WI: Massive support for Ethiopia from Allies

[CommieScum]

WI Ethiopia received aid from France, Britain and/or the Soviet Union during the Second Ethiopia-Italian War starting in 1935.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

WI Ethiopia received aid from France, Britain and/or the Soviet Union during the Second Ethiopia-Italian War starting in 1935.

AFAIK Britain gave some aid. The USSR doesn't have a reason to, Stalin wanted to avoid provocating other countries and he wouldn't see a point in helping Ethiopia.

 

[Lalli]

Why Soviet Union would want support backward feodalist monarchy? And Stalin wasn't really intrested for such foreign adventures anyway and Soviet Union hadn't such capacity on that time.

And not sure if Britain and France could had done much more without going war against Italy.

 

[Evil Crusader]

WI Ethiopia received aid from France, Britain and/or the Soviet Union during the Second Ethiopia-Italian War starting in 1935.

As often happens, this is a scenario where the POD's implications (preference for Ethiopia over Italy) really overshadow the actual consequences of the POD itself by far.
So here we have three major powers ready to make Italy's fight as costly as it can be - why are they adopting such an approach? Is Italy a diplomatic pariah by now? Something pretty large has to have changed, and my instinct is that there would likely not be such a conflict in that case (and that if there is, it's likely Britain also closes down Suez for both combatants, which of course hurts Italy a lot more).

 

[jlckansas]

What would be more interesting would be if Mussolini and Hitler were not cordial to each other and Hitler thought that Mussolini was trying to be the leader of all Fascist and also still pressing the Stressa front. This might be a case of Germany offering to help the UK and France with support for Ethiopia.

 

[Retro_Reaction]

I think, if Italy has worse relations with Britain due to the Corfu incident, there's no Hoare-Laval pact at all, and Italy has even better relations with Germany prior to the invasion could lead to Britain and France supplying arms (Although the Germans supplied weapons to the Ethiopians because they didn't support German plans to annex Austria)

 

[CommieScum]

Why Soviet Union would want support backward feodalist monarchy? And Stalin wasn't really intrested for such foreign adventures anyway and Soviet Union hadn't such capacity on that time.

And not sure if Britain and France could had done much more without going war against Italy.

I was thinking of the Spanish Civil War

 

[Garrison]

WI Ethiopia received aid from France, Britain and/or the Soviet Union during the Second Ethiopia-Italian War starting in 1935.

Well in 1935 The British and French don't have massive aid to give and since any assistance from the USSR would have to flow through British or French ports I can't see how they would send anything if they wanted to. The only way the British might intervene is if Mussolini prematurely threatened their colonies adjacent to Ethiopia.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

Well in 1935 The British and French don't have massive aid to give and since any assistance from the USSR would have to flow through British or French ports I can't see how they would send anything if they wanted to. The only way the British might intervene is if Mussolini prematurely threatened their colonies adjacent to Ethiopia.

That's not such a bad suggestion. Strain the Italian British relationship a few years beforehand, make Mussolini's New Roman Empire visions a bit more threatening, and now Britain's territories around Abyssinia are potentially threatened, and there's a cause for greater than OTL concern.
But in 1934, Britain was still in a big financial lethargy and had no appetite for war, so finding the political will AND the finances would be a very big challenge.