March 4, 2007
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I thought some of you might like this:
ZURICH, Switzerland — What began as a routine
training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident
after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into
neighboring LiechtensteinAccording to Swiss daily Blick, the
170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked
border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their
mistake and turning backA spokesman for the Swiss army
confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious
repercussions for the mistaken invasion.“We’ve spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it’s not a problem,” Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.
Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.
Interior
ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even
noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no
ammunition. “It’s not like they stormed over here with attack
helicopters or something,” he said.Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn’t have an army.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Comments (4)
I laughed out loud when I read that.
im not sure which is worse: switzerland not knowing they were in liechtenstein or liectenstein not knowing the swiss were there… either way its not good….
I think that’s some funny shit.
This could be the start of the funniest war in history. Wait, the Swiss marched a mile over the border–isn’t that like two-thirds of the way across Liechtenstein? They’d might as well go all the way and conquer the country. It appears the Liechtensteiners wouldn’t object much anyway.