In the medium term Mussolini wanted to develop the cult of the Duce, being a powerful figure, but to do this Mussolini needs a successful foreign policy and he sees Abyssinia, a country that cannot defend itself against the technology that Italy has, as an ideal target.
Fascism is Ideological and favours war. So to keep this ideology on the boil and to keep the dream of a powerful Italy, like the times of Ancient Rome, Mussolini invaded Abyssinia.
Domestically Mussolini needed to get the Italian economy going. He believed that there could be oil in Abyssinia and so he take this oil and export it to help the Italian economy.
In the short term Mussolini had to rally support at home due to the failure of key domestic policies. He had to use the war with Abyssinia to diver attention from the failings of the Corporative State and the great depression.
Mussolini believed that Britain and France were more interested in what Germany was doing and where not interested in Abyssinia at all and therefore did not mind Italy invading so Mussolini took advantage of this and saw this as his chance to show how powerful Italy was and as the Abyssinian emperor Haile Selassie this made it even easier.
The events at Wal-Wal gave Mussolini an excuse to invade Abyssinia as Mussolini claimed that Italian soldiers were shot but the Abyssinians so he had a reason to invade.
The international reaction to Mussolini invading Abyssinia did not prove as accommodating of Italian ambitions as Mussolini had assumed it would.
As Abyssinia was in the League of Nations Haile Selassie demanded the League’s actions against the aggressor. There was widespread condemnation and as a result sections were applied meaning that there would be no arms sales to Italy and league members would ban the import of Italian goods.
In Dec 1935 Britain and France tried to negotiate with Italy with the Hoare-Laval Pact which meant handing a large part of Abyssinia to Italy. There was a public outcry to this and so the pact was abandoned, discrediting the League and destroying the Stresa Front.
Fortunately for Mussolini the sanctions did not include to ban of Oil to Italy and certain countries, Germany, Japan and the USA did not support any of the sanctions. Once Italian control of Ethiopia had been secured the sanctions were quietly dropped.
The fact that the British government did not feel its garrison in the Suez Canal Zone could close the international waterway against the stead flow of Italian reinforcement moving south from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea denied it the obvious means of ending the attack almost immediately. It seemed like Britain or France did not want to oppose Mussolini on case it lead to war.
The reaction in Italy on the attack at first divided Italian opinion despite the full-scale propaganda campaign. The nation only swung behind the military effort when the League of Nations introduced its sanctions. Mussolini was then able to present the war as one for national survival against 52 other nations. Once the initial difficulties experience by the Italian army had been overcome and when Addis Ababa was taken, propaganda, with a good story of easy victories to tell, ensured enthusiastic support for the war from all sections of society.
The outcome of the war in Abyssinia led to organised opposition ending and Victor Emmanuel being crowned Emperor of Abyssinia after Haile Selassie fled to Britain.
But the territory proved to be a source of great expense and, in the brief period to 1941 in which it remained under Italian control, failed to provide settlement or trading opportunities for its conquerors.
A policy of systematic brutality had to be adopted to keep the country pacified..
If Italy became engaged in a European conflict, newly conquered Abyssinia would be very difficult if not impossible to defend.
The outcome of the war in Italy encouraged the regime to press on with plans to create a truly fascist state that were to dominate government domestic policy through to 1940.
The war had been very expensive. It had forced the government into borrowing and had diverted industrial production into armament production. It contributed greatly to the poor state of the Italian economy in the years to 1940. During 1939-40 state expenditure was 60,389 million lire with a deficit of -28,039 million lire.
Victory and belief in his own propaganda made Mussolini over-confident in terms of both his own political and military judgement and of Italy’s military might. This was made more dangerous by the widespread cult of the infallible Duce and by Mussolini’s total isolation from any source of criticism. In particular he developed and exaggerated contempt for Britain and France.
Internationally, the League of Nations ended its ineffective boycott of Italy in July 1936. The League’s failure to protect one of further undermined its credibility.
