765.84/1460: Telegram
The Chargé in Ethiopia (Engert) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 30—9:30 a.m.]
106. My 104, September 29, 9 a.m.;83 and 96, September 17, noon.
Although it is probably too late to attempt effective remonstrances, I submit that at this momentous crisis you may wish to put the United States on record by expressing to the Italian Ambassador in Washington your disappointment that his country should deliberately turn its back on the whole post-war structure for the maintenance of peace in the ruthless pursuit of expansionist aims. If the Paris Pact becomes a dead letter the world will relapse into international anarchy rendered infinitely more serious by the prospect of prolonged embittered [Page 769] relations between the white and colored races not only in Africa but also on other continents.
Although exasperated almost beyond endurance by Italy’s insincerity and policy of provocation, Ethiopia has consistently refrained from taking up the challenge of Italian mobilization trusting that the principles of the Covenant and Paris Pact which had been almost universally accepted in theory would also be respected in practice. But the state of tension which has now existed for over a year is rapidly reaching the breaking point and a rupture of diplomatic relations with Italy seems inevitable. Not only will that cause an international situation of the greatest delicacy but it will destroy perhaps for generations the belief of backward peoples in intentional [international?] morality and the value of solemn treaties.
I fear as I did in Constantinople in 1914 that we are on the eve of a grave calamity fraught with all the elements of another World War. But unlike 1914, an awakened sense of responsibility today has caused more widespread resentment against brutal resort to force. Most nations of the world have to look hopefully to the United States and Great Britain for leadership where moral issues are involved. There may, therefore, still be time for an intimation that American public opinion, although perhaps unable to prevent the crude spoliation of a weak nation for the gratification of colonial ambitions, will at least unequivocally refuse to condone it.