World War I
While Italy declared war on Austria–Hungary on 23 May 1915, San Marino remained neutral. Italy, suspecting that San Marino could harbour Austrian spies who could be given access to its new radiotelegraph station, tried to forcefully establish a detachment of Carabinieri on its territory and then suspended any telephone connections with the Republic when it did not comply.
Two groups of 10 volunteers each did join Italian forces in the fighting on the Italian front, the first as combatants and the second as a medical corps operating a Red Cross field hospital. It was the presence of this hospital that later caused Austrian authorities to suspend diplomatic relations with San Marino.
Although propaganda articles appeared in the New York Times as early as 4 June 1915 claiming that San Marino declared war on Austria–Hungary, the republic never entered the war.
Read more about this topic: History Of San Marino
Famous quotes containing the words war i, world and/or war:
“... the next war will be a war in which people not armies will suffer, and our boasted, hard-earned civilization will do us no good. Cannot the women rise to this great opportunity and work now, and not have the double horror, if another war comes, of losing their loved ones, and knowing that they lifted no finger when they might have worked hard?”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“All the world over, the picturesque yields to the pocketesque.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“It is a war against the pines, the only real Aroostook or Penobscot war.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)