October 3, 1935. Most people think World War II started in a Polish field in 1939, but if you ask a historian who really knows their stuff, they might point you toward the Horn of Africa four years earlier. That’s when Benito Mussolini’s planes began dropping bombs on Adwa. It wasn't just a local scrap or a colonial land grab. The invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 was the moment the world's "peace" system basically shattered into a million pieces.
It was brutal.
Imagine a country with a proud, ancient history being told it didn't deserve to exist because a dictator in Rome wanted to look like a new Julius Caesar. Mussolini was obsessed with "spazio vitale"—living space. He wanted an Italian empire that mirrored the old Roman one. Ethiopia was the only major African nation that hadn't been swallowed up by Europeans, and Mussolini had a huge chip on his shoulder about a previous Italian defeat there back in 1896. He wanted revenge. He wanted oil. He wanted glory. Honestly, he just wanted to prove he could get away with it.
What Really Happened When the Tanks Rolled In
When the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 kicked off, it was a total mismatch. On one side, you had the Italian Royal Army. They had tanks. They had a massive air force. They had modern artillery. On the other side, Emperor Haile Selassie’s troops were mostly fighting with outdated rifles and, in some cases, literally just spears.
It’s hard to overstate how lopsided the technology was.
General Emilio De Bono led the initial push from Eritrea, but he was moving too slow for Mussolini's liking. Mussolini was impatient. He replaced De Bono with Pietro Badoglio, a guy who didn't care much about the "rules of war." Badoglio started using mustard gas. It was horrific. The gas was sprayed from planes, coating the ground, the water, and the skin of barefoot soldiers and civilians. This was a blatant violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, but the Italians did it anyway because they wanted a quick win before the rest of the world could stop them.
The Ethiopian resistance was incredibly brave, but bravery doesn't stop a chemical cloud or a bomber squadron. By May 1936, the capital, Addis Ababa, had fallen. Haile Selassie fled to the UK, and Mussolini stood on a balcony in Rome, chest puffed out, declaring that Italy finally had its empire.
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The League of Nations Total Meltdown
You've gotta understand the political climate of the 1930s. The League of Nations was supposed to be the "never again" organization after World War I. If one country attacked another, everyone else was supposed to jump in and stop them.
Except they didn't.
When the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 started, the League hemmed and hawed. They tried "sanctions." They banned selling weapons to Italy, but they didn't ban oil. Think about that. How do you run a mechanized army without oil? You can't. By leaving oil off the list, the British and French basically gave Mussolini a green light while pretending to be the good guys. They were terrified of pushing Mussolini into the arms of a rising Adolf Hitler.
It backfired spectacularly.
Britain and France even tried a backroom deal called the Hoare-Laval Pact. They basically wanted to give Mussolini two-thirds of Ethiopia just to make him stop fighting. When the public found out about this secret plan, people were livid. It was the ultimate betrayal of "collective security." The League proved it was toothless, and Hitler, watching from Berlin, realized that the international community wouldn't actually do anything if he started breaking treaties, too.
The Horror of the Occupation
Life under Italian rule wasn't some "civilizing mission" like the propaganda claimed. It was a reign of terror. Rodolfo Graziani, nicknamed "the Butcher of Fezzan," became the viceroy. After a failed assassination attempt on him in 1937, he unleashed his troops on Addis Ababa.
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For three days, they killed everyone they could find.
Historians estimate thousands died in that massacre alone. They targeted the intelligentsia—the educated Ethiopians who might lead a revolt. They burned monasteries. They executed monks. They were trying to erase the soul of the country. But the "Black Lions" (the Ethiopian resistance) never really stopped fighting. They took to the hills and conducted guerrilla warfare that kept the Italians constantly on edge. It’s a part of the story that often gets skipped over in Western textbooks, but the Italians never truly "controlled" the whole country. They held the cities, but the countryside was a different story.
Why 1935 Changed Everything
The invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 wasn't just a colonial war; it was the dress rehearsal for the 1940s.
- Technology: It was one of the first times we saw the devastating power of combined arms—air support working with ground troops—on a large scale.
- The Axis: Mussolini realized the West wouldn't help him, so he turned to Hitler. This war is what solidified the Rome-Berlin Axis.
- Moral Failure: It killed the idea that international law could protect small nations.
Haile Selassie gave a famous speech at the League of Nations in 1936. He looked the world leaders in the eye and said, "It is us today. It will be you tomorrow." He was 100% right. Within a few years, the same planes and tactics used in Ethiopia were being used across Europe.
Common Misconceptions About the Conflict
People often think Ethiopia was totally primitive. That's not true. Haile Selassie had been trying to modernize the country for years. The problem wasn't a lack of will; it was a lack of time and money. Another big myth is that the Italians were "better" colonizers than the British or French. Tell that to the people who were gassed in the Tembien mountains. The Italian occupation was characterized by a specific brand of Fascist racial hierarchy that was exceptionally cruel.
There’s also this idea that the war ended in 1936. Technically, the "conquest" ended, but the conflict didn't. Ethiopia was finally liberated in 1941 during World War II, when British, Commonwealth, and Ethiopian forces kicked the Italians out. It was the first Allied victory of the war, though it usually gets overshadowed by battles like El Alamein or Stalingrad.
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Digging Deeper: Actionable Insights for History Buffs
If you're trying to really grasp the weight of the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, you can't just look at it through a military lens. You have to look at the diplomacy.
Examine the Hoare-Laval Pact
Look up the original maps of the proposed Hoare-Laval partition. It’s a masterclass in how "great powers" treat smaller nations like pawns on a chessboard. Understanding this deal explains why many African and Asian nations today are still skeptical of Western intervention.
Read Haile Selassie’s 1936 Speech
Don't just read the "It's us today" quote. Read the whole thing. It is a heartbreakingly logical takedown of the failure of international law. It’s arguably one of the most important political speeches of the 20th century.
Track the Weaponry
If you’re into military history, look at the Fiat L3/35 tankettes used by the Italians. They were actually pretty terrible, but against a force with no anti-tank weapons, they were invincible. It’s a perfect example of how "outdated" tech can still dominate if the opposition has nothing.
Visit the Sources
Check out the memoirs of journalists like Evelyn Waugh (who was quite biased) or the contemporary reports by George Steer. Steer was one of the few who actually exposed the use of mustard gas to the world. His book, Caesar in Abyssinia, is a gritty, first-hand look at the reality on the ground.
The invasion changed the map, but more importantly, it changed the rules of the game. It proved that if you were loud enough and violent enough, the "civilized" world might just look the other way—at least for a while. That's a lesson we're still grappling with today.
To really understand the modern world, you have to understand 1935. It wasn't a side story. It was the beginning of the end.