Explain why the League of Nations failed to deal successfully with the Abyssinian crisis of 1935-36

prepared and ordered the invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. The Abyssinian emperor Haile Selassie appealed to the league for help. The League agreed to commence negotiations with Mussolini to settle the dispute, but they handled it terribly. At the first the leading members of the league, Britain and France didn’t take the problem seriously enough. They both desperately wanted to maintain good relations with Mussolini as he was potentially a strong ally against Hitler’s Nazi Germany. In 1935 Britain, France and Italy signed the Stresa Pact, an agreement to stand against Germany. There have even been claims that Britain and France had secretly promised Mussolini that they would turn a blind eye to his exploits in Abyssinia if he agreed to sign the Stressa Pact. However during late 1935 people in Britain were beginning to protest about the League’s lack of assertiveness on Italy. A poll taken by the League of Nations Union revealed that the majority of Britain’s agreed that military action should be taken to defend Abyssinia. Because of this leading politicians, such as foreign minister Hoare, began to talk tough. However nothing serious was done to discourage Mussolini as Britain and France were too reluctant to take tough action. Even worse, Britain and France drew up secret plans to split up Abyssinia and giving Italy a significant proportion in attempt to prevent further aggression. The plan failed and caused public outcry, showing that Britain and France were all for show and never backed up their tough statements. As Italy began to take over Abyssinia, the League was forced to impose sanctions to prevent further public outcry as this was a very clear case of a large nation attacking a smaller one. A committee was put together to decide what sanctions to impose against Italy. These sanctions included banning the export of weapons, metals and rubber to Italy, but crucially these sanctions didn’t include the thing most needed by the Italian armed forces, oil. The League delayed the decision as to whether oil and other fuel exports to Italy should be banned. This was because they feared that the Americans who were no longer part of the League wouldn’t support the sanctions and that their own economic interests would be damaged. Because this, the Italian army took over Abyssinia with little trouble. This was a devastating failure for the League.