Most Important Battles Challenge (7)

The Walwal IncidentYear: November - December 1934Armies: Ethiopian Empire (Haile Selassie) vs. Fascist Italy (Benito Mussolini)A small arms battle over territorial boundaries leads to the worst policy failures in human history.The BattleThe post World War I Italian–Ethiopian Agreement of 1928 stated that the political boundaries between Italy's colonial possessions and the borders of the Ethiopian Empire in Africa were to be separated by exactly twenty-one leagues (73 miles) and that future border disputes were to be settled by the League of Nations (1). But by 1930, Italy's population had exploded, and fascist Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini was ever eager to please the people by promising them access to new raw materials and industrial commodities that were to be found by exerting Italian influence in far away places. One direct result of Mussolini's dire quest for prestige and political power of course, was the secret construction of a small Italian army outpost at the Walwal oasis, firmly in violation of the agreed 73 mile line between the Italian-Ethiopian border.Between November and December 1934, for reasons which were never historically identified, inevitable saber rattling between the Ethiopian border guard and the Italian garrison at Walwal resulted in armed skirmish. According to Ethiopian soldiers, Italians attacked them first after unreasonably refusing to abandon their redoubt. According to Italian officials, the outpost was in an "undefined area" per the 1928 framework, and that Ethiopians had invited conflict by aggressively surrounding the outpost and refusing LON negations. In the end, neither side did anything to avoid the fighting(2); the poorly armed Ethiopians were repulsed, and Mussolini subsequently used the incident to launch his opportunistic Invasion of Ethiopia.ImpactItaly's invasion and involment at WalWal (in addition to the 1928 agreement) came in direct violation of Article X to the League of Nation's Charter, and Ethiopia's government quickly appealed to the League's council for redress. Article X stated that the League of Nations must "undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence" of all member countries (3). What happened next by the League's founding members however, -with the soon to be Axis Powers carefully spectating- was what Sir Winston Churchill called the "final destruction of the League of Nations" and all world government factors that "could alone" wield together the forces necessary "to control the might of a resurgent Germany" and prevent World War II (Churchill, p167). Britain and France, fearing that Mussolini might align himself with Germany, and not wanting to go to war over a weak African country, both balked at their collective defense commitments and settled for economic sanctions and the now infamous Hoare-Laval appeasement deal instead. The Royal Navy, still overwhelmingly powerful in 1934, was discreetly withdrawn from the Mediterranean, allowing Italy easy access to Ethiopia through the Suez Canal; whereas France and other League members (despite sanctions) continued to provide the Italian military with oil and expensive war-mineral resources. Within a year, Ethiopia was completely subjugated by the Italian military, and enough political discord had blown in Europe that still convinced Mussolini to align with Hitler.By 1936, with the credibility of the League of Nations destroyed, and France and Britain both revealing to belligerent nations that they would soon rather make appeasement deals with the devil than declare war, Hitler proceeded to remilitarize the Rhineland and annex the Sudetenland terrirorites - in what would become known as the greatest sequence of policy failures in human history. "Apart from the Kingdom of the Lord there is not on this earth any nation that is superior to any other. Should it happen that a strong Government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment." - Haile Selassie, Address to League of Nations, 1936 [4]. 1)http://en.wikipedia.org...2)Churchill, Winston, The Gathering Storm, page 167.3)Article X of the Covenant of the League of Nations http://www.iilj.org...4)http://astro.temple.edu...