Lion by the Tail: The Story of the Italian-Ethiopian War by Thomas M. Coffey lands on the shelves of my shop.
London: Hamish Hamilton, 1974, Hardback in dust wrapper.
Illustrated by way of: Black & White Plates; Maps to the endpapers and blanks;
From the cover: When a company of Ethiopian soldiers clashed on December 5th, 1934, with a garrison force of Italian troops at a desert water-hole called Wal Wal, about 450 miles southeast of Addis Ababa, the incident seemed so trivial that some European and American newspapers ignored it; others gave it only two or three lines. Yet this encounter set off a chain of events which produced a hideous war between Ethiopia and Italy and made the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (known as the Lion of Judah) into a world-famous tragic hero. It exposed the weakness and cynicism of the European and American democracies, destroyed the League of Nations, and led directly to World War II.
Lion by the Tail is the story of Mussolinis 1935-6 invasion of Ethiopia and of the diplomatic duplicity which made it possible. The book shows that, while the Italian-Ethiopian War cannot be said to have caused World War II, it was the most important single event in bringing about that cataclysm.
The human aspects of the bloody struggle between the bare-footed Ethiopians and the mechanized, mustard-gas spraying Italians are dramatically emphasized. But Lion by the Tail also presents documentary proof that reasonable firmness by the French, British and American governments would have prevented Mussolinis vieious adventure, and would thereby have warned Hitler against adopting Mussolinis bluffing, bullying diplomatic tactics. When Sir John Simon, Sir Samuel Hoare, Stanley Baldwin, Pierre Laval and even Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to stop Mussolini, it appeared to Hitler that such men would do nothing to stop him.
In describing the tragic failure of democratic diplomacy as well as the violent battle scenes between the Italians and Ethiopians, Lion by the Tail not only brings to life the full story of that brutal war, but also contributes importantly to our understanding of the even more brutal war which began three years later.
Good+ in Very Good Dust Wrapper. A little rubbing to the edges of the dust wrapper with a light scratch across the head of the upper panel. The pages are somewhat tanned, if tight, and a little musty.
Black boards with Silver titling to the Spine. [XIII] 369 pages. Index. Bibliography. 9½” x 6¼”.
Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!
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