Might v. Might

A furtive, sharp-nosed, bandy-legged little man in peasant sackcloth kept trying persistently one night last week to get into the Palace of Emperor Haile Selassie at Addis Ababa. Darting through the outer gate, the little man was instantly collared by a sentry. The sentry called a sergeant and after much whispering the little man was released, promptly sneaked through the second gate and was pounced on again, once more whispered, was once more identified and got away. Easing through the third gate the little man was almost strangled by a pantherlike sentry, but again a sergeant and more whispers worked their magic and on he sneaked. At the fourth and final gate he jabbered so plausibly in shrill tones that he was freely passed by the final sentry. Flying into a towering rage at this, the little man threw off his disguise and as Emperor of Ethiopia tongue-lashed the trembling fourth sentry, ordered him into chains. On the three dutiful sentries their Emperor conferred medals.

Two days later a sentry was killed by one of Emperor Haile Selassie's "domesticated" lions as five of the great beasts escaped, clawed five more sentries in their bolt out of the Palace. Though His Majesty calls himself "Conquering Lion of Judah" and makes special pets of lions, the five Beast Kings were finally mowed down with a machine gun last week by Colonel Mekouria of the Imperial Guard. Next at Addis Ababa came the paganistic maypole ritual with which Ethiopians every year open the dry season, their season of battle. Since this festival is always an orgy of savagery, the swart Emperor at first politely told foreign diplomats they were not invited, then sent them belated invitations last week to please his War Minister, picturesque Ras Mulu Getta who kept shouting, "Let's show these foreigners!"

In the end, to keep the Italian Minister, Count Vinci-Gigliucci from being lynched, the Emperor had to seat that diplomat close to himself. Brandishing ancient guns and showing empty cartridge belts, fierce tribesmen kept shouting at their sovereign, "Give us bullets! We want to shoot!" Meanwhile Ethiopia's Coptic clergy, supposed to play a prominent role in celebrating the end of the rainy season, were repeatedly driven indoors by a violent tropical storm which raged around His Majesty with shrill tempest screeches until the ground was covered with three inches of water and pasteboard coronation emblems were washed from the Triumphal Arch.

Anything but damped in ardor, 12,000 Ethiopian soldiers began a war dance in the mud, roared, "Death to the Italians!" and finally became so threatening that some had to be driven with bayonets off the steps of the Throne. Ethiopian officers leaped about with such prized weapons as rifles, a favorite routine being to drop to the ground, pretend to fire, then leap up with a whoop. Finally, excited Dedjazmatch (General) Bayenna led a shrieking cavalry charge past the Throne and wheeled about to cry, "Emperor, fear not the politics of the outer world! The Gods are with us!''

After the dangerous jamboree was over, His Majesty announced with relief that he had "demonstrated to skeptics that the Imperial Ethiopian Government exercises complete control over the supposedly restive warriors, who have exhibited a degree of obedience which has confounded their critics and surprised their friends."

Cocktails & Sanctions. Ever since President Woodrow Wilson's ideals congealed into the League of Nations its best friends have rated it brittle. Fearing their cherished instrument would snap like an icicle if used against a Great Power, League statesmen have pussyfooted for 15 long years. They let Poland conquer a good third of Lithuania and seize its then capital Vilna, which Poland still holds. They let Japan master four rich Chinese provinces. No sanctions were imposed to stop bloodshed between Bolivia and Paraguay. Though the League's own charter or Covenant is part of the Treaty of Versailles, the League played dead when Adolf Hitler violated the Treaty's military clauses (TIME, March 25), played deader when Britain and Germany united in tearing up its naval clauses (TIME, June 24). But last week, the Mediterranean having been filled with British war boats, the League sprang to life against Italy at the resurrecting torch of Might.

Earlier this year, when Italy was making the larger show of Might, Geneva weaseled around all Ethiopia's appeals, clear up to the ingenious decision by League Arbiter Nicolas Politis on the original Italo-Ethiopian armed clash at Ualual (TIME, Sept. 16) that neither side and nobody was to blame. Last week Might tipped Geneva's scale against Italy at a secret conference of League bigwigs ending at 11:10 a. m. At 11:40 the Council of the League was to make in public the decision reached in private. Two minutes before this public session began, Italy's delegation, led by eagle-bald Baron Pompeo Aloisi, ceremoniously retreated. Retiring to the League's bar the Italians each grasped a cocktail, formed themselves into a stiff circle and grimly upped bottoms in a silent toast, then withdrew to their hotel.

Meanwhile the voice of Might was gracefully made audible to the Council by Britain's handsome young Captain Anthony Eden. Said he simply, "We are now working under Article XV." These seven words perhaps opened a new volume of world history in which the League may prove to have the courage of its Covenant.

In the Council's movements last week there was more than one deft finesse,* but by acting under Article XV the following trains of events were made possible. First, the Council, sitting as a Committee of Thirteen (the Italian Councilman and the Ethiopian Delegate being excluded), must draft a fresh League report on Italy & Ethiopia, and last week Communist Councilman Litvinoff of Russia said candidly that he will try to have it made much harsher toward Fascist Italy than the previous report of the Committee of Five (TIME, Sept. 30).

Technically the Committee of Thirteen has until next spring to draw up its report and under Article XII all League States, including Italy and Ethiopia, are bound not to go to war in a given dispute until three months after the Council has rendered its report. Councilmen said last week that they expect to report within a fortnight.

After the report is in, if it be accepted by one disputant (say Ethiopia) and rejected by the other (say Italy), then if, but only if, the rejector makes war upon the acceptor, the whole constellation of League States is bound under Article XI to take action "deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations."

"Sanctions Mean War!" Such action is called in League parlance "invoking sanctions." In law a sanction is any measure applied to a wrongdoer to make him comply with what the community has made right and legal. Sanctions contemplated by the Covenant of the League are of four kinds: 1) moral and diplomatic measures, such as recalling all diplomats accredited to the wrong-doing State; 2) financial and economic measures, such as refusing further credit; 3) international boycott, to deprive the wrongdoer of all trade; and 4) force, or the declaration of war on the wrongdoer by League States.

Both super-pacific Sir Austen Chamberlain, onetime British Foreign Secretary and Nobel Peace Prizeman, and super-militant Benito Mussolini have loudly declared in the present crisis that ''Sanctions mean War!" Once the League's nicely calculated scale of penalties begins to be applied, tempers must soon be lost all around and blood will begin to flow. Last week, though the first step toward sanctions had been taken under Article XV, alternative possibilities were more numerous than neophytes not familiar with League loopholes could imagine. For example the Committee of Thirteen could draft a report such that Ethiopia might reject. Italy accept and the League be compelled to let Italy and other States conduct a war of sanctions against Ethiopia in the role of aggressor or Italy could withdraw from the League, as Japan did when threatened by a Council report, also under Article XV (TIME, April 3, 1933).

Friend Britain. Obviously, despite the efforts of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to have the League of Nations appear to be taking all important actions in the Ethiopian crisis last week, those actions were being taken by His Majesty's Government.

This notably appeared at Mocha, Red Sea port of the Arabian land of Yemen. Its ruler, the Imam, has been pressed by Italy for weeks to permit Mocha to be used as a port for hospitalization and convalescence of Italian soldiers stricken with tropical diseases in Eritrea. Last week an Italian Naval flotilla sailed into Mocha to exert further pressure, whereat the Imam, wasting no time in appeals to Geneva, begged directly for British help. In a few hours British war boats from Aden raced into Mocha, overawed the Italian flotilla which withdrew. The British returned to Aden. Two days later the Italian ships were back, the Imam again yelled for British help, and again His Majesty's war boats from Aden dispersed the Italians.

Naval experts called Britain's continued Naval demonstration in the Mediterranean last week the world's greatest massing of sea power since the Battle of Jutland. From Gibraltar the colossal British war boats Hood and Renown had moved down last week to Alexandria within shooting distance of the Suez Canal, supported by 14 squadrons of British battle planes on the aircraft carriers Glorious and Courageous. At Aboukir. where Nelson routed Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile, arrived 170 more British war planes.

His Majesty's Government leaned over backward last week in attempts to keep Benito Mussolini from becoming personally riled, it being obvious that a single rash order from the Dictator could start Italian submarines torpedoing British ships. Italian bombing planes raining death on Malta. Just before Captain Eden, British League of Nations Minister, got the League to proceed under Article XV, Sir Samuel Hoare. British Foreign Secretary, caused to be delivered to Il Duce a cordial and friendly message in which Sir Samuel recalled that during the War he was a British intelligence officer in Italy and never thinks of Eternal Rome without emotion. In London, Winston Churchill. M. P.. who recently ended his feud with Mr. Baldwin (TIME, Sept. 2). made a few remarks suggestive of what His Majesty's Government were trying to get over to Il Duce.

''I must express my surprise," cried Mr. Churchill, ''that so great a man and wise a ruler as Signor Mussolini should be willing, even eager, to put his gallant Nation into such an uncomfortable military and financial position. . . . The day will come when Italy will be grateful to an old friend like Britain for helping to keep her out of a deadly trap. . . . There are some powers in Europe who would be quite glad to see Italy get In a thoroughly compromised and dependent position. We are not one of them. . . . We have held our position in the Mediterranean, which was gained for us under the guidance of the great Duke of Marlborough,* for more than two centuries, and I know of no reason why we should not be capable of maintaining it at the present time."

Released this week was the text of Sir Samuel Hoare's polite rebuff to French Ambassador Corbin three weeks ago. France had asked whether, in case Germany should further violate the Treaty of Versailles, or make war or seize Austria by whatever means. Britain would then take the same attitude toward Germany she was taking last week toward Italy. Sir Samuel omitted to answer these pointed questions in 1,200 words which were largely a rehash of his latest Geneva speech (TiME, Sept. 23). Added he: ''There may be degrees of culpability and degrees of aggression. . . . Elasticity is a part of Security. . . . The world is not static." Obliged to gloss over Britain's siding with Germany in tearing up the naval clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, Sir Samuel excused this as a mere "negative act of failure to fulfill the terms of a treaty," like Britain's neglect to pay her War debt to the U. S. He indicated that His Majesty's Government cannot be expected to become excited about negative acts, however much they are aroused by a "positive act of unprovoked aggression."

Checkmate! In Rome the terrific pressure being brought by Britain with her war boats and through the League gave the Dictator pause. He canceled the sailing of 10,000 Italian troops to Libya, Italy's colony on the Mediterranean, because their dispatch might be considered a remote threat to British control of adjoining Egypt. After loudspeakers had been set up in every Italian square so that the Dictator could address 10,000,000 Italians who were to be called out last week in a great "practice mobilization" (TIME, Sept. 30), this show was postponed. Uncensored from Rome came a news cable that Marshal Emilio de Bono, commander of Italy's expeditionary forces, had been about to advance into Ethiopia during the first week of September and again last week, but was halted each time by orders which Il Duce personally telephoned from Rome.

On the other hand, Italian troops continued to pour through the Suez Canal under British guns toward Africa last week. The Dictator announced that he had spent nearly two billion lire ($160,000,000) thus far on the expeditionary forces, called for a billion and a half more. The Italian Government closed the week by announcing: "Italy will not quit the League of Nations until the day when the League itself fully assumes responsibility for measures which strike at Italy. . . . The Italian Government has communicated to the British Government its willingness to negotiate for further accords which would harmonize with legitimate British interests in East Africa. . . . The Italian people, tempered by 13 years of this regime, is wholly solidified around the ensigns of Fascism. This they will soon demonstrate to the world by a civil mobilization without precedent in history."

Such grandiloquence was Dictator Mussolini's way in a tight corner of saying nothing. At Geneva, while much was made of the fact that the Assembly and the Council adjourned subject to recall on 24 hours notice. League bigwigs who should have been vitally interested in drafting the Committee of Thirteen's report under Article XV set out for their home capitals. With Premier Pierre Laval back in Paris, Captain Eden home in London, Baron Aloisi speeding to Rome, the game of international negotiation began again through the regular diplomatic channels. Though the deadlock remained total, Might had checkmated last week lesser Might.

*For example, the seemingly innocent words, "on Sept. 4 last Article XV became applicable," uttered last week by the Council's Argentine president, Dr. Enrique Ruiz Guinazu, had the effect of depriving Ethiopia of her previous right to demand that the dispute be transferred from the Council to the Assembly of the League in which minor nations especially friendly to Ethiopia predominate. Such a demand, to be valid, must be made within a fortnight after the Covenant becomes applicable, and by setting this date retroactively back to Sept. 4 last week the Great Powers, which alone have permanent seats on the League Council, kept everything in their own hands.

*Ancestor of Mr. Churchill. In London's smash-hit farce 1066 and Ah That, the actor playing the Duke of Marlborough constantly refers to ''my illustrious descendant, Winston Churchill."

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