As these examples prove, all of the reasons are really secondary. We just really like war.

Quick, what do you think is the dumbest reason anyone has gone to war? If you immediately talk about Iraq or Vietnam, well, history has a whole bunch of stupid examples for you.

5 The War of the Golden Stool (1900)

Just a tip: If you show up at somebody's house and they have a piece of golden furniture, don't sit on it unless they ask you to. It's probably important.

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How Did it Start?

So there was this stool. It was an actual golden stool, belonging to the Ashanti Empire (an African state on the Gold Coast, not the estate of the R&B singer). The stool was sacred, believed to house not only the authority of the chief, but also the spirit of the Ashanti nation, as well as the souls of the living, dead and yet to be born.



It's all here in this diagram.

So in 1896, the Ashanti King had been exiled, leaving the Ashanti people without a chief. Fortunately, the British Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Frederick Hodgson, was there to help, in the way that the white man is always happy to do.

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In March 1900, Hodgson entered the Ashanti capital and said that since the Ashanti lands were under the rule of the Queen, they had better fetch him this sacred Golden Stool so he could sit his ass right on it. "And probably fart on it," he might as well have added.

The locals sat there in stunned silence at this suggested ass-defiling of their heritage and custom, and when the speech finished, went home and rustled up as many weapons as they could find. Thus began the War of the Golden Stool.

What Happened Next?

The British sent some men out to look for the stool, and were surprised to find themselves under a vicious attack by a force led by Yaa Asantewaa (the mother of the exiled king).

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The British column was nearly annihilated, and the survivors managed to scamper back to Kumasi and barricade themselves in their small fort on March 28th, 1900, spraying petrified fountains of poop with every step. Yaa Asantewaa laid siege to them for the next three and a half months with a force of up to 12,000 men.

The British had to bring in several thousand men, under the command of Major James Willcocks, as well as some serious pieces of hardware, to break through the cordon. They finally did on July 14, 1900. The besieged British had been trapped for three months, and had run out of food and ammunition and were in desperate need of fresh underpants.

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In retaliation to the Ashanti's impertinence, Willcocks spent the remainder of the summer butchering local villages, razing towns and stealing land.



Worth it?

Who Won?

Though the Ashanti lost on the battlefield, suffered over 2,000 military casualties (plus many more civilians), were annexed, were brutally repressed and had their heads of state exiled, they still claimed to have won the war.

Why? Because through all of it, the British never got to sit on their fucking golden stool.