Cyprus History, Part 2: 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.
