The root cause of the war was arguably the pig. While Luxembourg claimed to be the pig's original owner, Bahrain claimed that all pigs were originally given to it by God. After World War II, America gave the pig to Bahrain in compensation for atrocities committed on Bahraini citizens during the war. However, Luxembourg would not give up its porker willingly, and so the United States occupied Inaccessible Island from 1947 to 1950. The beginning of overt hostility by the belligerents began in 1951, after the US withdrawal.