5 Insane Wars You’ve Never Heard Of

Misha Auchynnikau
Apr 7, 2022
5 min read

You may have heard of some famous wars before. World War 2, The American Civil War, and even the recent and ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. But there are fantastic, even insane wars that had real world consequences and that even some historian buffs haven’t even heard of. Here are 5 of those, in no particular order.

Number 1: Imjin War, Korea, 1592-1598.

During this period, Japan was only recently one sovereign nation. It had been unified by the Samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and his plans, alongside with the puppet emperor, wanted to expand into the Ming Dynasty in China. They first had to invade and occupy Korea in order for a solid land invasion of China. Hideyoshi amassed 158,000 troops intending to take Hanseong and Pyongyang, the two capitals of Joseon Korea at the time. While they had amazing ground success, the naval battles were a massive failure. Admiral Yi Sun-sin of Korea deflected Japanese reinforcement ships, cut off advancing Japanese troops and won naval battles of 15 ships to 300 ships. China got involved, and sent reinforcements in the North, repelling the troops until 1596. Then, Japan reinvaded in 1597, using the basic same tactics. Their initial rush was promising, but the Koreans and Chinese were prepared, and pushed them back. When Hideyoshi died in 1598, peace talks were discussed. While the civilian death toll was around 1 million, Japan’s navy suffered, after losing 500 ships, half of their entire navy. Japan also sent 300,000 in total, while it was estimated that Joseon Korea only sent 90,000.

Number 2: War of the Triple Alliance, Paraguay, 1864-1870.

For every great general like Napoleon, there are 5 copycats that fail miserably. Saddam, Gaddafi, Pol Pot, etc. While usually those wars end in a complete change in the government, this situation ended up much worse. Since Spain and Portugal let their South American colonies have independence, there were many territorial disputes. While most were solved diplomatically, Paraguay claimed huge river banks, valleys, and the whole country of Uruguay, which is 650 miles from Paraguay (from Milwaukee to Washington DC), and they wouldn’t budge. Eventually, the dictator of Paraguay, Francisco Solano López, leads a conquest of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, which combined have 14 times Paraguay’s population. Lopez forced any man he saw to fight on the frontlines, and led to 90% of the male population dead, or 70% of the whole population. After Francisco Solano Lopez died in combat, peace treaties were made in Bolivia. They were surprisingly not harsh, only requiring a democratic government be installed, and that the military be reduced slightly. Some historians say that the democratic government encouraged polygamy or families of 6 children or more in order to compensate of the lack of males.

Number 3: Taiping Rebellion, China, 1850-1864.

I’m very surprised this one doesn’t get talked about a lot, as it was the 3rd most bloody war in history, and the bloodiest civil war in history. A Kentucky chirstian missionary traveled to the Guangdong province to spread christianity. After he meets Hong Xiuquan, Hong starts having dreams of Jesus Christ saying that he is the secret brother. Hong then leads a rebellion against the Northern Warlords controlling the Emperor. His rebel force took Taiping, and set up a heavenly kingdom of communism, christianity and equality. He tried to amass a northern campaign into the capitol, Beijing, but failed after the warlords outnumbered and outskilled the peasants. One warlord was sent to his home province and defeated a 10,000 numbered peasant mob by just getting neighbors and friends to fight with their mercenaries. 20-30 million people died in this bloody war and had large consequences for Europe who was engaging in a trade and social war with China at the time. This civil war would serve as one of the origins of the eventually successful 1911 Xinhai Revolution by Sun Yat-Sen.

Number 4: War of Spanish Succession, France 1701-1714.

France and allies versus the Grand Coalition

In 1700, Spain’s ruler, Charles II, died without an heir,simply because he was inbred and his wife did not want to pass his genes off. While militarily somewhat behind the likes of Austria and France, it still had massive colonies in North America, South America, Asia, and South Africa. The next successor was either between France’s Louis XIV or the Holy Roman Empire’s Leopold I. If any of these took the throne, it would disrupt the power balance in Europe. Even in the year before Charles II died, France was discussing with Britain about splitting the kingdom, but never got anywhere. Eventually, it was revealed that Charles II chose Philip of Anjou, Louis XIV’s grandson. This really ticked off the rest of Europe, and Britain, Austria, most of the principalities in Germany and Portugal all declared war on France, Spain and Naples. While it was looking promising for France, as they were rushing in Austria which were already suffering from a Hungarian rebellion, Britain had one the best generals of all time, who is funnily a direct ancestor of Winston Churchill. They tricked the Dutch and British through a 300 mile trek to Austria to surprise attack the French, ultimately turning the tide of the war. This war was considered the first modern war of Europe and turned the thought of warfare in Europe.

Number 5: Great Northern War, Sweden, 1700-1721.

If you think of major empires, you would maybe think France, Britain, Japan, Germany, Mongol etc. But most people don’t know how Sweden almost became the most powerful empire in the world and almost 1v3’d some of the powerful armies at the time. After Carl XI died in Sweden, the throne was given to a 16 year-old boy named Carl XII. Sweden at this point had territories in the Baltis, Germany and Denmark. Seeing the opportunity, Russia formed a coalition with Denmark, Saxony and eventually Poland-Lithuania to team up against Sweden. Little did they know, Carl XII was the reincarnation of Alexander the Great. He frequently led campaigns with numbers of 1:8 and won quickly. He used his greatest navy generals to fight off Denmark, because a land invasion of Sweden through Norway (controlled by Denmark at the time), would logistically be a nightmare. He also reasoned that Saxony would take a long time to even reach Sweden, so he himself launched campaigns into Russia and Poland-Lithuania. After beating the Russian mobs and undertrained Poland-Lithuanian troops at Narva, he amassed a huge army. Ukrainian Cossacks and Turkish Kahns promised him if he invaded Ukraine he would get their support. He met Peter the Great at Poltava, and assumed he would easily beat them. Unfortunately, Peter the Great was considered the best Russian leader of all time, bringing the country back out of economic backwater, and was an incredible general. Peter pushed Carl southwest into Ottoman territory, as the muddy spring was settling in. Unfortunately, the Ottomans, which were Sweden’s allies at the time, imprisoned him and his army surrendered in Bulgaria. Denmark finally invaded Sweden through Finland with Poland-Lithuania and Saxony, and the main army couldn’t fight off all three armies. In 1714, he was finally released from prison, but it was already in the coalition's favor. He managed to escape back to Sweden and fend off the enemies in Finland and called for truce. Then, 1719, he invaded Norway to invade the British isles, but died in a mountain trek, and the army was pushed back to Sweden. Eventually in 1721, peace treaties were finished, and Sweden lost their land in Germany, some land in Finland went to Russia, and land in Latvia and Estonia was given to Poland-Lithuania.

Wikipedia contributors. “Great Northern War.” Wikipedia, 9 Mar. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_War

---. “War of the Spanish Succession.” Wikipedia, 8 Mar. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession.

History.com Editors. “Taiping Rebellion.” HISTORY, 15 Oct. 2019, www.history.com/topics/china/taiping-rebellion#:%7E:text=The%20Taiping%20Rebellion%20was%20a,lasting%20from%201850%20to%201864.

“War of the Triple Alliance | South American History.” Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/event/War-of-the-Triple-Alliance. Accessed 10 Mar. 2022.

“Japan Invades Korea in the Imjin War, 1592–98.” ThoughtCo, 6 Mar. 2017, www.thoughtco.com/the-imjin-war-1592-98-4016849.