the last book I ever read (Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939, excerpt two)

from Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 by Adam Hochschild:

Outside Spain, however, fascism was on the march. In 1935, eager for territory to fit his dreams of a new imperial Rome, Benito Mussolini launched an invasion of Ethiopia. As one of the few parts of Africa that remained uncolonized, the territory appeared ripe for conquest. Backed up by tanks, bombers, and poison gas, nearly half a million Italian soldiers steadily gained ground against an ill-equipped Ethiopian army. Since the victims were Africans, in Europe and North America the reaction was muted, amounting to little more than disapproving newspaper editorials. Black Americans, however, felt strongly: some 3,000 people packed a Harlem church for a protest rally; black communities raised funds and sent bandages and supplies for a 75-bed field hospital. Several thousand men enlisted in a “Black Legion” of volunteers and began training to fight for embattled Ethiopia, although logistics and opposition from the US government would make this impossible. Several American cities saw street fighting between blacks and Italian Americans, and angry crowds in Harlem wrecked or boycotted shops and bars with Italian names.

By mid-1936 the Italian dictator’s black-shirted troops controlled the entire territory, and the war was over. The civilian and military death toll, estimated at 275,000, was so high that it was said Mussolini wanted Ethiopia with or without Ethiopians. Despite an eloquent plea by the bearded, diminutive Emperor Haile Selassie, the major powers did nothing. “It is us today,” the emperor told the Assembly of the League of Nations. “It will be you tomorrow.”