The underclothes attacked when the socks were most vulnerable. You have no fighting chances when your enemies are pointing there weapons at you and your soldiers while you're all are trying to wash the soap off you face.
Despite being told repeatedly to change their defense strategy-- an entire nation washing itself, soldiers and all, together-- the socks kept insisting their culture was above everything else. "We have always showered together, as a nation, and we always will. That had held up the fabric of our nation for centuries, and if we stopped doing it, we will be no more than some old singlets, " the SocKing had said in an interview just a week prior to the invasion.
The only consolation was that the underpants were not as cruel as the socks expected them to be-- they just wanted the same level of respect given to underpants in other places. "Everyone here pretends we don't even exist. It hurts, you know. We are people too," the Lingerie Representative said while he was interrogating the SoCabinet. The radical faction of Negligees shouted slogans against the fearful regime of underpants and demanded stronger action to be taken against the Socks. They were detained and let go only when their parents bailed them out. It was the underpants' view that you would never win a war by treating your enemies like they would have treated you. They believed that every problem in the world could be solved by love, understanding and care. Which is not very surprising, considering the rosy world they lived in.
The 22 different factions of Boxers' Party, and 4 factions of Briefs' Forum and united and formed a Men's Underwear coalition, for the war. The differences had existed, but they were forgotten amidst the cacophony of battle cries, shocked shrieks reverberated in the bathrooms all over the Sockland, modest "sorry, will come when you are done" of all the Sock soldiers(the elite squad was the most modest. That's why it was the elite squad), and the groans of indignity as all the senior socks were captured after their baths.
"WAR OF THE WORLDS!" read a popular daily.
"KINKY GARMENTS DEMAND EQUALITY" read another.
"IS IT JUST ME, OR ARE THE SOCKS STILL KINDA WET" read a tabloid.
"TROUBLE IN PARADISE?" was how a paper put it in a faraway land, portraying Sockland as a 'heaven on earth' that had been invaded by skin diseases.
"27TH GOVERNMENT IN 17 YEARS! IS SOCKLAND DOOMED TO FAILURE?"
" 'GIVE US LIBERTY, OR GIVE US THE APPROPRIATE TIME TO INVADE YOUR COUNTRY' SOCKS THREATEN T-SHIRTISTAN"