After the Eden-Mussolini confrontation, the British press, to whom Eden was the personification of the new and higher League of Nations morality in international affairs, turned on Mussolini, mocking and assaulting him as the world’s worst dictator. British socialists, Liberals, and Labour Party members all joined in heaping abuse on the Italian ruler. Rome-London relations went rapidly downhill, and in Geneva the League, led by Britain, threatened sanctions if the invasion of Abyssinia went ahead. Isolated, Mussolini decided he had to act quickly.
