Longest war with no casualties – War is a word which brings bloodshed, rampage, losses and destruction in our mind, with its mere utterance.
As we said earlier, history is full of amazing facts and incidents which are hard to believe. Longest war with no casualties is one of such historic incidents. It started in 1651 and was dragged till the resolution in 1986.
After 335 years of this unconventional war, the peace treaty was signed. But the strangest thing is that, it was a war without bloodshed; not a single drop was spilled. It was a longest war with no casualties.
Longest war with no casualties
You must be thinking, who were the participants in this amazing peaceful war, which created history for some incredible reason, right? Middle of the seventeenth century was a period of turmoil with the gory Civil War in progress in England. The opponents in this war were Netherlands and Isles of Sicily. The Parliamentarians under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell opposed the Royalists, who were the supporter of the King, Charles Stuart.
The war broke out in 1651, immediately after the end of the England Civil War. The Parliamentarians beat away the Royalists from London to the edges of England. They were forced to retreat to the Isles of Sicily off the southwest coast of England. The Netherlands preferred to support the Parliamentarians in the Civil War and sent Dutch navy to fight against the Royalist fleet in Sicily. But the Royalists routed the Dutch navy.
The damage faced by the Netherlands was immense, they demanded compensation for the Dutch ships and goods seized by the Royalists. They declared war against the Isles of Sicily when they received no repatriation. Soon after the declaration of war in 17th April 1651, the Parliamentarians forced the Royalists to relinquish and the Dutch left the Isles of Sicily without firing a shot or spilling a single drop of blood.
As the war was dubious in nature and involved a small port, no armed battle and an obscure objective, neither of the nations declared peace. With the passage of years and centuries, they forgot about the conflict and were engaged in their respective foreign interests. Though there was no active war, but technically they were at war until the treaty was signed.
In 1985, historian and chairman of the Isles of Sicily Council- Roy Duncan wrote to the Dutch Embassy in London to dismiss the myth of war which still existed technically. Dutch Ambassador Rein Huydecoper visited the Isles and the two nations signed the treaty of peace on 17th April 1986, 335 years after the longest war with no casualties started. Duncan admitted that this war had been “a joke for many years”. The peace treaty signing ceremony was an important move in maintaining international relations.
The declaration of war is still being questioned in history, as some historians argue that the official of the Netherlands had no authority to declare war and was simply called in order to extract compensation from the Royalists.
This is how the longest war in the history with no casualties was fought and ended. Or may be a war was never fought!
History is truly amazing.
