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May 5, 1941: Five years to the day after Italy completed its annexation of the African nation of Ethiopia, the Allies liberate that country. Freedom defeats fascism.
Ethiopia was one of the few independent nations in Africa when Italy invaded on October 2, 1935, in fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's bid to create a new Roman Empire. On May 7, 1936, Italy completed its annexation of the country. Two days later, Mussolini declared the colony of Italian East Africa, also including Eritrea and Somalia.
Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopa, like all who had sat on his throne, claimed to trace his lineage back to the affair between Solomon, one of the Biblical Kings of Israel, and the Queen of Sheba, known in modern Ethiopia as Makeda. But now, the man known to his people as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Elect of God, and Lion of Judah had been overthrown, and had to flee his country.
The League of Nations had been founded after World War I, by President Woodrow Wilson (hence, the name of the its assembly hall), in the hopes of preventing another small conflicts, especially to prevent them from becoming bigger conflicts, as the fight between Serbia and the Austrian Empire in July 1914 snowballed into World War I.
But America's U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which had created the League. Thus, America, and the large moral authority it had gained from winning the war, were not in the league. Therefore, the League was considerably weaker than it could have been.
Still, Haile Selassie believed that, if he told the League what the Italians were doing in his country, they would respond, and help. Although fluent in French, the League's working language, the Emperor delivered his speech in his native language, Amharic, translated for the Assembly.
On June 30, 1936, Haile Selassie traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to speak before the League. Among h is remarks:
On behalf of the Ethiopian people, a member of the League of Nations, I request the Assembly to take all measures proper to ensure respect for the Covenant. I renew my protest against the violations of treaties of which the Ethiopian people has been the victim. I declare in the face of the whole world that the Emperor, the Government and the people of Ethiopia will not bow before force; that they maintain their claims that they will use all means in their power to ensure the triumph of right and the respect of the Covenant...
It is us today. It will be you tomorrow...
I ask the fifty-two nations, who have given the Ethiopian people a promise to help them in their resistance to the aggressor, what are they willing to do for Ethiopia? And the great Powers who have promised the guarantee of collective security to small States on whom weighs the threat that they may one day suffer the fate of Ethiopia, I ask what measures do you intend to take?
Representatives of the World: I have come to Geneva to discharge in your midst the most painful of the duties of the head of a State. What reply shall I have to take back to my people?
The League's reply was pathetic: Only partial and ineffective sanctions on Italy. It is often said the League of Nations effectively collapsed due to its failure to condemn Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. At the end of the year, Time magazine named Haile Selassie its Man of the Year.
He spent his exile in Bath, England. Back in Ethiopia, one of his daughters died in captivity, and his sons-in-law were executed. Another daughter died in childbirth shortly after the restoration.
In 1937, the Italian massacre of Yekatit 12 took place, in which between 1,400 and 30,000 civilians were killed, and many others imprisoned. This massacre was a reprisal for the attempted assassination of Rodolfo Graziani, Mussolini's Viceroy for Italian East Africa.
The Italians employed the use of asphyxiating chemical weapons in their Ethiopian invasion. They regularly dropped bombs throughout Ethiopia that carried mustard gas (a nasty weapon of World War I, banned thereafter) and debilitated the Ethiopian forces. On the whole, the Italians dropped about 300 tons of mustard gas as well as thousands of other artillery. This use of chemical weapons amounted to egregious war crimes.
But the Italians did make investments in Ethiopian infrastructure development during their rule. They created the so-called "imperial road" between Addis Ababa and Massaua. More than 500 miles of railways were reconstructed, dams and hydroelectric plants were built, and many public and private companies were established.
When Britain declared war on Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939, it also declared war on Italy, as part of the same Axis. On January 18, 1941, a combined force of Ethiopian, British Empire, Free France and Free Belgium troops invaded. On May 5, the Italians surrendered, and Haile Selassie entered the capital of Addis Ababa, and addressed his people again.
By that point, the League of Nations had only a skeleton staff. In 1946, with the United Nations already operating, the League Assembly dissolved.
Haile Selassie ruled his nation until 1974, when he was deposed by a leftist regime. He died under house arrest the following year.
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May 5, 1941 was a Monday. These baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 7-3 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Tommy Bridges outpitched Lefty Gomez. Hank Greenberg went 1-for-3. Joe DiMaggio went 0-for-3, although he did draw a walk. Ten days later, he began his 56-game hitting streak.
* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Braves, 5-1 at Braves Field in Boston.
* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-4 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Les McCrabb singled home the winning run in the top of the 11th inning. Pete Suder went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs for the A's. Luke Appling went 3-for-5 with an RBI for the South Siders.
* And the Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 2-1 at League Park in Cleveland. Rollie Hemsley singled Lou Boudreau home in the bottom of the 9th, to make a winning pitcher out of Bob Feller.
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