# War of 1812: Stupidest war ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 25, 2004, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921 "2004-04-25T16:30:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/41 "2004-04-27T01:07:06Z")
Then there’s the Peloponnesian War, which raged on for 27 years because neither side could find a treaty writer who could spell “Peloponnesian.” (Okay, okay, I lifted it from an old _Mad_ book. I just love that joke so much!) ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/42 "2004-04-27T01:59:52Z")
[Nope.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_War) The stupidest war has to be the Football (soccer) war between Els Salvador and Hoduras in 1969. Granted it only lasted about 6 days. And only about 2000 people died (only 2000 people died, what an odd phrase). Still has to hold the record for the stupidest war in history. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/43 "2004-04-27T04:26:58Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > [Nope.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_War) The stupidest war has to be the Football (soccer) war between Els Salvador and Hoduras in 1969. Granted it only lasted about 6 days. And only about 2000 people died (only 2000 people died, what an odd phrase). Still has to hold the record for the stupidest war in history. That would be the second half of the Soccer War referred to in post #5? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/44 "2004-04-27T04:43:16Z")
The War of 1812 was pretty much pointless, but, by the standards of international conflicts between powers as large as Great Britain and (even then) the U.S., it was relatively painless (if you didn’t happen to be one of the soldiers killed, or a friend or relative of one), and some good did come of it: The Yanks and the Brits worked out of their systems most of the bad blood left over from the Revolutionary War, negotiated mutually acceptable terms of coexistence, and went on to enjoy a “special relationship” with each other from 1815 to the present. Part of that settlement was that the Americans, who had regarded Canada as a sort of leftover business from the Revolution, to be absorbed whenever the U.S. grew strong enough, now accepted its right to exist indefinitely as a separate entity – resulting in what is now a cheerfully friendly relationship and the world’s longest undefended national border. All things considered, it could have gone much worse. The stupidest war in history, in terms of the amount of horrible damage done for no intelligent reason, has got to be World War I. I mean, in the case of World War II, we can at least clearly understand what the aggressors were trying to **achieve.** But in WWI, what of value did the Central Powers really stand to gain if they won? And half the belligerents in that war seemed to have jumped in for reasons of “honour,” that is, prior diplomatic commitments to countries that already had been swept up in it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Here’s an account from _An Incomplete Education_ by Judy Jones and William Wilson (New York: Ballantine Books, 1987): > [@](#): > > Obviously, blaming World War I on what happened at Sarajevo is like blaming Norman Bates’ slasher impulses on Janet Leigh’s turning on the hot water. Europe had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown since at least the turn of the century as a result of both family and personality problems dating back to the 1870s. That was when Germany, having just trounced the French in the Franco-Prussian War, started angling for its own place in the sun among the powers of Europe. In order to consolidate the new German position and forestall any thoughts of revenge on the part of the French, Bismarck, then Germany’s chancellor, ran around forging secret alliances with anybody who’d let him in the door; specifically the Hapsburgs, who were looking for an ally against the Russians in their attempt to grab a bigger piece of the Balkans, and the Italians, who like the idea of siding with a winner. Virtually everyone else was offended by the Germans, who struck them not only as parvenus, but as too ambitious, truculent, and devious to make acceptable neighbors. Bismarck’s Triple Alliance turned an undercurrent of resentment into out-and-out paranoia. Pretty soon France, Russia, and Great Britain had formed, not anything as formal as an alliance (Britain was too determinedly isolationist for that) but an _entente cordiale,_ known thereafter as the Triple Entente, whereby each would pitch in to help out if either of the others was attacked by members of the Triple Alliance. By the early 1900s, every major power had armed itself to the teeth, and Europe was divided into two camps, each nervously waiting for the other to draw first. > > In such a high-stress situation, a German unexpectedly scratching his ear might have been enough to set things off, but there was a better catalyst: The Balkans. A cluster of wild, backward countries that had only recently gotten out from under the thumb of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, the Balkans were the object of perpetual rivalry between the Russians and the Austro-Hungarians, both of whom were on their last legs without realizing it, and were, therefore, semi-hysterical much of the time. . . . > > Thanks largely to the Serbs, who had a tendency to register discontent by forming secret societies and committing terrorist acts, both rival empires were, by 1914, ready to be driven around the bend. An assassination was just the ticket. It was also the chance the Germans had been waiting for. Fed up with being treated, as they saw it, as second cousins, and convinced that the Russians, who had been notoriously unreliable allies up to that point, wouldn’t fight, they gave full rein to their ambitions – and to the military strategy they’d already had prepared for ten years. As for Great Britain, it feld honor-bound to declare war on Germany when German troops invaded Belgium on their way to smash the French. At this point, no one was thinking clearly and everyone was wishing the whole business would just go away. But, as the British historian A. J. P. Taylor noted, politicians and generals had a hard time keeping up with each other’s point of view in those days and before they knew it, the heads of state had lost control. “Their sensations, when diplomacy collapsed,” wrote Taylor, “were those of a train passenger who sees the express thundering through the station at which he intended to alight.” > > And that’s only what was happening on the surface. Behind all these global neuroses was a new-found conviction, born out of the traumatic effects of Darwinism . . . on human consciousness, that Nature was a struggle for survival of the fittest; that, in the case of people, the fittest meant the best-armed; and that, under the circumstances, war was inevitable anyway. Those who still hoped this wasn’t true tended to believe that enormous military strength on all sides would act as a deterrent, and that common sense would surely prevail. Wrong again. Not only was World War I out of control virtually from the beginning, it went on for four years, and it wound up signaling the end of European domination of the world. Stupid, stupid, stupid. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/45 "2004-04-27T05:04:44Z")
Well, I suppose if we are going to look at silver linings, BrainGlutton, you could say that WWI broke the dominance of Europe over the world…and that this event would lead to the US dominance. 😃 What I always found both puzzling and sad about WWI (well, one of the many things I suppose) was that Kaiser actually liked and admired Great Britian…hell, he was even related to the queen! He even built a good part of German (and Germany’s Navy especially) in model of Great Britian. I always found that ironic. Another part of the madness was that, according to several Europeans I know at least, the US didn’t have to enter the war at all, they would have won anyway (the allies that is)…it was a waste. And the US certainly didn’t get anything out of it…except later when the door was opened for us to become the pre-eminent world power of course. 😉 -XT ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/46 "2004-04-27T05:13:50Z")
> [@AndrewT](#): > > That would be the second half of the Soccer War referred to in post #5? Yep. Dang that reading through the thread thing anyway. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![notquitekarpov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@notquitekarpov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notquitekarpov)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/47 "2004-04-27T07:14:31Z")
One of my favourites for blundering stupidity. IIRC it was started by the East India Company as a private War over the Persian seizure of Herat (Afghanistan) even though they lost it again before the fighting started. They send a ship up the Persian Gulf and summoned the Shah for get an ultimatum - opened the grand dispatch box to find it empty. They had to go back to get it!! (heh heh) On the way back they called in on various Persian ports to order supplies to feed the invading Army when they returned. Talk about signalling their intentions in advance. Anyway the Persian proved luckily even more incompetent than the EIC/British and the War staggered on for a few months with until the Persians sued for peace and the British returned to India to provoke and meet the Mutiny. More stupidity… Amazing we kept up an Empire at all… ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/48 "2004-04-27T17:03:04Z")
> [@](#): > > What I always found both puzzling and sad about WWI (well, one of the many things I suppose) was that Kaiser actually liked and admired Great Britian…hell, he was even related to the queen! He even built a good part of German (and Germany’s Navy especially) in model of Great Britian. I always found that ironic. I don’t quite think so. He was related to the English royal line, but always found them much to liberal (i.e., much too unauthorarian) and privately thought them pansies to some degree or another. He did rather want to build a great British-style Navy (who wouldn’t?), but knew this would provoke the English rather dangerously. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/49 "2004-04-27T18:54:53Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Stupid, stupid, stupid. I would agree with BrainGlutton about WWI being the stupidest war – I have to suppress a smirk every time someone from a European country pretends to moral or intellectual superiority over … anyone – but I’d say that it was more the last gasp of the old European aristocracy than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/50 "2004-04-27T20:13:17Z")
More of a farce than anything else, the Fenian plan to invade Canada in order to free Ireland surely has to rank as one of the silliest attempted invasions ever. Complete, apparently, with a Fenian submarine as a secret weapon. ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/51 "2004-04-28T01:29:49Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > More of a farce than anything else, the Fenian plan to invade Canada in order to free Ireland surely has to rank as one of the silliest attempted invasions ever. > > Complete, apparently, with a Fenian submarine as a secret weapon. But the British will _have_ to give us Ireland once we’ve taken Canada!!! They’ll just _have_ to! ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/52 "2004-04-28T01:50:32Z")
I think **BrainGlutton** is being a little hard on Bismark. While he was a schemer and a plotter and the ultimate Prussian nationalist I think that blaming WWI on him isn’t quite fair. His Germany had no reason to go to war and a heck of a lot of reasons to stop it. His treaties, alliances, and diplomacy made great power conflict well nigh impossible. All of the conitinental powers were allied to or dependent on Germany. Austria and Russia couldn’t fight each other. Neither could Italy and Austria without Germany’s sayso. Britain was quite friendly with Germany. The only outlier was France, who unfortunately were isolated by Bismark’s system as a matter of necessity (thanks to Kaiser Wilhelm I’s insistence on the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine which made normal relations between France and Superprussia (err Germany) problematic at best). France was not on friendly terms with Italy. England, Russia, and France had a longstanding mutual loathing thing going on that would never ever ever go away which ensured that Germany would remain the center of Europe for the forseeable future. (England took care of the rest of the world). Look at the Berlin conference shutting down Russia’s attacks on the dying Ottomans - Bismark’s system was designed to make European war impossible. It was only after Wilhelm II sacked Bismark and hired new advisors who felt all that diplomacy was really really hard that things started to fall apart. Alienating old and close allies by choosing only allies who were so utterly dependent that they had to ignore their own misgivings about the war in order to obey Germany. Engaging in counterproductive shortsighted shows of military force rather than quiet negotiation, which pissed off friends as well as putative foes. Making pompous statements about interfering in other countries affairs. Building a vanity navy. Feeding internal paranoia as each move gradually forced Russia and France (and eventually England) ever closer together. Anyways I am not sure that the absence of treaties would have necessarily stopped WWI from being WWI once Austria and Russia started going at it. ---
**Author:** ![Starguard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Starguard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starguard)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/53 "2004-04-28T10:28:43Z")
> [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > You make excellent points. However I think that [The War of Jenkin’s Ear](http://www.history1700s.com/article1070.shtml) is probably a better candidate for Stupidest War Ever. > > Just sayin’. Have you ever heard of the American Civil War? "Not the one fought back in the 1880’s, the [SECOND one](http://www.conchrepublic.com/invade95.htm). This war has got to be the stupidest war ever fought in American History :eek: ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/54 "2004-04-28T11:17:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Have you ever heard of the American Civil War? "Not the one fought back in the 1880’s Heck. I never heard of the first one that was fought in the 1880s. (Just so I can be sure to avoid ever sending my kids there: where did you go to school?) ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_B.Phart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/55 "2004-04-28T11:36:26Z")
Gotta go along with WWI - utterly stupid and bloody, with the most terrible consequences in the aftermath - the biggest being the rise of the Nazis. The English Civil War, “this war without an enemy” was pretty high on the stupid scale - setting brother against brother, father against son, on the basis of some rubbish about the “divine right” of a stupid King to do stupid things without someone asking “why?” As a hijack - can anyone give an example of a war that \* wasn’t \* stupid? Anyone giving the currant unpleasantness in Iraq gets a Muttley-style medal for courage in the face of hostile facts (I don’t mean _justified_ or _unavoidable_ for one side - e.g. I personally think the US had to take on the Taliban after 9/11 - but I can’t say it made me proud to be human seeing billion-dollar planes dropping million-dollar bombs on people earning less than a 1$ a year, to get to some someone who’d previously been given help and training as an ally - while Pakistan was hailed as a staunch friend, ignoring their role in helping the Taliban into power and their links with Al Q) Does WWII count? Going to war with an aggressive, expansionist Nazi state rather than appease it leading to the end of fascism as a main-stream political theory? ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/56 "2004-04-28T12:23:10Z")
Third Punic War, anyone? - Rome extirpating Carthage, just cuz Any dynastic war? Spanish Succession, for instance. People dying because the guy running their country wants someone from his family ruling Spain, and not that other family. The vast majority of the crusades? What are the criteria being used? Does the war have to be stupid at the time or only after the fact? Pointless waste of life? Was it pointless at the time? ---
**Author:** ![RandomLetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@RandomLetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandomLetters)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/57 "2004-04-28T13:10:20Z")
> [@Capt B. Phart](#): > > As a hijack - can anyone give an example of a war that \* wasn’t \* stupid? The Mexican-American war - The US gained a big chunk of territory, at relatively low cost. A smart move for the US. (though not all that good for Mexico, of course.) Any other similar war, where a country can get a big chunk of land with little loss I would generally consider to be a good and intelligent move for the country doing the conquering. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/58 "2004-04-28T14:31:19Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > What would have happened if the British had of actually won? …If the British had of won at New Orleans, would they have honored the treaty they had previously signed? It should be, “if the British had won” or “had the British won.” Not HAD OF. In a conjectural statement contrary to past fact, one uses the pluperfect. And “of” is never an acceptable substitute for “have”! > [@](#): > > Feel free to go into more detail or correct any grossly incorrect aspects of my OP. By your leave, my liege. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2004, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/59 "2004-04-28T14:42:02Z")
Great Scott people! Has everyone forgotten the stupidity of the war we are currently waging in Iraq? History, as always, will judge and it may not be the A No. ! stupidest, by by God it’s a contender. ---
**Author:** ![Starguard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Starguard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starguard)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2004, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921/60 "2004-04-29T07:07:09Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Heck. I never heard of the first one that was fought in the 1880s. > > (Just so I can be sure to avoid ever sending my kids there: where did you go to school?) ROFL - Sorry, that was a typo, I meant the 1860’s :o [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-of-1812-stupidest-war-ever/241921.md?page=4)