LION BY THE TAIL: The story of the Italian-Ethiopian War.

UK,8vo HB+protected dw/dj,1st edn.[Ex-public library book with some usual library notation and a laminated but,cropped dw/dj - inner flaps removed - front flap pasted to reverse of front free endpaper,rear flap removed and discarded - remainder of dw/dj glued to sharp-cornered, publisher's original plain black cloth boards.Couple of serial numerations,in handwritten black ink and a black inked library stamp+ date,i.e DEC 1974 CENTRAL,all to reverse of the title page.No other library indications,notation resent in the book.Misspelt ETHOPIAN in sub-title.] NFINE/VG.laminated,protected,brown+tan illustrated front+ spine with silver gilt letters to each (Ethopian misspelt in sub-title on front),rear panel with white background and black specks trapped beneath the lamination; with negligible shelf-wear to edges and corners.
Top edges coloured,fore-edges slightly aged/toned with faint thumbing smudges; contents text block overall clean with a very few page-edge blemishes,otherwise tight,solid and sound - no intentional dog-ear reading creases to pages;,though a consecutive block of accidental top corner creases to pp321-334 inclusive.UK,ex-public library 8vo HB+ protected dw/dj,1st edn,v-xiiipp+3-369pp [paginated] includes separate contents+illus lists/tables,a foreword,Pts One and Two comprising 7 chapters each with an epilogue in Pt Two,8pp contemporary b/w photographs in 1 block,between pp146/7, notes,a 9pp bibliography which includes books,articles,newspapers and magazines,and public spoken addresses and an index.Plus [unpaginated] a double-page b/w Ethiopia 1935 map+Key affixed/ strengthened with opaque library-tape, half-title+title pages,and individual Pts separator pages.
When a company of Ethiopian soldiers clashed on December 5th,1934, with a garrison force of Italian troops at a desert water-hole called Wal Wal,about 450 miles southeast of Addis Ababa,the incident seemed so trivial that some European and American newspapers ignored it; others gave it only two or three lines.Yet this encounter set off a chain of events which produced a hideous war between Ethiopia and Italy and made the Empror Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (known as the Lion of Judah) into a world-famous tragic hero.It exposed the weakness and cynicism of the European and American democracies,destroyed the League of Nations, and led directly to WW2.
'Lion by the Tail' is the story of Mussolini's 1935-6 invasion of Ethiopia and of the diplomatic duplicity which made it possible.The book shows that,while the Italian-Ethiopian War cannot be said to have caused WW2,it was the most important single event in binging about the cataclysm.
The human aspects of the bloody struggle between the bare-footed Ethiopians and the machanized,mustard-gas spraying Italians are dramatically emphasised.But 'Lion by the Tail' also presents documentary proof that reasonable firmness by the French,British and American governments would have prevented Mussolini's vicious adventure,and would thereby have warned Hitler against adopting Mussolini's bluffing,bullying diplomatic tactics.When Sir John Simon,Sir Samuel Hoare,Stanley Baldwin,Pierre Laval and even Franklin D. Rossevelt refused to stop Mussolini,it appeared to Hitler that such men would do nothing to stop him.
In describing the tragic failure of democratic diplomacy as well as the violent battle scenes between the Italians and Ethiopians,'Lion by the Tail' not only brings to life the full story of that brutal war,but also contributes importantly to our understanding of the even more brutal with began three years later.
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