This article is part of the series The Road to World War II .

The final blow to international law and order¹, and hence the credibility of the League of Nations, came with the long-expected Italian invasion of Abyssinia².

The League of Nations reacted with sanctions, but refused to include a decisive sanction on oil, which would have forced Mussolini to retreat, in fear of driving Mussolini into Hitler’s arms. More destructive was the “Hoare-Laval Plan” (named after the British and French prime ministers) in which Italy would be awarded two-thirds of Abysinnia, of which the League wasn’t even informed. The public outcry when plan was leaked forced Hoare to resign but it was too late to repair the damage to the League.

The invasion of Abyssinia was the turning point in international relations before the Second World War. On a level of international and collective security it meant that

• the League of Nations was irreperably discredited in her role as a peacekeeper and Hitler was given further evidence that Britain and France were unwilling to act
• the recently created “Stresa Front”, and with it the attempt to collectively contain Hitler, was destroyed
• showed Mussolini’s preparedness (as later Hitler) to use force in order to achieve foreign policy aims, and the reluctance of Britain and France to thwart an aggressor

In the aftermath of the invasion Mussolini felt increasingly isolated. Whether this feeling was justified or unfounded, Hitler scented the occasion and exploited Mussolini’s feeling of isolation to align Italy with his own plans. This would lead to the Rome-Berlin Axis and later the war-time alliance between Germany and Italy².

Italy also consequently abandoned her resistance of German domination over Austria as she had done after the assasination of Dollfuss. The stage was set for a German annexation of Austria.

¹ The walls of international law and order had already started crumbling after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria

¹ October 1935

² The Pact of Steel