Ever Faithful to Thee, Liechtenstein, After My Fashion

My penguin-fancier colleagues on Reddit have drawn my attention back to Liechtenstein, the tiny principality I last mentioned in a 2007 post. Christiaan Klieger's Microstates of Europe (Lexington Books, 2013) provides the historical backstory of this statelet, most famous for being small. Liechtenstein derives its name from an Austrian family whose scion Hans-Adam Andrew purchased the demesnes of Schellenberg and Vaduz, the later components of the nation-state, about three centuries ago. The ambitious Hans-Adam sought to obtain “a seat in the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire” (p. 43), not to become a gentleman farmer. While the emperor soon united the family's holdings into an independent principality (1719), no member of the princely family even visited Liechtenstein until 1842. The princes' subjects remained poor into the early twentieth century, vulnerable to floods and flirting with famine. Since the Second World War, however, the principality's standard of living has risen dramatically, thanks to a boom in tourism and industrial production (Liechtenstein's industrial exports reached a value of about $180 million by the 1980s). The princely family's private bank, now operating as a public business under the name Liechtenstein LGT Bank, probably contributed to this rise. The Liechtenstein family itself has resided full-time in the principality since 1938, when they decided to leave Austria for some reason. The current prince, Hans-Adam II, owns more than seven billion dollars' worth of real estate, bank stock, and artwork, though rumors of his involvement with “goat bills,” gyrocopters, and kidnapped princesses are exaggerated at best.

I am pleased to note that my earlier assessment of Liechtenstein's military history more or less conforms with the actual historical record. The principality suffered two foreign invasions in 1799, when French and Austrian troops chased one another across its territory and drained local householders' resources. Seven years later Napoleon demanded forty soldiers from Liechtenstein as the "dues” for joining the Confederation of the Rhine; the prince hired foreign substitutes instead. Johann II did raise troops for the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, but following what Klieger calls “six weeks of non-engagement in the Alps,” they went home (47). Liechtenstein did not subsequently raise an army; I regret to say it does not even maintain a squad of long-bowmen. Since the 1920s it has maintained both political neutrality and an open border with Switzerland, whose accidental invasion of the country in 2007 had no political effect whatsoever.

Klieger devotes a page to the national cuisine of Liechtenstein, which consists chiefly of cornmeal mush with gravy, schnitzel, vanilla meringue, sour cream with noodles, “split-pea-sausage stew,” “cheese and mushroom pudding,” “cornmeal and wheat dumplings in ham broth,” and “lemon crème filled ravioli,” or zitronenpalatschinken (54). Some locals probably just inject pureed dumplings and heavy cream directly into their arteries to save time.

We've Caught Penguin Fever

Reddit frequently solicits from its subscribers amusing captions for unusual photos.  On January 24, it offered a picture of what appears to be two armies of penguins charging into battle with one another, or perhaps charging into a group-hug contest.

This candidate inspired some speculation about obscure wars that led readers to my old blog post on the war between Liechtenstein and Italy, in which Liechtenstein suffered negative casualties because its army made a friend on the way.

This was apparently intriguing enough to garner 600 hits in the last three days, making it one of my most popular blog posts to date.  (Though it still has a ways to go before it can compete with my post on the Imperial Russian Navy and its pet python.)

All of this suggests that:

1) You can never tell which blog posts are going to be the most popular (though trash-talking about Niall Ferguson is usually a good bet), and

2) I need to post more cutesy stories about obscure wars

And in Other War News...

Military historians may long debate which conflict deserves the title "Most Obscure War in History," but a couple of weeks ago Europe submitted a strong contender. On March 1st, 2007, Switzerland invaded Liechtenstein.

To be honest, the invasion was accidental, and the 170 Swiss soldiers involved weren't very well armed - they were carrying unloaded rifles and (of course) Swiss Army knives. Nor did the good people of Liechtenstein seem particularly worried about Switzerland's act of aggression. Markus Amman, an employee of Liechtenstein's ministry of the interior, remarked that "nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers. 'It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something.'"

Commentators on world politics rarely use the words "war" and "Liechtenstein" in the same sentence, because the tiny nation's military history has been both brief and inglorious. The principality last sent troops into battle in 1866, dispatching an 80-man contingent to Italy to assist the Austrians in the Third War of Italian Unification. However, the expeditionaries saw no fighting and sustained no casualties. "In fact," wrote Bill Bryson, "they came back with 81 men, because they had made a friend on the way." (Neither Here Nor There [New York, 1992], p. 194.) In 1868, Liechtenstein dissolved its army and went about its other business, which currently consists of three enterprises: printing postage stamps, serving as a corporate tax shelter, and manufacturing false teeth.