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Show Italy Breaks World Peace A border clash in Africa that expanded ex-panded into a colonial war showed the dictators of Europe that the "peace-loving nations" really did not have the will or the power to stop an aggressive state. On December De-cember 9, 1934, Italian and Ethiopian Ethio-pian troops encountered each other in disputed territory on the edge of the Italian Somaliland. By January 10, 1935, fighting was .resumed, and Italy m?de demands. A committee of conciliation was agreed to, and hostilities were suspended for months. The emperor of Ethiopia, Haille Selassie, appealed to the League of Nations, of which both his country and Italy were members. The League hemmed and hawed, tried to arbitrate, but got nowhere. Mussolini, the Italian premier, was growing impatient. He saw a chance to extend Italian colonial colo-nial territory, thereby fulfilling his pledge to his party, the Fascists. Fas-cists. Accordingly the Italian army, modern and mechanized, invaded Ethiopia. The advance was swift. Bombing planes broke the Ethiopian resistance, despite the fanatical bravery of the poorly equipped natives. May 5, 1936, Mussolini announced an-nounced that the war was over, and on the ninth, Ethiopia was formally annexed to Italy. All this was in defiance of the League of Nations, and its peace covenants. During the war, there had been attempts to organize some counter measures against Italy, recognized rec-ognized as the aggressor. There was no thought of military action, but economic sanctions were proposed principally the cutting off of oil shipments ship-ments and other necessary supplies to Italy. Several nations stalled or refused to join the embargo, however, how-ever, and the plan fell through. Italy had successfully defied the League and its peace machinery. All aggressive ag-gressive countries took notice, in particular Germany and Japan, the latter already involved in an undeclared unde-clared war. The failure of the League to stop Italy in Ethiopia was the "go" signal to Germany. |