war what is it good for absolutely nothing and to drive that point home with some stark
consistency these are the most pointless wars that have ever been waged
number 10 the pastry war most wars are named in a way that gives you an inclination about what they
were about or at least who they were between the franco-prussian war world war one the names make
sense so when you hear about a war called the pastry war it's not unreasonable to be a little
confused about what that even means the pastry war did have pastry at its root but it was more of a
war looking for a cause than a cause for a war it took place in 1838 and 1839 between the nations
of france and mexico before this time mexico was still a very young nation and france was
not entirely on board with their independence the kingdom of france still considered mexico
an extension of sprain and france and spain were not on the best of terms nor had they been
for a few hundred years in 1830 france and mexico developed a trade relationship and this led
to tensions over taxes and this helped exacerbate an already existing and relatively insignificant
problem in 1828 during a period of civil unrest in mexico city the pastry shop of a man named
remantel was ransacked by mexican soldiers who ate all of his pastries and he wanted compensation
raymontel demanded the mexican government compensate him with 60 000 pesos his shop
was worth only 1 000 pesos when mexico declined he complained to france the king demanded mexico
pay 600 000 pesos and mexico scoffed at the idea france responded by deploying ships of war to
set up a blickade one thing led to another and the next thing you know thirty thousand french
soldiers have taken over veracruz and captured the entire mexican navy after seven months with
no progress in defeating the french mexico had the british intervene on their behalf they paid france
six hundred thousand pesos and era got sixty thousand number nine the lobster war if you're
going to go to war over food it might as well be something luxurious in 1961 france and brazil came
to blows over the shellfish french fishermen were 100 miles off the brazilian coast catching lobster
brazil said that it was still on their continental shelf and therefore they were their lobsters each
side took issues to their respective governments brazil sent six patrol boats to the fishermen
which really ticked off french president char de gaulle who sent a french destroyer to help
out his countrymen the brazilians outnumbered the french and so the french retreated brazil
told them to leave within 48 hours they refused so one french ship was taken hostage no guns were
fired but the dispute continued for three entire years diplomacy won out and the countries went
to international court the government of brazil extended their waters to 200 miles so there would
be no further issue number eight malosia vs east germany if you head to dayton nevada you may run
across a patch of land that's just a bit over an acre in size this is the republic of milosha
a country that isn't actually a real place but the man who runs it definitely knows how to commit to
a bit considered an unrecognized micronation malosia was founded by kevin bohr a former
sergeant first class in the u.s army his country started all the way back in 1977 when it was the
grand republic of woldstein boar does pay property taxes and like any nation it has had political
strife they've been at war with east germany since 1983. you may recall that east germany isn't even
a country anymore but that hasn't slowed bore down because when it was a country he was stationed in
west germany his german military exercises woke him up in the night and so he vowed to wage war
on that injustice even when the country stopped existing he pointed out that ernst thulman island
was not included in the dissolution of east germany and therefore he's still at war with
them if this whole thing sounds like a joke then don't worry boar is well aware of the
goofiness and he's just having fun but he's stuck to the joke since 1983 which is pretty impressive
7. the huskar war most people are not likely familiar with hughscar because it's not a great
nation with a long history that's because it's not a nation at all it's just a town in spain
in 2021 it had a population of just over 7 000 people so the fact that huskar went to war with
denmark seems like a bit of an unbalanced battle and that doesn't take into account the fact that
when the war officially ended in 1981 it had been going on for 172 years the war dates all
the way back to the napoleonic wars in 1809. at that time denmark supported france in their
war against spain napoleon lost and in 1814 the treaty of paris was signed ending the war between
all combatants all but one back in 1809 the town of khuskar decided to also formally declare war
on denmark alongside their countrymen it was a needless declaration since spain as a whole was
involved but local politicians can sometimes have bigger weirder aspirations than their situation
normally allowed they never actually engaged in war because the town has a total of eight
municipal guards the declaration was all but forgotten until 1981 when it was rediscovered
the town had to decide what to do with their still open war against denmark alive and strong despite
generations of people just not knowing about it they agreed that ending the war was the
right thing to do and no doubt the people of denmark slept a little easier that night
6. the kettle war it's hard to call any war a good war but there are things you might want to see
in a war if you have the option low casualties are obviously the greatest outcome and if a war
can somehow take place with no one dying then all the better the kettle war is one such war
a single shot was fired and the only victim was a soup kettle the not quite battle took place
between the holy roman empire here represented by the spanish netherlands and the republic of
the seven netherlands the seven netherlands in the north had control over the shelt river in 1784 the
holy roman emperor decided that it was time to reopen the river to trade and sent three ships
to the northern nation the dutch vessel fired a single shot when they met they hit the kettle on
the louis and the captain surrendered right away the luluy was far better appointed for war than
the dutch vessel so the surrender was unusual the emperor declared warp soon after but a series of
floods on land made the entire incident a fast one with the dutch capitulating and a compromise being
reached 5. the emu war in a typical war you have two or more sides in a dispute over land religion
trade or a host of other issues but almost always the participants are human not so
in the great emu war which wasn't named in any poetic or metaphorical way it was a war
on emus after the first world war the australian government began giving out plots of land to their
veterans thousands of acres were provided as farmland because australia had a lot of room
to spare but it was technically not uninhabited the emus were there and they were causing a ruckus
they destroyed crops and they were big enough that they could literally knock over fences by running
at them by 1932 there was a bounty placed on the birds the farmers couldn't handle them all so
the military was called in they managed to corner a thousand of them and the gun they were going to
use to kill them jammed they took out maybe 10 of them after several days of trying and 2 500
rounds of ammunition they'd killed 200. the final tally was about 10 bullets wasted per emu shot
by 1934 the government had provided ammo to the farmers and sadly the emus didn't fare well nearly
60 000 died but the species persevered and is now a protected species number four the anglo-zanzibar
war the war in afghanistan lasted nearly 20 years it was by no means the longest war ever but it
was america's longest war there's not really a typical time period for any given war of course
but typically they last a while at least a few days right the anglo-zanzibar war lasted
38 minutes two days before war the sultan of zanzibar died the replacement sultan had not
been approved by britain which was supposed to happen according to the official rules governing
zanzibar as a british protectorate so britain told the new sultan that he had to go in response he
locked himself in the palace the british had several naval vessels including warships the
sultan was ordered to stand down by nine in the morning but he refused by 902 his artillery was
destroyed and the palace was collapsing word is the sultan fled at the same time and by 40 his
forces surrendered ending the war 3. the bucket war numerous countries have experienced civil wars
over the years and they're typically over land or ideologies but not always for instance in 1325
the italian city-states and medina and bologna devolved into a war over a bucket the story goes
that soldiers from medina snagged a bucket from a well in bologna this prompted the balinese people
to send their army to retrieve it this in turn led to 30 000 foot soldiers on behalf of the pope
coming to the aid of bologna while five thousand others on behalf of the holy roman emperor
joined the cause for medina over two thousand soldiers died and by some accounts the bucket
was nothing more than a colorful story to distract from much greater causes including medina taking
bolognese castle but even in that version they still stole a bucket 2. the stray dog war in 1925
bulgaria and greece proved that just about any pretense for war could be used if one nation was
dedicated enough in this case it was fought over a stray dog of course as we said that was just
some pretense and there were bigger issues at play including a dispute over claims to western thrace
many soldiers had died on both sides over the years in october 1925 a soldier stationed near the
border between greece and bulgaria lost control of a dog the dog ran towards bulgaria the soldier ran
after and when he got too close the bulgarians shot him greet general pangolos was not about
to let this stand he threatened bulgaria if they didn't make amends but they refused greece invaded
and took possession of a town until the league of nations ordered them out and ordered greece
to pay for the damage that they'd caused the great goat war we already saw how australia went to war
against emus but at least the emus had a fighting chance in that skirmish not so for the goats of
the galapagos islands which had 10 million dollars in u.n funding two helicopters one hundred hunters
and five hundred thousand rounds of ammunition after them but hey the goats lasted nearly
ten years after war was declared so that's something feral goats were introduced to the
galapagos in the 1700s the few goats turned into 120 000 goats by the 2000 and they were destroying
the island including the habitat of the native tortoises they were very directly responsible
for the near extinction of the tortoises so they had to go this also resulted in a
serious loss of food and income for the locals but alas no one was fighting back for the goats