Coffey, Thomas M.
First Edition
When a company of Ethiopian soldiers clashed on December 5th, 1934, with a garrison force of Italian troops at a desert water-hole called Wal Wal, about 450 miles southeast of Addis Ababa, the incident secmed so trivial that some European and American newspapers ignored it; others gave it only two or three lines. Yet this encounter set off a chain of events which produced a hideous war between Ethiopia and Italy and made the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (known as the Lion of Judah) into a world-famous tragic hero. It exposed the weakness and cynicism of the European and American democracies, destroyed the League of Nations, and led directly to World War II.
Lion by the Tail is the story of Mussolini's 1935-6 invasion of Ethiopia and of the diplomatic duplicity which made it possible. The book shows that, while the Italian-Ethiopian War cannot be said to have caused World War II, it was the most important single event in bringing about that cataclysm.
The human aspects of the bloody struggle between the bare-footed Ethiopians and the mechanized, mustard-gas spraying Italians are dramatically emphasized. But Lion by the Tail also presents documentary proof that reasonable firmness by the French, British and American governments would have prevented Mussolini's vicious adventure, and would thereby have warned Hitler against adopting Mussolini's bluffring, bullying diplomatic tactics. When Sir John Simon, Sir Samuel Hoare, Stanley Baldwin, Pierre Laval and even Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to stop Mussolini, it appeared to Hitler that such men would do nothing to stop him.
In describing the tragic failure of democratic diplomacy as well as the violent battle scenes between the Italians and Ethiopians, Lion by the Tail not only brings to life the full story of that brutal war, but also contributes importantly to our understanding of the even more brutal war which began three years later.
Hardcover with dust jacket
369 Seiten / pages
photos and maps
good condition
London - 1974 - Hamish Hamilton
Art.Nr. 20026
