Part Two: The Italian Invasions of Ethiopia

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Behind the Bastards, the podcast that is generally
started with atonal grunting. That was the language of kings.
Thank you so things. Yeah, atonal grunting, that's that's the
most based way to talk. Um. This is a podcast

(00:28):
about bad people. Tell you all about them, such and such, etcetera.
I'm back with my guest producer, Joel Monique. Joel say
hello to the people. Hello people, Thank you, Thank you Joel,
thank you for saying hello to the people, Juel. In
part one, we talked about Ethiopia a lot, and we
talked about Italy a lot, specifically Italy, as they are

(00:52):
the bastards of Ethiopia's recent history. UM. And Part one
ended on a pretty good note. We gotta we got
a pretty rad king, Menelik, who did do some outsmart
some colonizers and beat them in a big war. UM.
And now part two, things are about to be a
lot less pleasant. So uh, strap in, UM, take some

(01:13):
take some take some happy pills or some sad pills.
Just take some pills, whatever kind of pills you like
to take. Take a couple of pills and let's continue
the story. I'm gonna have somemins is that I yeah,
popped an edible right before we started the second recording,
So I'm let's do this. Sorry about some bad people.

(01:34):
So the disastrous Italian defeated Adwa was one of the
problem was the largest loss of European lives during the
Scramble for Africa. It was such a disaster that the
government of Italy under Francesco cripsy Are crispy uh collapsed
as soon as the news was delivered. Many anti colonialist
Italians celebrated the defeat. So again there's an Italian left
wing that's like, we shouldn't be doing colonizing, you know,

(01:57):
it's it's it's bad uh. And they celebrate the fact
that their army gets wiped out. In Ottawa, students from
the University of Rome marched through the streets of Rome
chanting Viva menelik. So there's a lot of like in
the Italian support for this Athiopian king who's like, beat
their army. Now, this is a large part of why
the Battle of Adwa was a lasting success, right, because

(02:17):
you have other cases, as we talked about, where Africans
will beat a European army but it doesn't last. Right.
The Europeans always come back. Um. The Battle of Attwa
is a lasting success um. And the reason why is
because of the path. There's like, you know, there's this
anti Italian, anti colonial movement, right, and they use the

(02:38):
Battle of Attwa and this disaster to force the government out.
And it's kind of like, I see this. We shouldn't
be sucking around there. Look at what you get from that.
It's you lose all your money, you lose this army.
It's just just stupid and it's bad now. Yeah, and
Italy did have in this period a pretty potent anti
colonial movement um, which is why they're colonizing. Was kind

(02:59):
of half asked. That's another part of it is that
like they're not of one mind about this. A lot
of Italians like this is a dumb thing to do, um.
And part of why is because a lot of Italians
there were people like living Italians who had remember who
remembered or had relatives who remembered when a big chunk
of Italy was occupied by Austria. Um. It's kind of
the same thing you see with the Irish. Right. When
you've got a European people who endure some version of colonization, themselves.

(03:23):
They often expressed sympathy with other people and during the
same thing. So there's there's an element of that in
in this kind of Italian anti colonial movement to at
this time like he existed, it was there. It's why
football games the Irish bring out Palestinian flags, you know.
So in the immediate wake of Adua, the Italian government

(03:46):
did something that no European power, other European power did
in Africa. They admitted defeat. Italy remained a colonial nation,
but calling it a power would be a little bit much.
It hung on to some to its East African possessions
for the next decade change. Though. In the years leading
up to World War One, the international situations fell into
a relatively stable holding pattern. The Czars of Russia acted

(04:07):
alongside France to protect their interests in Stymy the British Empire.
Italy meanwhile lined up on the side of London. Right,
So you have these blocks kind of forming uh the
Tsars are Russia and France are on one side, Italy
and UH and in England are on another. And in
time the Italians hash out a crude bargain um with
with the British. Italy will support British ambitions in Northeast Africa.

(04:30):
In an exchange, the British would support the Italian dream
of a colony in what is now Libya. And this
is actually very fascinating little bit of a digression. But
in I think nineteen eleven and nineteen twelve, Italy invades Libya,
which is an Ottoman possession, um and this is actually
the first this war, this little war that Italy fights
in Libya includes the first use of an airplane for

(04:51):
a scouting mission in a military conflict, and the first
use of an airplane to bomb enemy soldiers in the
history of warfare, and the first example of an airplane
shot down in the history of warfare by rights. UM.
So it's very actually kind of an important little war
and not really much talked about. And the Italians technically win. Um.

(05:11):
They take basically the chunk of the Libyan coast, but
they can't get off the coast. Right, they're kind of
harried constantly by this insurgency. It doesn't go great for them.
They do kind of have a colony and Liby as
a result of this UM. Rome then opposed France and Russia. Right,
so Rome is on the side of the British, France
and Russia on another side. And there's a bunch of

(05:32):
little diplomatic scuffles prior to World War One which fox
absolutely everything up right, everything that had been kind of
the standard in European diplomacy up until World War One.
A lot of that gets thrown out the window, and
very suddenly England and France are on the same side
along with Russia, and they're all piste off at Germany
because you know, the Germans are scary sons of bitches
when they on paper by treaty, Italy should have backed

(05:56):
Germany in this war, because Italy had a treaty with Germany.
But the Italians are an untrustworthy people, and they switched
sides fairly early on and wind up spending the war
sending their teenagers off to die in the Alps fighting
Austria um, which also doesn't go well to them world.
So the British lose about seven and fifty thousand men

(06:17):
killed in World War One, if I'm remembering correctly. The
Italians it's about six and fifty thousand people killed, and
they're in the war for a year less um like.
It goes bad for Italy. Italians fighting not bad at fighting,
real bad at war um. And they spend all of
World War One Italy is basically standing in the same

(06:39):
chunk of frigid mountains getting like murdering Austrians back up,
and the Austrians aren't much better at war Like, they
both just kind of hang around in the same positions
the whole war, murdering each other in mass It's horrible.
Some of the worst fighting in the entire war is
these these Alpine battles, just real nightmare fighting because there's
a lot of Italian French warfare up there. Yeah, yeah,

(07:00):
but it's like even worse than normal trench warfare because
you're like carved into the ice in these trenches, freezing
all the time, and when bombs explode, they said, ice
shards shrapneling into these bodies. It's a horrible, horrible war
up in the alps um one of the worst theaters
of a really shitty war. Um. And you know, this

(07:21):
pisss off a lot of Italians because there was no
reason Italy needed to be involved in World War One.
They wanted to get ship right, the Italians wanted more land,
they wanted the spoils of war, so they kind of backed,
you know, the initially backed the Germans but then switched
and back the Allies um and the World War One,
they get very little as a result of this. They
lose a lot of young men and they achieved almost

(07:43):
nothing militarily. When the war ended, though, Italy was kind
of optimistic because they had backed the winning side and
there was a widespread hope that this would finally bring
them the colonial possessions they had so long coveted. But
Britain and France were like, hell o, l no, I
feel like absolutely not, You're not getting shit, and Italy
gets kind of screwed out of the spoil the spoils
of war in their view right, a lot of Italians

(08:04):
feel like we got kind of sucked over by our
allies in this. They didn't get much. Now. This resentment
was combined with economic contraction and a lower birth rate,
which all together helped to fuel a general surge in
right wing resentiment that came to dominate Italian politics. In
n two, Bnito Mussolini took power after his stupid March
on Rome. Bullshit. The fascists are now in charge after

(08:26):
Nino uh, and they, you know, murder a bunch of
people on the left and suppress you know, all resistance
to their movement. Yeada YadA, basic fascist stuff. Now these
fascists or the leftists that these fascists are murdering also
often times are the kind of anti colonialist guys who
had like marched the Rome after Ottawa. So when Mussolini
comes to power, they stamp out not just the left,

(08:47):
but this anti colonial movement in Italian politics. Mussolini was
very pro colony. His stated goal was to more or
less recreate the Roman Empire and make the Mediterranean and
Italian ache again. Yeah, he wanted to make Italy great again. Right. So,
and for Italians in Romans, like during Roman we basically

(09:10):
say the Mediterranean is an Italian lake, right, We're so
powerful that like the entire Mediterranean is our lake because
we own everything around it, which they did, and that's
kind of the dream for Mussolini, right. So that so
obviously that includes you got to get all in North
Africa for that ship, or at least a lot of it, right,
you want Africa because that's like that's traditionally was Rome's possession. Um.

(09:31):
So Mussolini wants all this ship um and his desire
to you know as a result kind of if you
want to take North Africa in a big chunk of
the Middle East and make it Italian territory, you probably
the first step towards achieving this is going to be
to conquer Ethiopia. Um. Now, this isn't because Ethiopia is
the smartest strategic place to start, or because there's a

(09:51):
lot of money and conquering Ethiopia, And in fact, there
were a lot of very real questions about whether or
not conquering Ethiopia could possibly be worth the money required
to do the job. This was about pride. The Italians
had suffered the greatest defeat of any imperial power in
Africa and they had to wipe away the stain of defeat.
But never your military like strategic plan on pride that

(10:15):
should not be No, no, it really never works out
very well. Um yeah, I mean there's this happens all
throughout history. One of the funniest things to me is
um in Afghanistan, the furthest northern position of US troops
in Afghanistan was, and I believe it was the Corengal Valley.
And the specific position they picked was chosen because it

(10:37):
was something I think it was just like a hundred
meters or so, but it was. But it was they
picked it because it was a little bit further north
than the British had ever gotten when they took Afghanistan.
And that's why we put a unit there, because we're like, well,
we gotta go a little bit further than the last guys. Um.
And you saw how well that worked for us, right.
Not an intelligent plan, oh boy, yeah. Um. So there's

(11:01):
more to it, though than just pride wiping away the
stain of defeat. And this is something I've read a
lot of different explanations about why this Italian invasion of
Ethiopia happens, and this fact is missed in most of
the different analyzes I've read. Um. And it's the fact
that Benito Mussolini was terrified of the Japanese UM. After
World War One, Japan became one of the surprise great

(11:21):
powers of the world. Right, they're seen as this kind
of like backwards Asian people who aren't as you know,
not nearly as good as white people. Will call itize
them one day, right, then they beat they destroy the
Russian navy in nineteen o five um. And then during
World War One they take a bunch of German possessions
um that are like like islands and ship that the
Germans have in Asia. Um. And suddenly, kind of by

(11:42):
the time World War One end is Japan is becoming
a major world power um. And in the early nineteen thirties,
Japan starts making trade deals with Ethiopia. These mostly focused
around agricultural land, and they were part of a broader
Japanese strategy of trying to free themselves from dependence on
Western supplies and trade. After nineteen thirty one, this was

(12:02):
a particularly pressing matter for Japan. That year, they invaded Manchuria,
otherwise known as a huge chunk of coastal China and
Korea significantly larger than Japan. Now, the invasion of Mancheria
could rightly be viewed as Japan doing what they had
to do to colonized China, just like Europe had colonized Africa. Right,
that's kind of how Japan is looking at it, certainly

(12:23):
like you guys are doing this over here, We're gonna
do this over here. Um. Now. The way they justified
the start of this invasion of man Cheria, Japan basically
carries out a false flag incident to make it look like, oh,
we've been attacked, now we have to attack man Cheria
UM and they claimed that this, you know, so they
could claim it was a defensive war. Of course, immediately
they went beyond anything you could justify as defense. They

(12:43):
conquer all of Korea and a bunch of the coast
of China. Besides, this was in massive violation of the
rules of the League of Nations, of which Japan was
a member. Now, the League was extremely new at this point, right,
the League of Nations a precursor to the United Nations.
It's established after World War One. UM, and the League
had been created due in large part to Woodrow Wilson.

(13:03):
He really thinks this is going to stop the next
Great War from breaking out. He's a huge backer of
the League of Nation. He lays out the points by which,
you know, the kind of its guiding principles, and he
envisioned it as a global governing body and to sort
out disagreements and stop another world war from breaking out. Uh.
And so a lot of the League's rules had to
do with when nations could and could not go to war.

(13:24):
When Japan invaded China, pleaded with the League of Nations
to help them force Japan out. The League duly voted
that Japan's actions had been illegal. They ordered it to
leave Manchuria in February of nineteen thirty three. Japan does
not do this, They're like, make us basically, like what
are you gonna Are you gonna come all the way
over to my house? You know? Wow? Wow. Russia just

(13:48):
tried to make us do something in Asia, and you
know what happened. They all wound up on the bottom
of the fucking sea. So come on, try your ship.
Like that's basically Japan's attitude. Um And instead, instead of
doing what the League tells them, Japan and leaves the
League of Nations. And this the League of Nations has
kind of left scratching their heads and trying to figure
out what do you do when a nation? Now that
international law is a thing, what do you do if

(14:10):
a nation won't obey international law? So a number of
League states, Yeah, it's a big question, right, this is
the first time anyone had ever really tried to do
this in an organized way. Um So, a number of
League states sever trade ties with Japan, which did hurt,
but Japan was already gripped by a depression at this point,
and they actually invaded man Charia to gain access to

(14:31):
natural resources, and so they were like, yeah, I mean
the severing of trade ties hurts, but we were already hurting,
and we're going to benefit more by taking Mancharia than
we will by trading with Europe. Right, so they don't
stop as a result of this. Now, this might have
worked if the League had agreed on like unified sanctions,
if the whole global community had imposed sanctions on Japan,

(14:52):
it might have done something. But they didn't. They number
when they couldn't come to an agreement. A lot of
A big part of this, by the way, is that
um I just said Woodrow Wilson is why we have
a league, had a league of nations, the US never joins,
Like because we're the United States, we didn't want to
give up any sovereigntyre there was this whole big fight politically,
but we never joined. So Number one, any sort of

(15:16):
sanctions wouldn't have included the United States, which was a
big trading partner of Japan. We gave them a lot
of ship they needed, so that meant that it didn't
have any teeth. But also the League couldn't agree to
go after unified sanctions on Japan anyway. Um, And a
big part of why is because a lot of the
heads of Europe at the time didn't have a problem
with Japan taking over China because they saw what Japan

(15:38):
was doing to China is like what we're doing in Africa.
Why would we have an issue with this? Started making
laws against them, and those laws are going to govern
us and that, yeah, exactly like I don't want anyone
to look too hard at what I'm doing here yet perfect. Yeah,
And to kind of embody that view, I want to
quote from a letter by some guy who's no ship.
Real title was the Master of Peter House at Cambridge University.

(16:03):
Because everything, everything the British do sounds ridiculous. And this
is a letter the Master of the Peter House sent
to the British Foreign Secretary about what was happening in Mancheria.
I know this sounds all wrong, perhaps immoral, when Japan
is flouting the League of Nations, But number one, she
was greatly provoked. Number two she must ere long expand

(16:25):
somewhere for goodness sake, let or rather encourage her to
do so they're instead of Australia. And three her control
of Manchuria means a real block against communist aggression. She
could she could go after the place we send our prisoners.
No no, yeah, yeah, we don't want them to take Australia.
And also its fuck the communists. Yeah, why we have

(16:46):
a problem with this. In the end, the League failed
to even pass a ban on weapons sales to Japan. Um. Now, yeah,
so they don't do shit. Um so the US of
course keeps selling japan fueling bullets. League of Nations And
a big influence of like what happens here with the
League is that this is their first major test, like
the Mancharia issue, and they fail badly. Right, so not

(17:09):
off to a great start at the League of Nations.
They failed to come to completely in this. So the
same year this all comes to a head in nineteen
thirty three, is that they invade In thirty one. Thirty
three is when the big fight in the League of
Nations happened. So that same year thirty three, the Japanese
starts sniffing around Ethiopia. Um, even though they had kind
of one in Mancharia. You know, the diplomatic ship had

(17:30):
gone as well as possible for them. They were wary
of the fact that their future plans for expansion in
Asia would provoke a more concerted response from the international communities.
They let us get away with Mancharia, but we're gonna
take more China, like we're going to conquer more Land. Eventually,
they might carry out a unified set of sanctions, right,
and that's going to be a problem for us because
Japan doesn't have ship for natural resources, right. That's like

(17:52):
Japan's constant. That's why they're invading China is they need
they need, they need stuff. It's the same thing the
British have, right, So the British actually have UM. So
they're looking for ways to make themselves more independent of
European resources in case mass sanctions do come down. Ethiopia.
Trade with the Ethiopia is a part of this because
they see Ethiopia is the place where they can grow

(18:13):
ship to reduce their dependence on foreign countries UM. And
the agreements between Japan and Ethiopia are never much more
than a set of like kind of modest trade agreements.
But the fact that this starts terrifies Europe And it's
because Europeans are racist as hell. See Ethiopia. I don't
know if you're aware of this. Not a white country, right,

(18:34):
but they successfully yeah, famously not a white country. Ethiopia
Japan also famously not white people. Both of these non
white countries had beaten white nations in wars. So the
fact that they're talking with each other scares the white
people really bad. They're Maryland or not. I'm sorry, they're

(18:54):
Manson straight out of prison when he sees the Black
Panthers and it's like, what the fuck these guys get guns?
Were done for it, We are done for God. Start
killing celebrities. It's a problem. Yeah, yeah, yea, yes they yea.
Europe goes full Manson on this, and well you know
who else will go full Manson? Oh no, I hope
it's not your advertiser. Yes, yes, we are actually supported

(19:18):
by Charles Manson's hope. Incredible that the show has been
on the air for soul. I am amazed and I
love it. I love that belly steeping here we The
primary product we sell is uh, that weird album Manson
put out. That's that's our That's our only backer is

(19:41):
Charles Manson's music. So My God Behind the Bastards is
supported by Charles Manson's music and of course, the Uni
Bomber Manifesto, which you can find on our T Public
store printed on T shirts. So let's go check both
those out. Here's some ads. Ah, we're back, We're back,

(20:06):
and I'm just enjoying wearing my new Industrial Society and
its consequences have been a disaster for the Human Race shirt,
which you can get in URT public Store courtesy of
friend of the Pod uncle Ted. Um, Jesus, what, Sophie,
It's fine, it's fine. Look, I know he doesn't have
abs as hot as Koresh did. They didn't give him

(20:27):
that model word what those For those listeners that have
been playing the behind the Bastard's bingo, there's your Koresh.
God damn it, you get a Koresh and and uncle Ted.
This is a real Bonanza episode. I mean, if you
if your board technically says Waco, I think that counts.

(20:48):
Oh yeah, I mean we're kind of I mean, you know,
poison gas is used in this episode and was used
on those children in that basement at Waco. So yeah, absolutely, yeah,
definitely it's going to get real dark. Look one of
those memes where it's the two hands meeting in the
middle and it's like the FBI and the colonial Italian militaries,
and then the middle is poison gas on children. That's

(21:10):
the only meme you like. You bring it up all
the time. It's effective, I do is my favorite meme. Um.
All right, So the legal nations, you know, fox up
Japan and Etho, we start talking. It just scares all
of the white people because you've got these two non
white nations who have beat white nations and military conflicts.

(21:31):
Racists see this as a terrifying example of racial solidarity
between two powerful colored people's. Italy's under Secretary of Colonies,
Alessandro Asna claimed the birthrate, energy, and spirit of sacrifice
of the Japanese, the imperious necessity for always seeking new markets,
all these combined to make Japan a very great danger

(21:51):
for Europe. The more one restrains the Japanese expansion in
the East, the more she will try to expand another
sectors and another continents, as is proved already by the
japan activity in Ethiopia. To draw the Dark Continent into
Japan's orbit would deprive Europe of the possibility of using
Africa for the defense of her civilization. Yeah, just a

(22:13):
lot going on there. It's just a lot happening gymnastics.
Just we won't be able to use this huge continent
with multiple multiple countries tens of millions of people are
very tiny island. From that tiny island, you might do
the same thing we're doing. Oh no, they might steal

(22:36):
Africa fasta racism bers. Yeah, yeah, you might say that
Italian foreign minister thought Japan was too spicy a meat
a ball. God, I gotta get a big card. Very angry,

(22:56):
very angry, as are all the Italian listeners. But angry,
but kind of proud because you got it in there,
you know what I mean, Like I'm like, he did
it again, but also like, yeah, good job. At the
same time, you know, very conflicted. I appreciate I'm always
trying to find spicy meat a balls. The second time

(23:18):
it was not necessary continue. So while all this is
going on with Japan, right, Mussolini is paying attention. Um
so he watches nineteen thirty one is Japan invades Mancharia.
In my nineteen thirty two, it had become clear that
funk all was going to be done about it. And
again the Italians are scared of the Japanese. They're scared
of Japanese dominance. They don't like that Italy that that

(23:39):
Japan is talking to Ethiopia, but they also are paying
attention to how Japan gets away with conquering Mancharia, and
they're like, well, fuck, we could probably do the same
thing with Ethiopia, and I bet the League Nations isn't
going to do shit, right, That's also what he's thinking.
So Mussolini in thirty two sends a dude to Ritrea
to see if it would be an acceptable base of
operations for an invasion. Uch and his advisers concluded that

(24:01):
an invasion would need to be carried out before nineteen
thirty six because of the Tripartite agreement Italy had signed
with France and England back in eight though, he would
need to obtain the consent of his co imperialists before
doing anything, right, So he does have. He thinks he can,
he knows he can, He knows that the League of
Nations won't stop him as long as he works things

(24:22):
out with Italy and France, with France and England first, right,
because that does matter. You don't want to funk over
France and England if you're Italy, like especially now that's
would be best for Italy. Okay, got it. Yeah, not
gonna go well for you. They actually are good at things, um,
so that could be really frightening for Italy. Yeah, they

(24:44):
know how to do wars. Gonna laugh. So one thing
that complicated matters was the fact that as soon as
it had become a thing, Ethi, as soon as the
League of Nations had become a thing, because Ethiopi has
been a thing for three thousand years, as soon as
the League of Nations became a thing, Ethiopia made a

(25:06):
point to join it. Um. And this was a decision
made by the new Emperor of Ethiopia, Menelik is dead
by this point a fellow who's probably heard of named
Highly Selassie um, and Selassie seems to have been a
true believer in the League of Nations. And before we
get into that, we should probably have another digression, because
we should talk about Highly Selassie more than we generally
do for heads of state and episodes like this, because

(25:26):
he's a really interesting guy. Um, he's also an important guy.
Highly was born ross Tafari, which is again where the
name Rastafarianism comes right after Yeah, and then Highly Selassie.
When you become emperor, you take on a different name. Right,
that's kind of like a pope, you know, like Pope
Benedict's real name wasn't BENEDICTI had another name. He became
the pope, they get a name. Rastafari was the name

(25:48):
this guy was born with, and he became highly Selassie.
Now Ross is actually not his name. Ross is his title.
Ross is an amhrek term, and it's equivalent to duke
or lord. Because again, Ethiopia is a very kind of
feudal mon arcic society. So any Ross could become the
emperor if ship broke right for them. Right when I
when we talk about how there's these different nobles who
are kind of like fighting for dominance, these are all

(26:09):
Ross's basically. Um. So, when Ross Stafari was young in
nineteen o six, Emperor Menelik brought him to his court
to be a gentleman in waiting, and as best as
I can tell, this was a mix of the you know,
keep your friends close and your enemies closer kind of thinking.
Because he's like, this kid is smart. I want to
keep an eye on him. Right, he's got any designs,
um But It's also the way Ethiopian statecraft worked. The

(26:31):
emperor would surround himself with high born men and train
them up so that they could govern the country and
so that you know, you could develop a sense of trust. Right,
that's how you that's how you work things in a monarchy.
And for like an insulary society that has been able
to like set off any enemy, any enemy invasion for
quite some time, it makes sense that like everybody would
sort of want to be of the same mind, especially

(26:54):
now that they're facing so many enemies. Yeah. Now, when
Ross was sixteen, he's given his first major responsibility as
a local governor. UM. He was also still in school,
so this was basically a learn on the job sort
of situation. But the singling a sizable chunk. Yeah, he's
sixteen and he becomes a governor, and he's still in school,

(27:16):
so like in between classes he's governing you know, a
sizeable chunk of Ethiopia. Um. During this time, he learned
the important lessons he would need to learn in order
to rule. Mainly, he learned how to bribe other nobles
and government officials. He made connections through the country's ruling elite.
H and when Emperor Menelik started stroking out. The Emperor's

(27:36):
warrior wife, tATu took up more responsibilities, and some other
nobles schemed to take her down. Ross was in a
pretty powerful position at this point, and so these nobles
who want to take down the empress go to him
and he refuses to back their plot um. But also
when the plot is found out, he refuses to knark
on the conspirators. So he's kind of playing both sides here.
He's like, I'm not going to help you overthrow the empress,

(27:58):
but I'm not going to sell you out. Listen just
launched a news series of gossip Girl, and I feel
like this is the direction you need to take it.
I want to see this origin of gossip Girl. They're
in high school, but they're also governors and they're bribing
people and they're taking over lance. They are powerful bitches.
Yeah I would. I'm this definitely like this whole period. Yeah,

(28:21):
there ought to be a show about it. It's really interesting. So,
as this demonstrates, Rastafari was good at the sort of
politicking that you need to be good at if you
want to become the king of Kings of Ethiopia. He
became a provincial governor next, and he proved himself a
man of the people. His first big duty was he
reformed the tax system to take the tax burden off
of poor peasants, which is good. He marries into the

(28:43):
royal family. He becomes friends with the crown Prince, and
when Menelik dies, the Crown Prince becomes emperors a Menelik's son.
But this kid, Yasu is It's bad. Emperor Yasu's reign
does not go well. Um. So the first thing Emperor
Yasu does is he in immediately kicks the old Empress
out of the palace. Then he makes a baffling decision

(29:04):
to curry favor from the country's Muslim population at the
expense of the Christian population, which is a really weird
move since Ethiopia is more Christian than Muslim. It's a
very strange decision that he makes. I'm already predicting a
divide of the people who are helped by one man
via taxes and who shunned by the other via religion. Yeah,

(29:26):
it doesn't. It proves he's not very good at being
the emperor. Is the short of Emperor Yasu's reign. Um
During the Great War he makes the questionable call to
side with Germany and Turkey. Uh. Britain in France put
an arms. Yeah, not a great decision. Britain and France
put an arms embargo on Ethiopia as a result of this,
and this terrifies the ruling class in Ethiopia because if

(29:49):
they can't buy guns, any European country can come in
and succeed where Italy has failed. Right, So a lot
of people are angry at Emperor Yasu Um by the
time you know what, World War one shakes out, So
because you know, unhappiness that this guy at the emperor
builds and building builds, and eventually the Ethiopians have themselves
a little war Um and Rastafari turns on Yasu and

(30:11):
sends an army and to beat him uh, and he
basically forces Yasu off of the throne, and he gives
the throne to Menelik's daughter, who becomes the empress next
and she makes Ross the regent. So the regent does
all the stuff a king does, but he's not the king, right,
it's somebody it's the actual sovereign says, you do the
king's stuff, I'll be a figurehead basically, so Rastafari isn't

(30:33):
the emperor now, but he's the regent and he's acting
as the emperor. The Empress is like, she's very Christian,
she's very religious. She doesn't really do much other than
like religious stuff, and she doesn't want to so she's like,
you take you, you handle the rest um. So while
the Empress is the figurehead, Rastafari centralizes power behind the
scenes and starts sending loyal young men abroad to get

(30:56):
educated and then come back to help him rule, right,
which is very smart. He's like, want, I'm gonna send you,
guess to Europe and a send you wherever you can
go to learn state craft. So that because I'm going
to be the emperor soon and I want I want
a deep bench and deep motherfucker's you know what they're doing.
So when World War One ends, Rastafari sends his congratulations
to Woodrow Wilson and furthermore expresses Ethiopia's sincere willingness to

(31:20):
join the League of Nations. Now. The fact that this
thing is the lead of Nations becoming a thing and
the fact that a black nation might want to join
the Community of Nations was extremely controversial among the leaders
of the European nations who are all howling bigots, just
just however racist you're thinking, like twice that racist, it's like,

(31:42):
and that's the least racist of them. Yeah. Uh, sometimes
racism looks like caricature, but it's you're actually looking at
racism and it's baffling. Yeah, they are real racist. Um,
so they're not happy with this idea um. And so
for several years, Rastafari campaigns for E e Oopia's membership
in the League, without success. When they applied in nineteen three,

(32:04):
England turned them down on the basis that Ethiopia still
allowed slavery, which is true. Ethiopia was one of the
latest nations to have slavery codified in law. Now, I
should note that while this is a very valid criticism
of the Ethiopian state, slavery is always a bad thing.
The British ambassador in Ethiopia also owned slaves. So it's
a little bit rich there. Wait wait wine, quite a

(32:31):
goddamn minute. It's like, and I know a lot of
Brits like profited off of slave labor after and and
then shutting in America still having slaves. The entire Industrial
Revolution does not happen without slave cotton, like even all
of Europe's like, yeah, I have the goal, I want

(32:52):
to say, but they also just were not allowing themselves
to be checked by anyone, So I get it. Unlimited's
gonna read some CD movement. A huge justification for British
land grabs in Africa throughout the entire period where they're
taking Africa is we're ending slavery. That's why we have
to go into these different countries and because we have
to stop slavery, you know, like they justify a lot

(33:13):
of fucked up ship that way. There are no different
from the North of America. So I get it. No,
everybody's everybody's terrible. I mean everyone's always terrible. That's history, baby.
So anyway, the cause of Ethiopian membership in the League
of Nations seemed hopeless by this point. But then when

(33:34):
all seemed lost, a hero appeared. Do you want to
guess who this hero's name is? This? This this good
man who went to bat for Ethiopia joining the League
of Nations. I'm afraid but is it Hitler? No? But
it is Mussolini. Yeah, uh yeah. So in Mussolini's Italy

(34:00):
officially sponsored Ethiopia's request for membership in the League of Nations.
Now this seems baffling because number one, Mussolini definitely wants
to beat Ethiopia in a war. Um. He hates Ethiopia
because they embarrassed his country um. And he was on
record as having said Ethiopia absolutely should not be a
member of the League. However, he changes his mind because

(34:23):
Britain and France are split on the matter of Ethiopian membership.
The French supported Ethiopia joining the League of Nations, which
good for France, you know, I'll give them, give it
to them. The British opposed Ethiopia joining the League of Nations,
and Mussolini backed Ethiopia because he assumed the British would
keep resisting their membership and then he could win a

(34:44):
diplomatic victory without letting black people into the League. It
was all just a bunch of stupid in fighting. But
as soon as Mussolini backs Ethiopian membership, the British decide
it's not worth fighting anymore and they withdraw their opposition. So,
because of a diplomatic fluke, but fluke, Ethiopia joins the
League of Nations, even though like Mussoli didn't actually want
them to like But why because now you've given essentially

(35:09):
the land you want to take over protection. Yes, yes, yes,
one would assume. Now Rastafari may have, um, you know,
suspected that Mussolini was not doing this out of the
goodness of his heart, but publicly, right, you have what
you suspect. If you're a smart regent, and and Ross
Stafari is a very smart man, probably knows Mussolini was

(35:30):
trying some facor he didn't really want Ethiopia in the League,
but publicly Mussolini backed the League's the Ethiopia's membership, and
so publicly he has to go thank Mussolini. So Rastafari
is yeah, as region of Ethiopia. Rastafari travels to Rome
to meet with Il Duce and give him thanks. The
two sit down face to face for the first and

(35:52):
last time, and Tafari would later write that he was
immediately impressed by Benito's quote powerful face, his enormous eyes,
his projecting jaw. Ross asked for an outlet to the
sea through Italian territory, and Mussolini said sure, and in fact,
I already have a treaty that includes that ready, and
I'll you would just sign it now. Now, it couldn't
possibly be a bad treaty with translations, could it. Rastafari

(36:19):
is not an idiot. He knows what Italian treaties are worth.
So he says, oh, cool, a treaty, sweet, Oh, this
is just what I wanted. I'm gonna take this back
home and I'm gonna think real hard about it. Now.
The treaty was of course filled with the same kind
of bullshit or the last treaty had been filled with,
and Tafari rejected it. You might think this would have
made him anti Mussolini, but at this point the Italian

(36:40):
leader was still Rastafari's favorite European leader, because Benito had
at least sat down face to face with him, which
meant he showed the region of Ethiopia more respect than
anyone else in Europe did so. Ross had also visited
France during this time, and the French gave him a
tour of Paris, but they wouldn't let him meet with
anybody or talk about in an national business. The British

(37:01):
were even worse. Before he crossed the English Channel. An
article in The Manchester Guardian wrote that on the continent,
Ross had received a kiss on the cheek from a
little girl. The Guardian wrote, quote, a kiss for a
Negro king is more than all the wealth of England
can afford. Yeah, what the fuck? High grade racism from

(37:24):
the Guarden. Knew white people were really into, you know,
the purity of white women and and the benevolence of them.
But the idea that worth an entire at that point
in time, particularly England's entire treasury. The funk out of here,
I am. I understand why he has to do all
things he's about to do. Disrespect is insane. He goes

(37:49):
to England and King George the Fifth refuses to allow
Rastafari and his wife to stay at Buckingham Palace. He
wouldn't even greet the regent at the train station. Um.
And so it's worth noting that, in spite of all
of the horrible things Mussolini was about to do to Ethiopia,
he showed more respect to their leader than any other
European had did. I don't know what message you should
take from that, because I don't think there is a message.

(38:11):
But it's a thing that happened. Um, there we are.
It's a sad message. It's not a great, mass devastating now,
of course Banino Mussolini was a racist piece of ship.
He just wasn't above meeting with somebody he thought was
subhuman to try to trick them into a treaty. It's
more that he's like a pragmatist, right, Like, if you're

(38:32):
the King of England, you don't have to be pragmatic.
You can just be a racist asshole. Mussolini's you know,
he's gotta do. He's gotta do what he's gotta do
to make ship happen um, and so he's willing to
do this. While Ross was still in Europe, Duce was
exchanging messages with the British ambassador, wherein he promised to
back London's plan to get land on Ethiopia's Lake Tanah
and let the British build a road to that land

(38:54):
through Italian territory if the British would help Italy get
rights to build a railroad through Ethiopia to connect It's
to call leanness. So while Mussolini's meeting with Rastafari, he's
secretly carving up Ethiopia with the British while it's still
an independent nation that's just joined the legal nation. Yeah,
that means they're all motherfucker's. But you know who's not

(39:14):
a motherfucker? Joe the products and services that support this podcast. Perfect.
I'm so glad. Yeah, not not motherfucker's. Ah. We're back,

(39:34):
um and having a great time just talking about Ethiopia.
So um yeah, what you say, Oh my gosh, okay, sorry,
let's go. I don't know. I thought you want to
say evil. I thought it was a very exaggerated evil.
And then I was like, what we are really talking

(39:54):
about Ethiopia, so that makes sense we should Actually, I
thought you were going to say evil too, I was
just Ethiopia. So Ethiopia's you know, Ross does this tour
of Europe and the leaders of your like, he meets
with Mussolini. WHI Mussolini's planning to cut up Ethiopia with
England um and uh yeah um. So when you know,

(40:21):
Ross gets back to Ethiopia via the British, and the
Italians sent him a letter that basically said, hey, here's
what we agreed to do with your land. Um. And
Rastafari was really angry at this, uh, and he used
his new found membership in the League of Nations to
go before the international community. He made a big speech
about how fucked up this was, and people smiled and nodded,
and the Italians gave him an award, and then they

(40:42):
started offering arms and money to one of his rivals
back home in Ethiopia. So he says, I'm not going
to let you come into my country and build these
roads and ship and take this lake. Uh. And they're like, oh,
you're so brave. Here's an award. And also we're going
to give guns to the guy somebody who wants to
kill you. Now, this culminated in orderable against Rastafari's government
in nineteen thirty, which he brutally put down with the

(41:04):
help of a French biplane and a lot of explosives.
That same year, the Empress died and Rastafari the regent,
became highly Selassie the Emperor of Ethiopia. And I think
that more or less brings us up to speed to
nineteen thirty two ninety three, with everyone getting anxious over
Japan and Benito putting plans in emotion to get Britain
and France on board with his invade Ethiopius scheme. There's

(41:25):
a lot of detail to get into here. I know
they've been jumping back and forth and stuff. There's a
lot you have to set up because this is a
year's long process. But the short of it is, and
like there's a whole you could read a whole book
on all of the different negotiations between France and England
and Italy that lead to him Mussolini invading Ethiopia. The
short of it is that France and Britain were both

(41:46):
willing to let Italy invade Ethiopia if they got something
out of it in response, and the thing that they
really wanted was an ally against Nazi Germany. So thirty three,
Hitler's taken power right, and obviously France and England are
worried because World War One wasn't that long ago. Um
Hitler has been talking for a long time before he
came to power about annexing Austria, which was crucial to

(42:09):
his ambitions of greater European dominance. Italy or France and
England don't want Hitler to annex Australia or Austria, but
Francin Englian don't want Hitler to annex Austria. Now, Mussolini
was the first Fascist leader, and Hitler looked up to
him in a lot of ways. But the two men
were not friends and they did not particularly like each other.
So Britain and France tell Italy we're not going to

(42:30):
complain about if you do whatever you want with your
military to to to Ethiopia, as long as you stop
Hitler from taking Austria, because obviously Italy right, Austria's right
above it. Right. Um, So this reasoning is why the
Soviet Union, who you might expect to have supported Ethiopia
against a fascist oppressor, also backed Italian ambitions in Ethiopia.

(42:53):
So the Soviets support the fascists in Ethiopia initially because
they think these fascists will stop other fascists from gaining
more territory in Europe. You cannot kill something really bad. Bet.
Everybody makes a terrible fucking bet here. Why would you
just gonna get a hold in northern Africa anyway? Like,

(43:14):
it's just it don't make no sense. Yeah, it's it's
it's not I mean it makes sense in that Italy
has the geographical position to oppose Germany. But yes, like
looking back at it with hindsight, clearly, backing the Italians
against the Nazis was not a good move for anyone um.

(43:35):
And it's interesting to me that both England and France
and the Soviets make the same mistake at the same time.
And I'm gonna quote from a write up on the
website libcom dot org. Giving force to Italy's new role
as a defender of the status quo against Germany, Mussolini
promised a million bayonets. By the end of June, Roman
Paris had signed a pact of general military cooperation over Austria,

(43:56):
and these good relations permitted the French army to plan
for withdrawing seventeen Divisi from Southeast France and North Africa
to reposition them above the magine O line. All this
drew favorable comment from Moscow, and the Kremlin had good
reason to hope that collective security could continue to work,
as in the summer of nineteen thirty four, when Italy
had moved its troops to the Brenner Pass and forced
Germany to back down over Austria. So November of nineteen

(44:19):
thirty four, everyone's committed, like, oh, Italy is gonna back there,
gonna stop the Nazis from taking Austria for us great
and because everyone is so grateful to Italy for forcing
the Germans to back down over the Brenner Pass. Mussolini
feels comfortable that he can get away with provoking a
war in Ethiopia. Now the actual causus belly, right, the
cause for war, the legal justification. This is another like

(44:41):
in Manchuria, it's a false flag. Right. It starts in
a place called wal Wall, an oasis in the Ogaden Desert. Um. Now,
this was about sixty miles inside Ethiopian territory according to
treaties they'd signed with Italy. You'll hear some debate about that.
The treaties are never quite the same, right, because Italians um,
but it's inside Ethiopian territory. Um. And the Italians, though,

(45:01):
have maps to say it's in their territory. And three
they start occupying it with soldiers. The Ethiopians eventually march
at an attachment of soldiers into Walwall, and there's a gunfight,
and by the end of it, a hundred and fifty Ethiopians,
two Italians, and several dozen local Italian auxiliaries are dead.
Emperor highly Selassie goes to the League of Nations after this,

(45:22):
and it's like the fun guys. The League courageously ruled
that yeah, courageously ruled that no one was at fault
and exonerated both nations. They're like, you know, there was
some violence on both sides. One side was being invaded, sure,
but there was violence on both sides. It's great, and
this is what happens when you try to do business
with the oppressor, which obviously highly learns later. But wow, yeah, so,

(45:48):
I mean, he doesn't have a lot of options, right,
He's doing what he can. Um. Now, at this point,
highly Selassie realizes what's about to happen, that this is
the pretext for a war. Italy is going to invade,
so he's got to get ready. So he mobile lizes
his army, which is about half a million men, and
they are not well armed. Most of his army has
bows and arrows and spears. Um. They do have firearms.
They have divisions with firearms, but a lot of most

(46:10):
of those guns are obsolete. They have very few modern weapons.
They have barely any artillery, anti aircraft or um or
aircraft for that matter. Italy meanwhile had assembled twelve infantry
divisions somewhere around six hundred thousand troops with rifles and
machine guns, heavy artillery, ground vehicles and airplanes. Um. And
as the war drums beat, the League of Nations took

(46:32):
another action to try to stop war. They announced an
arms embargo on both sides. Now, this is a problem
because Italy already had a huge army with plenty of guns.
The Ethiopians did not. We're gonna stop both of you
from buying guns. The guy with all the guns, the
guy with none of the guns. Neither of you can
buy guns anymore. This is this is what equality looks like,

(46:54):
and not equity. Yeah. Um, So this makes it impossible
for Ethiopia to have any chance of arming herself to
an equivalent degree, although they don't really have the money,
so it's kind of debatable as to whether they'd have
been able to if there hadn't have been this embargo. UM.
One of the things that's happening internationally at this time
is there there becomes this big again because the Battle

(47:16):
of Ottawa was such a thing for like the Black
liberation movement worldwide, there's this there's this big racial conflict
with between the Italians, and it's kind of embodied by
a boxing match that happens around this time. There's this um,
there's this massive Italian boxer called his nickname is the
Ambling Alp because he's like as big as American and
he has a very I think it's in thirty four

(47:38):
this happens. He's a very famous boxing match with a
with a guy named Joe Lewis and probably the best
boxer there's ever been. No, that's only the Rumble in
the Jungle was decades later. So Joe Louis is the
longest running heavyweight champion of the world, which means for

(47:58):
twenty five straight years, no one could beat him in
a fight in the world. Like, Joe Louis is fucking incredible.
He also beats Um Max Schmelling, who was the Nazi
the best Nazi boxer. I think in six he beat
smelling Um. And these are in this big fight he
has with the Ambling Alp takes on these big dimensions

(48:19):
of like there's this massive conflict between the Italians and
the Ethiopians and like this fight embodied by Joe Lewis
fighting the Ambling Alp is a big deal for a
lot of people. Um. There's actually a really good song
about Joe Lewis by the Sayers called Ambling Out that
I recommend. But one of the things That's interesting is that, um,
like you know, this is framed as like, you know,

(48:41):
the fascistist embodied by the Ambling Alp, or you know,
the free people colonized people's of the world's embodied by
Joe Louis. But actually number one, the Ambling Alp was
not a fascist. Um, he was a mob guy, but
he and Joe Lewis got along really well. It's the
same thing with Max Schmelling, right. Max Schmelling was not
a member of the Nazi Party. He refused to join,
and he and Joe Louis were very good friends their

(49:02):
whole lives. In fact, when Joe Louis died poor and
Max Schmelling paid for his funeral decades later. So another
interesting to mention that, like the even though these guys
embodied these conflicts of nations, they actually got along as
human beings, even though they were like punching each other
in the face of lunch. I mean, they're probably they're
they're commiserated around the same sport and probably felt in

(49:25):
a lot of ways the same outcast nature I think,
which tends to run deep in the boxing community. One
thing I have to mention about the ambling out uh
name deserved he would have definitely been recruited as a
linebacker because he's like six ft six, he's huge, sixty
five pounds and I'm looking at him at that's muscle

(49:48):
that is in the thirties, which just because in the
thirties I always think of those like barrel chested like
kind of like not potbell lead. But you know, they're
they're just not as defined as what we like a
lot of our bundlers fighters are today. Yeah, and Joe
Louis was to fourteen, so you know, he's not a
he's not a small guy, but he is a significantly

(50:09):
smaller than the definitely had him stand on as incredible fighter. Yeah,
Like he's an amazing fighter. Again for twenty five years,
no one on earth could beat him in a fist fight.
You don't, yeh No? So um yeah, So okay, back
to the what's happening in Ethiopia? So, right, the League

(50:32):
of Nations puts this arms embargo and they make it
impossible for Ethiopia arm herself. Now, the USSR is not
in the League of Nations and they could have sent
guns in to help Ethiopia resist fascist aggression, but they
were too busy sending a shipload of resources to Fascist Italy.
See the USSR had conducted economic negotiations which concluded in
June of n right before Italy started to mobilize for war.

(50:56):
To keep Mussolini happy, uh and to keep blocking Austria
for the Nazis, Russia sent forty freighters of wheat, oats, barley,
cold timber, coltar, and gasoline. So when Mussolini's war machine
rolled into Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, his armored
cars would be filled with Soviet fuel. Um. Which is
fun and it's made funner because the Ethiopian army did

(51:18):
receive some last minute help, a crucial shipment of thousands
of guns, dozens of artillery pieces, and a shiplet of
ammunition from an unlikely benefactor, Nazi Germany. Here it is here.
So the Soviets are backing fascist Italy and the Nazis
are backing Ethiopia. It's it's it's a weird war. World

(51:40):
wars make weird bedfellows. Obviously, Hitler thinks black people are subhuman.
He's a racist, um, but he hated not owning Austria.
More in his thinking was every dead Italian and Ethiopia
is one less Italian blocking the passes into Austria from
my army. Right, that's why Hitler does this, you know,
um Now. Matters were incensed a bit more in mid

(52:03):
July when Japanese Foreign Minister Kobe Hirota undermined the efforts
of Japan's ambassador, a guy named Sugimura, to reach some
sort of public reproache ma with the Italians. Italy's press
went ape shot over this and accused Japan of trying
to start a race war and quote using Africa as
a bridge over which the Yellow race would attack Europe. Um.
We would never do something. We would never do now. Obviously.

(52:28):
A few years after this, Roman Tokyo wind up allied,
but according to a write up in lipcom dot org
quote for the moment. However, a Talo Japanese tensions continued
well into August and September. For example, Japan's acting Minister
to the League of Nations insisted that in a Talo
Ethiopian war would mean a conflict between the white and
black races, although he added war could be prevented with

(52:48):
great hopes for assistance and to grand public fanfare, and
Ethiopian representative visited Japan many Japanese nationalists asserted that a
racial unity bonded Japan with Ethiopia. Although these were mostly
private citizens who embarrassed the government, their blandishments lent credence
to Italy's racial alarm. So did Japan's newspapers. The Cocumen
of July ninety editorialized that Italy, guided by racial prejudices

(53:10):
towards Ethiopia, had even criticized Japan from that warped racial viewpoint.
The paper added that even if they settled the immediate issue,
the racial problem would remain in Italy was responsible. The
Niici Nichi added that Italy's attempt to wrap the Ethiopian
issue in racial cloth would fail. The Hucci on Alga
seventh wrote that Italy intended to make Ethiopia it's protectorate.
The imperialism and sense of racial superiority common among right

(53:32):
whites had led Italy to take such an ambitious policy.
The paper concluded that the Japanese had to make the
white race see its injustice and errors. That same day,
the Osaka Sahi wrote that the Italo Ethiopian dispute had
aroused the colored peoples against Italy and whites. If racial
reconciliation proved difficult, Mussolini Italian papers and their use of
the Yellow Peril would have to bear the consequences. So

(53:53):
Japan is trying to stir up like if you do this,
it's gonna you're gonna you're starting a race war, right
Like That's how a lot of the Japanese media does it. Now.
They drum all this up and they make a big
stink about it before the war. But when the war comes,
Japan does nothing to defend Oh no, no, why would they?
So the question is like, why would they make a
big deal about this um because their whole policy, the

(54:17):
reason they were saying all this ship had nothing to
do with stopping Italy from fucking with Ethiopia. They wanted
a better diplomatic relationship with Italy and they were kind
of playing hardball, right they were like this was you know,
they're kind of like doing bad cop good cop ship here,
like but diplomatically, and that's why they're like drumming all
this ship up. They want to make the Italians concerns
that the Italians like, hey, no, let's let's let's make

(54:38):
a deal and be friends. You know, That's what they're
trying to work out here. I feel like that might
have worked on Britain, but would not work on like
why are you coming at me like this? And it
does so because of like Japan doing all this, they
wind up in negotiations with Italy, and the negotiations that
start here kind of eventually lead to the alliance between

(55:01):
the two countries. Um And there were observers at the
time who because again, fascist Italy, fascist Japan, they're on
the same side of World War two, right, um So,
and there were there were observers at the time who
recognized what was going on. Right. There were a lot
of people kind of more casual observers who were like,
especially like amongst sort of the black diasphor community, who

(55:22):
are like, oh, Japan has our back in this. But
there were people who recognized none and other Japanese whore
just playing a political game. And one of them was
a guy named George Padmore. George was an American communist
and editor of The Negro Worker, which was a black
communist newspaper, and he wrote quote, it is to be
hoped that the Ethiopians have no illusions about the Japanese imperialists, who,

(55:43):
in their internal and external policies are quite as ruthless
as the white imperialist nations. The Japanese ruling class, like
all other capitalists, are no respectors of race, color, or creed,
although it might suit their present needs to pose as
the defenders and champions of the darker races. Their record, however,
has been too dramatically written in the out of millions
of Koreans and Chinese for us to have any doubts
about their true character. I think it's important because you

(56:06):
have here kind of the USS are backing very much
the wrong side in this um, but you have American,
particularly American black communists realizing like these people are just
playing a fucking game with us. Japan doesn't give a
shit about Ethiopia. Japan doesn't give a shit about fighting imperialism.
They're imperialists too. We're getting you're getting played right. You
gotta always be vigilant as a black person, people just

(56:26):
use you as chess pieces in a board game. Yeah.
And George pad More rites eloquently about that um, and
that is, broadly speaking, kind of the story of every
country but Ethiopia and this mess. Anyone who actually came
in on on Ethiopia side, like Nazi Germany was just
pursuing a political end of their own right. Nobody, nobody

(56:46):
gives a shit other than how it can affect their
bottom line. Um well, on a national scale, nobody gives
a shit. So as the Battle of Adwa had become
an international symbol of black resistance, the looming war between
Ussolini and Ethiopia also became symbolic. It was, in its
own way, an international anti fascist event, not dissimilar from

(57:07):
the Spanish Civil War. W. E. B. Dubois and Paul
Robeson addressed a Harlem Lee a Harlem League against War
and Fascism rally. One speaker tied Mussolini's invasion to quote
the terrible repression of black people in the United States.
People's March for Ethiopia and Harlem drew twenty five thousand people,
a mix of Black Americans and anti fascist Italian Americans

(57:28):
who showed up in an admirable gesture of solidarity, and
as in the Spanish Civil War, men volunteered to fight.
In Chicago. Eight thousand black men started drilling for battle,
five thousand in Detroit, two thousand in Kansas City. Most
of these men never made it over to Ethiopia, right,
because it's illegal to do this, right, Um, And the
law was in you know, the law was more willing

(57:49):
to enforce this law against black people than it would
against white people trying to fight and say the Spanish
Civil War, right, not that that was even Um. Yeah.
There were, however, some black Americans who made it over,
including a black American pilot and engineer who helped Ethiopia
build and train a small air force. Um. Yeah, yeah,
so there are some some guys who come over. And
the most significant gesture of support from Black America probably

(58:12):
came from the Harlem Hospital, which collected enough money to
send a seventy bed hospital and two tons of badly
needed medical supplies to Ethiopia. That said, none of this
stops the Italian war machine from amassing on Ethiopia's borders, right. Um.
As the war drums are beating, as things are getting
ready to start, Emperor highly Selassie takes the unprecedented step

(58:33):
of speaking before the League of Nations. He is the
first head of state to speak in the Assembly, which
was not how they the League was supposed to work.
So this is like a really significant gesture. He tells
the heads of Europe quote. There is no precedent for
a head of state himself speaking in this assembly. But
there is also no precedent for a people being victim
of such injustice and being at present threatened by abandonment

(58:54):
to its aggressor. Also, there has never before been an
example of any government proceeding to the systematic extern nation
of a nation by barbarous means and violation of the
most solemn promises made by the nations of the Earth,
that they should not be used against innocent human beings
the terrible poison of harmful gases. It is to defend
the people struggling for its age old independence that the
head of the Ethiopian Empire has come to Geneva to

(59:15):
fulfill this supreme duty, after having himself fought at the
head of his armies. What reply shall I have to
take back to my people? The reply came on October third,
nineteen thirty five, when Italian General Emilio de Bono marched
his troops over the Mareb River. This is not a
military history podcast. I'm not going to give you a
blow by blow. The Ethiopians fought hard, and they won

(59:36):
several battles, but the Italian military was a twentieth century army.
Even the Ethiopians with rifles tended to carry shields to
They had no armored vehicles, they had almost no air force,
and they were beaten in due time. On May five,
nineteen thirty six, the Italians took Adis Ababa. Emperor Selassie
had fled to Palestine and then to England ahead of
his advancing foes. Selassie took again to the internet sational

(01:00:00):
stage to condemn Italy before the League, but as this
right up from the International Relations makes clear, the outrage
he stirred up generated nothing but token objections, despite the
fact that Italy's actions in Ethiopia were in clear violation
of international rules. Ethiopia's appeal to the League of Nations
did not work. Britain and France, concerned about the nascent
power of Germany, did not want to alienate Italy by

(01:00:21):
strictly following League rules and formed the biggest obstacle to arbitration.
After some shrewd politicking with the Ethiopian delegation, the League
considered Ethiopia's requests, but the Italians deflected the issue to
bilateral arbitration, allowing themselves to simply ignore Ethiopian demands and
continue preparations for war they knew was imminent. Further lead
action on Ethiopia was subordinated to German treaty violations, which

(01:00:42):
were of much greater concern to France and Britain. France
would even go so far as to offer its approval
for an Italian invasion in the Mussolinia of all the
Chords of ninety five, As Strang writes, quote, no important
power outside of Ethiopia saw preservation of Ethiopian sovereignty as
a vital interest, and thus the conflict was largely ignored.
We sanctions, which failed to embargo oil and coal, were
applied eventually, but only after the Italians committed acts of brutality.

(01:01:06):
Mussolini predicted this in action, saying that until there is
proof to the contrary, I refuse to believe that the
authentic people of Britain will want to spill blood and
send Europe to its catastrophe for the sake of a
barbarian country unworthy of ranking among civilized nations. Damn, Wow, wow,

(01:01:27):
insult to injury, Jesus curing and it's this, it's this get,
it's this bet that a lot of authoritarians around the
world have made recently. I can kill however many people
I want, because nobody wants to have another war. So
who's gonna stop me? Um, It's the authoritarian bet, and
they usually win. So during the invasion, despite the fact

(01:01:51):
that it was banned by international law, Italy dropped poison
gas on Ethiopian soldiers and civilians. Whole villages were obliterated
with chemical happens to clear the way for the Italian advance.
One woman, yet a Mingu, passed on her experience of
surviving one of these bombings to her granddaughter, quote, the
town had emptied of people, and then one day, finally
an answer. Six specs in the sky, specks moving faster

(01:02:14):
and faster and straighter than any bird, growing bigger and bigger,
until she could hear the roar. The streets ran with women, children, clergy,
the infirm. As the thundering drew near, they threw themselves
into ditches, huddled against walls behind trees. A dark rain
fell from them, a hail of metal that exploded with
a terrible noise as had hit the ground. How many
huts caught fire, and the women and children inside them

(01:02:36):
now aerial bombing was a primitive science at this point.
Italian strategy was to fill up giant barrels with poison,
which would airess alize upon breaking open on the ground
and contact. One Ethiopian officer at the time recalled, a
few hundred of my men were hit, their feet, their hands,
their faces were covered with blisters. I did not know
how to fight this rain that burned and killed. Despite

(01:02:57):
the fact that Ethiopia was functionally unable to is this
the Italian army in any comprehensive way. Mussolini declared total
war upon them. Gas was not just used on soldiers
or even civilian populations, but on pasture, cattles, lakes, and rivers.
They poison gas rivers in order to deny people food.
The ability of the country to support its people was
systematically gasped by the Italian air Force. At least three

(01:03:21):
hundred and eighty two thousand Ethiopians were massacred during eight
months of war, and the high count you'll here is
more like seven and fifty thousand. Jesus, because a lot
of these people die a year or two later from starvation,
you know, yeah, wow, uh wow wow. Yeah. And that's
not the end of it, because though they were defeated

(01:03:41):
by nineteen thirty six, Ethiopia continued to resist. There were
guerilla bands that were insurgent strikes on convoys, and women
again played a major role in fighting the Fascist occupier.
From historian Bahuswetti quote, not only were their Ethiopian women warriors,
but they played a major role in the very strong
resistance movement after the Italians took over government. By reason
of their capacity to arouse less suspicion, they played a

(01:04:03):
predominant role inside the enemy's organizational network, passing on crucial
information about enemy strength, troop movements, and planned operations. Now,
once they were in command, Mussolini appointed a colonial dictator,
a fellow named Graziana, to rule Italy's new possessions. Graziani
something like that, Grazia Graziani, that spisy mete the bald

(01:04:25):
man whatever, and Italians um. In February of seven, a
resistance cell carried out an assassination attempt on Graziani. The
Fascist retribution was horrific, and I'm going to quote from
a write up in The Economist here led by the
local black shirts, Mussolini's paramilitaries officially granted carte blanche regular
soldiers carabinieri, which are like their elite, and perhaps more

(01:04:47):
than half of Adisa Baba's Italian civilians took part in
this ghoulish massacre. Witnesses reported crushed babies, disemboweled pregnant women,
and the burning of entire families. Mr. Campbell, who's the
historian who studies this particular active massacre, argues that this
was a methodical effort to wipe out Ethiopian resistance to
Italian rule, more like later Nazi war crimes than early

(01:05:08):
colonial massacres. He charges both Graziani and the local Fascist
party leader Guido Cortesi with personal responsibility the unconscious. When
the killing began, Graziani took control of the subsequent reprisal executions,
aimed in particular at eliminating the Ethiopian nobility and intelligencia.
Between twenty and thirty thousand civilians were massacred in a
matter of days. Graziani was never prosecuted for his crimes

(01:05:31):
after the war ended. Um Yeah, and one of the
long term consequences this is they massacre all of or
not all, but most of the Ethiopians who know how
to run a government who know how to do like
the like the functional thing you're like, people wonder like
why was Ethio white, like all that starvation and ship
that was had, Like you know, the latter part of

(01:05:52):
the twentieth century, there were a lot of calamities ethiop Well,
some of it goes back to the fact that all
of the people who knew how to run a country
get fucking massacred by the Italians, and that makes it
hard to have a country afterworks Jesus, I'm trying to
It's obviously impossible to imagine this because I don't think
the human brain can eve. I forget what the limit is,

(01:06:12):
but after so many numbers, you can't conceive of it
in your mind, right, But twenty people in a couple
of days just got my hometown blowing up with people
and the whole town just dead in like three days.

(01:06:32):
Who Yeah, the architect of this um is not prosecuted
for anything he does in Ethiopia. He was briefly imprisoned
for working with the Nazis after the war, but the
British didn't want to prosecute him for killing thirty people
because if they prosecuted him from murdering colonial subjects that
would have said a brad precedent, because the British did

(01:06:52):
that ship too. We can't prosecute this guy. He did
the same ship we do. You know, Please, God, of
your mass murders. I promise your society will be okay
without and probably more importantly, other people's societies will also
be okay without them. There's a couple of benefits, a
couple of benefits of getting read of your mass murders,
you might say, God, damn. The only good news, if

(01:07:15):
there can be good news in a story like this,
is that Ethiopia played a major role in changing the
Western world's mind about fascist Italy before the invasion. Mussolini
was like a celebrity. He was seen as an economic
miracle worker, which is not true. The Italian economy was
a disaster, and that's part of like like in heart.
But they were able to lie right like their fascists

(01:07:36):
they get we just wanted to do something similar here. Yeah,
um so. But he was very popular. There were a
lot of Americans are like, that's what we need is
a guy like Mussolini. He could whip this country into shape,
you know, deal with these lay about socialists, all that
kind of ship and people loved Mussolini. He was extremely popular,
especially in the United States. That's great. That's how all Americans,

(01:07:59):
that's how we that's how we talked in the nineteen thirties.
This is the voice. This is the only way white
people's sounded. Um. So Mussolini celebrity in the United States
and like the late twenties and thirties, and he's part
of why a lot of Americans were fascism curious in
the early thirties because Musolini seem to be so good

(01:08:20):
at what he was doing. Why don't we try that?
We just need our Mussolini. Um. Italy's massacre in Addis
Ababa carried out, which was, you know, the story of
this massacre was carried over the wire by courageous journalists
on the ground and broadcast put throughout through a newspaper
owned by a former suffragette, Sylvia Pankhurst Um And as
a result of outrage over the killings, Time magazine declared

(01:08:41):
highly Selassie their Man of the Year in nineteen thirties.
Six previously, Time had swooned over Mussolini. So Time Magazine
big fans of Mussolini. They get horrified by this massacre.
They make highly Selassie Man of the Year in thirty six,
right because speech after his country fall. Then immediately I
was like yeah, I mean yeah, yeah. But it's also

(01:09:02):
worth it that following the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the
far right foreign editor of Time magazine, who had been
such a fan of Mussolini is fired. He gets forced
out of the magazine. Um, and he actually was. He doesn't,
he gives the fire. He leaves because he loses a
fight to nominate Mussolini for a Nobel Peace Price. Um, sir, yeah,
I know, real douche bag. What the hell you know,

(01:09:26):
who deserves the Nobel Peace Price? This man who killed
that a thousand people. Nothing's more peaceful than the dead.
Make better choices, is all I have to say to that.
What the I mean in fairness, they did, They made
highly Selastine Man of the Year. They got they got
their head on straighter. Um. And kind of you can

(01:09:46):
see what happens to Time Magazine after as a result
of the invasion is kind of emblematic of more broadly
what's happening in American culture. Right. The shift against fascism
against fascist Italy is where it starts, because how brutal.
This is I'm gonna quote now from a write up
by Jacobin Magazine. As James Dugan and Lawrence lafore point

(01:10:07):
out in Days of Emperor and Clown, the old liberal
tradition of sympathy for fascism still lingered towards the end
of nineteen thirty five, but it had begun to change.
In November of that year, the New Republic proposed a
more sophisticated explanation of the war, one that showed a
much clearer and more hostile understanding of the nature of fascism,
and by January of nineteen thirty six it gave great
prominence to an article by Salvimini and Maxiscoli excoriating Mussolini.

(01:10:30):
The strange destiny of Ethiopia had begun to realize itself,
ad Dugan and Lafour. It was paradoxically creating the Rome
Berlin axis, making it terrifying and therefore strong. But it
was also commencing the work that would eventually invoke the
conscience of the West and bring it into fascism. So
Italy wins this battle, but they lose the war in
part because this starts galvanizing people against fascism. This is

(01:10:52):
really the first mass scale fascist crime against humanity. People.
We've already said I was saying here about people. So
it was it just the numbers that were horrifying, Like
that's just what. Yeah, it was the numbers, and it
was the you know, even a lot of racists they
might not want they might be pro segregation, but there's
a line between being pro segregation and wanting to see

(01:11:13):
babies beaten to death in the street, right like, and
not be cool with mass murder. Like, not that that
exonerates like, but I think a lot of Americans who
were still pretty racist were like, oh, fuck, that's too far.
You know, that's okay, Yeah, weld not be ripping babies
from pregnant mothers. That's yeah, freaking weird. Yeah, oh my goodness. Yeah.

(01:11:36):
Um and now of course, um yeah. I should note
that once the war actually got going and Italian atrocities
the poison gassing of civilians was obvious to everyone, the
USSR and the rest of the international community registered token
complaints about the violence. They stopped dealing with Italy after this.
The Soviets do most of all. The Italian invasion of

(01:11:56):
Ethiopias spells the final end of the League of Nations.
What Italy did was so blatant, and the uselessness of
the body to stop it was so apparent that no
one could take the League seriously anymore. This is what
kills the League of Nations. Is Ethiopia really more than
any other single factor? How could we trust you after
that ship? Yeah? Of course, Like what is your what

(01:12:17):
are you even doing if you can't stop this ship?
Your members? Yeah? Yeah for a member nation. UM. One
cartoon in Punch magazine which kind of visualized Brittain and
France as characters in a musical singing to Mussolini read,
we don't want you to fight, but by Jingo, if
you do, we will probably issue a joint member random

(01:12:37):
suggesting a mild disapproval of you. Not to catchiest song,
but it's right. Yeah. In nineteen sixties six, historian A. J. P.
Taylor wrote, the League died in nineteen thirty five. One
day it was a powerful body imposing sanctions. The next
day it was a useless fraud. Everybody running away from
it as quickly as possible. Hitler watched. Eleven years later,

(01:13:01):
historian A. P. Adam Thwaite added, Manchuria demonstrated that the
League was toothless. However, the blow to the League was
not a mortal one, and the decisive test came two
years later in the Abyssinian Crisis. The Abyssinian Crisis delivered
a death blow to the League. It was already weakened
by the departure of Japan in March nineteen thirty three
and Germany in October. Italy left in nineteen thirty seven.

(01:13:21):
While Britain and France were distracted, Hitler made his first
major territorial move, sending a force of men into the
demilitarized Rhineland. Dictators are watching, they test the waters. They
know you don't want war. They know they can get
away with a bunch, and if they get away with enough,
they'll get away with everything. That's why they keep pushing. UM.
That's the story that keeps getting repeated throughout history. It's

(01:13:44):
the thing that people don't ever learn from or deal
with effectively. UM. It just keeps happening over and over
and over again. And it happened. You know, you could
draw directly and it's not just you know, Hitler is
looking at the League's failure with Ethiopian by the way
Abyssinia is with the Europeans called Ethiopia during this period.
I call it Ethiopia because that's the term. Yeah. Um,

(01:14:08):
But there's there's other dimensions of this. Right. So Hitler's watching,
Oh they didn't you know. Mussolini watches, Oh, the Japanese
took me in Cherry and nobody stopped them. I'm going
to take Ethiopia. Hitler watches that and he's like, Okay,
well I'm gonna go take the fucking Rhineland. And like
everything that happens in World War two, a lot of
it comes out of that. Um. And you could draw
in a similar way, um, the the Armenian genocide which

(01:14:31):
takes place during World War One, which is the Turkish
golferent massacring about a million Armenians. Um. The international community
does nothing about it. And when Hitler was talking with
his guys, with his other leaders of Germany about what
they were going to do the Jewish population, there was
a lot of worry that like, well, if we actually
go all the way with this genocide thing, like that's
gonna be a problem. People are going to try to

(01:14:52):
stop us, Like they're not gonna let us do this.
This is going to make because an issue and Hitler's
response to that was, who now remembers the Armenians. You
don't even want talking about Armenia. Nobody gives a ship.
I can kill whoever the funk I want. They're not
going to do anything. They don't want another war. Well, uh,
he wasn't wrong until he was. Eventually, he was eventually,

(01:15:14):
but it was it was probably still was not so
much about the murderer and death. You know, it wasn't
so much about who was being murdered. But you know,
you're sucking up traditional lines of things, and people didn't
like that. Like, yeah, if Hitler had stuck to just
murdering all of the Jews in Germany, he probably would
have been able to do it. But we don't know
what's going on in Germany. That's crazy the Germans. So

(01:15:36):
you can manage him. We're over here in Britain. We're fine. War, no, sir, Yeah, no, no,
not at all. Oh my gosh, humanity is it is
a disease unto itself, and it's it's also bad. It's
a real dilly of a pickle. Oh it's come here.
And I tried to understand the pickle we're in and

(01:15:59):
just end up more miss if I more troubled by
it all. That's that's what learning history teaches you. It's
kind of like the lesson of like, the only person
who wasn't racist too highly Selassie was Mussolini. What does
that teach us? I don't fucking know. It's just a
thing that happened. Judan's archaeotic and awful beings. Chaotic and awful. Yeah, yep,

(01:16:23):
ship just happens anyway, we disturbed. Here's some ship that happened.
That was the story today. Joel, you got any pluggable
as you want to plug? Oh man, you guys, you
make your pay me all over the internet. Actual Monique,
it's j O E L E M O N I
q U e UM. I'm pretty sure there is a
hun Day video out where myself, Zach Brafft, Donald phase

(01:16:47):
on uh DJ Dannel who I know this fan base
is prominently aware of. Uh. We're in a Hunday and
we get a tour of l A with Zack and Donald.
It is stupid, funny, ridic u list. We reenact a
scene from Clueless, which was obviously my favorite part. And
if you would enjoy watching such things, you can do that.

(01:17:07):
I believe it's gonna be on Zack's YouTube page, but
I'll definitely have a link posted by now, so try that. Yeah. Um, alright, well,
I'm Robert Evans. I have a book, After the Revolution.
It's a novel. You can find it in podcast form
if you want to listen to the audio presentation of
it at After the Revolution wherever you find podcasts. There's

(01:17:30):
also the text of the book uploaded as e pubs
to a t r book dot com. So check out
a t r book dot com, check out the reddit
at r slash after the Revolution and listen to the podcast. Um,
and you know, um fuck Italy. Sure, I'll go on
a funk Italy with you. Funk everybody really funk like everybody. Yeah,

(01:17:53):
I'm just kind of fun everybody, Okay, that message of
the story fun everybody except for Joe Lewis. Okay, Yeah,
I'm Louis. You're fine. You're fine. I didn't say anything
about you, or you don't want to start ship with
Joe Louis

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Behind the Bastards News

Follow Us On

Host

Robert Evans

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season

Dateline NBC

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Part Two: The Italian Invasions of Ethiopia