The British and Cyprus

An Outpost of Empire to Sovereign Bases, 1878-1974

Mark Simmons

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780750960700
• eBook ISBN: 9780750965811
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

The relationship between Britain and Cyprus over the course of the past 100 years has been a constantly evolving one. Since the First World War, Cyprus has played a key role in British defence strategy, and, after the withdrawal from Egypt, the island became the British Middle East headquarters. Today, Britain retains two sovereign bases in Cyprus and the island has become a popular holiday destination for many British tourists. Using previously unpublished letters and personal interviews, The British and Cyprus is told through the words of the people who served the British Crown on Cyprus – civil and military – and includes fascinating accounts of the dramatic fight against EOKA in the 1950s, who pressed for an end to British rule on the island.

1

THE EARLY YEARS

Benjamin Disraeli came back with Lord Salisbury from the Congress of Berlin in 1878 claiming ‘peace with honour’; they also had Cyprus in their pocket.

On 13 June 1878 the Congress of Berlin had convened to try to make sense of the Treaty of San Stefano, signed three months earlier after the fourth war of the nineteenth century between Russia and Turkey. Most delegates’ thoughts were on Russia’s further encroachment on Turkey’s European frontiers; no one thought much of the Middle East and even less of Cyprus. However, the senior British negotiator, the ambassador in Constantinople, Sir Henry Layard, had already done a secret deal for Perfidious Albion; on 4 June a ‘convention of defensive alliance’ was signed between Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire. So the Sultan Abdul Hamid II ceded the island of Cyprus ‘to be occupied and administered by England’. The role of Cyprus in this was to become Britain’s forward base to support Turkey against any further Russian aggression. Although the island was never suitable as a fleet base, Britain was willing to support the Ottoman Empire as a buffer against Russian designs on India.¹

On 12 July 1878 Vice Admiral Lord John Hay hoisted the Union Flag in Nicosia and assumed the temporary administration of Cyprus from Bessim Pasha, its last Turkish governor. Ten days later Lieutenant General Sir Garnet (later Field Marshal Viscount) Wolseley landed at Larnaca with a force of British and Indian troops and took over the Government as the first British High Commissioner.

Then the only road on the island connected Nicosia and Larnaca but was in a poor state of repair. The British troops marched the 30 miles or so along this road from Larnaca, which partly crossed the Mesaoria Plain, a flat featureless cauldron of heat and dust to the south of the Kyrenia Mountains. Even in the 1950s Lawrence Durrell saw camel caravans crossing the ‘brittle and arid soils’ of the Mesaoria, more like a desert in summer.²

The locals must surely have thought how mad the British were to move about in the summer heat in red coats. Indeed one of the first, if not the first, squaddie to die on Cyprus lies buried in the English cemetery at Kyrenia. His tombstone reads:

Number 141 Sergeant Samuel McGaw, VC, 42nd Royal Highlanders died on the line of march to camp Chiftlik Pasha of heat apoplexy, 22 July 1878. Aged 40 years.³

McGaw from Kirkmichael in Ayrshire had won his VC in the Ashanti War on 21 January 1874 at the battle of Amouful where the then lance sergeant had ‘led his section through the bush in a most excellent manner and continued to do so throughout the day, although badly wounded early in the engagement’.⁴

Five years after his death the grave site at Chiftlik, where he had been laid to rest, was to be levelled so his remains were disinterred under the direction of Captain Scott-Stevenson, Commissioner of Kyrenia. This was reported in the Cyprus Herald of 17 June:

The remains were carefully placed in a shell and conveyed to Kyrenia; on the 12th inst. Captain Scott-Stevenson in the full uniform of the Black Watch followed the remains of this gallant soldier to the little cemetery above Kyrenia and laid them beside those of his comrades who died there. The shell was covered with the British Flag and carried on the shoulders of six Turkish Zaptiehs. After the internment Mrs Scott-Stevenson decorated the grave with wreaths of passion flower and jasmine. A suitable monument will be erected by the desire of the officers of the Black Watch.⁵

The city of Nicosia in 1878 was still largely confined within the Venetian walls of the town, a little over 2 miles in circumference, in a circle, with eleven equidistant great heart-shaped bastions. The original Crusader walls had been much longer but the Venetians had destroyed these to make the defence line shorter. When the Union Flag was raised over the city in July 1878 it was not the first occupation of the island by troops from the misty shores of Albion that had taken place over 600 years before.

Richard I Coeur de Lion, the Crusader king known as ‘the Lionheart’, conquered Cyprus in 1191 in a three-month campaign and established there a base of operations for the Christian forces in the east. Richard sailed for the Holy Land during the Third Crusade 1189–92. His fleet of 200 ships left Messina, Sicily, on 10 April but heavy storms forced them to seek shelter. Most went to Rhodes, but four were blown toward Cyprus, two being wrecked on the coast near Limassol. One of them carried the king’s fiancée, Berengaria, and his sister Joan, but this ship, although battered, managed to anchor off the coast.

The ruler of Cyprus, Isaac Komnenos, ordered his men to capture the shipwrecked survivors. Isaac had no liking for the Latins and had an understanding with Saladin to deny his ports to the Crusaders. He attempted to lure Joan and Berengaria ashore hoping to hold them to ransom; when that failed, he withheld fresh water.

On 6 May Richard arrived at Limassol with the bulk of his fleet. He soon demanded the release of his people. Isaac rejected the demand following which the Crusader army landed, occupying Limassol. Three days later the two men met at Kolossi to try to settle things peacefully. It was agreed that Richard should abandon Cyprus while Isaac, for his part, would support the Crusaders financially and with men, and the island would help provision the army. But as soon as Isaac realised Richard’s force was small he reneged on the deal and demanded the Crusaders leave Cyprus or face battle. Isaac’s actions were not that uncommon for the times but had he known Richard better he might have come down on the side of caution.

Angered by Isaac’s treachery Richard landed his army and advanced toward Kolossi village where the enemy were camped. In the battle Isaac’s forces were defeated and he fled to Nicosia. Richard returned to Limassol, where on 12 May he married Berengaria in the Chapel of St George in Limassol Castle. At the same ceremony Berengaria was crowned Queen of England, and Richard, rather prematurely, was crowned King of Cyprus. While in Limassol, Richard met the deposed King of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan, and the two became allies.

Richard of legend, a brave, chivalrous knight and fearless soldier, was, as far as we know, in reality somewhat different. He was a good soldier, but also boorish, sadistic and greedy. Richard I was crowned in England at Westminster on 3 September 1189 and immediately set about raising money for the Crusades. He sold castles, manors, privileges, public offices, even towns and is said to have remarked: ‘I would sell London, if I could find anyone rich enough to buy it.’⁶

The campaign Richard undertook to conquer Cyprus was short and decisive. He marched east along the south coast from Limassol to Kiti near the Salt Lake and from there across country to Famagusta, which fell without a fight. Then he turned west toward Nicosia. Richard ran into Isaac’s main forces at Tremethousha, midway between Nicosia and Famagusta. After a fierce but brief fight, Isaac’s force was overwhelmed. Guy de Lusignan, commanding the fleet, captured the castle of Kyrenia from the sea and imprisoned Isaac’s family, who had been sent there for safety. Guy passed east along the coast to the castle of Kantara where he found Isaac and captured him.

Kantara is the best preserved of the three castles that dominate the Kyrenian mountain range, the others being Buffavento and St Hilarion. All were later largely dismantled to various degrees by the Venetians. From Kantara’s walls 2,000ft above the sea one can see both coasts of the Karpas Peninsula, Famagusta Bay, and even the Turkish coast. Given the remoteness of these castles, Richard’s campaign to subdue the island in a month is impressive.

At the Apostolos Andreas Monastery that lies 4 miles from the tip of the Karpas Peninsula, later called the Pan Handle by British troops, Isaac was brought before Richard, whom he begged not to be put in irons. Richard agreed and had him put into silver chains and taken to Palestine, where he died in squalor in the dungeons of Castle Margat near Tripoli in 1195.

Richard’s enforcement of the feudal laws of conquest upset the locals straight away when he took half their land and gave it to his knights. On 5 June he sailed for Syria, leaving a garrison to hold the island. However, it soon became obvious after a Cypriot revolt that Richard did not have enough men to hold Cyprus. So rather than take men from other fronts he used another favourite tactic of his and sold the island. He sold Cyprus to the Knights Templar who paid 40,000 gold bezants as a deposit while the balance of 60,000 would be paid yearly by instalments. So Cyprus, Richard hoped, would become a nice little earner.⁷

The Templars had equal trouble with the locals and they sold Cyprus on to Guy de Lusignan, Richard’s old friend. With better treatment of the locals it was the beginning of a long Frankish line, who would rule Cyprus for 300 years. One local, the hermit Neophytos in a letter ‘Concerning the Misfortunes of the land of Cyprus’, did comment on the first English occupation. He had no love for Isaac, ‘who utterly despoiled the land’. And as for Richard, he was no better: ‘the English King, the wretch, landed in Cyprus and found it a nursing mother. The wicked wretch achieved nought against his fellow-wretch Saladin but achieved this only, that he sold our country to the Latins.’ As for the Hospitallers, Templars, and other Franks, their ‘bandying’ of the island did it few favours.⁸

In July 1878 Sir Garnet Wolseley set up his first camp a mile west of Nicosia on what was thought as the traditional place of King Richard’s encampment. A prefabricated wooden military bungalow on its way to Ceylon was diverted at Port Said and became the first Government House on the same site.

Wolseley appeared to have had a burning dislike of foreigners, hardly a good attitude for the British governor, especially in a new land. He wrote in his diary for 16 August 1878: ‘What poor fools we English travellers are and how our open purse is made to bleed by the scheming villainy of all foreigners. I don’t like foreigners I am glad to say.’⁹

On the 18 August he went to the official blessing of the Union Jack in the cathedral in Nicosia, where he found the clergy to be ‘dirty greasy priests’. Also it was a long service which did not improve Wolseley’s humour:

at last the Abbot stepped forward and took the British Jack from the table where it had been lying while these incantations were being gone through and incense being burnt over it. As if our flag required any purification – and opened and fastened it to the halliards and it was hauled up amidst loud ‘Zita’s’ fr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Glossary
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The Early Years
• 2 The First World War
• 3 Crown Colony: The Interwar Years
• 4 The Second World War
• 5 The Gathering Storm 1947–1954
• 6 A Corporal’s War 1955
• 7 1956 Clearing the Forests
• Picture Section
• 8 1957 Stalemate
• 9 1958 Bloody Civil War
• 10 1959 Agreement in Room 325
• 11 Anywhere’s Better than Here 1960–1973
• 12 Unfinished Business 1974
• 13 Bellapais 2000 and Waynes Keep 2004
• Afterword
• Bibliography