6 J.-A. PEMBERTON
PeAceful cHAnge or wAr? An Address At cHAtHAm House
Toynbee was very disturbed by Italy’s violation of the Covenant of the
LON in the form of its ongoing aggression against Ethiopia in the wake of
the Walwal incident of December 5, 1934. It was in view of that aggression
that Ethiopia had lodged a formal appeal to the LON Council under Article
15 of the covenant on March 17, 1935: it had given notice to the council of
the existence of dispute likely to lead to a rupture, thereby calling into play
council intervention. In a letter written to Ivison S. Macadam, the secre-
tary of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) on September 15,
1935, Toynbee urged that Britain should ‘take the risk’ of a ‘lesser war, in a
good cause, against the least formidable of the predatory Powers.’^23 While
Toynbee regarded the Italian aggression as an evil in itself, he also stressed
the necessity of action in order to forestall a major conflagration in which he
expected the so-called have-nots, namely, Germany, Italy and Japan, to align
themselves against the so-called haves, namely, Britain and France. Should
such a conflagration occur, he advised Macadam, ‘we shall...be fighting for
our lives’ with the ‘big prize’ being the British Empire.^24
(^23) Arnold J. Toynbee, 1935, quoted in McNeill, Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life, 169. The first
paragraph of Article 15 declared the following: ‘If there should arise between Members
of the League any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, which is not submitted to arbitra-
tion or judicial settlement in accordance with Article 13, the Members of the League agree
that they will submit the matter to the Council. Any party to the dispute may effect such
submission by giving notice of the existence of the dispute to the Secretary-General, who
will make all necessary arrangements for a full investigation and consideration thereof.’ The
fourth paragraph of Article 15 stated the following: ‘If the dispute is not thus settled [by
the Council], the Council either unanimously or by a majority vote shall make and pub-
lish a report containing a statement of the facts of the dispute and the recommendations
which are deemed just and proper in regard thereto.’ ‘Appendix 3: The Covenant of the
League of Nations, 29 April 1919,’ The United Nations Library at Geneva, The League of
Nations Archives, The League of Nations 1920–1946: Organization and Accomplishments, A
Retrospective of the First Organization for the Establishment of World Peace (Geneva: United
Nations, 1996), 164.
(^24) Ibid. McNeill records that Toynbee told his father-in-law Gilbert Murray, who
was Bergson’s successor as president of the International Committee on Intellectual
Cooperation, on October 21, 1935 the following: ‘Personally, I should like to close the
[Suez] Canal and I would dare Italy to go to war with us. I find I very hard to stomach
allowing a very horrible war in East Africa when we could stop it in this way in a moment.’
He further records that when it became clear in April 1936 that Britain and France were
not going to sanction Italy, Toynbee stated: ‘The whole thing is so infantile, as well as so
evil, that it makes me sick to think about it.’ Toynbee, 1935, and Toynbee, 1936, quoted