8 J.-A. PEMBERTON
approved Laval’s scheme, albeit on a provisional basis. Known as the
Hoare-Laval plan, when
stripped of its euphemistic clothing as an ‘Exchange of Territories’ and a
‘Zone of Economic Expansion and Settlement,’ [it] meant the buying off
of Signor Mussolini by conceding to him territory and virtual control of
far wider extent than he had so far won by the sword. As an attempt to
reduce Abyssinia from complete annihilation, it might perhaps have been
justified, but in fact it was put forward at a time which no such débâcle was
anticipated. Sir Samuel [Hoare] himself predicted a long and indecisive
struggle, followed by a compromised settlement. The proposal was obvi-
ously put forward in the interests of Powers pledged to the maintenance of
Ethiopian integrity, rather than in those of Abyssinia.^27On December 8, Hoare and Laval signed a communiqué which
declared they had the basis for a settlement of the dispute, following
which the plan was communicated to the British cabinet for its consid-
eration. Although disliking its terms, the British cabinet gave the plan its
seal of approval on December 9. However, in the wake of the publication
on that same day of the broad outlines of the plan in the French press,
which, according to a number observers, was the result of a leak orches-
trated by the French Foreign Ministry or even by Laval himself, a furious
public backlash arose in view of which Hoare tended his resignation. The
Hoare-Laval plan, which was widely seen as the betrayal of the LON’s
system of collective security, was no more.^28
Speaking two days before Hoare’s resignation, Toynbee told
his Chatham House audience that before the news of the events of
December 7 and 8 became public, he had assumed that the British gov-
ernment was ‘set upon the hard but hopeful path of collective security’
and that therefore the time was ‘ripe’ to ‘explore simultaneously the par-
allel path of peaceful change.’^29 However, as he also told his audience,
(^27) G. M. Gathorne-Hardy, A Short History of International Affairs, 1920– 1939 , 4th ed.
(London: Oxford University Press, 1950), 416.
(^28) ‘The Plan created a great commotion among all the countries applying sanctions
and was generally regarded as a breach of faith toward the League.’ Anique H. M. van
Ginneken, Historical Dictionary of the League of Nations (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press,
2006), 112.
(^29) Toynbee, ‘Peaceful Change or War? The Next Stage in the International Crisis,’ 26n.,
28.