Why was the league so ineffective in dealing with the Abyssinian Crisis?

Why was the league so ineffective in dealing with the Abyssinian Crisis? Although both Italy and Abyssinia were supposed to do as the league told them to do, if Italy didn't agree with the leagues decision then they weren't going to listen to it as the Italian leader Mussolini was quite prepared to go to war with Abyssinia. The question that the league had to take was what to do with Italy if they took this action. The problem that the league had was that the action they took depended on the actions of the French and the British who were the two great powers in the league and they wanted Italy as a future ally against Germany so they didn't want to be too harsh with Italy in case they then wouldn't help against Germany. In January 1935, the French foreign minister, Laval, met with Mussolini in Rome for a number of secret meetings. In these secret meetings they made some secret agreement some of these involved Abyssinia and yet Abyssinia wasn't even there so one of the major powers was making secret agreements with the country that is almost certainly ready to go to war. The whole idea of the league was to stop aggressors and yet here they were trying to come to some sort of deal with them. Because of these meetings Mussolini thought that both Britain and France wouldn't object at Italy gaining another African colony of its own as both Britain and France had colonies of

  • Word count: 3144
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: History
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