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War? That splendid means of conflict (armed, please) between at least two nations for a multitude of reasons. It could be because one of those countries is jealous, or in love, even with the other that doesn’t want to give up its virgin land to be raped. Perhaps war might take place for hate, because the skin of the opponents (commonly called the enemy) is not quite the same color (so the people there can’t be people, because people are always our color if they are to be called people and not subjugated into second-class ranking). Perhaps, it might take (albeit sometimes publically only) to spread our form of government in the west (we call know that the others envy our form of democracy and that they want to secretly be like us). War is waged because of all of these reasons and also because we just want to. It’s like stealing. People don’t just steal out of necessity; they do it because they feel like doing it even if they don’t need it. 25% of people will actually just steal because they get a rush from it; it’s a fix, adrenaline from the fear of being caught. War has little positive effect and even more rarely on the civilian population in the war zone.
Do we go to war because our populations have grown far greater than it is reasonably possibly for us to live together? Or do we find in that desire to wage war on our neighbors as some glowing spark of the past inside us that made us thrive on animal tendencies or sexual and territorial competition to perpetuate our species? Perhaps Marxist theories were correct, espousing the belief that man wages war only due to the attempt to gain control of resources in the imperialistic and capitalistic system in which we evolve. Thomas Malthus believed that we would also wage war because resources were being eaten away at by the poor (who incidentally, should be allowed just to die). The Youth Bulge theory in the pyramid of ages shows that when there is a large number of growingly unhappy cohort of male youths that are unable to find work due to lack of economic activity, then it is grounds for that group evolving into a pool of violence that will ultimately end in war.
Whatever the reasons we have and we will go to war for, there have been many stupid wars in the past. We don’t need to mention George W. Bush and his ridiculous invention of the reasons to wage war in the Middle East and his responsibility in the matter for most of the instability that has ensued in that region. If only those that had voted for him had voted for someone else to change the course of history. If only those that had falsified the votes, had been arrested in thrown in jail before he was declared President.
There have been wars that were ridiculously fought in the past. What were they? Here they are:
The Stupidest Wars in History
5. The War of the Golden Stool
This war took place in 1900 and the stool belonged to the Ashanti Empire. The seat was supposed the sacred representation of the chief and in turn of the Shanti nation, past and present.
The British Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Frederick Hodgson, was the ruler of the Ashanti people while the Ashanti King had been put into exile in 1896. Hodgson demanded that he have the stool brought to him so that he could sit on it, but when troops went in search of it, they came across a whole army of people led by the mother of the exiled chief of the Ashanti people. Yaa Asantewaa led troops of some 12,000 against British colonialism and nearly annihilated the British in the Gold Coast. The British were besieged in their barracks for almost three months and several thousand British troops had to come to their rescue. The Ashanti ended up being killed with a loss of 2,000 people on the battlefield, but the British never got to sit on that stool.
4. Flagstaff War (1845-46)
In the New Zealand town of Kororareka, the British were yet again stirring up trouble in their colonies. They hoisted the Union Jack above the town and it riled their native population, who subsequently went and chopped it down. Hone Heke, the culprit didn’t just do it once either. When the British erected another flag pole and hoisted another flag, he went and chopped it down with an axe a second time. By the time the British ended up getting to erect a 4th flag pole, they had to reinforce it with iron and post guards around it to protect it. The House of Commons back at Westminster decided that Heke needed to be told that this just ‘wasn’t cricket’ and they sent missionaries to tell him. But, on March 11th 1845 he went into the town and massacred the town’s people there. A war ensured and it lasted 10 months. The last word is that the British didn’t attempt to erect another flag pole, but Heke and his tribe were massacred.
3. Battle of Karansebes (1788)
The Austrians were waging a war against Turkey at the time. Some scouts went out, but they ended up coming across some gypsies selling alcohol and they got drunk on the local booze. The infantry was also out there and came across the scouts. The scouts didn’t want to share their drink with the infantry and set up some sort of make shift fortification. Things got heated and an argument ensued, with a few shots getting fired. Now, things got really complicated as each side actually believed that they were fighting the Turks. A full-scale battle ensued with the Austrians fighting against themselves and not a Turk in sight. They ended up with more than 10,000 dead or dying and to boot the Turks did finally turn up and take over declaring victory of the battle.
2. The Pig War (1859)
On the British-ruled island of San Juan between Washington State (today) and Vancouver Island, there was nothing except sheep, until the Americans decided to go there and settle. One of the 25 Americans that had gone there shot a pig on June 15th 1859. The pig belonged to the Hudson Bay employee Charles Griffin. The American offered $10 to pay for the pig and Cutler asked for $100. Things escalated and the British believed that they were going to lose control of San Juan Island. So, they dispatched 5 warships with 2,140 men and the Americans came along with 461 soldiers and 14 canons. They ended up calling the whole thing off and telling their troops to fire only if fired out. From then on, both Americans and British troops jointly controlled the island.
1. The War of Jenkins Ear (1739-42)
Robert Jenkins, a British naval captain, had his ear cut off in 1731 by Spaniards that had boarded his ship. In 1739, the British decided to use the ear as an excuse and held a parliamentary hearing, where the ear was proudly exhibited as proof of the Spanish affront. They decided to go to war against the Spanish and it ended up lasting from 1739 until 1742. The war turned into the War of Austrian Succession as a result and it was only with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 that things were allowed to cool down.
There are plenty more that could be added to the list!
According to studies, in the past 3,400 years peace has only existed for Man for a total of 268 years, which works out to 8% of the time that we have been on this planet as men. In the 20th century alone, there were 108 million deaths and the impossibility of realistically calculating the total number of human deaths ranges from some 150 million to 1 billion people. 60.7 to 84.6 million died in World War II, which is the worst recorded number of deaths in the world during warfare, including civilian deaths and on the battlefield as well as fatal casualties. The second highest death toll from war was the 13th century Mongol Conquests with 60 million killed. 65-85% of the US population is in favor of war when it is declared by their government. But, it soon peters out and for example the Korean and Vietnam Wars ended up with less than 30% in favor of them.
Is war a universal and even ancestral part of what man likes to call human nature? Man is a wolf to another man, Homo homini lupus, and we have known that for centuries now ever since the Roman playwright Plautus first declared it. Thomas Hobbes got man down to a t when he said that “Man to Man is a kind of God; and that Man to Man is an arrant Wolfe. The first is true, if we compare Citizens amongst themselves; and the second, if we compare Cities.” Man, according to the philosopher, is quite capable of being kind and generous, helpful even to his fellow men that are around him, and yet outside of the confines of the neighborhood and in particular when talking of being outside the boundaries of the state or the borders of a country, then man turns into some ferocious beast. Nice at home and a bastard outside to the others.
Sigmund Freyd wrote much the same thing (with a little tinge of sexual repression thrown in: “Men are not gentle creatures, who want to be loved, who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbor is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus. Who in the face of all his experience of life and of history, will have the courage to dispute this assertion?”
Man is aggressive by nature and his satisfaction is quelled only by taking what doesn’t belong to him or getting revenge for what he things he was entitled to and never got to have.
How many wars do we need still to understand that war causes famine, emigration, mistreatment of prisoners, destruction of the ecosystem and obliteration of the warzone’s infrastructure? The Old English word ‘wyrre’ is at the etymological origins of modern ‘war’ today. At one time it meant ‘to confuse’ or to ‘perplex’. It’s not war that confuses today, is it? It’s the reasons for going to war that should ‘bring us into confusion’.
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