June 30, 1936: Emperor Haile Selassie's Plea Falls On Deaf Ears

June 30, 1936: Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia speaks before the League of Nations, at the Palais Wilson on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

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. At the end of the year, for his resistance, Time magazine named Haile Selassie its Man of the Year. 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.

Like all who had sat on his throne, Haile Selassie 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 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. He said:

I, Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, am here today to claim that justice which is due to my people, and the assistance promised to it eight months ago, when fifty nations asserted that aggression had been committed in violation of international treaties.

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 to its aggressor. Also, there has never before been an example of any Government proceeding to the systematic extermination of a nation by barbarous means, in violation of the most solemn promises made by the nations of the earth that there should not be used against innocent human beings the terrible poison of harmful gases.

It is to defend a people struggling for its age-old independence that the head of the Ethiopian Empire has come to Geneva to fulfil this supreme duty, after having himself fought at the head of his armies...

Apart from the Kingdom of the Lord there is not on this earth any nation that is superior to any other. Should it happen that a strong Government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment...

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 that the League of Nations effectively collapsed due to its failure to condemn Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. 

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.

But the restoration did come. 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. For all intents and purposes, it existed only on paper. In 1946, with the United Nations already operating, the League Assembly voted to dissolve the League.

*

June 30, 1936:  was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees swept a doubleheader from the Boston Red Sox, 10-5 and 6-3 at Yankee Stadium. Lou Gehrig went 3-for-6 with a home run in each game, 3 walks and 4 RBIs. Rookie Joe DiMaggio went 3-for-9 with an RBI. For the Sox, Jimmie Foxx 3-for-7 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs.

* The New York Giants lost to the Boston Bees, 7-6 at National League Park in Boston. This was the 1st season for which the Boston Braves tried to abandon their losing tradition by changing the name of their team and their ballpark, Braves Field. After 5 years, they realized it wasn't working.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals swept a doubleheader from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1 and 4-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.