Was Andorra really at war with Germany until 1958?

[WiJaMa]

I'm sure that as history buffs, many of you have heard that after WWI, Andorra was not invited to the Paris Peace Conference. As a result, it was technically at a state of war with the German Empire until 1958, when it finally issued a decree ending the war.
I'm sure you've heard this. But I was curious as to how true it is.
So I looked it up. So far, I've only found one primary source: a one-paragraph article from 24 Sep 1958 published in the New York Times titled "World War I ends in Andorra." I've crawled through at least a dozen sites and this is the only primary source I've ever seen referenced.
One. For an event that should have at least produced an official document, or been noted in multiple newspapers.

You see what I'm getting at here?

So I ask the reader: Can you find any other primary sources on this event? Part of the reason I'm asking here is because many of you are Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese or French speakers, who would probably have an easier time searching for documents in those languages, the most common in Andorra, than I, who can barely understand Spanish if I have a reference book.

Most important to find among our hypothetical sources would be some sort of official decree or treaty, but literally anything would be valuable to our understanding of this event.

 

[JodelDiplom]

Never heard of it tbh

 

[Count Blue]

I'm sure that as history buffs, many of you have heard that after WWI, Andorra was not invited to the Paris Peace Conference. As a result, it was technically at a state of war with the German Empire until 1958, when it finally issued a decree ending the war.

Found this.

"Since Andorra and Germany signed no peace a defacto state of war existed between the two countries until September 25, 1939 (some sources incorrectly state 1958) when a reparation-free treaty was signed, finally ending World War One"

And in the german wiki (if you search for german andorra relationship) this date is also mentioned.
Of course thats no absolute proof but its a hint that its most likely true.

 

[Sanny]

Reminds me of the Dutch-Scilly War.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

We have always been at war with Andorra...

Found this.

"Since Andorra and Germany signed no peace a defacto state of war existed between the two countries until September 25, 1939 (some sources incorrectly state 1958) when a reparation-free treaty was signed, finally ending World War One"

Source ?
Who or what do you quote here ??

And in the german wiki (if you search for german andorra relationship) this date is also mentioned.
Of course thats no absolute proof but its a hint that its most likely true.

That part seems to be completely unsourced , so as good a you editing some Wikipedia article.

---

Link no.84 in the english Wikipedia article on Andorra is an andorran radio station homepage which seems to
question that NYT article or the war declaration in general..or so...i can't read catalan.

Maybe the spanish subforum might know,..but they speak spanish.

Anyway, the search made me stumble over Max Frischs' "Andorra", which i will have to read
now sometime soon and which has nothing to do with the state. The wonders of the web...

 

[Kgw]

Let's see. Andorra, as a modern state, exist since 1993, with their Constitution. Before that they didn't have embassies or Foreign Office -most of the times they expected Spain or France to act on their behalf- and in any case, they lack an army.
Since the King of France/President is one of the Co-Princes*, they usually felt bound by their decisions, specially in war times. Not that anybody expected Andorran alpine troops in the front**. Simply, the President of France might have forgotten to sign the treaty as Co-Prince of Andorra.
More strange at WW2, the German Army didn't enter at Andorra, even being at war since 1914. And certanly, that might have forced the Spanish Army to fulfill they role of protecting Andorra… but Franco was the ruler in Spain, so no...

* the other one is the Bishop of La Seo de Urgell, in Spain. So you can say Andorra was half warring, half neutral.
** due to old costumes this kind of thing happened a lot in old wars. I mean, I think some Spanish towns were still at war with France since the Napoleonic Wars.

EDIT: the Catalan Wiki article treat it more deeply and, from what I see, nobody at Andorra has a real clear idea and they deemed the whole story as false. Charming, but probably fake.

EDIT2:

L'única referència és una carta del cònsol alemany a Marsella que pregunta al síndic de l'època sobre la qüestió: "Li demanen si és cert del que ell té constància -però no diu com- de si estan en guerra. El síndic respon en una carta dient que ha mirat a l'arxiu i no ha trobat res, i que ha parlat amb els vells del país i ningú se'n recorda que estiguessin en guerra

Translation:
The only reference is a letter from the German consul at Marsella asking the sindic (kind of PM) from those days about the whole thing: "He asked him if its true that he has evidences -he didn't say how- that Germany and Andorra are at war. The sindic wrote him back saying that he looked into the records and he found nothing, he talked to the elders at Andorra and nobody remembered that there were at war".

Feel free coming to the Spanish OT and asking. There is a lot of people who speaks Catalan. But I am afraid we don't know a lot about Andorra, except that it's a close, duty free country with ski resorts.

 

[WiJaMa]

@Count Blue and @Aardvark Bellay
The only date I’ve seen so far which seems to have any primary source confirmation is 1958. As mentioned in my original post, this is from the 1958 New York Times article "World War One Ends in Andorra." The article is stuck behind a paywall, but reads as follows:

ANDORRA, Sept 24 (UPI)---World War I is over for this 191-square-mile Pyrenees republic. Andorra, a participant, was not invited to the Versailles peace conference ending World War I. The decree ending the state of war was signed yesterday.

Everything I've seen on the web, if they cite a primary source at all, cites this article. I think the 1939 date is completely made up, and it appears there was actually an edit war about this in the English Wikipedia article for Andorra.

@Kgw
Thanks for the info. I agree it's probably a good idea to ask the Spanish forums, though my Spanish is pretty bad so I'll have to hold off on that until I have time to craft a coherent post.

 

[Kgw]

You will be welcome. We do speak English and we stopped burning heretics some years ago.

 

[jamhaw]

Can two countries really be at war if they don't know it?

 

[JodelDiplom]

Can two countries really be at war if they don't know it?

Andorra isnt really a country anyway

You can't be at war with a "country" that has no army, no diplomatic institutions, no sovereignty, unless you are at war with its overlord who does have such things. The free American tribes that the USA interacted with were better "countries" than Andorra.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Can two countries really be at war if they don't know it?

- Obviously through a lack of actual war.
- Through binding treaties they forgot about.
- Through misunderstandings in war declarations/peace treaties, as could have been the case here being co-ruled
by a representative of a spanish bishop and a representative of the french president as heads.
- Through lack of interest.
- Former colonies
etc.

 

[Kgw]

@ JodelDiplom
That's a bit harsh. Mind that I said Andorra HAD not such things. Costa Rica does not have an army and it's a country. Lietchestein diplomacy mostly depends on Switzerland and it's a country. And they never lacked sovereignty since the Middle Ages -as in, you didn't deal with Madrid or Paris to do anything at Andorra.

EDIT: Andorra tradition has been always remaining neutral, so I am prone to think that either Andorra DOW was invented or an over-exercise of France diplomacy "Oh, we didn't sign Versailles as Andorran co-prince!". French co-principality has some powers, but involving that country in a "foreign" war -specially against the will of the other co-prince- is NOT one of those.