20 Times a Rumor Sparked a War

Bismarck edited and published the Ems Dispatch to heighten the sense that France had been insulted, and the public’s reaction helped push France to declare war in 1870. This worked because people were ready to take offense, and the wording made the diplomatic message seem humiliating.

A skirmish in a disputed territory reached Washington in the form of a clear and emotionally compelling narrative—one that evoked an attack and a bloodbath—and became one of the main justifications for the war. The details on the ground were unclear, but the narrative spread faster than nuances ever do.

When the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor in 1898, the initial assumption that Spain was responsible spread rapidly, fueled by sensationalist media coverage and political pressure. Subsequent investigations ruled out the theory of sabotage, but the initial account helped turn a crisis into a war.

In 1931, Japanese officers staged an explosion near a railroad track and presented it as evidence of Chinese aggression. This fabricated incident served as a pretext for seizing Manchuria and reshaping the region’s future.

A border conflict in Walwal became a propaganda tool in the Abyssinian crisis, just as diplomatic efforts had stalled and troops were being mobilized. Italy used this incident to justify its intervention, while the situation escalated into a full-scale invasion in 1935.

In 1932, fighting around a small fort located at Lake Pitiantuta quickly intensified, and each side viewed the other’s actions as proof that the other was seeking to seize the territory by force. Once this idea took hold, the leaders stopped viewing the place as an isolated outpost and began to treat it as a matter of national honor.

In November 1939, the Soviet Union bombed its own border village of Mainila and blamed Finland for the attack, then used that accusation as a casus belli. Finland denied any responsibility and proposed an investigation, but the refusal to investigate speaks volumes.

One of the operations carried out as part of Operation Himmler targeted the strategic railway line at the Jabłonków Pass, which was staged to look like an act of Polish sabotage. The goal was not to cause tactical damage, but to create a media narrative about an attack.

Another Himmler operation targeted the German customs post at Hochlinden, with the aim of creating the impression of a cross-border raid. It was part of a broader effort to flood the area with reports so that the invasion would appear to be defensive in nature.

The Pitschen forest station was also targeted during these staged operations, again with the aim of creating a written record of alleged Polish attacks. When you’re already planning to invade a country, a series of small, supposedly scandalous acts can seem more convincing than a single big lie.

In Gleiwitz, German agents dressed in Polish uniforms took control of a radio station, broadcast an anti-German message, and left bodies behind to support their story. It was a staged event intended for both an international and a domestic audience.

SS officers Bernard Walter and Ernst Hofmann of the Politische Abteilung Erkennungsdienst (Identification Service) at Auschwitz. Walter and Hofmann took the photographs in the Auschwitz Album. Christoph Kreutzmüller, curator of the Jewish Museum Berlin, identified Hofmann (deputy director of the Erkennungsdienst) in Der Spiegel as the photographer of this image of Himmler, taken around the same time (Kreutzmüller, Christoph (January 26, 2020).

Operation Himmler also included an attack on a communications station in Neubersteich, another brick in the wall of alleged border violence. These incidents were designed to be reproducible, easy to summarize, and difficult to refute quickly.

A train station in Alt-Eiche was among the targets staged to suggest that Poland was attacking German infrastructure. Once there are enough allegations of this kind, the public stops wondering which one is true and begins to assume that the entire scenario is true.

Operation Himmler even included a reported attack involving a woman and her partner in Katowice—a minor incident designed to appear personal and cruel. It is details like these that spread among the population more quickly than maps and treaties.

In August 1964, the events in the Gulf of Tonkin were presented to the U.S. Congress as unprovoked attacks, and this presentation contributed to the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Subsequent analyses and declassified documents, however, have cast serious doubt on certain parts of the account, particularly regarding the second alleged attack.

In May 1967, the Soviet Union warned Egypt about an alleged buildup of Israeli troops targeting Syria, a claim that many historical accounts consider false or seriously mistaken. This warning fueled the crisis and accelerated the events that led to war within a few weeks.

A teenage girl known as Nayirah testified that Iraqi soldiers had removed babies from their incubators in Kuwait, and this story was widely cited by U.S. officials to justify military intervention. Subsequent investigations revealed that this central claim was false, but the emotional impact had already achieved its purpose.

The arguments in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq were largely based on the claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction—a claim that was not corroborated by subsequent investigations. Once this narrative became the dominant narrative of the moment, any dissent could be dismissed as naive rather than prudent.