“Here are a few of history’s various military standoffs, diplomatic showdowns and international emergencies that might have led to war but didn’t.”
REMEMBER THE 1907 war between Japan and the United States? How about the Franco-German Conflict of 1875? Does Britain’s armed intervention in the U.S. Civil War ring a bell?
There’s a reason you can’t recall any of these events; none of them happened. But they might have. All are examples of war scares: Crises that nearly resulted in armed conflict, but the powers involved managed to avert coming to blows.
Here are a few of history’s various military standoffs, diplomatic showdowns and international emergencies that might have led to war but didn’t.
The Franco-British War of 1858
On the evening of Jan. 14, 1858 a 38-year-old Italian nationalist named Felice Orsini stepped out of a crowd on a busy Paris street and lobbed three bombs at the carriage of emperor Napoleon III and his wife. The French monarch, who was on his way to see Rossini’s William Tell, was unharmed in the attack, however eight others died and more than 140 were wounded. A follow-up investigation revealed that Orsini, who blamed France for the many failures of the Italian independence movement, had obtained his explosives privately during a trip to England just weeks earlier. The French public was outraged by the attack on their emperor and saw it as part of a wider British conspiracy. Not surprisingly, the nation clamoured for war. The growing crisis caught London entirely off guard. Worse, with the bulk of the national army deployed in the far-flung reaches of the empire, England was left largely un-defended. Almost overnight, the crisis touched off a volunteer movement throughout the U.K., which saw the raising and arming a national citizens’ army. That year, rifle regiments sprung up across the British Isles. Fortunately, Napoleon III had no intention of attacking. In fact in 1859, he found himself at war with Austria. Eventually the emergency subsided.
The Trent Affair
On Nov. 8, 1861 the U.S. Navy warship San Jacinto overhauled and boarded the British mail packet Trent in Caribbean waters. American sailors boarded and searched the vessel. Two Confederate diplomats hiding below were discovered and detained. The envoys had hitched a ride on the Trent in hopes of bypassing the Yankee blockade that encircled the Southern states. Their mission was to open diplomatic relations between Richmond and both Paris and London. The Confederates were seeking not just official recognition, but hoped to also bring the two European powers into the war against the North. Outraged, Britain demanded an apology from Washington for what it deemed to be the unlawful harassment of one of its ships on the high seas. When none was forthcoming, London dispatched 14,000 troops to Canada and ordered authorities in the colonies of Ontario and Quebec to raise 40,000 militia troops for a possible war with the United States. The Confederacy was elated and foresaw an Anglo intervention in the Civil War. Lincoln, hoping to avoid an expanded conflict, defused the situation by releasing the two rebel diplomats. He stopped short of issuing an apology.
The “War In Sight” Crisis
Following its crushing defeat at the hands of Prussia in 1870, France hoped it could avoid similar humiliations in the future by building an even larger and more formidable army than before. By 1875, its rearmament program had aroused the suspicion of the newly unified German Empire. In fact, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck set out to build support for a preventative strike against France through what would today be described as a PR offensive. An article appeared in an influential Berlin daily newspaper that was likely ordered by the German leader himself. It was entitled “Is war in sight?” The piece touched off a wave of war fever throughout Germany as many expected a new round of fighting against the French. The war drums were only silenced by mounting diplomatic threats from Britain and Russia. Faced with the prospect of a two-front war, Bismarck scaled back the rhetoric and let the public fervour subside. The entire affair succeeded in convincing Germany to formulate a new master strategy to fight a conflict on both its eastern and western borders. Berlin would have the chance to apply that very plan in 1914.
America’s Cold War… with Chile
By the late 19th Century, America’s expanding influence in the Pacific was facing challenges from the most unlikely of adversaries – Chile. After leading a successful regional war with Spain, the budding South American power had amassed a sizeable navy and was actually keen on building its own empire. In 1885, Chile began by occupying parts of Panama, much to the annoyance of Washington. Three years later, it seized Easter Island in the South Pacific. By the end of the decade, America and Chile seemed to be on a collision course for war. Then in 1891, a mob in in Valparaiso killed two American sailors on shore leave from the USS Baltimore. The U.S. government lodged an official protest with Santiago. Amazingly, it was as all but ignored. In response, the Benjamin Harrison Administration mobilized the fleet and for a while it seemed that all out war might be in the offing. Facing certain defeat, Chile backed down and offered to pay reparations of $75,000. Calm was restored. The entire affair went down in history as the Baltimore Crisis.
A Disagreement Between “Gentlemen”
In 1905, Japan was riding high. In just a few short decades, the long-time feudal kingdom had woken from its Medieval slumber and burst onto the world stage as an up-and-coming military and industrial juggernaut. After thrashing the Tsar’s forces and expanding its reach into Manchuria and Korea, Japan’s influence (as well as its sense of national pride) only continued to swell. When in 1907 the state legislature in far-off California enacted a series of punitive laws that all but excluded Japanese immigrants from participating in society, the government in Tokyo took offence. When racist mobs in San Francisco attacked Japanese-owned businesses, the feelings of indignation in Japan intensified. With the nation’s honour at stake, the Japanese government began rattling sabres; many within the halls of power were calling for war itself. America, which had growing commercial interests throughout the Pacific, namely in the Philippines, hoped to avoid any situation that threatened a disruption of trade. The Roosevelt Administration agreed to press California to strike down the bigoted laws if Tokyo slowed the flow of emigrants to the United States. These diplomatic overtures, known as the Gentleman’s Agreement, smoothed things over. The two countries would avoid hostilities for another 36 years.
Stalin Cries Wolf
In 1927, Joseph Stalin and other high-ranking Soviet officials needed an emergency to cement its tenuous hold on power. The newly established U.S.S.R. was surrounded by enemies, the dictator warned, enemies that might invade at any moment. Stalin accused Britain and even China of massing troops just beyond Russia’s borders. Soon, according to state-run media, these foreign armies would be pouring into Russia to topple the people’s government. It touched off a wave of hysteria throughout the Soviet Union. But it was pure spin. In reality, most Western powers had largely renounced violence following the slaughter of 1914 to 1918. And after the abortive Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1919, most had adopted a foreign policy of peaceful coexistence towards Moscow. Yet Stalin skillfully used the spectre of invasion to further consolidate his grip on society and even marginalize his political opponents within the communist party itself. The ruse succeeded and the power of history’s most murderous despot was strengthened, with disastrous results for millions of Soviet citizens.
“This is Not a Drill”
It was a peaceful Saturday morning in February of 1971 when television and radio stations across the United States received a strange dispatch from the Emergency Broadcast System. The EBS had been established by Washington just eight years earlier so the U.S. government could pre-empt regular programming nation-wide in the event of a nuclear attack. As part of the program, federal regulators compelled broadcasters to run a drill of the system each week. During these exercises, the EBS’ all-too-familiar taped message announced: “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.” It was followed by a high-pitched ringing tone, known as the ‘attention signal.’ On this particular Saturday, an error by a federal EBS dispatcher resulted in the transmission of the official attack warning to TV and radio stations across the country. “This is an Emergency Action Notification (EAN) directed by the President,” read the message. “Normal broadcasting will cease immediately. All stations will broadcast EAN Message 1 preceded by the Attention Signal, per FCC rules. Message Authenticator: Hatefulness/Hatefulness.” While the majority of stations across the U.S. either missed the message or ignored it entirely, a handful, most notably an AM radio station in Fort Wayne, Indiana and one in Minneapolis, Minnesota dutifully announced to their audiences that the United States was under nuclear attack. Tape of one of these faulty broadcasts can be heard here. The entire incident precipitated an investigation by Civil Defense authorities who sought to uncover how such an error occurred, and more importantly why so many broadcasters had failed to issue what appeared to be a genuine warning.
More Dangerous Times
MHN has covered a number of other famous war scares, including these:
- the 1859 crisis between Great Britain and the United States in the Pacific Northwest over the shooting of a pig… yes, a pig!;
- the 1885 showdown between the German and American navies over control of the tiny islands of Samoa;
- a 1902 standoff between Holland and Venezuela; and
- the various Cold War close calls that very nearly led to all out nuclear Armageddon.
(Originally published in MilitaryHistoryNow.com in 2013)
