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The War That Lasted 38 Minutes and Other Fascinating Warfare History

Khalid Elhassan November 18, 2021 35 min

Destroyed Ottoman equipment and carriages after the 1918 Battle of Megiddo. Imperial War Museums

Admiral Maarten Tromp, who declared war on the Isles of Scilly. Historic UK

28. History’s Longest War?

The longest war in history reportedly lasted for 335 and pitted the Isles of Scilly off England’s southwest coast against the Netherlands. Its origins date to the English Civil War, when the Parliamentarians forced the Royalist Navy to retreat to the Isles of Scilly. The Netherlands were allied with the Parliamentarians, so the Royalists preyed upon Dutch ships. Dutch Admiral Maarten Tromp arrived in Scilly to demand reparations, but the Royalists failed to offer satisfaction. So he declared war on April 17^th, 1651. Since most of England was in the hands of their Parliamentarian allies, the Dutch declaration was limited specifically to the Isles of Scilly.

Soon thereafter, the Parliamentarians forced the Royalist fleet to surrender and took over Scilly before the Dutch had fired a shot. The Dutch never got around a peace declaration, so technically, a state of war continued to exist between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly. In 1986, a historian contacted the Dutch Embassy in London to double-check if peace had ever been signed. None had been. So the Dutch ambassador visited Scilly on April 17^th, 1986, the 335^th anniversary of the declaration of war, to officially end the bloodless conflict.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.