Italian Invasion of Ethiopia

My topic today is going to be the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. In 1935 Benito Mussolini, Italy’s Fascist leader, adopted Adolf Hitler’s plans to expand his countries borders. Mussolini’s aim of invading Ethiopia was to Boost Italy’s national prestige, which had been wounded by the Italian defeat by Ethiopian forces in 1896 when Italy tried to get a late start on the scramble for Africa. After the attack on Ethiopia by Italy the League of Nations officially declared Italy an aggressor but did nothing about it. The war between Italy and Ethiopia lasted seven months when the Ethiopians were eventually outgunned by the Italians. The Italians made widespread use of chemical weapons and air power. On March 31,1936 the Ethiopians counterattacked the main Italian forces at Maychew but were defeated. As the Italians continued there advance into Ethiopia the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, left for French Somaliland and was exiled. On May Fifth 1936 Italian forces entered Addis Ababa and four days later the Italians announced the annexation of Ethiopia. After about a year of violence the Italians declared the whole country to be pacified and under complete Italian control. Ethiopian resistance still continued. After the failed assassination attempt on Italian marshal Rodolfo Graziani the colonial authorities executed 30,000 Ethiopians, including about half of the younger, educated Ethiopian population.



Despite the boosts in moral that the Italian people got from the annexation of Ethiopia it does not justify what Mussolini did to the people of that country. He murdered them and stole from them all because the ego of his country was hurt from losing their original colony. The Italians massacred thousands of Ethiopians for the attempted assassination of one man. 30,000 lives will never stack up to the value of one life. It is also ridiculous that the League of Nations did not step in to stop the obvious killings that were going on in Ethiopia. They officially stated that Italy was an aggressor refused to step in because they were trying to avoid war even though what they were doing in ignoring the aggression was promoting further aggression from Italy. The League of Nations was also promoting violence because when Italy declared Ethiopia as an annexed part of Italy Britain and France just accepted it when they should have stepped in and removed the Italian threat from Ethiopia. At the same time Russia and the U.S. did not accept Ethiopia as part of Italy. The only action that the League of Nations did, which most countries ignored, was an oil embargo that was placed on Italy which had very little effect and did not even put a dent in the thousands of people being killed. It could be argued that it was only done so that Italy would be recognized as a major world power but it does not justify what they did. It is not solely the fault of the Italian Fascists but it is just as much the fault of the League of Nations for there inaction during the Italian aggression.


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