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Many wars over the centuries have started over small incidents. Obviously, there were probably other long-smoldering hostilities, but some of the causes given would have been amusing had they not caused so much bloodshed. A few examples are mentioned as follows:
The War of the Whiskers took place in France between England and France in 1152. Bearded King Louis VII married Eleanor, the daughter of a French duke, by which he received a dowry of two provinces. After his return from the crusades, King Louis shaved his beard, which prompted Eleanor to declare that he was ugly without his beard. Eleanor demanded that he grow it back, which he refused. Eleanor divorced him and married King Henry II of England. She demanded return of her dowry. When King Louis refused, King Henry declared war to recover the two provinces. The war lasted 301 years and peace was finally declared only after the Battle of Rouen in 1453.
The War of the Oaken Bucket occurred in Italy in 1325 between the state of Bologna and the state of Modena. Soldiers from Modena invaded Bologna and stole a brown oak bucket. Hundreds of Bologna citizens were killed. Bologna went to war to recover the bucket and their honor. After a bloody 12-year war in which thousands died, Modena won the battle of Zappolino and kept the bucket, which can be seen in the bell tower of a 14th century building in Modena. (Note: My source didn't give the significance of the oaken bucket)
The War of the Spanish Succession, later called Queen Anne's War took place in 1704 throughout Europe and involved France vs.England and later Prussia vs. Silesia. An English woman, Mrs. Mashaur, spilled a glass of water on Frenchman Marquis de Torey. Torey took it as insult, although Mrs. Mashaur said it was an accident. It stirred up old antagonisms and led to war that lasted five years and ended with the Peace of Utrecht, after which King Louis XIV placed his grandson on the Spanish Hapsburg throne.
In 1739 the War of Jenkin's Ear took place between England and Spain in Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1731 Capt. Robert Jenkin's brig was stopped and searched outside of Havana. During the encounter, the Spanish commander cut off Jenkin's ear. Returning to London, Jenkin's appeared before the king and showed the severed ear in a case. No action was taken then. However, the incident was raised again seven years later in the House of commons and Jenkin's ear was passed around for all to see. Tempers soared and Jenkin's was declared a martyr. Ostensibly, Jenkin's Ear was the reason England went to war with Spain, but more likely it was because England wanted to take over the West Indies. The ensuing war merged with the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), pitting England and Austria against Spain and Prussia, The result of the war left England with naval superiority. Spain lost very little on land. Jenkins became a supervisor for the East India Company.
There are probably many more like these. Perhaps someone has some more examples to add. As I was typing, I was thinking how wise George Washington was when he warned against "foreign entanglements."
Credit: Much of this was paraphrased from source material taken from The People's Almanac by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace.
Ellenor was a highly independent women and her marriage with the King of France was troubled by many things. At most the whiskers was an excuse for what was going to happen anyway.
The same is true of Queen Anne's war (more commonly known as the War of the Spanish Sucession). The real issue was the power of Louis the XIV and fear that if he added Spain to his empire it would fundamentally ruin the balance of power in Europe. The death of the last king of the Hapsburg line in Spain in 1701 was the true start for the conflict.
Commonly states are building towards war and the actual incident such as Jenkins ear simply is the excuse to fight. This was even more true in the middle ages when the dominant class, nobles, primary purpose was fighting. They fought constantly over everything.
One of more bizare causes for a war was that which precipitated the Crimean conflict. It began over disputes between different christian factions as to who would control parts of certain churches. Eventually the new ruler of catholic France (Napoleon III) took the catholic part and Nicholas I took the orthodox part. It was one of those rare wars which genuinely had no true logic, made worse some have argued by simple bordom of European leaders and almost comical blundering of diplomats. The war was equally mismanaged, in part because lacking a real objective they had to pick a place to fight more or less at random.
The French and Indian War was precipitated by a fairly minor battle by European standards in which a British general blundered into an ambush. But like most such wars its true cause, French and English colonial conflict, the ambitions of Frederick the Great, had little to do with the incident that created it.
Whenever I see this topic I think of two incidents...now I'm going by memory here so be kind...
The Aroostock War. Territorial dispute between loggers in what is now Maine that ended up fixing the current Maine/Canada border where it is. Apparently some French/Canadian loggers and American loggers got in a fight actually using their axes over property each claimed was in their country. When negotiators from each nation sat down, they each claimed more territory than their own maps showed. What's funny about it is that the American's map showed the border should be where the Canadians/British claimed it should be and the Canadian's/British' map showed the border should be where the American's claimed it was. What ended up happening is that the difference was split and each side left the table thinking they had gotten the better end of the deal.
The Pig War.
In the Pacific Northwest, the boundary between the US and British Columbia was long in dispute. Even once it was fixed at the 49th parallel, it was still in dispute in the Puget Sound among the islands. The pig war started over an American and British/Canadian fussing over one of their pigs getting out and getting into the other's crops. (I don't remember who.) It never became a shooting war but led to the building of blockhouses and forts and the moving of troops and ships. Finally settled in negotiations.
I guess technically these weren't wars, but were given that title and did lead to the further establishment of US/Canadian borders.
Again, please forgive any incorrectness stemming from recalling research done 30 years ago and laziness preventing googling...
The pig war involved a british warship showing its guns to a small US military detachment commanded I think by JEB Stuart. Probably as close as the US and Britain came to violence after the war of 1812.
The pig war involved a british warship showing its guns to a small US military detachment commanded I think by JEB Stuart. Probably as close as the US and Britain came to violence after the war of 1812.
You're thinking of Pickett, of Gettysburg fame. It was San Juan Island, disputed territory and was triggered by the shooting of a pig leading to a contingent of US soldiers (led by Pickett) landing. The British naval commander, a guy named Hornby, decided not to confront Pickett.
For more than you ever wanted to know about this, check out the following link...
I can imagine a Victorian age admiral thundering this...
Quote:
However, Hornby wisely refused to take any action against the Americans until the arrival of Rear Adm. R. Lambert Baynes, commander of British naval forces in the east Pacific. Baynes, appalled at the situation, advised Douglas that he would not "involve two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig."
A fasinating what if. If the incident had led to conflict between the US and the UK the civil war might have been delayed. The one thing that united North and South in the pre-civil war era was a war with someone else.
World War I was caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Ferdinand's death at the hands of the Black Hand, a Serbian nationalist secret society, set in train a mindlessly mechanical series of small incidents that eventually culminated in the world's first global war.
How about the so called "Soccer War" that erupted between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969 ?
That war wasn't about a soccer game, it was about the treatment of Salvadorian immigrants to the Honduras.
Incidental to the actual causes, there was fighting in the stands at the 1970 World Cup preliminary matches between those nation's fans, but that was reflective of prevailing hostilities, not a cause of them.
It wasn't much of a war, lasting just under 100 hours before the OAS negotiated a halt.
The name "Soccer War" is akin to the Franco-Mexican "Pastry War" which of course was not about pastry, it was about unpaid foreign debts arising from damage done to French owned businesses in Mexico, among which was a pastry shop.
Ooops...I just noticed I'm responding to a post from 2010...well, I hope my answer was worth the wait.
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No doubt there are other households where these small skirmishes have led to all-out battles!
