Italy launched an invasion from its colonies in Eritrea and Somalia. Violating the 1925 Geneva protocol, which banned the use of chemical weapons, its armed forces used mustard gas indiscriminately, killing people and livestock and contaminating the groundwater.

It was total war: Generals Pietro Badoglio and Rodolfo Graziani carried out terror campaigns that caused an estimated 500,000 to 750,000 deaths by the end of the Italian occupation in 1941. Italy was using tactics that had already been deployed elsewhere, for example during the French conquest of Algeria. Ethiopia, however, was a member of the League of Nations and was therefore entitled to the protections outlined in articles 10 and 16 of its charter. Following Italy’s attack, League delegates decided on 7 October 1935 to impose sanctions –though compliance was half-hearted.

The context of 1930s Europe helps explain why the League of Nations was unable to enforce international law. The UK and France were troubled by the Nazis’ rise to power and wanted to appease Italy to prevent a rapprochement between Rome and Berlin. French foreign minister Pierre Laval played both sides, tacitly supporting sanctions while courting Mussolini. Giving the Duce a free hand in Africa was seen as worthwhile if it meant maintaining peace in Europe.

France, as a republic and an imperial power, was convinced of its duty to ‘civilise inferior races’. Caught in the contradictions of its own rhetoric, Paris struggled to (…)

Full article: 1 977 words.

Tarik Bouafia & Élodie Descamps

Tarik Bouafia and Élodie Descamps are journalists.

(1) Yves Simon, La Campagne d’Éthiopie et la pensée politique française (The Ethiopian campaign and French political thought), Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1936.

(2) Joseph Fronczak, ‘Local people’s global politics: A transnational history of the Hands Off Ethiopia Movement of 1935’, Diplomatic History, vol 39, no 2, 2015.

(3) CLR James, Notes of the Life of George Padmore, unpublished manuscript, Melville J Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, 1959.

(4) Giuliano Procacci, Dalla parte dell’Etiopia. L’aggressione italiana vista dai movimenti anticolonialisti d’Asia, d’Africa, d’America (On Ethiopia’s side: Italian aggression as seen by anti-colonial movements in Asia, Africa and America), Feltrinelli, Milan, 1984.