Remilitarization of the Rhineland 1935. On 7 June 1935, MacDonald resigned as British Prime Minister due to ailing health and was replaced by Stanley Baldwin of the Conservative Party; the leadership change did not affect British foreign policy in any meaningful way. On October 3, 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia, and thus began the Abyssinia Crisis. Under strong pressure from a moralistic British public opinion, which was very much in favor of collective security, the British government took the lead in pressing the League of Nations for sanctions against Italy. The decision of the British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to take a strong line in
Stanley Baldwin World War. Today, modern scholars generally rank him in the upper half of British prime ministers. Baldwin was born at Lower Park House, Lower Park, Bewdley in Worcestershire, England to Alfred and Louisa Baldwin ("née" MacDonald), and through his Scottish mother was a first cousin of the writer and poet Rudyard Kipling, with whom he was close for their entire lives. The family was prosperous, and owned the eponymous iron and steel making business that in later years became part of Richard Thomas and Baldwins. Baldwin's schools were St Michael's School, at the time located in Slough, Berkshire, followed by