- Strom Cuzewon
- Jul 1, 2010
-
|
Interestingly with Russia having just invaded the Crimea there is a tiny town in the north of England which has already been fighting Russia for the Crimea for over 100 years.
When the Crimean war started between the UK and Russia it was declared in the name of Great Britain, Ireland and Berwick upon Tweed (Berwick was disputed between Scotland and England and so was treated separately)
However when the peace was signed only Great Britain and Ireland were mentioned, leaving poor little Berwick to continue the war alone.
Sorry to shoot you down mate: The real story is still pretty  though
Wikipedia posted:
There is an apocryphal story that Berwick is (or recently was) technically at war with Russia.[53] The story tells that since Berwick had changed hands several times, it was traditionally regarded as a special, separate entity, and some proclamations referred to "England, Scotland and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed". One such was the declaration of the Crimean War against Russia in 1853, which Queen Victoria supposedly signed as "Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British Dominions". When the Treaty of Paris was signed to conclude the war, "Berwick-upon-Tweed" was left out. This meant that, supposedly, one of Britain's smallest towns was officially at war with one of the world's largest powers – and the conflict extended by the lack of a peace treaty for over a century.[54]
The BBC programme Nationwide investigated this story in the 1970s, and found that while Berwick was not mentioned in the Treaty of Paris, it was not mentioned in the declaration of war either. The question remained as to whether Berwick had ever been at war with Russia in the first place. The true situation is that since the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 had already made it clear that all references to England included Berwick, the town had no special status at either the start or end of the war. The grain of truth in this legend could be that some important documents from the 17th century did mention Berwick separately, but this became unnecessary after 1746.
According to a story by George Hawthorne in The Guardian of 28 December 1966, the London correspondent of Pravda visited the Mayor of Berwick, Councillor Robert Knox, and the two made a mutual declaration of peace. Knox said "Please tell the Russian people through your newspaper that they can sleep peacefully in their beds." The same story, cited to the Associated Press, appeared in The Baltimore Sun of 17 December 1966; The Washington Post of 18 December 1966; and The Christian Science Monitor of 22 December 1966. At some point in turn the real events seem to have been turned into a story of a "Soviet official" having signed a "peace treaty" with Mayor Knox; Knox's remark to the Pravda correspondent was preserved in this version.[54][55]
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2015 16:41
|
|
- Adbot
-
ADBOT LOVES YOU
|
|
|
#
¿
May 3, 2024 13:37
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2015 16:41
