Mussolini, upon invading Ethiopia, had promptly declared his own "Italian Empire."  Because the League of Nations afforded Haile Selassie the opportunity to address the assembly, Italy even withdrew its League delegation on May 12, 1936.  It was in this context that Haile Selassie walked into the hall of the League of Nations, introduced by the President of the Assembly as "His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Ethiopia."  The introduction caused a great many Italian journalists in the gallery to erupt into jeering, heckling and whistling.  Haile Selassie waited campy, for the hall to be cleared and responded majestically with a speech sometimes considered among the most stirring of the 20th century.

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Although fluent in French, the working language of the League, Haile Selassie chose to deliver his historic speech in his native Amharic.  He asserted that, because his "confidence in the League was absolute," his people were now being slaughtered.  He pointed out that the same European states that found in Ethiopia's favor at the League of Nations were refusing Ethiopia credit and material while aiding Italy, which was employing chemical weapons on military and civilian targets alike.

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He spoke, "It was at the time when the operations of the encircling Makela were taking place that the italian command, fearing a rout followed the procedure which it is now my duty to denounce to the world.  Special sprayers were installed on board aircraft so that they could vaporize over vast areas of territory, a fine, death-dealing rain.

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Groups of nine, fifteen, eighteen aircraft followed one another so that the fog issuing from them formed a continuous sheet.  It was thus that, as from the end of January 1936, soldiers, women, children, cattle, rivers, lakes and pastures were drenched continually with the deadly rain, in order to kill off systematically, all living creatures.  In order to more surely poison waters and pastures, the italian command made its aircraft pass over and over again.  That was its chief method of warfare.

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Nothing that his own "small people of 12 million inhabitants, without arms, without resources," could never withstand an attack by a large power such as italy, with its 42 million people and "unlimited quantities of the most death-dealing weapons;"  he contended that all small states were threatened by the aggression, and that all small states were effect reduced to vassals in the absence of collective action.  He admonished the League that "God and history will remember your judgement."

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The speech made the emperor an icon for anti-fascists around the world, and Time magazine named him "Man of the Year."  He failed, however, to get what he most needed; the League agreed to only partial and ineffective sanctions on Italy.  Only six nations in 1937 did not recognize Italy's occupation, they were China, New Zealand, the Soviet Union the Republic of Spain, Mexico and the United States of America.

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After the invasion, a fascist regime occupied the country and marked the first loss of national independence on recorded Ethiopian history.

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Emperor Haile Selassie continued to plead for League intervention and to voice this certainty that "God's judgement will eventually visit the weak and the mighty alike."  His attempts were unsuccessful until Italy entered World War II on the German side in June 1940, and the entire Europe was devastated.

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Haile Selassie went into exile during the years 1936-1941, and spent them in Bath, England.

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In early 1941, British forces aided by the heroic Ethiopian resistance, freed the country from Italian control enabling Haile Selassie to triumphantly re-entered his capital in May.  On May 5, 1941, he entered Addis Ababa and personally addressed the Ethiopian people, 5 years to the day since his 1936 exile.

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• "Today is the day on which we defeated our enemy.  Therefore, when we say let us rejoice with our hearts, let not our rejoicing be in any other way but in the spirit of Christ.  Do not return evil for evil.  Do not indulge in the atrocities which the enemy has been practicing in his usual way, even to the last."

• "Take care not to spoil the good name of Ethiopia by acts which are worthy of the enemy.  We shall see that our enemies are disarmed and sent out the same way they came.  As St. George who killed the dragon is the Patron Saint of our army as well as our allies, let us unite with our allies in everlasting friendship and amity in order to be able to stand against the godless and cruel dragon which has newly risen and which is oppressing mankind

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Between 1941 and 1959, Haile Selassie worked to establish the autocephaly or independence of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church from Egypt.  In 1959 Pope Cyrill VI of Alexandria consecrated Abuna Basillos as the first Ethiopian Patriarch or Pope.  The emperor continued to be a staunch ally of the West, while pursuing a firm policy of decolonization of Africa which was still largely under European colonial rule.