The world's 'happiest' war: when Almería defied France

This is a wonderful war because in its delirious ambition there were no deaths or injuries to mourn. No defeats or victories. If anything, some humiliation. It is also a stupid war, yet another one, because it harbors the seed of an act of monarchical redress of minimal magnitude. The facts are these: King Alfonso XII went on a diplomatic raid to Europe in 1883 and stopped in Germany. He attended military parades aboard the uniform of an honorary colonel of the 15th Uhlan Regiment, a distinction awarded by Kaiser Wilhelm I, and also participated in other military festivities and folklore before concluding the tour in France. The French were still reeling from the humiliation of defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and felt the loss of Strasbourg as an inconsolable amputation. Alfonso XII sensed in France that something was wrong when he realized that he was being insulted, that people were sneering at him, and that the President of the Republic, Jules Grévy, snubbed him. People shouted horrible things at him: "Death to Uhlan and long live the Republic!" The trip ended badly. The Spanish press reported it in the headlines. And one of those newspapers, El Sol , arrived days late to a tiny village in Almería, Líjar, with 300 inhabitants, a surface area of 28 km² and located 612 meters above sea level, embedded in the Sierra de los Filabres.

Introductions made, let's get down to business. The town's mayor, Miguel García Sáez, was a lawyer with a poetic streak and a long beard. Courageous. Patriotic. Monarchist. A man of order. One sunny morning, he picked up a copy of the newspaper in both hands, looked at the front page, and found something unbearable. Exactly this headline: "His Majesty King Alfonso XII has been stoned and insulted in the streets of Paris." Intolerable. With his heart pounding, he asked the bailiff to gather the members of the council, and once they had discussed the incident, they decided that the affront demanded a gesture of rejection and institutional nobility. Something that would have been worrying in France. On letterhead, handwritten, they drafted a blunt declaration of war: Líjar's declaration of war against France . The responsibility was extremely high.

Hardly anyone noticed that a village in the honorable Spanish countryside was determined to avenge Alfonso XII with an army of farmers, stonemasons, and grape pickers . The proclamation was nailed with two spikes to the facade of the town hall and to the village liquor store. Once everyone—the small world of Líjar—was informed, the war was underway without anyone greasing a rifle. People went about their normal lives. One hundred years went by like this . Because the war declared against France by the mayor of Líjar was passed down from father to son. Three or four generations lived with that anxiety of knowing that at any moment... And in truth, no one ever fired a bad shot unless it was to catch a hare, a turtledove, or a partridge to liven up the beans in the stew.

A century of war is a lot of fighting. In Líjar, this situation never worried much, but there they were, like a unit of universal destiny, facing an enemy that not only had doubts about the location of Líjar, but also the entire Almería. That no one in France took any notice was not considered inconsiderate either: the world belongs to the brave, the pioneers, and the patient. Nor did they stop watching in case French troops returned from afar. One should not trust a country that gave birth to Napoleon.

In Spain, the turn of the century, from the 19th to the 20th, occurred, along with the Cuban Civil War and the loss of the last overseas colony. Alfonso XIII took over from his father and his reign lasted 29 years. In between, there was also a minor dictatorship, that of Miguel Primo de Rivera, and the marvelous Generation of '27 occurred . The Republic also arrived, and the king bolted . Franco and his henchmen staged a coup d'état. They won the sinister Civil War and provoked an agonizing postwar period. They shot people. Exile disentailed the confiscation of Spanish culture and science. Franco died a caudillo in 1975. Democracy returned, first with the approved Constitution and then with free elections. Adolfo Suárez legalized the Communist Party of Spain, Tejero staged a coup d'état a few years later, and Felipe González's socialists inaugurated a new way of being Spain. Meanwhile, Líjar continued at war with France . They went about their business.

But a century later, someone with time took stock and remembered that his town was still in a state of war. As there had been no news of progress in the conflict since October 14, 1883, the socialist mayor Diego Sánchez Cortés announced that enough was enough. That Alfonso XII was avenged and it was time to relieve France. On October 30, 1983 , with no tension between the sides, the French vice-consul Charles Santi and the head of the Lijareño council met in good faith. The Spanish anthem and La Marseillaise were played. And once the protocol was completed, they sealed the peace. El Ideal de Almería titled this historic day thus: "Líjar and France signed the best peace in the world." There was rejoicing in the mountains, and the authorities present unveiled a commemorative plaque: "Under King Juan Carlos I, President of the French Republic François Mitterrand, and Mayor of Líjar Diego Sánchez Cortés, peace was signed after 100 years of bloodless war." In France, they had never heard of this conflict , much less of such a formidable peace. The joke is wonderful.