Document: The Secret Laval-Mussolini Agreement of 1935 on Ethiopia

Abstract

On 5 January 1935 the French foreign minister, Pierre Laval, and the Italian dictator, Mussolini, met in Rome. Two days later, on 7 January 1935, the two men concluded eight separate agreements. Four of these were published:1 a general declaration; a treaty regulating Franco-Italian conflicts of interest in Africa; a special protocol on the status of the Italian minority in French-occupied Tunisia; and a procés-verbal proposing a collective non-aggression pact of all the states in Europe bordering on the Republic of Austria, then gravely threatened by Nazi Germany. The contents of the other four agreements, which were kept secret, purported to be covered by a communique issued the same day.2 On three of these four agreements, the communique was, to say the least, misleading. They comprised a protocol providing for joint consultation in the event of Nazi Germany denouncing the restrictions still imposed on her by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles; a protocol protecting the status quo at the mouth of the Red Sea; and two exchanges of letters, proclaiming French disinterest in the economic sphere in Ethiopia, and promising Italian capital participation in the share capital of the Addis Ababa-Jibuti railroad, the one avenue for Ethiopian trade with the outside world.3