The Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, a defining moment in the history of the Horn of Africa, triggered profound changes in social and political landscapes. It also generated a wide-reaching and consequential diplomatic crisis, which exposed the League of Nations' equivocal resolve to enforce its constituting Articles and the fragility of international agreements of collective security. It is this international impact of Italian aggression in Ethiopia that G. Bruce Strang's edited volume examines with unprecedented comprehensiveness. This is a diplomatic history whose dominant focus lies not in Ethiopia but in the contested arena of pre-war diplomatic relations, primarily among Europe's great powers.
The volume is clearly laid out, with chapters organized by country and contributors offering appraisals of particular national responses to the crisis that sprang from the war in Ethiopia. Chapters offer concise and useful overviews of respective historiographies. In several cases contributors go beyond this, triangulating international archives to challenge or expand on received interpretations. Thus Strang highlights the ideological and demographic motivations that drove Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. Steven Morewood and Martin Thomas revisit the contested debates and policy considerations in Britain and France respectively. Both countries needed to negotiate commitments to collective security, in places supported by public opinion, against the demands of national interests in the context of pre-war Europe's shifting diplomatic configurations. Neither opted to decisively oppose Mussolini's aggression towards Ethiopia. A superb chapter by Geoffrey T. Waddington grounds the volume firmly in discussions about the origins of World War II, revealing the extent to which Nazi Germany benefitted from Italy's colonial war and the resultant international repercussions. Other contributors examine a broad range of arguably less-decisive national responses to the crisis, from the United States and Canada to Europe's neutral bystanders to the Soviet Union and Japan. The book thus takes its place squarely within the literature on the history of the League of Nations and its failings, and contributes to ongoing debates about international relations on the eve of the Second World War. Here lies both the focus and the strength of the book.
Yet historians of modern Africa will be disappointed to find the regional and continental dimensions of the conflict sidelined, the unfolding events in the Horn of Africa reduced to a trigger and background to the ensuing international crisis. The editor notes that the conflict in Ethiopia itself, which sparked the international crisis, has received scant academic attention. This is precisely right. The lens of historical scholarship remains focused on Italian motives and military organization, as well as on the invasion's global diplomatic ramifications. Engagement with Ethiopian voices, experiences, and responses remains minimal and insufficiently developed. Collision of Empires conforms to this mold. The invasion itself never comes into sharp focus. A single chapter, written by Ian S. Spears, is dedicated to Ethiopian realities. Spears offers a succinct summary of Haile Selassie's foreign policy, interpreted as a plea for the upholding of his fragile state's ‘juridical sovereignty’, an early display of the political extraversion that would undermine governance standards in independent Africa. The chapter has a distinctly dated feel, reproducing tropes about Ethiopia and its place in the world that have either been fundamentally revised – such as the idea that the battle of Adwa changed Europe's radicalized perceptions of Africans – or that are thankfully long buried – such as the claim that the Solomonic myth grounds Ethiopian exceptionalism in contemporary scholarship.
More original is J. Calvitt Clarke's detailed analysis of diplomatic and commercial ties between Ethiopia and Japan. Drawing on his own earlier work and an impressive range of international archival materials, he contributes fruitfully to the literature on Ethiopia's modernizing ‘Japanisers’ as much as on the relations between these two non-western Empires of the twentieth century.
It is regrettable that broader African responses to the invasion receive no attention. This is a function of the volume's narrow focus on high diplomacy, whereby other layers of ‘international impact’ are given little attention. Also regrettable are a string of minor editorial oversights that may raise some eyebrows and mar the otherwise flawless presentation of the volume, such as the claim that Tafari Mekonnen became regent in 1906 (p. 233).
It is sometimes suggested that for Africa, the Second World War began with the Italian invasion of 1935. G. Bruce Strang's edited book shows the extent to which Africa's early war was tied to the emerging global conflicts. It is unfortunate that, in doing so, the book loses sight of the African dimensions of the war in the Horn of Africa.
