List of wars extended by diplomatic irregularity
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There are several claims of wars extended by diplomatic irregularity, often by a small country named in a declaration of war being accidentally omitted from the concluding peace treaty of a wider conflict. These alleged extended wars have only been "discovered" after the fact, and had no impact during the long period (often hundreds of years) they were supposedly de jure in force.
The "discovery" of an extended war is often an opportunity for a ceremonial peace to be contracted by local authorities.
Such a situation is to be distinguished from that of parties deliberately avoiding a peace treaty when political disputes outlive military conflict, as in the Kuril Islands dispute between Japan and Russia.
[edit] Alleged extended wars
| Combatants | Historical conflict | Declaration of war | De facto peace | Ceremonial peace | Status of claim |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rome vs Carthage | Third Punic War | 149 BC | 146 BC | 1985[1] | Carthage was utterly destroyed and later occupied, so no peace treaty was needed to be signed. |
| San Marino vs Sweden | Thirty Years' War | 1614 | 1648 | 1996[2] | No basis; San Marino was never party to the war.[3] |
| Isles of Scilly vs Netherlands | English Civil War | 1651 | 1651 | 1986 | Not clear that war was actually declared on Scilly, rather than its rebels. |
| Berwick-upon-Tweed vs Russia | Crimean War | 1853 | 1856 | 1966 | All legal references to "England" applied equally to Berwick by this time. |
| Andorra vs Germany | World War I | 1914 | 1918 | 1958[4] | Andorra was not invited to the Treaty of Versailles. |
| Montenegro vs Japan | Russo-Japanese War | 1904 | 1905 | 2006 | Montenegro declared war in support of Russia but this was merely a gesture as Montenegro lacked a navy or any other means to engage Japan. |
[edit] Notes
- ^ Saudi Aramco World, (bottom of page}
- ^ Spurious reported date; there was no ceremony as there was no historical conflict between the countries of any kind.
- ^ See Swedish historian Ulf Sundberg's debunking of the war.
- ^ "World War I Ends in Andorra", UPI story in the New York Times, Sep 25, 1958. p. 66. A number of sources say 1939, but there is no period confirmation for this.
