The patchwork of microstates that characterized what is now Germany up until the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War was particularly fragmenting in the Dickesbach area and resulted in an absurd tangle of boundaries. This sometimes led to rather ridiculous disputes, a case in point being the dispute over the "Idarbann", quite a small piece of territory, that erupted in 1766 when the Lord of Oberstein, Count Christian Karl Reinhard, died. The "Amtmann" of Birkenfeld, named Fabert, occupied the bridge over the Idarbach with some 400 armed peasants and militiamen. The Saarbrücken "Kammerrat" advanced with 80 soldiers and the Commissioner of Trier with 90. The whole business was occasioned by Forester Görlitz's sticking letters patent of seizure by the Lordship of Nassau-Saarbrücken on Peter Georg Juchem's house in Idar. In response, Fabert and the court "Schöffe" (roughly “lay jurist”) Trein hurried there to tear the letters patent off Juchem's house and there hang the Sponheim coat of arms instead.