Legacy of Bitterness: Ethiopia and Fascist Italy, 1935-1941

Legacy of Bitterness: Ethiopia and Fascist Italy, 1935-1941 is an important study of the relationship between Ethiopia and Fascist Italy during the 1930s. Italy's colonial ambitions in Ethiopia and the gallant resistance of the Ethiopians led to a global segmentation of world opinion. The legacy of bitterness in Italo-Ethiopian relations to which the title refers stems from the fact that the Italians, besides using poison gas during the invasion of Ethiopia, continued to commit atrocities against the colonial people during their five-year presence in Ethiopia. In the anti-colonial resistance of the Ethiopians to Fascist rule, moreover, the Ethiopian nobility was conspicuously absent, focused as it was on its own self-preservation. In spite of a lack of leadership and coordination, however, the Ethiopian patriots delayed Italian demographic colonization and drained the Italian economy by keeping Ethiopia in a state of continuous warfare. The emergent Black nationalism of that period capitalized on the precarious internal situation of Ethiopia to win world public opinion and support in preventing the recognition of the Italian Empire. Italy's atrocities, including the use of the banned poison gas, posed a dilemma that had to be addressed by the Western powers. The international community, for political reasons and military considerations — primarily the containment/appeasement of Nazi Germany — proceeded to eliminate the economic sanctions against Italy which had been imposed by the League of Nations and, after two years of debate, acknowledged the (illegal) acquisition of Ethiopia by Italy. Thus was Ethiopia sacrificed for the security of Europe. The author, a renowned authority on the subject, has skillfully provided a broad perspective on the Italo-Ethiopian war in global terms. His study looks at the response to the war by the emergent Black nationalism in the diaspora, and Ethiopia's bitter struggle to tip the balance of world opinion in its favor.