Invasion

Invasion (pronounced in-vey-zhuhn)

(1) A military action consisting of armed forces of one (usually geopolitical) entity entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of conquering territory & altering or overthrowing an established government.

(2) The entrance or advent of anything troublesome or harmful, as disease; the entry without consent of an individual, group or species into an area where they are not wanted.

(3) Entrance as if to take possession or overrun.

(4) Infringement by intrusion.

(5) In pathology, the spread of cancer from its point of origin into surrounding tissues.

(6) In Botany, the movement of plants to a new area or to an area to which they are not native.

(7) In surgery, the breaching of the skin barrier.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English, From the Middle French invasion from the Late Latin invāsiōnem, accusative of invāsiō, from invāsus, past participle of invādō, the construct being in- (in, into) +‎ vādō (I go, rush).  Invāsus was the past participle of invādere + -iōn-.  The noun was from the mid-fifteenth century Middle English invasioun (an assault, attack, act of entering a country or territory as an enemy), from the twelfth century Old French invasion (invasion, attack, assault), from the Late Latin invasionem (nominative invasio) (an attack, invasion), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of invadere (to go, come, or get into; enter violently, penetrate into as an enemy, assail, assault, make an attack on), the construct being in- (in) from the primitive Indo-European root en- (in)) + vadere (to go, to walk, go hastily) from the primitive Indo-European root wadh- (to go) (source also of the Old English wadan (to go) and the Latin vadum (ford).  Of the meanings in the extended senses, of diseases it referred to "a harmful incursion of any kind; with reference to rights etc, it was about "infringement by intrusion, encroachment by entering into or taking away what belongs to another".

The later noun incursion (hostile attack) dates from the early fifteenth century, from the fourteenth century Old French incursion (invasion, attack, assault) or directly from the Latin incursionem (nominative incursio) (a running against, hostile attack), the noun of action from past participle stem of incurrere (run into or against, rush at).  Although in practice often synonymous with invasion, “incursion” is often in a specifically military context used to distinguish a operation which is either a prelude to or a distinct part of an invasion.  It’s a practice of historians rather than a convention of use and is one of a number of words used to describe the mechanics of an invasion including: aggression, assault, breach, infiltration, infringement, intrusion, offensive, onslaught, raid, violation, entrenchment, foray, infraction, inroad, irruption, maraud, offense & transgression.

The (second) Italian invasion of Ethiopia

Italy’s invasion in of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935 was a curious business.  Conceived by the Duce (Benito Mussolini (1883-1945, prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) as the means by which his country might acquire a colony of note, a rightful thing he thought denied by the ineptness of previous regimes in Rome and the unfairness of the treaty of Versailles from which Italy had gained so little from the spoils of victory to which she’d made a slight contribution.  In his mind too was the memory of the last Italian adventure in East Africa when in 1896 the Ethiopians had inflicted upon the would-be conquerors from Europe a brutal defeat on the battlefield at Adowa, seared in the memory of the Italian army as the headline “Ten-thousand dead and seventy-two cannon lost”.  Looking first at the map of the old Roman Empire, then the splendid possessions held by Britain and France and finally the few sparse deserts which made up “his” empire, the Duce decided on an African conquest.  Even in 1935 it was seen in other European capitals as an unfashionable venture, the idea of the conquest of other people’s lands no longer the respectable thing to do and there was an increasing awareness that nor was it any longer the profitable thing to do.  Mussolini however was convinced and embarked on what proved to be imperialism’s last great set-piece crusade.

David Low (1981-1963), 1936.

The world of 1935 however was a different place than that of the nineteenth century.  Not only was Ethiopia internationally recognized (including by Italy) as a sovereign, independent state but it was also a member of the League of Nations (1920-1946), the predecessor of the United Nations (UN), formed in an attempt to ensure there could never be another world war, the mechanisms of resolving conflict listed in its covenant. Central to the covenant was collective security and the settling of international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.  The League’s approach did not much commend itself the Mussolini who announced Ethiopia presented a military threat to the neighboring Italian possessions of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland and that anyway his historic destiny was to fulfil a civilizing mission which would “…help Africa to progress from its primitive state.”

David Low, 1936

Obviously the League of Nations could not countenance one of its members invading another and the Britain’s foreign secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare (later Viscount Templewood, 1880–1959; UK Foreign Secretary 1935), making what may have been the finest speech the unfortunate assemble ever heard, declared the UK was wholly committed to the principle of collective security and that acts of unprovoked aggression strenuously would be resisted.  Hoare’s principled stand lasted as long as the next cabinet meeting in London and as quickly it became clear that member nations of the League would not be imposing any economic or diplomatic sanctions which had any substantive effect, let alone threaten a military response, Mussolini invaded.  Able to deploy aircraft, chemical weapons, heavy artillery, tanks and other armored vehicles, the Italians slowly secured victory, culminating in the battle of Amba Aradam, the biggest and bloodiest battle of the imperial era.

David Low, 1936.

By then Hoare had been forced from office by the public outcry over his back-channel deal with the palindromic Pierre Laval (1883–1945, French prime minister 1935-1936 and later executed for his role in the Vichy administration (1940-1944)) which, although in the tradition of the League’s earlier acts of conciliation in the far east, is better remembered as a preview of the later techniques of appeasement which so failed to satisfy Hitler.  What Hoare and Laval had agreed was a deal under which two-thirds of Ethiopia would be ceded to Italy in exchange for the Ethiopians being granted a land-corridor to a nearby port.  Both the belligerents actually anyway rejected the deal and Hoare was the sacrificial scapegoat for a plan which had the cabinet’s support.

The affair revealed the European democracies as divided and the League of Nations as ineffectual and doomed.  Although the League would continue to talk, few now listened as Europe drifted to war and after hostilities began, the organization went into abeyance except for a skeleton administrative structure which ticked-over until the League was dissolved in 1946.  Of the many speeches made after the Italian invasion, the only one still remembered is that made in June 1936 the Emperor Haile Selassie I (1892–1975; Emperor of Ethiopia 1930-1974) in which he condemned the league for its inaction, prophesized war and warned the assembled delegates “It is us today.  It will be you tomorrow.”