Hoare-Laval overture to Mussolini?

Which would have been more plausible

  • Britain & France deterring Italy, not attempting appeasement

    Votes: 4 23.5%
  • Britain & France consistently appeasing Italy

    Votes: 13 76.5%

  • Total voters
    17

raharris1973

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Seeking to strengthen the Stresa Front with Italy to contain Germany in the mid 1930s, these British and French officials tried to engineer a partial Italian victory in Africa. However, public opinion reacted with outrage, forcing the the governments to censure Italy and impose sanctions halfheartedly.

The result was Mussolini was pissed off but not intimidated. He won a total victory in Abyssinia and grew closer to Germany.

Britain and France fell between two stools. Which stool could they have more plausibly sat on firmly throughout the Italo-Abyssinian prewar crisis and war?

No appeasement of Italy on Abyssinia and deterring Italy? Or
Appeasing Italy without any interference from public opinion?
 

raharris1973

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I voted for them pulling off appeasement and sticking with it and not backpedaling in the face of public outrage.
 

raharris1973

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....and a follow-up question for y'all:



Why did British and French public opinion sympathize with Ethiopia over Italy and indignantly oppose Hoare-Laval?

a. Grassroots sentiment, that pro-League, pro-left political forces used

b. COMINTERN pushed this line which fit with anti-Fascist and Popular Front line of the time.
 
You could see the Hoare-Laval Pact either remain secret and reduce rump Ethiopia to a de-facto Italian protectorate OR you could have the Hoare-Laval Pact be instituted as it was supposed to IOTL but the Second Italo-Ethiopian War goes largely as IOTL, with Haile Selassie potentially remaining in Ethiopia to lead the Patriotic movement while the Italians attempt to gain international recognition for whatever puppet they place in Addis Ababa - for the latter, London and Paris simply don't care about what the public opinion is.
 
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