Abyssinian Crisis

> in 1934 on the border between abyssinia and italian somaliland there was a clash between the 2 sets of soliders and numbers of each side were killed.

>Abyssinia asked the league to make a decision on the matter. 

>italy didnt wait for the decision. and invaded abyssinia in 1935

>mussolinia claimed he invaded to make it more civilized

>italy used modern weapons such as tanks and bomber aircraft and abyssinia were easily beaten.

>1936 italy had conquered abyssinia (league failed)

    > and it became part of the italy empire  

>Mussolini loved glory

>he wanted to increase is popularity, and his action would make it look like he was re buliding the roman empire.

>it was easy for italy to launch the attack

>they needed to get revenge because ab. had conquered a italian army long before.

>depression was causing problems in italy and the success would trun the attention away from the problems

>could benefit from the resources 

>Italy's attack was cleact act of aggression on ab.

>league condemned italy (moral pressure)

>league applied limited economic sanctions against italy. e.g sale weapons to italy was banned.

>however there was excpetions/ clauses because goods were still sold as britian sold coal to ialy and france sold iron. Also the USA sold oil, which was not in the league.

>Britain and france prepared a secret plan at end of 1935, and it was to let italy have 2/3 rds of ab. and let ab. have the rest. British public outraged, goes against self- determination and so it was dropped 

>Britain and france leaders of league and prevented the serious action being took because: >britain and france wanted mussolini's hlep against hitler and germany.

>and they wanted to protect the jobs of their workers, so didn't use full economic sanctions against them.

>they put there own selfish needs before the those of the league.

FAILURE IMPORTANT BECAUSE:

league shown to be weak to stop aggresive countries from attacking peacful countries. 

Failure to stop mussolini encourages hitler to become aggresive, as hitler was the encouraged to re militarise the rhinelands, felt like league would not stop him.

Reputation of league damaged because leaders (britan and france) acted in a selfish manner, countries felt league could not be trusted. 

No one took the league seriously anymore