Ethiopia

By the 1930s, Italian emigration into Italian Africa had begun. Mussolini's goal was to become such a force in the Mediterranean as to crowd out any influence by the British and French; to do this, he needed British and French territory in Northern and Eastern Africa, and to continue his assaults against sovereign African nations. Ethiopia, dubbed Abyssinia by the Italians, was a key player in how that strategy would unfold. After a failed incursion into Ethiopia in 1926, Italy and Ethiopia had signed a treaty guaranteeing an alliance and close cooperation between the nations; it also set strict borders between Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia. In defiance of the treaty, the Italian army built a fort within Ethiopian territory in 1930. For several years, the friction between both sides would build.

Italian forces on the move into Ethiopia

1930 was also the year in which Haile Selassie I was coronated as emperor of Ethiopia. He was an influential leader who introduced the nation's first written constitution. Despite the incursions by Mussolini's forces, Selassie maintained diplomacy until 1934. That year, border tensions escalated to violence, which led to an all-out Italian invasion the following year. The Italian aim was to depose Selassie and capture Ethiopia, partly in response to Italy's loss in the First Italo-Ethiopian War. In an effort to rally the populace against Selassie, Italian General Emilio De Bono distributed propaganda leaflets and freed Ethiopian slaves in the areas he conquered; the plan backfired, as the freed slaves were agitated that they were now without work and food.

Ethiopia did not stay on the defensive, but commenced its own counteroffensive. The Christmas Offensive pit a legion of woefully underarmed Ethiopians against an Italian tank column. The resolve of the Ethiopian forces led to a tactical victory, diverting the Italian invasion. It also resulted in the capture and murder of two Italian pilots. This was countered by the use of mustard gas by the Italian Air Force, which included the bombing of a Red Cross field hospital. The continued employment of poison gas, used against both military and civilian targets, demoralized the Ethiopians and allowed the Italian General Pietro Badoglio to push into the capital, Addis Ababa.

Although Ethiopia never surrendered, Mussolini declared victory and claimed Ethiopia as his own. Haile Selassie found refuge in Britain and Italian Ethiopia was merged with Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea to form Italian East Africa. The Second Italo-Ethiopian War was significant in that it drastically increased the size of the Italian Empire; it also illustrated the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations and how the sides of the coming world war would be aligned.

Mussolini ceremoniously directs his troops

- Nick