"ዛሬ ብትሸነፉ በሁለት ሺህ ሰባ አንድ ዓለም ትቃጠላለች።" - 

- Haile Selassie I, Address to the Imperial Ethiopian Council, Addis Ababa, 14th September 1935

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Principles are easy to be preached during periods of stagnancy. The Covenant of the League of Nations promised collective security to every member state, which Abyssinia and other vulnerable nations clung to as sanctuary. Yet, this sanctuary was seemingly conditional. Conditional on the interests of the powerful, conditional on the identity of the aggressor and crucially, conditional on whether the great powers of Europe stood to lose anything by looking away. In 1935, they did not. Even though resolutions were drafted and condemnations were issued, oil kept flowing and backdoor negotiations continued while the world congratulated itself on having responded. 

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Underlying the Italian invasion of Abyssinia was a wound decades old. In 1896, Ethiopian forces dealt Italy a defeat at Adwa that Europe could scarcely believe. It was the only successful repulsion of a European colonial invasion in African history. When Mussolini rose to power in 1922, he governed with a fascist doctrine based on ultranationalism and the revitalisation of Rome’s imperial glory. Therefore, his logical next step would be to invade Abyssinia to compensate for the humiliation he inherited. The trigger came at the Wal Wal oasis, a territorial dispute which Mussolini used as justification to demand reparations from Abyssinia for an aggression that was, outwardly, initiated by him. 

Nevertheless, Italy had been shipping troops and supplies to its East African colonies since early 1935, months before any diplomatic resolution had been attempted. The League deliberated and Abyssinia appealed but Mussolini rejected every attempt at arbitration. When Italian forces crossed into Abyssinia on the 3rd of October 1935, they did so with overwhelming industrial force. They wielded a disproportionate arsenal of aircraft and chemical weapons against an army fighting largely with rifles and courage.

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It is now the 7th of March 1936, and the war has not died down.The Battle of Amba Aradam has just ended, shattering Ethiopia's northern army. Italian forces are ruthlessly pushing south. Even though Haile Selassie is still in Addis Ababa, under the illusion of safety and “collective security”, the capital’s and maybe even the nation’s fall is a matter of weeks. However, committee must simultaneously draw its attention to the German troops inconspicuously crossing into the Rhineland, a demilitarised zone Versailles explicitly forbade. The parallelism between these two decisions is not coincidental. Abyssinia is proof to the dictators of Europe that the international order can be violated without consequence.

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Collectively or unilaterally, the League's response amounted to action without any tangible outcome. Sanctions were imposed on Italy in 1935 but avenues to immediately restrict the Italian campaign remained unobstructed. For instance, the Suez Canal, through which Italian supply ships passed freely, was never closed. Even oil, the resource most critical to sustaining a modern military campaign, deliberately remained on the sanctions list. Britain and France were simultaneously negotiating the Hoare-Laval Pact behind closed doors which entailed a secret proposal to hand Mussolini the most fertile and resource-rich regions of Abyssinia in exchange for a ceasefire. While never reaching fruition, the message this sent was loud and clear. Abyssinia looked for justice and it was served betrayal. 

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What Abyssinia will cost the world is yet to unravel, but the trajectory of the League of Nations is evident. An Italy that is paying no meaningful price for invasion, a Germany that has followed suit and turned a blind eye to the Treaty of Versailles, and a League that has demonstrated that its red lines are conditional. 

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As this committee convenes, the questions are as urgent as they are unanswered. Can collective security be salvaged or has Abyssinia exposed it as fiction? Should meaningful sanctions - oil, the Suez Canal, genuine economic isolation - still be pursued, or has that window closed? Vitally, what does the world owe a nation it chose to abandon?

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Reality, as this crisis has shown, is shaped by those with the will to act on it. The future belongs to them and right now, that is Abyssinia. Every week of deliberation is a week Mussolini exploits. The question is no longer whether the League has the tools to act, but whether it has the stomach to use them.

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So delegates, here you are. Here you are at the nexus of inevitable collapse, and tasked with the impossible: Preventing the Abyssinian Crisis of 1936. In this timeline, the Committee assumes not the role of the Security Council, but the very organisation that could not, in fact, prevent it. Delegates, as your first challenge, you will be representing the League of Nations, and are bound by the diplomatic instruments, the mandate and the conventions prevalent in 1936. 

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Succeed, and discover the greater tests that lie ahead. Fail, and only time will tell what awaits.