History Main / PretextForWar

* In ''Knickerbocker Holiday'', Stuyvesant, GloriousLeader of New Amsterdam, believing that national greatness lies more in guns than butter, suggests that war with Connecticut could be imminent because, he alleges, the Connecticutans have had the cheek to build a fort on the Connecticut River.

* The independence of the Republic of Colombia was supposedly triggered by "El Florero de Llorente" (the vase of Llorente) which was a trick by the supporters of the independence to upset a spanish merchant so they will have an excuse to arise the crowd against the spanish people. This lead to the popular expression used when you need a excuse to start a fight.

* Lampshaded in the Great Louisiana Maneuvers of 1941. These were held to [[TeachMeHowToFight prepare the US Army]] for widely expected entry into WorldWarII and in a way marked the beginning of the United States as a superpower. Two trumped up factions called the Red Army and the Blue Army were set to test their prowess against each other. To begin the contest it was decided that they represented two nations fighting for control over the Mississippi river.

**** Or to make a long story short, a bunch of people wanted some stuff and threatened to go to war if they didn't get it but only mostly wanted a war. Some other people didn't want to give it to them but kind of wanted a war too. One thing led to another and there was a war, which everyone thought would be over in about three months (with their side victorious, of course). But, it snowballed into a really, really big war. Then about 6 months later they all thought to themselves, 'Why the hell did we do that?'

* {{Crest Of The Stars}} has a complex one. First is the destruction of the ''Gosroth'' with United Mankind insisting on setting up a joint investigation committee, with the suggestion that tensions are running high after the Abh annex the Hyde System. Ultimately subverted in that it is revealed that UM has been planning the whole thing for decades and on the Abh side Empress Ramaj sees right through it and refuses to play their games. She basically says "If you want a war then I will give you a war."

* In the third ''[[TheDresdenFiles Dresden Files]]'' book, ''Grave Peril'', this turns out to be the cause of most of the problems of the books: [[spoiler: the Red Court was looking for a reason to launch a war against the White Council, and just needed a good reason to do so, so they manipulate Harry into breaking SacredHospitality.]] Harry sees that he's being maneuvered into the trap and knows what the consequences will be, but since the alternatives would be the death of him and several innocents, along with the unmaking of a Holy Sword, he does it anyway.

* WorldWarI. The assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was just an excuse for destroying Serbia. Which sounds a bit unreasonable until you realise that the very existence of Serbia, an independent nation of ethnic Serbs whose most important foreign policy goal was to unite all the lands inhabited by Southern Slavs into Yugoslavia, which they envisioned as as a Greater Serbia, which terrified the German/Hungarian elites that ruled the mindbogglingly multi-ethnic Austria-Hungary. Right from the start they thought that, with Germany backing them all the way, Russia would back down rather than risk war with them 'and' Germany at the same time, as happened 6 years before over the formal annexation of Habsburg-occupied, technically Ottoman Bosnia.
*** For reference, the main ethnic groups in Austria-Hungary were, roughly by population: Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Croats, Slovaks, Serbs, Slovenes, and Italians. Plus a lot of Jews, most of whom spoke German/Yiddish or Hungarian.

**** Or to make a long story short, a bunch of people wanted some stuff and threatened to go to war if they didn't get it but only mostly wanted a war. Some other people didn't want to give it to them but kind of wanted a war too. One thing led to another and there was a war, which everyone thought would be over in about three months. But, it snowballed into a really, really big war. Then about 6 months later they all thought to themselves, 'Why the hell did we do that?'

Did a Tyrian pig farmer lose a pig when it cross into Viridia by accident, whereupon a Viridian caught and [[strike:cooked]] made it his pet? ThisMeansWar! Maybe a Viridian girl disappeared near the Tyrian border? Tyrian slavers must want to [[MarsNeedsWomen capture Viridian women]] since theirs are so ugly! A favorite is for StarCrossedLovers from both sides (preferably royalty) to elope, causing both sides to assume the other kidnapped their heir.

One interesting and [[{{irony}} ironic]] variant is when hardline elements from both sides will collaborate to stage a high profile assassination or other incident to kickstart a war, proving just how well they work together to achieve their goals despite hating each other's guts. This one is especially common when one or both nations have a ReasonableAuthorityFigure as a head of state, since it can force their hand to war, or if they're the assassination target, get them out of the picture ''and'' make them an unwitting martyr. FalseFlagOperation is one of classical moves too, and almost XX century theme song.

->''"Of course you realize, this means war!"''
-->-- '''Groucho Marx''', ''DuckSoup''

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq The 2003 Invasion of Iraq]]. In September 2002, the Bush Administration began to advocate overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein as part of the Administration's "War on Terror". The justifications were that Iraq was sponsoring terrorism and stockpiling [[WeaponOfMassDestruction WMDs]], despite the lack of any reliable evidence for those claims. Despite opposition from both the international community and many NATO members, the invasion began in March 2003 and ended [[CurbstompBattle just a month later]]. Needless to say, nationwide investigations afterward revealed no evidence to support any of the pre-war justifications, with defence of the action then placed on pointing out how nasty Saddam Hussein was.

* ''CivilizationV'' Ghandi's declaration often involves a couple of troops going "rogue" and attacking your border unprovoked and he just received it. All he could do is simply send kindly worded letters to "withdraw".

**** Or to make a long story short, a bunch of people wanted some stuff and threatened to go to war if they didn't get it but only mostly wanted a war. Some other people didn't want to give it to them but kind of wanted a war too. One thing led to another and there was a war. A really, really big war. Then about 6 months later they all thought to themselves, 'Why the hell did we do that?'

* WorldWarI. The assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was just an excuse for destroying Serbia. Which sounds a bit unreasonable until you realise that the very existence of Serbia, an independent nation of ethnic Serbs who aimed to someday unite all of Greater Serbia, was a threat to the unity of the Habsburgs' multi-national empire. Right from the start they thought that, with Germany backing them all the way, Russia would back down rather than risk war with them 'and' Germany at the same time, as happened 6 years before over the formal annexation of Habsburg-occupied, technically Ottoman Bosnia.
** Furthermore, right from the start the German High Command's universally accepted plan of action was the Schlieffen plan, which involved invading France through Belgium and taking her out of the equation before the Russian steamroller could mobilise and flatten the Allies from the east. So when Russia mobilised her armies Germany delivered an ultimatum to France as a pretext for war, demanding her neutrality despite being an ally of Russia and asking her to hand over fortresses integral to France's defences along their shared border within 24 hours. The French were only too happy to refuse with indignation; the ''Revanche''-ist movement, a movement seeking revenge for France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the re-annexation of the province of Elsaß-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine) was a force not to be denied.
*** In other words, the true causes were jingoism, militarism, alliances, imperialism, commercialism, and nationalism.

** This same system is present in other Paradox Interactive titles, VictoriaTheEmpireUndertheSun and CrusaderKing.

* In DragonAgeII, the centerpiece of [[spoiler: Anders' BatmanGambit is that Knight-Commander Meredith would use his attack on the Kirkwall Chantry as a pretext for declaring open war against the Mages.]]

* Lampshaded in the Great Louisiana Maneuvers of 1941. These were held to [[TeachMeHowToFight prepare the US Army]] for WorldWarII and in a way marked the beginning of the United States as a superpower. Two trumped up factions called the Red Army and the Blue Army were set to test their prowess against each other. To begin the contest it was decided that they represented two nations fighting for control over the Mississippi river.

* Lampshaded in the Great Louisiana Maneuvers of 1941. These were held to [[TeachMeHowToFight prepare the US Army]] for WorldWarII and in a way marked the beginning of the United States as a superpower. Two trumped up factions called the Red Army and the Blue Army were set to test their prowess against each other. To begin the context it was decided that they represented two nations fighting for control over the Mississippi river.

* ''[[StarTrek Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country]]'' featured [[spoiler:a combined conspiracy by both Starfleet officers and Klingon military leaders]] to try to veer both nations onto the path to war by [[spoiler:having each side's ReasonableAuthorityFigure assassinated by agents from the other side]]. Given how the Federation was definitely in the stronger economic and military position at the time, many fans have since hypothesized that the respective [[spoiler:Klingons]] were goaded into "dying on their feet rather than living on their knees" by [[RetCon Section 31 machinations]].

* Mocked in the ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' novel ''I, Q''. The Q Continuum has a mortal enemy, the M Continuum. The Ms decided they wanted to go to war with the Qs. Why? Because there is something about them that pisses them off (their exact words). The Q Continuum requested a more eloquent reason. So one of the Ms insulted the mother of one of the Qs. This horrific affront (Despite the fact that this Q, like all other Qs, didn't ''have'' a mother) could only be answered by a full scale war.

* Mocked in the ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' novel ''I, Q''. The Q Continuum has a mortal enemy, the M Continuum. The Ms decided they wanted to go to war with the Qs. Why? Because there is something about them that pisses them off (Their exact words). The Q Continuum requested a more eloquent reason. So one of the Ms insulted the mother of one of the Qs. This horrific affront (Despite the fact that this Q, like all other Qs, didn't ''have'' a mother) could only be answered by a full scale war.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''[[{{Tintin}} Tintin and the Broken Ear]]''. A CorruptCorporateExecutive encourages Tintin (then working as the aide to a BananaRepublic's dictator) to declare war on a neighbouring country. Tintin point-blank refuses, so the executive frames him and he's forced to flee the country in a staff car. The car is fired upon by the [[BorderCrossing border guards]] and the incident is then used as an excuse for war.
[[/folder]]

** ''Hypothetical'' slights that didn't actually happen, at that.

* In ''EuropaUniversalis'' you can manufacture claims on another country as a pretext for war using the 'obscure documents' Casus Belli. And in Vicky and Europa occasional border incidents like the pig one occur