Question #38346. Asked by
Jimmy68.
Last updated May 21 2024.
The tiny agean nation of Andorra declared war on Germany in 1914 along with many other nations. However, the Versailles Peace Treaty failed to include the nation, and it remained at war with Germany throughout the 1920's and 30's. The country's army composed of 10 people, however, and it's military budget was 4 dollars per year for ceremonial blanks. The soldiers, however, wore pins reading "TOUCH ME IF YOU DARE", the country's national motto. In 1939, Andorra found itself involved in two world wars at once. A peace treaty was finally signed with Germany on September 25, 1939, during the invasion of Poland at the start of WW2. This document brought peace to the Andorrans for the first time in 44 years and officially ended the first world war.From webcom.com 2003 article, no longer online.
In August 1914, with seemingly all of Europe caught up in the Great War, Andorra chose to declare war on Kaiser Wilhelm II's Imperial Germany. The Andorran military was composed of only ten part-time soldiers that assembled a few times a year for ceremonial reasons. With no effective expeditionary force to send to the far away frontlines, World War I passed relatively quietly for Andorra. So quietly that the country was not even invited to the Versailles Peace Treaty negotiations. The active army was replaced by the Servei de Policia dAndorra in 1931.
Since Andorra and Germany signed no peace, a defacto state of war existed between the two countries until September 25, 1939 (some sources incorrectly state 1958) when a reparation-free treaty was signed, finally ending World War I. The fact that World War II had started twenty four days before on September 1, 1939 has been largely lost on historians. Andorra, after living in a state of bloodless world war for twenty five years, decided to sit out World War II. With the fall of France in 1940 and the rise of the Vichy regime, Andorra again felt threatened. In 1942 when the Germans occupied southern France a German unit was sent to occupy the country but they were beat to the punch by Spanish Civil Guards. With the 1944 Allied invasion of southern France and the subsequent German withdrawal, Andorra interned trapped German troops. By an odd twist of fate Andorra fought Germany in World War I and never saw German troops, but was occupied by them in World War II, where it was obstensively neutral. The end of the war left Andorra free of foreign troops again and since then has remained so.
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