A declaration of war is a formal act by which one nation goes to war against another. The declaration is usually the act of delivering a performative speech or the presentation of a signed document by an authorized party of a national government in order to create a state of war between two or more sovereign states. The official international protocol for declaring war was defined in The Hague Peace Conference of 1907 (or Hague II).[1] For the diplomatic maneuvering behind these events, which led to hostilities between nations during World War II, see Diplomatic history of World War II.
List of war declarations
Below is a table showing the outbreak of wars between nations which occurred during World War II. Indicated are the dates (during the immediate build-up to, or during the course of, World War II), from which a de facto state of war existed between nations. The table shows both the "Initiator Nation(s)" and the nation at which the aggression was aimed, or "Targeted Nation(s)". Events listed include those in which there were simple diplomatic breaking of relations that did not involve any physical attack, as well as those involving overt declarations or acts of aggression. In rare cases, war between two nations occurred twice, with an intermittent period of peace. The list here does not include peace treaties or periods of any armistice.
Key to type (fourth column):
A
Attack without prior, formal declaration of war;
C
Declaration and/or attack without standard, formal procedure, sometimes preceded by a casus belli thus fait accompli;
U
State of war arrived at through use of ultimatum;
W
Formal declaration of war made.
Outbreaks of war between nations during World War II
Canada's declaration several days after that of the United Kingdom is seen as a watershed moment in Canadian home rule and sovereignty. As for Bahrain, given its status as a protected state of the United Kingdom, it was technically at war as of Britain's declaration, this is an acknowledgement of the declaration of war by Britain (due to coercion by an advisor), Oman, under British influence, is coerced to participate in the war effort.
On June 22, Romanian leader Ion Antonescu declared a "holy war" to reclaim ancestral lands and against Bolshevism in an appeal to the nation.[15] The Romanian army began limited military operations. On June 24, Romania officially declared war on the Soviet Union.[15]
After the bombing of several Hungarian locations, the Hungarian military concluded a Soviet attack, the Government had decided the two countries were already belligerent, without the consent of the Parliament, in absence of the Regent.
Many Korean armies such as the Korean Liberation Army had already been fighting Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese war, although a formal declaration was not made until the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Japan rejected the declaration of war. Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō's answer was: "We don't accept the Polish declaration of war. The Poles, fighting for their freedom, declared war under the British pressure"[citation needed].[b]
The Prime Minister informed the U.S. ambassador without approval of the Parliament and the Regent, but initially denied it would mean "war" in fact, however two days later he declared it means the two countries became belligerent. As the ambassador refused to accept the verbal form of this act, the next day the Prime Minister in written reinforced it.
Having never made peace with Germany from the First World War, Haudenosaunee became the only Native American state to officially declare war on the Axis powers separately from the United States (other Native American nations issued declarations or declared war de facto alongside the United States as their tribal citizens enlisted in the Armed Forces[23]).
German invasion via airlifting several divisions in reaction to Operation Torch, swiftly occupying Tunis and the eastern part of the country, and capturing the western portions after French Tunisian resistance before the allies reached the Tunisian border. In the resulting Tunisian campaign, the Allies finally defeated the Axis forces in Africa.
On 3 October 1935, ItalyinvadedEthiopia without a formal declaration of war. In response to the Italian invasion, Ethiopia declared war on Italy. Most of Ethiopia was occupied by Italy in 1936, however parts of Ethiopia remained under the control of the Ethiopian Patriots Movement, which begun its guerrilla war against the occupying Italian forces the day Addis Ababa fell in May 1936. In May 1941, Addis Ababa was liberated by the Gideon Force, restoring sovereignty to Ethiopia.
Bolivia officially joined the Allies on 7 April 1943. Shortly after war was declared, the President, Enrique Peñaranda, was overthrown in a coup. Bolivian mines supplied needed tin to the Allies, but no troops or warplanes were sent overseas. Bolivians remained confident their geographic isolation would protect them from the war.
After Italy's capitulation to the Allied powers, Germany swiftly invaded both Italy and Italian-controlled territories (such as Albania, an Italian satellite state) to preempt a possible Allied intervention.
The Provisional National Government[ru], which had been established under Soviet protection in the city of Debrecen, declared war on Germany. The German-backed Arrow Cross regime was still at war with the Soviet Union and its troops were still in action. In January 1945, the Provisional National Government signed an armistice with the Allies, where it confirmed the declaration of war on Germany and obliged itself to form military forces loyal to the Allies.[26]
↑ Included in the speech: "...This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that unless we heard from them by 11 O'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany..."
↑ The state of war was not recognized by, or formally ended until 1957, when Japan concluded a separate peace treaty in order to establish diplomatic relations with the Polish People's Republic. The Polish government-in-exile never recognized the peace treaty and remained in a technical state of war with Japan until it disbanded in 1991, following the fall of communism in Poland.
↑ Prange, Goldstein & Dillon 1981, p.485. "[The] fourteenth part was not a formal declaration of war. It did not even rupture diplomatic relations. It merely broke off the discussions."
↑ Dr Erik Goldstein, Routledge, 2005, Wars and Peace Treaties: 1816 to 1991, p. 218
↑ Dr Erik Goldstein, Routledge, 2005, Wars and Peace Treaties: 1816 to 1991, p. 217
↑ Morgan, Thomas D. (Fall 1995). "Native Americans in World War II"(PDF). Army History: The Professional Bulletin of Army History (35): 22–27. Retrieved 2025-03-13– via history.army.mil.
↑ Christopher P. Atwood (1999), "Sino-Soviet Diplomacy and the Second Partition of Mongolia, 1945–1946", Mongolia in the Twentieth Century: Landlocked Cosmopolitan, Bruce A. Elleman and Stephen Kotkin, eds. (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe), 147.
Bibliography
Boog, Horst; Förster, Jürgen; Hoffmann, Joachim; Klink, Ernst; Müller, Rolf-Dieter; Ueberschär, Gerd R. (1998). Germany and the Second World War. Vol.4. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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