and then war were declared.
and then war were declared.
Nothing wrong with mushy peas.
Add a pie and you get a decent meal as well:
This is, afaik, a British vs American thing. In British English (I think, I live here and confuse this all the time due to the mixing of accents everywhere) group/collective nouns are treated as plural.
Examples: The press were on the scene. Ferrari were (in case of the F1 team) hopeful before the start of the season. The herd of bison were running.
Data is the really annoying one. “The data shows” vs “the data show” is a pain.