I’m continuing my WWII Timeline series with a look at October – December 1935 in this post.
A Timeline of WWII, Fall 1935
October 3,1935
Benito Mussolini, leader of the Fascist Party and Prime Minister of Italy, ordered his troops into Abyssinia (the historical name of the Ethiopian Empire in Africa). The invasion was known as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. The League of Nations called for economic sanctions against Italy, but there was no enforcement.
December 1935
The Hoare-Laval Pact was proposed by British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare and French Prime Minister Pierre Laval for the purpose of ending the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. The proposed pact would partition Abyssinia, which would achieve Mussolin’s goal of making it into an Italian colony.
According to the pact, France and Britain would each give Italy part of Abyssinia with guaranteed access to the ocean. The proposed pact was strongly opposed in both Britain and France and was never finalized. British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare lost his position.
December 12, 1935
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler founded the Lebensborn (source or fount of life) program. The program’s purpose was to produce a German “super race” by selective breeding between young German women demonstrating the idealized Aryan characteristics, and SS officers and others who were considered to be racially pure. Once pregnant, the women were provided with excellent medical care in special medical facilities.
Sources:
This series of posts is based on a compilation of timelines from:
The History Place:
The National WWII Museum Interactive Timeline
Wikipedia: Second Italo-Ethiopian War
World War II Chronicle by the Editors of Publications International, Ltd.
Most recent post from the series:
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2018
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