in this lesson we're going to look at the Italian invasion of abisinia in 1935 to 1936 and see to what extent how the league handled this damaged the reputation of the League of Nations and how the Italian invasion also benefited Adolf Hitler so back at the end of the 19th century Italy had previously tried to invade abisinia back in 1896 the Italian forces were defeated at the Battle of adawa and there was a humiliating Retreat from abisinia by Italy so it completely failed to invade abisinia back at the end of the 19th century now musolini if you remember he took power in the march on Rome in 1922 in the early to mid 1930s melini's got a number of concerns one is the is the depression perhaps if he can mount a spectacularly successful foreign war it will distract his people from the problems at home the other one is musini is concerned about the rise of Hitler in Germany he's concerned about German rearmament and a possible unification of Austria and Germany so at this stage musolini doesn't like Hitler he's planning this however he's planning this invasion of abisinia to get revenge and perhaps distract his people from problems at home shortly after this the strar front was formed in April of 1935 this was between France Britain and Italy all three of these Powers were worried by Hitler and they were worried by German rearmament they wanted to make sure that Hitler stuck to the terms of the Treaty of Versa that he did not for example unify with Austria which was something that worried melini especially so this is an anti-german grouping of Britain France and Italy musolini leaves the strza conference though with the impression the idea that Britain and France are essentially saying it's okay for him to invade abisinia they would allow him to do that they wouldn't object to Italy invading abisinia so he takes that away from the strer conference what Britain does next here it's hard to find anything positive to say about this this is the Anglo German Naval agreement in June of 1935 in this agreement between Nazi Germany and Great Britain Britain allows the German Navy to build up to 35% of the size of the British Navy and allows Germany to construct submarines both of these things are strictly and very clearly forbidden by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles Germany she's not allowed to have any submarines and yet in this agreement Britain is essentially allowing Germany to break the terms of the treaty with the agreement of Britain this is something that is really received very very badly by by Britain and Italy they were not consulted by Britain's actions here and of course as we say it damaged the terms of the Treaty of versa so this damages the strar front somewhat next the Italian invasion of abisinia the gentleman you can see on the cover of This Time Magazine is uh Emperor Hil salasi who is Emperor of Ethiopia one of the last independent countries in Africa at that time so in October of 1935 the Italians commenced their Invasion by bombing ad the scene of their earlier humiliating defeat What will the League do about this both abisinia and Italy are members of the league but clearly Italy is acting in a highly aggressive way in a way which the league is supposed to stop is invading another sovereign country in the League of Nations what will the league do will collective security work well what the league does initially what the league does at first is there is a trade ban which doesn't include oil if musolini and the Italian forces had not received any oil if they were unable to get oil that that would have caused The Invasion to grind to a halt you you need oil to to keep a modern Army going with its tanks and planes and ships and so on so they didn't ban oil although you can also make the point that even if they had banned oil the Americans could have simply plugged the trade Gap with abisinia so I do like this particular cartoon this cartoon is satirizing it's making fun of the idea of the Imperial Mission the idea of this Western power coming in and bringing civilization bringing Law and Order and education and better infrastructure and so on well you can see here the soall barbarism is this peaceful village where everything's fine and the people are happy whereas the so-called civil ization the Italians have brought with their army involves death destruction bombing and so on in fact the Italians used poison gas on uh Ethiopian forces during the Abyssinian conflict next Britain and France do something which severely undermines the authority of the League of Nations this is the ha Laval PA H was a British politician and Laval was a French politician and what they do is they attempt to make a secret deal outside the League of Nations with musolini in this secret deal musolini would stop fighting but he would receive the best parts of abisinia and some parts of abisinia the poorer Parts would be left independent this however was leaked to the press the public around the world found out about it and the public in Britain France and elsewhere they were out out raged by this out outraged by the fact that their government was considering handing over a sovereign country to the aggressive force of Italy okay say so The theal Pact failed in a number of ways The Pact itself failed when the public found out about it and they wouldn't accept it ha had to resign and the fact that Britain and France had gone outside the League of Nations that the two most powerful members of the League of Nations had tried to do a deal out outside the League of Nations it really was a death blow to the reputation and the standing of the League of Nations which finally did ban oil but by that stage the invasion was largely complete anyway after the invasion of his country the emperor the former Emperor of Ethiopia H salasi made a very stirring and emotional speech to the League of Nations I was defending the cause of all all peoples who are threatened with aggression the problem is a much wider one than that of Italy's aggression it's the very existence of the League of Nations God and history will remember your judgment our state is going to set a terrible precedent of bowing before Force well clearly they had um the League of Nations had essentially allowed a a more powerful country to take over a weaker country um H salasi ends his speech with these stirring and prophetic words it is us today it will be you tomorrow so the Abyssinian Crisis utterly discredited the league nobody respects the league as as as a negotiating power or a force at all after abisinia this is really brought out in the open in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 a left-wing government is democratically elected in Spain but right-wing elements in Spain can't accept this there's a Civil War of right-wing against the elected leftwing government well Germany and Italy help the right-wing Rebels Germany sends planes and troops and so on as does Italy they helped the rightwing rebels to defeat the the the government even though the the leftwing Nationalist government did ask the league for help the league did nothing at this stage and of course in September of 1939 when World War II breaks out the league is a forgotten power nobody even bothers to inform the league that the war Has Broken out the abian crisis also had an effect in terms of Hitler looking at the response of the western democracies seeing how weak it was seeing how they were not prepared to use force and Hitler made a note of this he this is a quote from Hitler at the time the modern British Empire shows all the signs of Decay and Unstoppable breakdown Britain will regret her softness it will cost her the Empire so Britain sees sorry Hitler sees Britain as being soft as being unwilling to use force it meant the end of the strar front musolini in his view the British and French had done double dealing he felt they had essentially said to him it was okay if he invaded abisinia But then they condemned it and they did sanctions against Italy so he thought that Britain France with double dealing Hitler meanwhile hadn't opposed the invasion of abisinia so although mus didn't really like Hitler that much at least Hitler hadn't opposed the invasion of abisinia so in 1936 he thanked Hitler this relationship developed from there in 1936 musolini was talking about a Rome Berlin axis so there's an alliance of sorts between Rome and Berlin this obviously strengthens and helps the position of Hitler next the anti- common turn pact was signed if you remember the common turn was set up after World War I in Soviet Russia and the aim of the common turn was to spread communism around the world well Germany Italy and Japan signed the anti- common turn pact hoping to stop the spread of Communism and promising to help each other if any of them is threatened by a communist power so they're going to work together against communism it's not a formal military Alliance yet but it definitely strengthens the position of Hitler so let's have a look again at some benefits for Hitler of the abian crisis it was apparent that the league was unlikely to stop German aggression it hadn't acted against Italy why should it act against Germany so it made him more confident to use Armed Force the anti-german grouping BR of Britain France and Italy in the stress of but that collapsed as a result of the abian crisis which is a a bonus for Hitler and not only that one anti-german Alliance collapsed and another one was born the Rome Berlin axis and the anti-com turn pact both strengthened Hitler's position it also gave hit an opportunity uh Germany excuse me sorry Britain and France were were focused on the whole Abyssinian Crisis and Hitler used that focus of attention as a distraction to send troops into the reinland if you remember the reinland was supposed to be a demilitarized zone but Hitler sends his Armed Forces into is part of Germany but it's supposed to remain demilitarized he sends his troops into the reinland so in summary the Abyssinian Crisis utterly destroys the reputation of the League of Nations the fact that it doesn't really use any Armed Force to stop melini's Invasion the fact that Britain and France attempt to do a secret deal outside of the League of Nations the reputation of the League of Nations is is dealt a death blow by the Abyssinian Crisis there were also benefits for Hitler he saw how weak the Western democracies had been in response to the aggression of Italy the anti-german grouping of the strza front collapsed and was replaced by the Rome Berlin axis and the anti common term pth so a very significant event leading towards World War II the invasion of abisinia