Evening star., 1936-04-18
COnqueror's Peace Terms.

While Marshal Badoglio's troops are
pounding toward Adds Ababa, Italy
has proclaimed the only terms on which
she is ready to make peace. They are
the terms of a conqueror-conditions
victor is accustomed to impose upon a
hopelessly vanquished foe. Mussolini de-
fles not only Halle Selassie further to
oppose him in the theater of war, but
as truculently f1outs the League in the
field of peace. II Duce insists upon his
determination to deal directly and exclu-
sively with Ethiopia, utterly without
League collaboration. He demands that
negotiations be held outside Of Geneva,
refuses to stop fighting while they
progress and requires guarantees to pre-
vent the Ethiopian armys reorganiza-
ton during any armistice that may be
arranged. MuSSolini's sole concession
is that while peace is being dictated
Italy will maintain certain contact with
the League. France has addressed a
supreme appeal to II Duce to cease
hostilities long enough for peace negotia-
tions to proceed, but there seems slight
prospect of any yielding to such over
lures. Feeling that victory is within
their grasp the Fascists evince no readi-
ness to do anything that might i'm
peril it. The League committee that has
been engaged in peace-making efforts
comedies that the outlook for concilia-
tion is virtually hopeless.
Mussolini has dared to challenge what
is left of Geneva's authority in the
African affair because of the military
successes with which his legions have
latterly met. Ethiopia, even with her
back to the wall, rejects Italy's condi-
tions and asks the League to apply the
full sanctions provided by the covenant.
Great Britain continues more or less
vigorously to support this demand and
to favor an oil embargo. But the oppo-
Sition Of France, reluctant to forfeit
Italian support of a united attitude
toward Germany in the Rhineland i'm
broglio, compromises the British pro-
gram. Mussolini naturally is capitalizing
the divergence between the League pow
ers and utilizing the period Of their
disagreement for attaining his military
goal. Badoglio plans to occupy Adds
Ababa by April q, in order to mark
in spectacular fashion the 2,689th ami
versary of the founding of Rome. To
that end an intensive drive over the
175-mile route to the capital is now in
progress.
It may, nevertheless, be premature,
despite crumbling Ethiopian resistance,
to conclude that Italy is already certain
to impose the sort of peace she projects.
Many military authorities remain con-
vinced that unless Halle SelasSie per-
sonally is put out of action, scattered
bands of tribesmen will continue seri-
ously to harass the invaders by guerrilla
warfare, aided sooner or later by the
arrival of heavy rains. Nor do their
late naval dispositions indicate that the
British look upon the conflict as ir-
revocably settled on MusSolini'S terms.
Fifteen additional anti-submarine YES
sells and five destroyers have just been
sent to the Mediterranean, raising British
strength there to its peak since the situa-
ton became acute last August.
But the sands are rapidly running
out. Unless League powers individually,
or Geneva collectively, are able suddenly
to curb Mussolini, Ethiopia's doom is
sealed. 1t will not only be defeat for
that Inflated country, but no less
devastating debacle for the League Of
Nations, barred once again to the world
in all its naked impotence either to pre-
vent or to stop war of aggression by a
power as determined as Japan or Italy
to wage it in defiance Of international
law.