The finest attack of nervous indigestion in all Europe descended last week upon the lean Roman abdomen of Baron Pompeo Aloisi. This hawk-eyed, hollow-cheeked diplomat who since 1932 has served Italy as chief delegate to the League of Nations, found himself rudely summoned from his Geneva apartment, plumped down in a small private dining room before a table full of Swiss food, and talked to, straight from the shoulder, by two nervous, irritable statesmen whose friendship he valued, whose ability he recognized, whose view point he could understand. It was a dreadful meal. The soup got cold, the champagne warm, the roast greasy. Every few minutes the three diners rose from the table to telephone Rome, London or Paris. Between times they kept looking at their watches.
Across the table from Baron Aloisi were immaculate Capt. Anthony Eden, white hope of the British Foreign Office, and swart Pierre Laval, Foreign Minister of France. Britain's Lord Privy Seal, normally the most suave of diplomats, had just recovered from a heart attack. Word had come from London that important Cabinet changes were imminent (see p. 19). With luck, within a fortnight, Captain Eden might find himself Foreign Minister of Great Britain. Minister Laval had scarcely had a good night's sleep for a month. The clatter of railway wheels rang ceaselessly in his ears. He had just traveled from Paris to Warsaw, to Moscow, back to Warsaw and Cracow for the funeral of Marshal Pilsudski, through Berlin back to Paris and now to Geneva. The French franc, the French Government, Laval's political future were trembling in the balance (see p. 19). Yet he desired nothing so much at the moment as 24 hours in bed.
Because the three statesmen had been through so many diplomatic campaigns together, Messrs. Eden and Laval wasted few words. Over the consomme, they talked hard & fast. Italy was determined to test her new army by a military campaign in Abyssinia. In normal times London and Paris would have no objection. As a matter of fact it would benefit both France and Britain to have Italy, instead of Japan, gain the upper hand in Africa's last independent empire. But these were not normal times. Abyssinia has been a member of the League of Nations in good standing since 1923. In addition, curly-bearded Emperor Haile Selassie was daily proving a shrewder diplomat than anyone had suspected. He had appealed officially to the League of Nations and raised a whirlwind of sentimental sympathy throughout Europe.
Granted, now that they were around one small table, that the League was a feeble crutch at best, nevertheless, if Italy refused to arbitrate her border differences with Abyssinia, much more than this particular crisis was at stake. If Abyssinia's appeal should be dragged into the open League forum and if Italy still refused to arbitrate, the same thing would happen that had happened in the case of Japan and Germany. It would turn into a squabble of Italy against the entire League and probably force Italy to withdraw from the League. With the Danubian conference in the offing and the question of Austria's independence pressing hard behind. Britain and France could not afford to lose Italy from the League. Italy. Capt. Eden and Minister Laval chorused, must accept arbitration. Baron Aloisi got up from the table to telephone his boss in Rome.