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Cyprus British Annexation
Britain annulled the Cyprus Convention and annexed the
island
when Turkey joined forces with Germany and its allies in
1914. In
1915 Britain offered the island to Greece as an inducement
to enter
the war on its side, but King Constantine preferred a
policy of
benign neutrality and declined the offer. Turkey
recognized the
British annexation through the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.
The treaty
brought advantages to the new Turkish state that
compensated it for
its loss of the island. In 1925 Cyprus became a crown
colony, and
the top British administrator, the high commissioner,
became
governor. This change in status meant little to Greek
Cypriots, and
some of them continued to agitate for enosis.
The constitution of 1882, which was unchanged by the
annexation
of 1914, provided for a Legislative Council of twelve
elected
members and six appointees of the high commissioner. Three
of the
elected members were to be Muslims (Turkish Cypriots), and
the
remaining nine non-Muslims. This distribution was devised
on the
basis of a British interpretation of the census taken in
1881.
These arrangements favored the Muslims. In practice, the
three
Muslim members usually voted with the six appointees,
bringing
about a nine to nine stalemate that could be broken by the
vote of
the high commissioner. Because Turkish Cypriots were
generally
supported by the high commissioners, the desires of the
Greek
Cypriot majority were thwarted. When Cyprus became a crown
colony
after 1925, constitutional modifications enlarged the
Legislative
Council to twenty-four, but the same balance and resulting
stalemate prevailed.
There also remained much discontent with the Cyprus
Tribute. In
1927 Britain raised the annual grant-in-aid to cover the
entire
amount, but on the condition that Cyprus pay the crown an
annual
sum of 10,000 pounds sterling toward "imperial defense."
Cypriots,
however, were not placated. They pressed two further
claims for
sums they considered were owed to them: the unexpended
surplus of
the debt charge that had been held back and invested in
government
securities since 1878 and all of the debt charge payments
since
1914, which, after annexation, the Cypriots considered
illegal.
The British government rejected those pleas and made a
proposal
to raise Cypriot taxes to meet deficits brought on by
economic
conditions on the island and throughout the world at the
beginning
of the 1930s. These proposals aroused dismay and
discontent on
Cyprus and resulted in mass protests and mob violence in
October
1931. A riot resulted in the death of six civilians,
injuries and
wounds to scores of others, and the burning of the British
Government House in Nicosia. Before it was quelled,
incidents had
occurred in a third of the island's 598 villages. In
ensuing court
cases, some 2,000 persons were convicted of crimes in
connection
with the violence.
Britain reacted by imposing harsh restrictions.
Military
reinforcements were dispatched to the island, the
constitution
suspended, press censorship instituted, and political
parties
proscribed. Two bishops and eight other prominent citizens
directly
implicated in the riot were exiled. In effect, the
governor became
a dictator, empowered to rule by decree. Municipal
elections were
suspended, and until 1943 all municipal officials were
appointed by
the government. The governor was to be assisted by an
Executive
Council, and two years later an Advisory Council was
established;
both councils consisted only of appointees and were
restricted to
advising on domestic matters only.
The harsh measures adopted by the British on Cyprus
seemed
particularly incongruous in view of the relaxation of
strictures in
Egypt and India at the same time. But the harsh measures
continued;
the teaching of Greek and Turkish history was curtailed,
and the
flying of Greek or Turkish flags or the public display of
portraits
of Greek or Turkish heroes was forbidden. The rules
applied to both
ethnic groups, although Turkish Cypriots had not
contributed to the
disorders of 1931.
Perhaps most objectionable to the Greek Cypriots were
British
actions that Cypriots perceived as being against the
church. After
the bishops of Kition and Kyrenia had been exiled, only
two of the
church's four major offices were occupied, i.e., the
archbishopric
in Nicosia and the bishopric of Paphos. When Archbishop
Cyril III
died in 1933 leaving Bishop Leontios of Paphos as locum
tenens,
church officials wanted the exiled bishops returned for
the
election of a new archbishop. The colonial administration
refused,
stating that the votes could be sent from abroad; the
church
authorities objected, and the resulting stalemate kept the
office
vacant from 1933 until 1947. Meanwhile, in 1937, in an
effort to
counteract the leading role played by the clergy in the
nationalist
movement, the British enacted laws governing the internal
affairs
of the church. Probably most onerous was the provision
subjecting
the election of an archbishop to the governor's approval.
The laws
were repealed in 1946. In June 1947, Leontios was elected
archbishop, ending the fourteen-year British embarrassment
at being
blamed for the vacant archbishopric.
Under the strict rules enforced on the island, Cypriots
were
not allowed to form nationalist groups; therefore, during
the late
1930s, the center of enosis activism shifted to London. In
1937 the
Committee for Cyprus Autonomy was formed with the avowed
purpose of
lobbying Parliament for some degree of home rule. But most
members
of Parliament and of the Colonial Office, as well as many
colonial
officials on the island, misread the situation just as
they had
sixty years earlier, when they assumed administration from
the
Ottoman Turks and were greeted with expressions of the
Greek
Cypriot desire for enosis. The British were still not able
to
understand the importance of that desire to the majority
community.
Although there was growing opposition to British rule,
colonial
administration had brought some benefits to the island.
Money had
gone into modernization projects. The economy, stagnant
under the
Ottomans, had improved, and trade increased. Financial
reforms
eventually broke the hold money lenders had over many
small
farmers. An honest and efficient civil service was put in
place.
New schools were built for the education of Cypriot
children. Where
only one hospital had existed during the Ottoman era,
several were
built by the British. Locusts were eradicated, and after
World War
II malaria was eliminated. A new system of roads brought
formerly
isolated villages into easy reach of the island's main
cities and
towns. A reforestation program to cover the colony's
denuded hills
and mountains was begun. Still, there was much poverty,
industry
was almost nonexistent, most manufactures were imported
from
Britain, and Cypriots did not govern themselves.
Data as of January 1991
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