The Abyssinia Crisis (አቢሲኒያ ቀውስ; La crisi abissina) was an international crisis in 1935 that originated in what was called the Walwal incident during the ongoing conflict between the Fascist–ruled Kingdom of Italy and the Ethiopian Empire (then commonly known as "Abyssinia"). The League of Nations ruled against Italy and voted for economic sanctions, but they were never fully applied. Italy ignored the sanctions, quit the League, made special deals with the United Kingdom and France and ultimately annexed and occupied Abyssinia after it had won the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. The crisis is generally regarded as having discredited the league.
The Italo–Ethiopian Treaty of 1928 stated that the border between Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia was 21 leagues from and parallel to the Banaadir coast (approximately ). In 1930, Italy built a fort at the Walwal oasis (also Welwel, Italian: Ual-Ual) in the eastern Ogaden, well beyond the 21-league limit. The fort was in a boundary zone between the nations, which was not well defined, and is now about inside Ethiopia.
On 29 September 1934, Italy and Abyssinia released a joint statement renouncing any aggression against each other.
On 22 November 1934, a force of 1,000 Ethiopian militia with three fitaurari (Ethiopian military-political commanders) arrived near Walwal and formally asked the Dubats garrison stationed there (comprising about 60 soldiers) to withdraw from the area. The Somali NCO leading the garrison refused to withdraw and alerted Captain Cimmaruta, the commander of the garrison of Uarder, away, what had happened.
The next day, in the course of surveying the border between British Somaliland and Ethiopia, an Anglo–Ethiopian boundary commission arrived at Walwal. The commission was confronted by a newly-arrived Italian force. The British members of the boundary commission protested but withdrew to avoid an international incident. The Ethiopian members of the boundary commission, however, stayed at Walwal.