of a speaker not served by the microphone: “Unsurrounded by his admirers, with nothing but his voice to convey the workings of his agile mind, Lloyd George’s eloquence simply does not come off.... On the ether, all his charm seems to evaporate: of all the speeches that woo the coy citizen sitting at his loud-speaker at election times, Lloyd George’s are the dullest and least effective, because the histrionics—the winning smile, the half-closed eyes, the clenched fist, and the hands toying with the golden spectacles—are simply of no use.”39 In contrast, Saerchinger presents de Valera as both an intransigent and a democrat, a combination he discerns in the latter’s use of the microphone. Saerchinger had facilitated de Valera’s first broadcast to the United States in 1932, which was relayed by NBC from the Radio Éireann studio in Dublin’s General Post Office. Having walked in “as though he were going to buy a stamp,” de Valera faced “an incredibly primitive-looking microphone contraption” to address his foreign listeners: “His delivery, in his faint and attractive brogue, was quiet and matter of fact, almost casual, seeking to convince by the strength of argument alone.... He was fully aware of the value of talking to America... but he refused to make any emotional appeal, just as he refused to abandon that ‘obligatory’ opening paragraph in laboriously perfected Gaelic, no matter how many thousands of listeners, with American impatience, might tune out.”40 If the dictator depends on mastery of the crowd, and the demagogue on “histrionic” intimacies, de Valera occupies neither of these positions. Hitler and Mussolini were rarely heard apart from a chorus of supporters, a relationship that was visualized in the leader’s commanding position over the masses. In the most common image of de Valera during these years, he is the public servant alone at his desk, soberly attending to the people’s business. While many domestic and foreign commentators, for a variety of reasons, had an interest in labeling him as a “unique dictator,” the mechanisms of his leadership ran contrary to this perception.41 Like his vocal delivery, his authority was formal and precise.
This relationship was paramount in the Irish response to the Ethiopian crisis. At the beginning of tensions, a memo circulated within the Department of External Affairs diagnosed the growing influence of fascism at the League, but nonetheless discerned a potential brake on its progress: “Fascism as a rule of organization for international society is impossible for a very good reason. The element common, and indeed essential, to all the internal regimes based on Fascist principles is the confidence reposed in the leader, and the willing obedience accorded him in consequence. That essential element is conspicuously lacking, for very good reasons, as between the smaller states and the Great Powers.”42 In this passage, the spread of fascism is linked to its appeal, but additionally to the willingness among non-fascist states to appease fascist demands in the interest of maintaining the balance of power. As a weak state, Ireland recognized this problem as one inhering not with fascism per se, but with a more pervasive question of material inequality. The civil service memo argued therefore that judicial equality among states within the League represented more than simply an effective check on fascism’s spread, for the League Covenant provided a mechanism to redress the material conditions driving military escalation the world over:
With all its defects, the Covenant has this virtue that it put an end to international feudalism, and initiated the era of international democracy and international government with the consent of the governed. The Saorstát, like all the other smaller members of the League, has a vote and a veto at Geneva. It may be hard to get the League to take positive action in cases in which it should do so; but at least the Covenant enables the smaller and weaker states, by using their veto, to prevent unjust action being clothed with the mantle of legality, and to put states which follow certain courses in the position of violators of the law and rebels against the international order.43
Sensing the drift toward a tiered League governed by a “might makes right” ethos, the memo is terse about the future: “Certainly the Saorstát would leave the League rather than pledge itself to abide by the decisions of a body composed exclusively of Great Powers.”44 Written at some point in 1935, this document provides the blueprint, or score, for de Valera’s subsequent actions during the crisis.
As they played out, events steadily eroded the ideals of international cooperation and arbitration that had given rise to the League. Already evident in the External Affairs memo, this loss of faith is the crescendoing note in de Valera’s speeches during the Ethiopian crisis, as developments slid from outrage to disgrace. In a broadcast to the United States on September 12, 1935, over Radio-Nations, the League’s shortwave station, de Valera stressed the danger of unchecked aggression by one member against another: “The theory of the absolute sovereignty of States, interpreted to mean that a State is above all law, must be abandoned. In a community, if the individual held himself free at every moment to act as his selfish interests might prompt, irrespective of the rights and interests of his neighbour, it is clear that order within such a community and peace would be impossible. So are peace and order impossible within the world community of States if States may hold that self-interest is for them the supreme law, and that they are subject to no other control.”45 Arguing that the Covenant must become more flexible in order to address the increasing militarization of politics, he sees the League as an imperfect, but significant, effort to “order international affairs by reason and justice instead of by force.” To ignore reform is to abdicate the possibility of a collectively secured future: “To destroy [the League] now would be a crime against humanity. To maintain it we must live up to its obligations.... The alternative, so far as Europe is concerned, is a return to the law of the jungle. What philosophy of life can make us believe that man is necessarily condemned to such a fate?”46 This statement is a stern rebuke not only to militarism but also to Italian fascism, a political ideology cloaked in the mantle of a “philosophy of life.” In turn, it upends Italian claims that Ethiopia must be liberated from barbarism, by denying the equation of technological superiority with the realization of justice.
In that radio address, de Valera had called for “some means” by which the League’s principles could be enforced against states in violation of them.47 When Ethiopia was invaded on October 2, it took a week for the League to impose economic sanctions on Italy. In the interim, de Valera broadcast the government’s reaction to the outbreak of war on Radio Éireann, explaining that, as a member state, the Irish Free State would fulfill its obligations if sanctions were to be mandated; should “more rigorous measures” become necessary, he continued, the matter would be brought to the Dáil. While wary of being drawn into armed conflict, he nevertheless states that the “difficulty with the League, then, is not that the obligations it imposes are too strict, but that they are not strict enough to be effective.”48 In treading this delicate line between national self-determination and international commitment, de Valera adeptly used the radio to frame Ethiopia’s plight as linked to Ireland’s place in the world, as Cian McMahon has noted: “His speeches and radio addresses during the conflict in Abyssinia largely set the tone of discussion amongst the Irish population—a tone that was reflected in the newspapers. The tenor of these addresses was based very strongly on the context of membership in an international community founded on justice.”49 By tracking the coverage garnered in a number of Irish newspapers, McMahon identifies this moment as an important point, when public discourse “transcended partisan political divisions and clerical influence during the crisis to envisage the Free State not as a passive or outside observer, but, rather, as an active player in the global community.” As articulated in de Valera’s addresses, the League served for the Irish public as “an alternative source of moral authority,” distinct from both the Catholic Church and traditional nationalism: “Far from insularity, the Abyssinian crisis highlights a surprising level of interest amongst the Irish reading public in the wider world.”50 That radio broadcasting was central to the constitution of this reading public cannot be underestimated.
Because of this worldliness, the termination of the crisis was especially bitter. When the Italians announced military victory in May 1936, it came after the League’s stance had been definitively undermined by the French and British, who were by now focused on German rearmament. In an address to the League Assembly on July 2, facing the prospect that sanctions were about
