When Samuel Hoare became Foreign Secretary on 7 June , with the help of the brilliant Robert Vansittart, he wrote down the position as he saw it: First, Hitler's strength was becoming daily more formidable, and his intentions more unabashed.
Secondly, Japanese aggression threatened us with war in the Far East when we were not strong enough to resist Hitler in Europe and at the same time in the Pacific.
Thirdly, it was essential to British security to have a friendly Italy in the Mediterranean that would both guarantee our lines of communication to the Far East and make it unnecessary for the French to keep an army on the Italian frontier. He was immediately faced with a crisis — the threatened Italian invasion of Abyssinia.
Meanwhile, Mussolini had already done a deal with France 7 January which had promised him a free hand in Abyssinia, at least economically. Mussolini had also approached the previous British Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, and asked him his opinion; Simon did not respond. Everything, therefore, recommended Hoare to abandon Abyssinia to its fate. Britain had no need for alarm at Italian ambitions as long as they did not involve neighbouring British Somaliland. But Hoare was not a free agent in that respect.
Britain was bound by its Covenant to the League. Indeed, 6. The problem with that policy is that the League was very happy to play hard-ball with Italy … but then looked to Britain to enforce their decisions. But Britain, still in the throes of economic recession, had neither the money nor the armed forces to go to war.
