war

war, armed conflict between states or nations (international war) or between factions within a state (civil war), prosecuted by force and having the purpose of compelling the defeated side to do the will of the victor. Among the causes of war are ideological, political, racial, economic, and religious conflicts. Imperialism, nationalism, and militarism have been called the dynamics of modern war. According to Karl von Clausewitz, war is a "continuation of political intercourse by other means." As such it often occurs after arbitration and mediation have failed. War has been a feature of history since primitive times. In ancient states warfare was usually a community enterprise, but as society divided on a functional basis a warrior class developed, and the army and navy became component parts of the state. In many instances, both recent and historic, the military has ruled the state. The use of fighting forces as instruments of war became a scientific art with the development of strategy and tactics. Modern war was been even more greatly influenced by industrial development, scientific progress, and the spread of popular education; a new era of machine warfare, prosecuted by masses of troops raised by conscription, rather than by rulers and the military class alone, developed after the wars of Napoleon I. Modern total war calls for the regimentation and coordination of peoples and resources; the state is compelled to demand a surrender of private rights in order that unity of purpose may enable it to prosecute the war to a victorious conclusion. Wars are waged not only against a nation's government and armed forces but also against a nation's economic means of existence and its civilian population in order to destroy the means and will to continue the struggle. Organized efforts to end war began with the peace congresses of the 19th cent. and culminated in the formation of the League of Nations after World War I and the United Nations after World War II. The threat of nuclear war has created a movement for nuclear disarmament (see disarmament, nuclear). During the cold war the threat of nuclear retaliation has restrained the use of nuclear weapons; instead there was an arms race, a succession of regional wars, and a proliferation of guerrilla wars and counterinsurgency campaigns. The end of the cold war has made arms control a more realistic goal.

war, laws of, in international law, rules and principles regulating an armed conflict between nations. These laws are designed to minimize the destruction of life and property, to proscribe cruel treatment of noncombatants and prisoners of war, and to establish conditions under which the belligerents may consult with one another. To mitigate the effects of insurrections and civil wars, established governments often recognize the belligerency of domestic opponents and conduct conflicts with them according to the laws of war.

See also neutrality; seas, freedom of the.

Development

In the Middle Ages the ideals of knighthood restrained some cruelties in warfare, but systematic legal codes did not appear until the 17th cent. The great work of Grotius, De jure belli ac pacis [on the laws of war and peace] (1625) and the works of Vattel had much influence in introducing humane practices. Detailed international treaties governing war are mostly a product of the 19th and 20th cent. The Declaration of Paris (1856; see Paris, Declaration of), the accords concluded at the Hague Conferences (1899, 1907), and the Geneva Conventions (1864, 1906, 1929, 1949) are the main bodies of formulated law.

Modern Laws of War

There is no convention on the laws of war to which all the major powers of the world have acceded, and many conventions provide that their terms shall be inoperative if any of the belligerents is not a signatory or if an enemy commits a violation. Despite such provisions, many nations have adopted the laws of war, and the conditions of warfare have undoubtedly been ameliorated, particularly in the treatment of prisoners and the consideration shown to the sick and wounded. The care of the sick and the wounded is facilitated by making medical personnel noncombatants and by clearly marking hospitals and similar installations, thus sparing them from attack. Conventions restricting the use of certain weapons probably have not materially mitigated the horrors of war. For the most part, only those weapons that are of limited military use, e.g., poison gas, have been effectively banned, while efforts to prohibit militarily effective weapons, e.g., atomic weapons and submarine mines, have not succeeded.

The laws of war have had as their objective the protection of civilian populations by limiting all action to the military. A distinction was made between combatants and noncombatants, the former being defined in terms of traditional military units. Thus combatants must have a commander responsible for subordinates, wear a fixed and recognizable emblem, carry arms openly, and follow the laws of war. But the development of aerial bombing in World War I and of guerrilla forces dependent on civilians has tended to make all enemy territory part of the theater of operations. New practices and categories have yet to be worked out to protect civilian centers adequately.

Civilians in territory occupied by the enemy are, however, supposed to be entitled to certain protections. There may not be imprisonment without cause, and fines may not be levied upon a whole civilian population for individual offenses. Private property also receives limited protection, and it may not be confiscated for military use unless fair compensation is paid. Special rules govern such actions against property as the taking of a prize at sea or in port, the confiscation of contraband, and the use of the blockade. Property destroyed in the course of action against the enemy is, of course, not compensable. Places of religious, artistic, or historical importance should not be attacked unless there is military need.

No direct diplomatic relations exist between belligerents, but neutral diplomats are often given custody of property in enemy territory and are entrusted with negotiations. In the field of combat, passports, safe-conducts, and flags of truce permit consultations between opposing commanders. Hostilities may even be totally suspended by an armistice, which is often the prelude to surrender.

Violations of the laws of war have probably occurred in all major conflicts; a nation confident of victory will frequently not be deterred even by fear of reprisals. After World War II the military and civilian leaders of the Axis Powers who were responsible for violations were tried for war crimes, and some Americans were tried for war crimes in the Vietnam War (see My Lai incident).

Any violation of the laws of war, as laid down by international customary law and certain international treaties. At the end of World War II, the part of the London Agreement signed by the U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union, and France established three categories of war crime: conventional war crimes (including murder, ill treatment, or deportation of the civilian population of occupied territories), crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity (political, racial, or religious persecution against any civilian population). The charter also provided for an international military tribunal to try major Axis war criminals. It further stated that a defendant's position as head of state would not free him from accountability, nor would having acted on orders or out of military necessity. German and Japanese war criminals were tried before Allied tribunals in Nürnberg and Tokyo in 1945–46 and 1946–48, respectively, and in the 1990s tribunals were created for the prosecution of war crimes committed in Rwanda and the territory of the former Yugoslavia. Seealso Geneva Convention; genocide; Hague Convention; Nürnberg trial.

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State of conflict, generally armed, between two or more entities. It is characterized by intentional violence on the part of large bodies of individuals organized and trained for that purpose. On the national level, some wars are fought internally between rival political factions (civil war); others are fought against an external enemy. Wars have been fought in the name of religion, in self-defense, to acquire territory or resources, and to further the political aims of the aggressor state's leadership.

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Military conflict in which the contenders mobilize all of their civilian and military resources in order to obtain a complete victory. It is distinguished from the partial commitment of lives and resources in limited war. The modern concept of total war is traced to Carl von Clausewitz, who stressed the importance of crushing the adversary's forces in battle and described wars as tending constantly to escalate in violence toward a theoretical absolute. The classic 20th-century work is Erich Ludendorff's The Total War (1935). World Wars I and II are usually regarded as total wars. After World War II, especially during the Cold War, the prospect of an all-out nuclear war made the major powers reluctant to engage in full-scale international warfare or allow their client states to do so.

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Fast naval vessel smaller than a frigate. In the 18th–19th century corvettes were three-masted ships with square rigging and carried about 20 guns on the top deck. Often used to send dispatches within a battle fleet, they also escorted merchant ships. Early U.S. corvettes won distinction in the War of 1812. They disappeared as a class after the shift to steam power in the mid-19th century, but in World War II the term was applied to small armed vessels that served as escorts for convoys. Modern corvettes, usually displacing 500–1,000 tons (454–900 metric tons) and armed with missiles, torpedoes, and machine guns, perform antisubmarine, antiaircraft, and coastal-patrol duties in small navies.

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or man-o'-war bird

Any member of five species of large seabirds constituting the family Fregatidae, found worldwide along tropical and semitropical coasts and islands. About the size of a hen, frigate birds have extremely long, slender wings, which span up to about 8 ft (2.3 m), and long, deeply forked tails. Most adult males are all black; most females are marked with white below. Both sexes have a bare-skinned throat pouch, tiny feet, and a long hooked bill that is used to attack and rob other seabirds of their fish. The courting male's throat pouch becomes bright red and is inflated to the size of a person's head. Perhaps the most aerial of all birds except the swifts, frigate birds land only to sleep or tend the nest.

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Set of conditions under which a resort to war is morally legitimate (jus ad bellum); also, rules for the moral conduct of war (jus in bello). Among the proposed conditions for the just resort to war are that the cause be just (e.g., self-defense against an attack or the threat of imminent attack), that the authority undertaking the war be competent, that all peaceful alternatives be exhausted, and that there be a reasonable hope of success. Two of the most important conditions for the just conduct of war are that the force used be “proportional” to the just cause the war is supposed to serve (in the sense that the evil created by the war must not outweigh the good represented by the just cause) and that military personnel be discriminated from innocents (noncombatant civilians), who may not be killed. The concept of just war was developed in the early Christian church; it was discussed by St. Augustine in the 4th century and was still accepted by Hugo Grotius in the 17th century. Interest in the concept thereafter declined, though it was revived in the 20th century in connection with the development of nuclear weapons (the use of which, according to some, would violate the conditions of proportionality and discrimination) and the advent of “humanitarian intervention” to put an end to acts of genocide and other crimes committed within the borders of a single state.

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Any war fought by divine command or for a primarily religious purpose. The concept is found in the Bible (e.g., the Book of Joshua) and has played a role in many religions. The Crusades are Europe's best-known example. In Islam, the concept is called jihad. Wars in which religion plays a secondary or exacerbating role are not generally called holy wars.

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or Second World War

(1939–45) International conflict principally between the Axis Powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allied Powers—France, Britain, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China. Political and economic instability in Germany, combined with bitterness over its defeat in World War I and the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, allowed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to rise to power. In the mid-1930s Hitler began secretly to rearm Germany, in violation of the treaty. He signed alliances with Italy and Japan to oppose the Soviet Union and intervened in the Spanish Civil War in the name of anticommunism. Capitalizing on the reluctance of other European powers to oppose him by force, he sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 (see Anschluss) and to annex Czechoslovakia in 1939. After signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Two days later France and Britain declared war on Germany. Poland's defeat was followed by a period of military inactivity on the Western Front (see Phony War). At sea Germany conducted a damaging submarine campaign by U-boat against merchant shipping bound for Britain. By early 1940 the Soviet Union had divided Poland with Germany, occupied the Baltic states, and subdued Finland in the Russo-Finnish War. In April 1940 Germany overwhelmed Denmark and began its conquest of Norway. In May German forces swept through The Netherlands and Belgium on their blitzkrieg invasion of France, forcing it to capitulate in June and establish the Vichy France regime. Germany then launched massive bombing raids on Britain in preparation for a cross-Channel invasion, but, after losing the Battle of Britain, Hitler postponed the invasion indefinitely. By early 1941 Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German troops quickly overran Yugoslavia and Greece in April. In June Hitler abandoned his pact with the Soviet Union and launched a massive surprise invasion of Russia, reaching the outskirts of Moscow before Soviet counterattacks and winter weather halted the advance. In East Asia Japan expanded its war with China and seized European colonial holdings. In December 1941 Japan attacked U.S. bases at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines. The U.S. declared war on Japan, and the war became truly global when the other Axis Powers declared war on the U.S. Japan quickly invaded and occupied most of Southeast Asia, Burma, the Netherlands East Indies, and many Pacific islands. After the crucial U.S. naval victory at the Battle of Midway (1942), U.S. forces began to advance up the chains of islands toward Japan. In the North Africa Campaigns the British and Americans defeated Italian and German forces by 1943. The Allies then invaded Sicily and Italy, forcing the overthrow of the fascist government in July 1943, though fighting against the Germans continued in Italy until 1945. In the Soviet Union the Battle of Stalingrad (1943) marked the end of the German advance, and Soviet reinforcements in great numbers gradually pushed the German armies back. The massive Allied invasion of western Europe began with the Normandy Campaign in western France (1944), and the Allies' steady advance ended in the occupation of Germany in 1945. After Soviet troops pushed German forces out of the Soviet Union, they advanced into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania and had occupied the eastern third of Germany by the time the surrender of Germany was signed on May 8, 1945. In the Pacific an Allied invasion of the Philippines (1944) was followed by the successful Battle of Leyte Gulf and the costly Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa (1945). Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and Japan's formal surrender on September 2 ended the war. Estimates of total military and civilian casualties varied from 35 million to 60 million killed, including about 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Millions more civilians were wounded and made homeless throughout Europe and East Asia. Seealso Anti-Comintern Pact; Atlantic Charter; Battles of El Alamein, the Atlantic, the Bulge, Guadalcanal, and the Philippine Sea; Casablanca, Potsdam, Tehran, and Yalta conferences; Dunkirk Evacuation; lend-lease; Munich agreement; Nürnberg Trials; Siege of Leningrad; Sino-Japanese Wars; Omar Bradley, Winston Churchill, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Bernard Law Montgomery, Benito Mussolini, George Patton, Erwin Rommel, Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Yamamoto Isoroku, Georgy K. Zhukov.

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or First World War

(1914–18) International conflict between the Central Powers—Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey—and the Allied Powers—mainly France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and (from 1917) the U.S. After a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria in June 1914, a chain of threats and mobilizations resulted in a general war between the antagonists by mid-August. Prepared to fight a war on two fronts, based on the Schlieffen Plan, Germany first swept through neutral Belgium and invaded France. After the First Battle of the Marne (1914), the Allied defensive lines were stabilized in France, and a war of attrition began. Fought from lines of trenches and supported by modern artillery and machine guns, infantry assaults gained little ground and were enormously costly in human life, especially at the Battles of Verdun and the Somme (1916). On the Eastern Front, Russian forces initially drove deep into East Prussia and German Poland (1914) but were stopped by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg and forced back into Russia (1915). After several offensives, the Russian army failed to break through the German defensive lines. Russia's poor performance and enormous losses caused widespread domestic discontent that led to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Other fronts in the war included the Dardanelles Campaign, in which British and Dominion forces were unsuccessful against Turkey; the Caucasus and Iran (Persia), where Russia fought Turkey; Mesopotamia and Egypt, where British forces fought the Turks; and northern Italy, where Italian and Austrian troops fought the costly Battles of the Isonzo. At sea, the German and British fleets fought the inconclusive Battle of Jutland, and Germany's use of the submarine against neutral shipping eventually brought the U.S. into the war in 1917. Though Russia's armistice with Germany in December 1917 released German troops to fight on the Western Front, the Allies were reinforced by U.S. troops in early 1918. Germany's unsuccessful offensive in the Second Battle of the Marne was countered by the Allies' steady advance, which recovered most of France and Belgium by October 1918 and led to the November Armistice. Total casualties were estimated at 10 million dead, 21 million wounded, and 7.7 million missing or imprisoned. Seealso Battles of Caporetto and Ypres; Fourteen Points; Lusitania; Paris Peace Conference; Treaties of Brest-Litovsk, Neuilly, Saint-Germain, Sèvres, Trianon, and Versailles; Edmund H.H. Allenby, Ferdinand Foch, John French, Douglas Haig, Paul von Hindenburg, Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre, Erich Ludendorff, John Pershing.

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or Paraguayan War

(1864/65–70) Bloodiest conflict in Latin American history, fought between Paraguay and the allied countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano López (1827–70), objecting to Brazil's interference in the politics of neighbouring Uruguay, declared war on Brazil in 1864. The next year Argentina organized the Triple Alliance with Brazil and Uruguay. After three years of fighting, the allies annihilated the Paraguayan forces, but Solano López carried on a guerrilla war until he was killed. Paraguay was devastated by the war; its population was reduced by half, and territory covering some 55,000 sq mi (140,000 sq km) was annexed by Brazil and Argentina.

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(1701–14) Conflict arising from the disputed succession to the throne of Spain after the death of the childless Charles II. The Habsburg Charles had named the Bourbon Philip, duke d'Anjou, as his successor; when Philip took the Spanish throne as Philip V, his grandfather Louis XIV invaded the Spanish Netherlands. The former anti-French alliance from the War of the Grand Alliance was revived in 1701 by Britain, the Dutch Republic, and the Holy Roman emperor, who had been promised parts of the Spanish empire by earlier treaties of partition (1698, 1699). The English forces, led by the duke of Marlborough, won a series of victories over France (1704–09), including the Battle of Blenheim, which forced the French out of the Low Countries and Italy. The imperial general, Eugene of Savoy, also won notable victories. In 1711 conflicts within the alliance led to its collapse, and peace negotiations began in 1712. The war concluded with the Peace of Utrecht (1713), which marked the rise of the power of Britain at the expense of both France and Spain, and the Treaties of Rastatt and Baden (1714).

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(1733–38) European conflict waged ostensibly to determine the successor to Augustus II. Austria and Russia supported his son Augustus III, while most Poles, France, and Spain supported Stanisław I, a former Polish king (1704–09) and father-in-law of France's Louis XV. Stanisław was elected king in 1733, but a Russian threat forced him to flee, and Augustus was elected in his place. France, with Sardinia and Spain, declared war on Austria (1733), seeking to reclaim territory in Italy held by Austria. An inconclusive campaign ended in the preliminary Peace of Vienna (1735), which redistributed the disputed Italian territory and recognized Augustus as king. A final treaty was signed in 1738.

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(1879–83) Conflict involving Chile, Bolivia, and Peru over disputed territory on the mineral-rich Pacific coast. National boundaries in the region were not definitively established prior to the conflict, and in the 1870s Chile controlled nitrate fields claimed by Peru and Bolivia. When demand for nitrates rose, war broke out over the territory. Chile defeated both countries and took control of valuable mining areas in each; Bolivia lost its entire Pacific coast. A 1904 treaty gave Bolivian commerce freedom of transit through Chilean territory, but Bolivia continued to try to escape its landlocked status (see Chaco War). Peru foundered economically for decades after the war. A final accord between Peru and Chile was only reached in 1929 through U.S. mediation.

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(1689–97) Third major war of Louis XIV of France, in which his expansionist plans were blocked by an alliance led by Britain, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the Austrian Habsburgs. The deeper issue underlying the war was the rivalry between the Bourbon and Habsburg dynasties. Louis launched a campaign in the 1680s to position the Bourbons for future succession to the Spanish throne. To oppose him, the Habsburg emperor Leopold I joined other European nations in the League of Augsburg. The league proved ineffective, but in 1690 Britain, Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria, and Spain, alarmed at Louis's successes, joined with Leopold to form the Grand Alliance. As war broke out in Europe and in overseas colonies, including America (see King William's War), Louis found his military inadequately prepared, and France suffered heavy naval losses. In 1695 Louis started secret peace negotiations, which culminated in the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697). The underlying conflict between the Habsburg and Bourbon rulers and English-French conflicts remained unresolved and resurfaced four years later in the War of the Spanish Succession.

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(1778–79) Conflict in which Frederick II of Prussia prevented Joseph II of Austria from acquiring Bavaria. After the death of the Bavarian elector Maximilian Joseph (1727–77), his successor, Charles Theodore (1724–99), ceded Lower Bavaria to Austria. Frederick II responded by declaring war (1778). There was little fighting because each force was concerned with cutting its opponent's communications and denying it supplies. Short on supplies, soldiers foraged for potatoes; hence, the conflict was nicknamed the “potato war.” In 1779 Austria and Prussia signed a treaty giving Austria a fraction of the territory originally occupied.

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(1740–48) Group of related wars that took place after the death (1740) of Emperor Charles VI. At issue was the right of Charles's daughter Maria Theresa to inherit the Habsburg lands. The war began when Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia in 1740. His victory suggested that the Habsburg dominions were incapable of defending themselves, prompting other countries to enter the fray. The conflict was ended by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

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(1808–14) Part of the Napoleonic Wars, fought on the Iberian Peninsula. After French forces occupied Portugal (1807) and Napoleon installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte as king of Spain (1808), a rebellion in Madrid began what was called in Spain “the War of Independence,” and insurrections soon erupted in other cities. By 1810 the French overcame the Spanish rebels in Madrid and elsewhere in Spain. Meanwhile, the British under the future duke of Wellington landed in Portugal (1808), where they fought the French in inconclusive campaigns until 1812. After Napoleon withdrew French forces to bolster his invasion of Russia, Wellington began his gradual advance into Spain. The British victory at the Battle of Vitoria (1813) and their march into southwestern France forced the French to withdraw from Spain and to reinstall Ferdinand VII as king (1814).

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(1667–68) Conflict between France and Spain over possession of the Spanish Netherlands. Louis XIV began the war on the pretext that the custom of devolution, whereby daughters of a first marriage were preferred to sons of subsequent marriages regarding property inheritance, should apply to sovereign territories also. That would mean that his wife, Marie-Thérèse (1638–1683), should succeed her father, Philip IV, in the Spanish Netherlands. The French army advanced into Flanders in May 1667 and easily secured its objectives. A peace was reached at Aix-la-Chapelle, whereby France gave up Franche-Comté but retained conquered towns in Flanders.

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U.S.-British conflict arising from U.S. grievances over oppressive British maritime practices in the Napoleonic Wars. To enforce its blockade of French ports, the British boarded U.S. and other neutral ships to check cargo they suspected was being sent to France and to impress seamen alleged to be British navy deserters. The U.S. reacted by passing legislation such as the Embargo Act (1807); Congress's War Hawks called for expulsion of the British from Canada to ensure frontier security. When the U.S. demanded an end to the interference, Britain refused, and the U.S. declared war on June 18, 1812. Despite early U.S. naval victories, notably the duel between the Constitution and the Guerrière, Britain maintained its blockade of eastern U.S. ports. A British force burned public buildings in Washington, D.C., including the White House, in retaliation for similar U.S. acts in York (Toronto), Can. The war became increasingly unpopular, especially in New England, where a separatist movement originated at the Hartford Convention. On Dec. 24, 1814, both sides signed the Treaty of Ghent, which essentially restored territories captured by each side. Before news of the treaty reached the U.S., its victory in the Battle of New Orleans led it to later proclaim the war a U.S. victory. Seealso Battle of Châteauguay; Chippewa; Thames; Isaac Hull; Francis Scott Key; Oliver Perry.

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(1955–75) Protracted effort by South Vietnam and the U.S. to prevent North and South Vietnam from being united under communist leadership. After the First Indochina War, Vietnam was partitioned to separate the warring parties until free elections could be held in 1956. Ho Chi Minh's popular Viet Minh party from the north was expected to win the elections, which the leader in the south, Ngo Dinh Diem, refused to hold. In the war that ensued, fighters trained in the north (the Viet Cong) fought a guerrilla war against U.S.-supported South Vietnamese forces; North Vietnamese forces later joined the fighting. At the height of U.S. involvement, there were more than half a million U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive of 1968, in which the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese attacked 36 major South Vietnamese cities and towns, marked a turning point in the war. Many in the U.S. had come to oppose the war on moral and practical grounds, and Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson decided to shift to a policy of “de-escalation.” Peace talks were begun in Paris. Between 1969 and 1973 U.S. troops were withdrawn from Vietnam, but the war was expanded to Cambodia and Laos in 1970. Peace talks, which had reached a stalemate in 1971, started again in 1973, producing a cease-fire agreement. Fighting continued, and there were numerous truce violations. In 1975 the North Vietnamese launched a full-scale invasion of the south. The south surrendered later that year, and in 1976 the country was reunited as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. More than 2,000,000 people (including 58,000 Americans) died over the course of the war, about half of them civilians.

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Mostly legendary conflict between the Greeks and the people of Troy in western Asia Minor. It was dated by later Greeks to the 12th or 13th century BC. It is celebrated in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, in Greek tragedy, and in Roman literature. In Homer's account the Trojan prince Paris ran off with the beautiful Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta, whose brother Agamemnon then led a Greek expedition to retrieve her. The war lasted 10 years; its participants included Hector, Achilles, Priam, Odysseus, and Ajax. Its end resulted from a ruse: The Greeks built a large wooden horse in which a raiding party hid. When the Greeks pretended to leave, the Trojans brought the horse into the walled city and the Greeks swarmed out, opening the gates to their comrades and sacking Troy, killing the men and enslaving the women. The extent of the legend's actual historical content is not known; excavations have revealed human habitation from 3000 BC to AD 1200, and there is evidence of violent destruction about 1250 BC.

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(1801–05) Conflict between the U.S. and Tripoli. The U.S. refused to continue paying tribute to the rulers of the North African Barbary Coast states, which had bought immunity from pirate attacks in the Mediterranean. The pasha of Tripoli demanded greater tribute and then declared war on the U.S. (1801). A U.S. naval squadron was sent to Tripolitan waters and fought several skirmishes, including a raid by Stephen Decatur. A U.S. naval blockade and an overland expedition from Egypt ended the war with a peace treaty favourable to the U.S.

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or Paraguayan War

(1864/65–70) Bloodiest conflict in Latin American history, fought between Paraguay and the allied countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano López (1827–70), objecting to Brazil's interference in the politics of neighbouring Uruguay, declared war on Brazil in 1864. The next year Argentina organized the Triple Alliance with Brazil and Uruguay. After three years of fighting, the allies annihilated the Paraguayan forces, but Solano López carried on a guerrilla war until he was killed. Paraguay was devastated by the war; its population was reduced by half, and territory covering some 55,000 sq mi (140,000 sq km) was annexed by Brazil and Argentina.

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(1898) Conflict between the U.S. and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the New World. The war originated in Cuba's struggle for independence. The newspapers of William Randolph Hearst fanned U.S. sympathy for the rebels, which increased after the unexplained destruction of the U.S. warship Maine on Feb. 15, 1898. Congress passed resolutions declaring Cuba's right to independence and demanding that Spain withdraw its armed forces. Spain declared war on the U.S. on April 24. Commo. George Dewey led the naval squadron that defeated the Spanish fleet in the Philippines (see Battle of Manila Bay) on May 1, and Gen.William Shafter led regular troops and volunteers (including future U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders) in the destruction of Spain's Caribbean Sea fleet near Santiago, Cuba (July 17). In the Treaty of Paris (December 10), Spain renounced all claim to Cuba and ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the U.S., marking the U.S.'s emergence as a world power.

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(1701–14) Conflict arising from the disputed succession to the throne of Spain after the death of the childless Charles II. The Habsburg Charles had named the Bourbon Philip, duke d'Anjou, as his successor; when Philip took the Spanish throne as Philip V, his grandfather Louis XIV invaded the Spanish Netherlands. The former anti-French alliance from the War of the Grand Alliance was revived in 1701 by Britain, the Dutch Republic, and the Holy Roman emperor, who had been promised parts of the Spanish empire by earlier treaties of partition (1698, 1699). The English forces, led by the duke of Marlborough, won a series of victories over France (1704–09), including the Battle of Blenheim, which forced the French out of the Low Countries and Italy. The imperial general, Eugene of Savoy, also won notable victories. In 1711 conflicts within the alliance led to its collapse, and peace negotiations began in 1712. The war concluded with the Peace of Utrecht (1713), which marked the rise of the power of Britain at the expense of both France and Spain, and the Treaties of Rastatt and Baden (1714).

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or Boer War

War fought between Great Britain and the two Boer (see Afrikaner) republics—the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State—from 1899 to 1902. It was precipitated by the refusal of the Boer leader Paul Kruger to grant political rights to Uitlanders (“foreigners,” mostly English) in the interior mining districts and by the aggressiveness of the British high commissioner, Alfred Milner. Initially the Boers defeated the British in major engagements and besieged the key towns of Ladysmith, Mafikeng, and Kimberley; but British reinforcements under H.H. Kitchener and F.S. Roberts relieved the besieged towns, dispersed the Boer armies, and occupied Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, and Pretoria (1900). When Boer commando attacks continued, Kitchener implemented a scorched-earth policy: Boer farms were destroyed and Boer civilians were herded into concentration camps. More than 20,000 men, women, and children (including black Africans) died as a result, causing international outrage. The Boers finally accepted defeat at the Peace of Vereeniging.

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or Italic War or Marsic War

(90–89 BC) Rebellion waged by ancient Rome's Italian allies (Latin, socii). The allies in central and southern Italy had aided Rome in its wars, but they were denied the privileges of Roman citizenship. The people of central Italy's hills—the Marsi in the north and the Samnites in the south—organized a confederacy and began an uprising for independence, winning victories over Roman armies in the north and south. After Rome granted citizenship to those who had not revolted and those who would immediately lay down their arms, Italian interest in the struggle declined. Sulla defeated the weakened rebels in the south, and legislation was passed to unify Italy south of the Po River.

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(1756–63) Major European conflict between Austria and its allies France, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia on one side against Prussia and its allies Hanover and Britain on the other. The war arose out of Austria's attempt to win back the rich province of Silesia, taken by Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession. Early victories by Frederick II the Great in Saxony and Bohemia (1756–58) were offset by a decisive Prussian defeat by Austria and Russia near Frankfurt (1759). After inconclusive fighting in 1760–61, Frederick concluded a peace with Russia (1762) and drove the Austrians from Silesia. The war also involved the overseas colonial struggles between Britain and France in North America (see French and Indian War) and in India. The European conflict was settled with the Treaty of Hubertusburg, by which Frederick confirmed Prussia's stature as a major European power.

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(1904–05) Conflict between Russia and Japan over territorial expansion in East Asia. After Russia leased the strategically important Port Arthur (now Lüshun, China) and expanded into Manchuria (northeastern China), it faced the increasing power of Japan. When Russia reneged on its agreement with Japan to withdraw troops from Manchuria, the Japanese fleet attacked the Russia naval squadron at Port Arthur and began a siege of the city in February 1904. Japanese land forces cut the Russian army off from coming to aid Port Arthur and pushed it back to Mukden (now Shenyang). The reinforced Russian army took the offensive in October, but poor military leadership blunted its effectiveness. After the long Japanese siege of Port Arthur, in January 1905 the corrupt Russian commander surrendered the garrison without consulting his officers, despite adequate stores and ammunition for its continued defense. Heavy fighting around Mukden ended in March 1905 with the withdrawal of Russian troops under Aleksey Kuropatkin. The decisive naval Battle of Tsushima gave the Japanese the upper hand and brought Russia to the peace table. With the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth, Russia abandoned its expansionist policy in eastern Asia and Japan gained effective control of Korea and much of Manchuria.

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or Winter War

(1939–40) War waged by the Soviet Union against Finland at the start of World War II, following the signing of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. When Finland refused to grant the Soviets a naval base and other concessions, Soviet troops attacked on several fronts in November 1939. The heavily outnumbered Finns under Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim put up a skillful defense until February 1940, when heavy Russian bombardments breached the Finns' southern defenses. A peace treaty in March 1940 ceded western Karelia to Russia and allowed construction of a Soviet naval base on the Hanko peninsula.

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(1702–13) Second in a series of wars between Britain and France for control of North America. It was the American phase of the War of the Spanish Succession. American colonial settlements along the New York and New England borders with Canada were raided by French forces and their Indian allies. The British capture of Port Royal (1710) resulted in French-held Acadia's becoming the British province of Nova Scotia. Under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Britain also acquired Newfoundland and the Hudson Bay region from France.

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Any of various floating, warm-water marine cnidarians (genus Physalia, class Hydrozoa) found worldwide but mostly in the Gulf Stream and the Indian and Pacific oceans. The medusa-form body consists of a translucent, jellylike, gas-filled float, which may be 3–12 in. (9–30 cm) long. Polyps beneath the float bear hanging tentacles up to 165 ft (50 m) long. Nematocysts on some polyps paralyze fish and other prey. Other polyps then attach to, spread over, and digest the victim. A third type of polyp is involved in reproduction. The painful sting of Physalia can cause fever, shock, or disruption of heart and lung function.

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(1733–38) European conflict waged ostensibly to determine the successor to Augustus II. Austria and Russia supported his son Augustus III, while most Poles, France, and Spain supported Stanisław I, a former Polish king (1704–09) and father-in-law of France's Louis XV. Stanisław was elected king in 1733, but a Russian threat forced him to flee, and Augustus was elected in his place. France, with Sardinia and Spain, declared war on Austria (1733), seeking to reclaim territory in Italy held by Austria. An inconclusive campaign ended in the preliminary Peace of Vienna (1735), which redistributed the disputed Italian territory and recognized Augustus as king. A final treaty was signed in 1738.

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or Gulf War

(1990–91) International conflict triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Though justified by Iraqi leader Ssubdotaddām Hsubdotussein on grounds that Kuwait was historically part of Iraq, the invasion was presumed to be motivated by Iraq's desire to acquire Kuwait's rich oil fields and expand its power in the region. The United States, fearing Iraq's broader strategic intentions and acting under UN auspices, eventually formed a broad coalition, which included a number of Arab countries, and began massing troops in northern Saudi Arabia. When Iraq ignored a UN Security Council deadline for it to withdraw from Kuwait, the coalition began a large-scale air offensive (Jan. 16–17, 1991). Ssubdotaddām responded by launching ballistic missiles against neighbouring coalition states as well as Israel. A ground offensive by the coalition (February 24–28) quickly achieved victory. Estimates of Iraqi military deaths range up to 100,000; coalition forces lost about 300 troops. The war also caused extensive damage to the region's environment. The Iraqi regime subsequently faced widespread popular uprisings, which it brutally suppressed. A UN trade embargo remained in effect after the end of the conflict, pending Iraq's compliance with the terms of the armistice. The foremost term was that Iraq destroy its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs. The embargo continued into the 21st century and ceased only after the Iraq War started in 2003.

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(431–404 BC) War fought between Athens and Sparta, the leading city-states of ancient Greece, along with their allies, which included nearly every other Greek city-state. Its principal cause was a fear of Athenian imperialism. The Athenian alliance relied on its strong navy, the Spartan alliance on its strong army. The war fell into two periods, separated by a six-year truce. Fighting broke out in 431, with Pericles commanding the Athenians. In the first 10 years, Archidamus led the Spartans to defeats. Plague struck Athens in 429, killing Pericles and much of the army. In 428 Cleon almost convinced Athens to massacre the rebellious citizens of Mytilene on Lesbos, but Athens rescinded the order. In 421 both states agreed to accept the Peace of Nicias. This lasted six years, until Athens launched its disastrous Sicilian expedition. By 413 Athens's forces were demolished. In 411 an oligarchy briefly took power. When democratic leaders were restored by the navy later that year, they refused Spartan peace offers, and the war continued until 405, when the Athenian navy was destroyed at the Battle of Aegospotami with Persian help. Under blockade, Athens surrendered in 404. Its empire was dismantled, and the Spartans installed the Thirty Tyrants.

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(1879–83) Conflict involving Chile, Bolivia, and Peru over disputed territory on the mineral-rich Pacific coast. National boundaries in the region were not definitively established prior to the conflict, and in the 1870s Chile controlled nitrate fields claimed by Peru and Bolivia. When demand for nitrates rose, war broke out over the territory. Chile defeated both countries and took control of valuable mining areas in each; Bolivia lost its entire Pacific coast. A 1904 treaty gave Bolivian commerce freedom of transit through Chilean territory, but Bolivia continued to try to escape its landlocked status (see Chaco War). Peru foundered economically for decades after the war. A final accord between Peru and Chile was only reached in 1929 through U.S. mediation.

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or Mexican-American War

(1846–48) War between the U.S. and Mexico. It grew from a border dispute after the U.S. annexed Texas in 1845; Mexico claimed that the southern border of Texas was the Nueces River, while the U.S. claimed it was the Rio Grande. A secret mission by John Slidell to negotiate the dispute and purchase New Mexico and California for up to $30 million was aborted when Mexico refused to receive him. In response to the snub, Pres. James Polk sent troops under Zachary Taylor to occupy the disputed land between the two rivers. In April 1846 Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and attacked Taylor's troops; Congress approved a declaration of war in May. Ordered to invade Mexico, Taylor captured Monterrey and defeated a large Mexican force under Antonio Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847. Polk then ordered Gen. Winfield Scott to move his army by sea to Veracruz, capture the city, and march inland to Mexico City. Scott followed the plan, meeting resistance at Cerro Gordo and Contreras, and entered Mexico City in September. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded to the U.S. nearly all of present New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Texas, and Colorado for $15,000,000 and U.S. assumption of its citizens' claims against Mexico. Casualties included about 13,000 American deaths, all but 1,700 of which were caused by disease. The war, which made a national hero of Taylor, reopened the slavery-extension issue supposedly settled by the Missouri Compromise.

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(1950–53) Conflict arising after the post-World War II division of Korea, at latitude 38° N, into North Korea and South Korea. At the end of World War II, Soviet forces accepted the surrender of Japanese forces north of that line, as U.S. forces accepted Japanese surrender south of it. Negotiations failed to reunify the two halves, the northern half being a Soviet client state and the southern half being backed by the U.S. In 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea, and U.S. Pres. Harry Truman ordered troops to assist South Korea. The UN Security Council, minus the absent Soviet delegate, passed a resolution calling for the assistance of all UN members in halting the North Koreans. At first North Korean troops drove the South Korean and U.S. forces down to the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, but a brilliant amphibious landing at Inch'ŏn, conceived by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, turned the tide in favour of the UN troops, who advanced near the border of North Korea and China. The Chinese then entered the war and drove the UN forces back south; the front line stabilized at the 38th parallel. MacArthur insisted on voicing his objections to U.S. war aims in a public manner and was relieved of his command by Truman. U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower participated in the conclusion of an armistice that accepted the front line as the de facto boundary between the two Koreas. The war resulted in the deaths of approximately 2,000,000 Koreans, 600,000 Chinese, 37,000 Americans, and 3,000 Turks, Britons, and other nationals in the UN forces.

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(1689–97) Battle for North American territory between Britain, under King William III, and France. The war, which was the North American extension of the War of the Grand Alliance, involved French Canadians and New England colonists and their Indian allies. The British captured Port Royal, Acadia (later Nova Scotia), but failed to take Quebec. The French, under the count de Frontenac, won skirmishes at Schenectady, N.Y., and in New England but failed to take Boston. The war ended with the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697). Seealso French and Indian War.

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(1675–76) Bloodiest conflict between American colonists and Indians in 17th-century New England. By 1660 colonial settlers, no longer dependent on Indians for survival, had pushed into Indian territory in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. To protect their lands, the Wampanoag chief King Philip (Metacom) organized a federation of tribes, which in 1675 destroyed several frontier settlements. In retaliation the colonial militia burned Indian villages and crops. After Philip's death in 1676, Indian resistance collapsed. An estimated 600 settlers and 3,000 Indians were killed in the conflict.

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(1744–48) Inconclusive struggle between France and Britain for mastery of North America. Also called the American phase of the War of the Austrian Succession, the war involved disputes over boundaries of Nova Scotia and northern New England and control of the Ohio Valley. After bloody border raids by both sides, aided by their Indian allies, they signed the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), which restored conquered territory but failed to resolve colonial issues. Seealso French and Indian War.

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or Second Persian Gulf War

Brief conflict in 2003 between Iraq and a combined force of troops largely from the U.S. and Great Britain; and a subsequent U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and protracted Iraqi armed insurgency against it. The trade embargo and weapons-inspection process that the UN imposed on Iraq following the Persian Gulf War (1990–91) had partly fallen into abeyance by 2001. U.S. Pres. George W. Bush argued that the September 11 attacks on the U.S. in that same year highlighted the threat to U.S. security posed by hostile countries such as Iraq. In November 2002 the UN issued Security Council Resolution 1441 demanding that Iraq readmit weapons inspectors and comply with all previous resolutions. Although inspectors did return to Iraq, Bush and Blair declared in early 2003 (despite objections by many world leaders) that Iraq was continuing to hinder UN inspections and that it still retained proscribed weapons. On March 20 the U.S. and Britain (with smaller troop contingents from other countries) launched a series of air attacks on Iraq, and a ground invasion followed. Iraqi forces were rapidly defeated, and on April 9 U.S. forces took control of the capital, Baghdad. British forces completed their occupation of the southern city of Al-Bassubdotrah the same day, and by May 1 the major combat operations of the invasion had been completed. However, the U.S. and other occupying forces were soon embroiled in escalating guerrilla warfare in Iraq that hindered Iraq's recovery and killed thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians. The war, long opposed by many throughout the world, also became increasingly unpopular in the U.S.

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(1980–90) Protracted and indecisive conflict prompted by Iraq's invasion of its eastern neighbour. Following the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Iraqi leadership sought to exploit Iran's military and political chaos in order to resolve border disputes, gain control of Iran's oil-rich western (largely Arab) province, and achieve hegemony in the Persian Gulf. Iraq was successful early (1980–82) but began to lose ground and sought to negotiate peace. Iran refused, and the war turned into a bloody stalemate that included the first use of chemical warfare since World War I (1914–18). After additional Iraqi advances, Iran agreed to a cease-fire in 1988. Peace was concluded only when Iraq invaded another neighbour, Kuwait, in 1990. Seealso Ssubdotaddām Hsubdotussein; Ruhollah Khomeini.

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Cluster of illnesses in veterans of the Persian Gulf War (1990–91). These illnesses are characterized by variable and nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue, muscle and joint pains, headaches, memory loss, and posttraumatic stress reactions. It is believed to be caused by exposure to chemicals called anticholinesterases, which are found in nerve toxins, insecticides, and prophylactic anti-nerve toxin drugs. The disorder does not appear to be fatal but can be associated with considerable distress and disability.

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(1689–97) Third major war of Louis XIV of France, in which his expansionist plans were blocked by an alliance led by Britain, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the Austrian Habsburgs. The deeper issue underlying the war was the rivalry between the Bourbon and Habsburg dynasties. Louis launched a campaign in the 1680s to position the Bourbons for future succession to the Spanish throne. To oppose him, the Habsburg emperor Leopold I joined other European nations in the League of Augsburg. The league proved ineffective, but in 1690 Britain, Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria, and Spain, alarmed at Louis's successes, joined with Leopold to form the Grand Alliance. As war broke out in Europe and in overseas colonies, including America (see King William's War), Louis found his military inadequately prepared, and France suffered heavy naval losses. In 1695 Louis started secret peace negotiations, which culminated in the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697). The underlying conflict between the Habsburg and Bourbon rulers and English-French conflicts remained unresolved and resurfaced four years later in the War of the Spanish Succession.

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or Franco-German War

(1870–71) War in which a coalition of German states led by Prussia defeated France, ending French hegemony in continental Europe and creating a unified Germany. The immediate cause was the candidacy of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen for the Spanish throne, which raised the possibility of a combination of Prussia and Spain against France. Following diplomatic maneuvers to block Leopold's candidacy, the Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck published the Ems Telegram to provoke the French government into declaring war, which it did. The other German states sided with Prussia, and German troops under Gen. Helmuth von Moltke, superior in numbers and organization, scored repeated victories. After Napoleon III surrendered at the Battle of Sedan, French resistance was carried on by a new government, which deposed the emperor and established the Third Republic. Paris surrendered, but while treaty negotiations were going on, an insurrection by radicals in Paris created a short-lived government, the Paris Commune. After its suppression, a harsh peace treaty was implemented: Germany annexed Alsace and half of Lorraine, and France was occupied until a large indemnity was paid. The German empire was established when William I of Prussia was proclaimed German emperor in 1871. The peace was an unstable one, marked by France's determination to recover Alsace-Lorraine and Germany's mounting imperialism, led by Prussian militarism. Their mutual animosity was a driving force that led to World War I.

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(1667–68) Conflict between France and Spain over possession of the Spanish Netherlands. Louis XIV began the war on the pretext that the custom of devolution, whereby daughters of a first marriage were preferred to sons of subsequent marriages regarding property inheritance, should apply to sovereign territories also. That would mean that his wife, Marie-Thérèse (1638–1683), should succeed her father, Philip IV, in the Spanish Netherlands. The French army advanced into Flanders in May 1667 and easily secured its objectives. A peace was reached at Aix-la-Chapelle, whereby France gave up Franche-Comté but retained conquered towns in Flanders.

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(October 1853–February 1856) War fought mainly in the Crimea between the Russians and an alliance consisting of the Ottoman empire, Britain, France, and Sardinia-Piedmont. It arose from the conflict of great powers in the Middle East and was more directly caused by Russian demands to exercise protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan. The war was managed and commanded poorly by both sides. Battles were fought at the Alma River, Balaklava, and Inkerman, before the besieged Sevastopol was taken by the allies. Disease accounted for many of the approximately 250,000 men lost by each side. After Austria threatened to join the allies, Russia accepted preliminary peace terms, which were formalized at the Congress of Paris. The war did not settle the relations of the powers in Eastern Europe, but it did alert Alexander II to the need to modernize Russia.

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(1778–79) Conflict in which Frederick II of Prussia prevented Joseph II of Austria from acquiring Bavaria. After the death of the Bavarian elector Maximilian Joseph (1727–77), his successor, Charles Theodore (1724–99), ceded Lower Bavaria to Austria. Frederick II responded by declaring war (1778). There was little fighting because each force was concerned with cutting its opponent's communications and denying it supplies. Short on supplies, soldiers foraged for potatoes; hence, the conflict was nicknamed the “potato war.” In 1779 Austria and Prussia signed a treaty giving Austria a fraction of the territory originally occupied.

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(1740–48) Group of related wars that took place after the death (1740) of Emperor Charles VI. At issue was the right of Charles's daughter Maria Theresa to inherit the Habsburg lands. The war began when Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia in 1740. His victory suggested that the Habsburg dominions were incapable of defending themselves, prompting other countries to enter the fray. The conflict was ended by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

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(1838–39) Bloodless conflict over the disputed boundary between the U.S. state of Maine and the British Canadian province of New Brunswick. As settlers from both countries moved into the disputed Aroostook area, officials and bands of men from both sides made arrests and took prisoners of “trespassers.” In 1839 U.S. and Canadian troops were ordered to the area. A truce allowed joint occupancy of the territory until 1842, when a satisfactory settlement was reached.

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(1839–46) Civil protest by leaseholding farmers in upper New York state. Protesting outdated laws based on semifeudal leaseholding practices of the early Dutch estate owners, the leaseholders of Albany county in 1839 refused to pay back rent. The governor called out the militia to quell the violence. Sporadic acts of resistance against rent and tax collection spread across the state, and in 1845 the governor declared martial law. In 1846 a new state constitution abolished the leasehold system.

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The Quasi-War was an undeclared war fought entirely at sea between the United States and France from 1798 to 1800. In the United States, the conflict is sometimes also referred to as the Undeclared War with France, The Pirate Wars, or the Half-War.

Background

The Kingdom of France had been a major ally of the United States in the American Revolutionary War, but the new government of Revolutionary France viewed the Jay Treaty, a 1794 agreement between the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain, as a violation of France’s 1778 Treaty of Alliance with the United States. The Jay Treaty resolved several points of contention between the United States and Great Britain that had lingered since the end of the war, but also contained economic clauses, and seeing that the United States had already declared neutrality in the conflict between Great Britain and France, and that American legislation was being passed for a trade deal with their enemy led to French outrage. The French government was also outraged by the U.S. refusal to continue repaying its debt to France on the basis that it had been extinguished with the establishment of a French Republic (as opposed to the Monarchy which preceded it).

The French began to seize American ships trading with their British enemies and refused to receive a new United States minister when he arrived in Paris in December 1796. In his annual message to Congress at the close of 1797, President John Adams reported on France’s refusal to negotiate and spoke of the need "to place our country in a suitable posture of defense." In April 1798, President Adams informed Congress of the "XYZ Affair", in which French agents demanded a large bribe for the restoration of relations with the United States.

The French inflicted substantial losses on American shipping. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering reported to Congress on June 21, 1797 that the French had captured 316 American merchant ships in the previous eleven months. The hostilities caused insurance rates on American shipping to increase at least 500 percent, as French marauders cruised the length of the U.S. Atlantic seaboard virtually unopposed. The administration had no warships to combat them; the last had been sold off in 1785. The United States possessed only a flotilla of revenue cutters and some neglected coastal forts.

Increased depredations by privateers from Revolutionary France required the United States Navy to protect the expanding merchant shipping of the United States. The United States Congress authorized the President to acquire, arm, and man no more than twelve vessels, of up to twenty-two guns each. Under the terms of this act, several vessels were purchased and converted into ships of war.

July 7, 1798, when Congress rescinded treaties with France, can be considered a semi-official beginning of the Quasi-War. The act was followed two days later with Congressional authorization to attack French vessels.

Naval engagements

The U.S. Navy operated with a battle fleet of roughly 25 vessels. The Navy patrolled the southern coast of the United States and throughout the Caribbean, seeking out French privateers. Captain Thomas Truxtun’s insistence on the highest standards of crew training paid handsome dividends as the frigate USS Constellation captured L'Insurgente and severely damaged La Vengeance. Often, French privateers resisted, as was the case with the privateer La Croyable, who was captured on July 7, 1798, by USS Delaware outside of Egg Harbor, New Jersey. The USS Enterprise captured eight privateers and freed 11 American vessels from captivity. The USS Experiment captured the French Deux Amis and the Diane. Numerous American merchantmen were likewise recaptured by the Experiment. The USS Boston summarily forced Le Berceau into submission. Silas Talbot engineered an expedition in the Puerto Plata harbor in St. Domingo, a possession of France's ally Spain, on May 11, 1800, in which sailors and marines of the USS Constitution under Lieutenant Isaac Hull cut out the French privateer Sandwich from the harbor and spiked the guns in the Spanish fort.

Of all of the vessels operating under command of the U.S. Navy, only one vessel was captured by—and later recaptured from—French forces: USS Retaliation. Retaliation was the captured privateer La Croyable, recently purchased by the U.S. Navy. Retaliation departed Norfolk on October 28, 1798, with Montezuma and Norfolk and cruised in the West Indies protecting American commerce. On November 20, the French frigates L’Insurgente and Volontaire overtook Retaliation while her consorts were away on a chase and forced commanding officer Lieutenant William Bainbridge to surrender the out-gunned schooner. However, Montezuma and Norfolk escaped after Bainbridge convinced the senior French commander that those American warships were too powerful for his frigates and induced him to abandon the chase. Renamed Magicienne by the French, the schooner again came into American hands on June 28, when a broadside from USS Merrimack forced her to haul down her colors.

Revenue cutters in the service of the Revenue-Marine, predecessor of the Coast Guard, also assisted in capturing two others. The cutter USRC Pickering, commanded by Edward Preble, made two cruises to the West Indies and captured ten prizes, one of which carried 19 guns throwing 150 pounds of iron compared to Pickering’s 14 guns and total iron weight of only 56 pounds, and was manned by some 250 sailors, more than three times Pickering’s strength.

Sources differ with regards to American losses. One contends that by the war's end in 1800, the French had seized over two thousand American merchant vessels. Another claims that the United States lost only one. (This and similar discrepancies may be explained if one is counting naval losses and another merchant ships.)

Although they were fighting the same enemy, the Royal Navy and the United States Navy did not cooperate operationally, nor did they share operational plans or come to mutual understandings about deployment of their forces. The British did sell the American government naval stores and munitions. In addition, the two navies shared a system of signals by which each could recognize the other’s warships at sea and allowed merchantmen of their respective nations to join their convoys.

Conclusion of hostilities

By the autumn of 1800, the United States Navy and the Royal Navy, combined with a more conciliatory diplomatic stance by the government of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, produced a reduction in the activity of the French privateers and warships. The Convention of 1800, signed on September 30, 1800, ended the Quasi-War but news of this did not arrive in time to help John Adams avert failing in his bid for a second term.

See also

• French Revolutionary Wars

References

Further reading

• Alexander De Conde: The quasi-war: the politics and diplomacy of the undeclared war with France 1797–1801. New York: Scribner’s, 1966
• Frederick C. Leiner: Millions for Defense: The Subscription Warships of 1798. US Naval Institute Press, November 1999
• Nathan Miller: The US Navy: An Illustrated History. New York: American Heritage, 1977
• Ian W. Toll: Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of The U.S. Navy. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006
• Captain Thomas Haggard commanded the American armed ship Louisa of Philadelphia, which successfully engaged French and Spanish privateers August 20, 1800 off Tarifa. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Haggard_(DD-555)

External links

• Naval History Bibliography