Abyssinia Crisis Abyssinia to Mussolini, so his troops were able to continue their war relatively unchallenged by the rest of Europe. Haile Selassie was forced into exile on 2 May. All the sanctions that had been put in place by the League were dropped after the Italian capture of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on the 5th of May 1936. Ethiopia was then merged with the other Italian colonies to become Italian East Africa ("Africa Orientale Italiana", or AOI). Ethiopia never officially surrendered, and pleaded for help from foreign nations, such as Haile Selassie's . As a result, there were six
Abyssinia, Henry production of this episode, both Stevenson and Wayne Rogers, who played the character of Trapper John McIntyre, left the series to pursue other interests. While Stevenson's departure was announced prior to and written into "Abyssinia, Henry", Rogers unexpectedly left the series during the break between Seasons Three and Four, and so his character's departure takes place off-screen in the following episode, "Welcome to Korea", the first of the show's fourth season. These combined departures and their subsequent replacements also signaled the beginning of a major shift in focus of the "M*A*S*H" series as a whole with story and script focus