Strangest Mysteries of the World and Beyond !

The Principality of Sealand- The world's smallest country

The Principality of Sealand- The world's smallest country

  

During the 1939-45 War, Great Britain established an artificial island on the High Seas. This island was equipped with radar and heavy armaments and occupied by some two hundred servicemen. The task of the island and its inhabitants was to guard the approaches to the Thames Estuary, where large and vulnerable convoys of shipping were assembled.

Sometime after the cessation of hostilities, the island was derelicted and abandoned by the British Government.

Sealand is located in the southern part of the North Sea some six miles off the coast of Britain and from sixty-five to one hundred miles from the coasts of France, Belgium, Holland and Germany; Latitude 51.53 N, Longitude 01.28 E

But after being abandoned by the Royal Navy in 1956, this artificial island on the high seas has been the site of a pirate radio landing pad, a takeover, a controversial declaration of independence, a coup, and its own miniature war.

In the winter of 1966, a British family took possession and commenced the task of equipping and restoring the island. On 2 September 1967, they hoisted their own flag and declared the existence of a new state - the Principality of Sealand.

In 1967, retired British Army major Paddy Roy Bates occupied the abandoned Rough's Tower in the North Sea, northeast of London and opposite the mouth of the Orwell River and Felixstowe.

Roy Bates had previously operated a low-power station called Radio Essex from another sea barge, but it had been within the 3-mile area of British legal control, and he had been caught and fined. So he and his 15-year-old son Michael gathered up the equipment, hauled it out to the Roughs Tower, and after a prolonged fight, took over control. But the tower never did become home to pirate radio, as English laws changed soon thereafter to make seaborne pirate transmissions illegal even outside of the 3-mile radius.

Nonetheless, Roy Bates maintained his control of Roughs Tower, and declared it the Principality of Sealand; a sovereign, independent state. This was after consulting with an attorney who found a loophole allowing Roy to claim the fort due to fact that it was in international waters, and that it was up for grabs due to "dereliction of sovereignty." Since it was outside of England's legally controlled area there was nothing the Royal Navy could do about this, but they did demolish another fort that stood beyond the 3-mile boundary, to prevent a similar takeover there.

The following year, the legitimacy of this self-declared state would be put to the test when Michael Bates fired a warning shot at a British Trinity House vessel which approached the tower. This led to Roy Bates' arrest when he next arrived on the mainland. The case against Roy and Michael Bates was brought to court, where the judge ruled that Sealand was outside of British jurisdiction, therefore no ruling could be made against the Bates boys for their actions. The authorities decided not to appeal this ruling, as it may have led to an undesirable precedent.

In 1978 there was a hostage incident on Sealand when a German lawyer named Alexander Achenbach, claiming to be the Prime Minister of Sealand, stormed the sea fort with German and Dutch mercenaries and took Roy Bates’ son Michael hostage. Not long after, Bates was able to retake the tower and captured Achenbach and the mercenaries. Achenbach, a holder of a Sealand passport, was charged with treason by Sealand and was held unless he paid over $35,000 in restitution. The event was important enough to get the German government involved; they had sent a diplomat to Sealand to negotiate a release of Achenbach with Bates. Once freed, Achenbach and his associates returned to Germany and established a “government in exile” of Sealand, still claiming to this day they are the legitimate ruling authority.