ETHIOPIAN CAMPAIGN and FRENCH POLITICAL THOUGHT Yves R
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Yves R. Simon edited by Anthony O. Simon Th e translated by Robert Royal foreword by A. James McAdams Ethiopian “While it is true that Yves R. Simon did not intend this to be a history book, The Ethiopian Campaign and French Political Campaign Thought is an important historical work well deserving of a close reading by students of twentieth-century European his- and tory and international relations. This book, which finds a wor- thy English translation after too many years, was Simon’s first serious foray into the public square on the side of justice and French the common good. Simon’s analysis is wide-ranging, incisive, and brimming with far-sighted political acumen.” Political —Robert Ventresca, King’s University College “The Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 led to the memo- Th ought rable plea of Emperor Haile Selassie before the League of Na- tions as his country’s freedom died. Easier to forget is that it also sparked a surprisingly familiar intellectual dispute over Yves R. Simon the legitimacy of the bombing and the relevance of international law, as depressingly many European intellectuals rallied behind Benito Mussolini’s campaign as a defense of the West edited by Anthony O. Simon and the cause of ‘civilization.’ The unsparing critique leveled against these frequently reli- translated by Robert Royal gious apologists for imperialism by Yves Simon, French Catholic thinker and later American The university professor, is an eye-opening reminder of the terms of debate, and the larger con- forewordby A. James McAdams stellation of forces of the turbulent era. Anthony Simon and his colleagues deserve thanks for making this precious and moving document available, since its ethical kernel, like its model of Catholic intellectualism, remain highly relevant.” —Samuel Moyn, Columbia University Ethiopian “The reader will immediately recognize that this book is not a conventional history of the causes and consequences of Italy’s assault on a distant people. Rather, for Simon, the event is a case study that allows him to formulate a moral critique. His target is the paucity of ideas Campaign and values that led a broad segment of the Catholic intelligentsia in France to shirk its re- sponsibility to combat injustice.” —from the Foreword, A. James McAdams, University of Notre Dame and YVES R. SIMON (1903–1961) was the author of twenty books and a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago. ANTHONY O. SIMON, director of the Yves. R. Simon Institute, is the author and editor of a French number of books, including Acquaintance with the Absolute: The Philosophy of Yves R. Simon. University of Notre Dame Press Political Notre Dame, IN 46556 undpress.nd.edu Thought Cover photo top from clipart.com courtesy of JUPITERIMAGES © 2009 Jupiterimages Corporation. Bottom photo: The Abyssinia (Ethiopia)–Italy War, May 28, 1935; Abyssinian troops on maneuvers near Addis Ababa. Courtesy of Popperfoto/Gettyimages. Cover design: TG Design FINAL Simon MECH. .indd 1 7/1/09 12:04:00 PM the ethiopian campaign and fr ench political thought THE ETHIOPIAN CA M PA IGN AND FRENCH POLITICAL THOUGHT yves r. simon Translated by robert royal Edited by anthony o. simon Foreword by a. james mcadams University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana Copyright © 2009 by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Simon, Yves René Marie, 1903–1961. [Campagne d’Éthiopie et la pensée politique française. English] The Ethiopian campaign and French political thought / Yves R. Simon ; translated by Robert Royal ; edited by Anthony O. Simon ; foreword by A. James McAdams. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-04130-4 (paper : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-268-04130-X (paper : alk. paper) 1. Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–1936—Foreign public opinion, French. 2. Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–1936—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. France—Relations—Italy. 4. Italy—Relations—France. 5. Intellectuals—France—Political activity—History—20th century. 6. Public opinion—France—History—20th century. 7. Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–1936—Diplomatic history. 8. League of Nations—History. 9. Just war doctrine—Case studies. 10. Preemptive attack (Military science)—Case studies. I. Royal, Robert, 1949– II. Simon, Anthony O. III. Title. dt387.8.s513 2009 963'.056—dc22 2009021902 ∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. c o n t e n t s Foreword ix A. James McAdams Acknowledgments xvii Translator’s Preface xix Robert Royal Introduction 1 chapter one From before the War to the Stresa Conference 5 chapter two What Do We Care about Ethiopia? 13 vi | Contents chapter three The Anti-Fascist Crusade 19 chapter four But Is This War Just? 23 chapter five Ethiopia’s Foreign Relations 29 chapter six The Mad Dog 35 chapter seven Ethiopia’s Internal Situation 41 chapter eight The Covenant of the League of Nations 49 chapter nine British Policy 55 chapter ten The Intervention of the Intellectuals 63 chapter eleven Reflections on Certain Resistances to the Progress of International Law 69 chapter twelve 7 March 1936 81 Contents | vii Appendix 1 Ethiopia Revisited: The Road to Vichy 83 Appendix 2 Manifestos and Documents 93 Manifesto of French Intellectuals for the Defense of the West 93 Response to the Manifesto [for the Defense of the West] of the Fascist Intellectuals 98 Concerning the Italo-Ethiopian Conflict: Manifesto for Justice and Peace 101 An Open Letter Signed by a Group of French Writers 106 An Open Letter from Gabriel Marcel 108 Notes 111 Bibliography 117 Index 125 f o r e wo r d There are at least two features of Yves Simon’s The Ethio- pian Campaign and French Political Thought that may initially strike the reader as curious. The first is that Simon does not begin this short but trenchant and thought-provoking study with an examination of Benito Mussolini’s attempt in Octo- ber 1935 to restore Italy’s national pride by declaring war on Ethiopia. Instead, he starts with the incendiary cause célèbre of late-nineteenth-century French politics, the so- called Dreyfus Affair. What does an innocent French army captain’s conviction for treason in 1894 have to do with a military campaign that took place in 1935? The second mys- tery has to do with Simon himself. Why should a thinker who is now regarded as among the preeminent Thomistic philosophers and political theorists of the twentieth century have devoted one of his earliest books, following two philo- sophical treatises on metaphysics and moral knowledge, to a specific event in international politics? ix x | Foreword The answer to both questions can be found in Simon’s upbringing and intellectual milieu. Simon was born into a wealthy industrial family that combined a deep Catholic faith with strong republican convictions. As a youth, Simon was also influenced by the horror of war. One of his brothers was killed when his plane was shot down over Germany in 1917. Yet it was not this loss in itself that shaped his thinking about later events, including Mussolini’s Ethiopian adven- ture. Like other members of his family, Simon was a patriot and considered it an honor to fight and die for France. In- deed, the only thing that kept him from enlisting was the fact that he had been severely handicapped by tuberculosis as a youth. Rather, his family’s political and religious sentiments and an early fascination with the anarchistic populism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon led him to distrust the intentions of all politicians and their allies. In Simon’s eyes, the unfounded accusations against a Jewish military officer, Alfred Drey- fus, proved that these suspicions were warranted. Further- more, the French government’s subsequent efforts to cover up the scandal and downplay its anti-Semitic and hyper- nationalistic roots demonstrated that France’s commitment to republican values was tenuous at best. Under these cir- cumstances, one could never take the protection of personal liberties and human dignity for granted. Simon’s engagement in these issues was by no means atypical. In the aftermath of World War I, an entire genera- tion of French intellectuals had arisen that was characterized by the desire to combine the hard facts of politics with the pursuit of the highest human ideals. Today, this disposition might be attributed to the so-called “public intellectual,” but Simon’s generation was much more than that. For the so- phisticated man or woman of ideas in the 1920s and 1930s, a thorough immersion in the political and social questions Foreword | xi of the day was a way of life. Educated Parisians read five or six newspapers a day—Le Figaro, the ultranationalist Ac- tion française, the liberal Catholic 7 “Sept”, and many others. � Parisians could be counted upon to comment authoritatively on an array of opinions surrounding pressing domestic and international issues. And they did so with gusto. The quintessential expression of this culture was the tradition of the French salon, regular gatherings at which eminent thinkers and celebrities opened their homes to lec- tures and debates about contemporary politics, philosophy, theology, and the arts. Of those meetings associated with religious themes, one well-known group was hosted by the Orthodox philosopher and historian, Nicholas Berdyayev, one of many Russian intellectuals who fled to Paris after the Revolution of 1917. The playwright Gabriel Marcel headed a similar group of Christian existentialists. The salon that Simon frequented most often was run by the great Catho- lic intellectuals Jacques and Raïssa Maritain.