765.84/4455: Telegram
The Chargé in Italy ( Kirk ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5 p.m.]
171. Department’s 43, May 16, 1 p.m. Although it is obviously impossible to determine from information available here the actual situation existing in Ethiopia, the following observations are submitted as of possible relevancy in connection with the Department’s study of the question of the continued application of the President’s proclamations of October 5 on arms shipments and travel on belligerent vessels.
As regards the military operations in Ethiopia it is possible only to offer certain considerations which in themselves do not establish the facts of the situation. The Italian Government declared on May 9 that the war with Ethiopia had ended and a Governor General Viceroy was vested with full powers over the military authorities of the territories subject to his jurisdiction. Since that date no military communiqués have been issued and no important advances have been reported since the fall of Harrar (see my 141, May 9, noon). Accounts continue to be published of a gradual occupation of the country accompanied by the submission of native chiefs, but all military activities are referred to as dispersions of criminal bands and police measures to restore and maintain order under a regime of martial [Page 199] law. No attacks on Italian troops or effective resistance to Italian forces are reported and in this connection Captain Meade,46 who has just passed through Rome en route to the United States, informs me that although armed resistance on the part of native bands in the unoccupied territory may be expected, there is no longer any established Ethiopian military authority or centralized command in the country. In view of the fact, however, that a large part of Ethiopia is not under actual Italian control and that no definite information is available as to the situation existing there both as regards an executive authority as well as a military organization, future developments in the territory outside Italian control can only be a matter of conjecture.
As regards the status of Ethiopia with special reference to the matter of the existence there of an executive authority, confusion still exists but certain factors are apparent. Italy has declared sovereignty over the territories and peoples of the Empire of Ethiopia with the King of Italy as Emperor, a Governor General Viceroy has been given power over the civil authorities of the territories under his jurisdiction, steps are to be taken for the organization of Ethiopia and the foregoing provisions are effective as of May 9. Although no official statement has been made as to the juridical status of Ethiopia as a result of the Italian victories and the decrees of May 9 unofficial interpretations have characterized this status as not in the nature of a personal union of two crowns and two states and explain that whereas from an international standpoint Ethiopia is an inseparable part of the Italian state, from an internal viewpoint although it belongs to Italy it is not incorporated in or annexed to the Kingdom. Special measures have already been adopted for the administration of the country and others are apparently in process of preparation.
In this connection civil governors (see my 133, May 6, 6 p.m.)47 or commissioners have been appointed for Addis Ababa, Harrar, Jijiga and Diredawa, various other administrative measures have been announced (see my 161, May 15, 4 p.m., and 164, May 16, 11 a.m.48) and within the last few days it has been reported that the public works financing consortium has allotted 100,000,000 lire to form the initial capital of a separate section of that concern for financing public works in Ethiopia and that the Committee of Ministers created last March for the defense of savings has issued general instructions regarding the organization of credits for the economic development of Ethiopia. These provisions are predicated upon the Italian claim to sovereignty over Ethiopia and are regarded as manifestations of the application [Page 200] of Italian executive authority in the territory. On the other hand, it is reported that the Negus maintains his sovereign powers and that there is even a nucleus of a native government in the unoccupied territory which might eventually exercise authority.
The foregoing observations are sufficient to demonstrate the conflicting nature of the evidence relating to the military resistance in Ethiopia and the existence of an executive authority there and to indicate the impossibility of drawing definite conclusions as to the actual facts of the situation.
From the evidence at hand, however, it might be argued that a war or a state of war as typified by massed armed Ethiopian and Italian forces in opposition does not exist at the moment and that from present indications the renewal of hostilities of this nature does not appear imminent. It might further be argued that not only is there an expressed intent on the part of the Italian Government to establish an executive authority in Abyssinia but that certain steps affecting the occupied territory are being taken to carry out that intent and that any attempts from without to modify that intent would meet with an opposition from which the gravest consequences might result. The validity of such arguments, however, and their significance would be the basic factors in determining whether the revocation of one or of both of the President’s proclamations of October 5 would be warranted or opportune and, that fact should be recognized by states whose decisions might be affected by other considerations. Those states, either by direct negotiation or through the mechanism of the League, are presumably occupied in efforts to find a solution of the conflict whether by agreement on some juridical formula or by absorbing the present conflict into some general constructive plan of European reorganization. The first problem of the United States, however, would seem to be the liquidation of the measures adopted as a neutral during a war whenever conditions warrant and the consideration of the final settlement of the conflict and of the attitude of the Government thereto may be left in abeyance until circumstances require a decision in that regard.