How to expose a dependency of a dependency in a maven project - maven

Question

I have a maven web application that is using a jar I created and is referenced as a dependency in my pom file.
The jar file I created has another jar file as a dependency.
When I deploy the web application, it says that a class in the dependency of the jar file I created cannot be found.
The only way to work around this was to add the dependency of the jar file as a dependency of the war file. This seems unnecessary.
Is there a way I can configure the war file to be able to see the classes defined in a dependency of a dependent jar file?
my jar pom file looks like: The dependency that has the class that can't be found is the the QRS one.
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>group</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact</artifactId>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
<version>1.0.7</version>
<name>name</name>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>group2</groupId>
<artifactId>QRS</artifactId>
<version>8.1</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.3</version>
<configuration>
<archive>
<manifest>
<addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
<classpathPrefix>lib</classpathPrefix>
</manifest>
</archive>
</configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>copy-dependencies</id>
<phase>prepare-package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/classes/lib</outputDirectory>
<overWriteReleases>false</overWriteReleases>
<overWriteSnapshots>false</overWriteSnapshots>
<overWriteIfNewer>true</overWriteIfNewer>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
my war pom looks like:
<dependency>
<groupId>group</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact</artifactId>
<version>1.0.7</version>
</dependency>
and the war plug in is configured:
<plugin>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.2</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.2</version>
<configuration>
<warName>${project.name}-${project.version}-${env}</warName>
<webResources>
<resource>
<directory>src/main/webapp/WEB-INF</directory>
<filtering>true</filtering>
<include>jboss-web.xml</include>
<include>web.xml</include>
<targetPath>/WEB-INF</targetPath>
</resource>
</webResources>
<warSourceExcludes>**/toAggregateAndRemove/**</warSourceExcludes>
<goal>war:manifest</goal>
<archive>
<manifest>
<addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
<classpathPrefix>lib/</classpathPrefix>
</manifest>
</archive>
</configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 1

Maven already resolves transitive dependencies.
That it isn't indicates you're likely not doing it right: the other jar you've created should be a Maven project with its own pom, installed at least locally via mvn install, and listed as a dependency in the second project (the one that uses it).
The project using the jar only needs to specify that artifact as its dependency, the other project's dependencies will be transitively determined and included as a project dependency.

Answer 2

#Dave Newton has answered, this should happen by default.
A few observations from the snippets in the question - if that helps...
Packaging dependant jars as a folder of artifact project's jar.
Defining the maven war plugin jar itself as a dependency for maven war plugin - this is not required at all!
war:manifest goal in the maven war plugin configuration.
It is possible that the war:war which actually creates the war is not run.