“Only the dead have seen the end of the war.”
One can say that this could be the reason why the war between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly lasted a whopping three hundred and thirty-five years. Fun fact: There were zero casualties in 335 years!
Situated off the western coast of mainland Cornwall and thriving in the warmth of the Gulf Stream lies the tiny Isles of Scilly (not to be confused with the Mediterranean island of Sicily). The 3-century long war started in 1651 during the Second English Civil War when the Dutch decided to join the conflict on the side of the Parliamentarians after identifying them as the most likely victors.
This movement upset the Royalists because they were long-time allies of the Dutch. They considered this decision a betrayal. The Royalists felt betrayed by the Dutch. They began to punish their former friends by pillaging the Dutch shipping routes in the English Channel.
These small triumphs hardly improved the general position of the Royalists. Oliver Cromwell, the parliamentarian military general, had captured mainland England forcing the Royalists back to the tiny Isles of Scilly.
In 1651, the Dutch admiral Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp with a fleet of twelve warships landed on the Isles of Scilly. They demanded reparations for the cargo and ships seized in the raids.
As the story goes, the Royalists denied the payment. Admiral Tromp then declared war on the Isles of Scilly, which was not even a country in its own right.
War began on March 30th, 1651.
As it turned out, the hostilities didn’t last long. In a matter of weeks, the Parliamentarians eventually overtook Scilly, and the Royalists capitulated. The Dutch left the islands without firing a single shot. They were so eager to go home that they forgot to declare peace on the poor little Isles of Scilly!
The days turned into months, months into decades, and decades slipped into centuries until a sunny day in 1985. A local Scilly historian named Roy Duncan contacted the Dutch Embassy in London to check for evidence that supported the seemingly absurd claim of a 3-century war. The embassy looked at the papers and realized the war was still going on, at least on paper.
Duncan quickly wrote to the Dutch ambassador, Rein Huydecoper, inviting him to visit the islands and sign a peace agreement. The Isles of Scilly and the Kingdom of the Netherlands signed a peace treaty on April 17th, 1986, officially declaring the war over.
The event marked the end of the longest-running war in human history, in which no single soul was injured or killed. Just the kind of war one doesn’t fear.
Similarly, KarmaPlay is cooking up another bloodless war with a “Wars Quiz”. So get your thumb infantry enlisted now!
