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Post by capio on Jul 16, 2007 18:08:38 GMT 1
...you heard it here first.
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Post by zorro on Jul 17, 2007 13:28:46 GMT 1
I'll get my mittens
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Post by capio on Jul 19, 2007 14:52:55 GMT 1
Did anybody know that Berwick upon tweed was officially at war with Russia until the mid 60's?  |
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Post by anton on Jul 20, 2007 0:07:12 GMT 1
No I didn't. Who won?
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Post by capio on Jul 20, 2007 0:14:16 GMT 1
I have never seen a dancing bear in Berwick but I have seen fish and chips in russia so Berwick were victors.
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There is a curious apocryphal story that Berwick is (or recently was) technically at war with Russia. 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". However, when the Treaty of Paris (1856) 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 mightiest powers – and the conflict extended by the lack of a peace treaty for over a century.
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 of 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.
Nevertheless, in 1966 a Soviet official waited upon the Mayor of Berwick, Councillor Robert Knox, and a peace treaty was formally signed. Mr Knox is reputed to have said "Please tell the Russian people that they can sleep peacefully in their beds." To complicate the issue, some have noted that Knox did not have any authority with regard to foreign relations, and thus may have exceeded his powers as mayor in concluding a peace treaty. The whole curious scenario was the focus of a question on the third series of the gameshow QI.
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