The LNU and other peace groups in the United States and Europe were bitterly disappointed by the capitulation to Italy and the League’s failure to act. They were further shocked by the December 1935 revelation that Foreign Secretary Hoare and his French counterpart, Pierre Laval, had negotiated a secret agreement to appease Mussolini and grant Italy control over two-thirds of Ethiopian territory. News of the pact caused a furor. Public outrage at the scandal was so intense that Baldwin was forced to sack Hoare “exclusively in deference to public displeasure,” as Ceadel phrased it. Laval was also forced out of office. (He later headed the Vichy government and actively assisted the Nazis in deporting Jews and left-wing activists to concentration camps.) The British and French governments disclaimed any intention to reward Italian aggression, but they did just that when they refused to act decisively against Mussolini’s invasion and then subsequently accepted his territorial conquest.“Never let the fact be forgotten,” wrote US peace leader Kirby Page, “that the governments of Great Britain and France entered into an agreement with Mussolini by which they consented to the handing over to Italy of a huge portion of Ethiopia.”
Many peace activists attributed the pusillanimity of Britain and France to economic and imperial self-interest. As the Danish antimilitarist Ellen Hörup observed, when London declared its supposed support for League sanctions the Anglo-Persian oil company continued to ship oil to Mussolini’s forces in Ethiopia. In November 1935, when French Foreign Minister Laval urged the League to postpone sanctions, French exporters sharply increased their shipments of oil. “The events of the autumn have shown us financial imperialism hand-in-hand with political imperialism,” Hörup argued.
None of the Great Powers have the slightest interest in overthrowing Mussolini. On the contrary, they all prefer Fascism to Socialism . . . The action of the League of Nations was bluff . . . and during all this bluff the war . . . continued in Ethiopia unaffected, in Fascist style, with bombs upon the defenceless and unarmed . . .
Britain and France seemed more interested in preserving their colonies than in risking military action to deter fascism. Their commitment of substantial military forces in overseas colonies left fewer troops available to resist Hitler’s encroachments in Europe. In 1938 nearly half of the British army was stationed in the colonies, the largest contingent – more than 55,000 – in India and Burma.45 The deployment of a major share of Britain’s military might in the colonies was a financial drain and a diversion of forces that might have been used to stand up to Italy and Germany. As Lynch observed “the situation would have been different if policing the Empire had not occupied the bulk of the British military.” 46 At the normative level Britain and France lacked the moral authority to condemn Japanese and Italian assertions of imperial prerogative when they themselves maintained far-flung empires in India, Egypt, Indochina, and beyond. Kirby Page said,“So long as the system of empire is upheld and endeavors made by Great Britain, France, and the United States to continue the full enjoyment of the fruits of conquest, there can be no restoration for Ethiopia, and no security for China.” 47 The colonial policies of Britain and France undermined their material and moral standing in the struggle against fascism.
The failure to confront Italian aggression in Ethiopia is often considered the death knell of the League of Nations. In fact the League was crippled from its very inception by the failure of the United States to participate and by the unwillingness of major governments, especially Britain and France, to utilize the League’s machinery of mandatory arbitration and collective security. The betrayal of Ethiopia merely sealed its fate and sent the organization into rigor mortis. The Ethiopia crisis also marked the end of the pretense that British or French political leaders were willing to accept the principles of collective security or would work with other governments to deter aggression. In November 1936 the British government ended its support for the League’s collective security procedures, making official what had been plainly evident in fact. In a speech echoing the sentiments of US isolationism, Baldwin declared “I am not going to get this country into war with anybody for the League of Nations . . .”
As governments backpedaled on their commitment to the League civil society groups intensified their efforts to uphold the principles of peace. In 1936 pacifist and internationalist groups formed the International Peace Campaign (IPC) as a last desperate attempt to organize public support for disarmament and against war. The campaign was a response to the Ethiopia crisis and the betrayal by Britain and other governments of the widespread international sentiment for forceful measures against Italy. The IPC coalition extended to forty-three countries and brought together representatives of educational, religious, labor, and other organizations with a combined membership of some 400 million people.49 The campaign was initiated by Lord Cecil of the LNU in Britain and by the French radical Socialist deputy and later minister of the Popular Front government Pierre Cot. The campaign was known on the continent as the Rassemblement universel de la paix pour le droit (RUP). It was an uneasy alliance of conservative internationalist groups, religiously inspired pacifist organizations, and leftleaning unions and popular front groups.50 It focused on two central demands: international disarmament, and “establishment within the framework of the League of Nations of effective machinery for remedying international conditions which might lead to war.” Approximately 16 million people signed petitions in support of these demands. It was one of the largest international peace campaigns in history and a vivid expression of the degree of public alarm about the danger of renewed war.51 It flared brightly for a couple of years but foundered on the shoals of the Spanish civil war and the mounting threat of world war.
The Failure of Peace Efforts
