During his 33 years as Foreign Minister, Joseph Bech of Luxembourg found it convenient to speak of his country's size as a well-rounded 1,000 sq. mi., but as every schoolboy in the Grand Duchy knew, Luxembourg was listed in all the books as having only 999 sq. mi. After World War II, Bech saw his chance. When the Inter-Allied Commission on Frontier Correction asked Luxembourg what it wanted in reparations, Bech promptly replied: one square mile of the German forest area called Kammerwald. The Allies threw in an extra square mile for good measure.
But not everyone among the Grand Duchy's...
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