War and Politics
The military build-up in Cyprus, unlike the other campaigns of post-war britain, did not begin in response to a threat to that colony. It began due to the British withdrawal from its Egyptian bases with 2nd Battalion the Green Howards arriving in August 1954 closely followed by the 2nd Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. Cyprus was to house the British Middle East Headquarters, and at the same time the first stirrings of the Enosis movement began.
The
EOKA' campaign opened on 1st April 1955 with the bombing of a series of
targets throughout the island. The second series of attacks began on 19th
June, with attacks on police station is Kyrenia. More attacks followed
there was rioting in Nicosia on 2nd August. In September 1955, sixteen
EOKA terrorists escaped from Kyrenia Castle and this shattered public confidence
in the Islands administration, the burning of the British institute in
Metazas Square in Nicosia on 17th September persuaded the British Government
of the seriousness of the situation. On 25th September, Field Marshal Sir
John Harding was appointed Governor of Cyprus, he arrived on the island
on 3rd October, closely followed by an influx of troops.
In
November, five servicemen were killed in one week, two of these died in
an ambush led by Grivas. On 26th November the Governor proclaimed a State
of Emergency and the death penalty was extended to offenses other than
murder including the placing of explosives and discharge of firearms. Possession
of firearms or explosives was a sentence of Life Imprisonment. Emergency
regulation were also enforced, including the collective punishment of youths
under eighteen, deportation and punishment. Pictured
right is a photo of Grivas with members of his EOKA in the Cyprus hills.
With orders that minimum force should always be used, the army found itself
underpinning the police, forming its own riot squads. While the EOKA inspired
rioting in the urban areas to divert troops from hunting for the terrorists
in the hills, the Royal Scots, Gordon highlanders and Commandoes combed
the hillsides for the EOKA gangs. On 11th December, a combined force of
Royal MArine Commandoes and Gordon Highlanders mounted a cordon and search
operation in the area of Grivas hideout. Unfortunately, Grivas guards spotted
the troops and evacuated, leaving a few snipers behind for the British
to deal with. One of Grivas deputies, Kyriakides, was wounded and captured
in a gun battle with British troops while trying to break out of the cordon
near Spilia. Three commandoes had been slightly wounded by a mortar bomb,
but Grivas was not in touch with reality. He believed that the British
commander and many others had been wounded or killed. Pictured
left is a section of Royal Marines providing an escort for Cyprus police
and an Informer in the Troodos Moutains.
On 15th December, a terrorist gang ambushed a British jeep in the Troodos mountains killing the driver. Major Coombe of the Royal engineers who was also in the jeep gave chase, he killed one of the four terrorists, captured two and wounded their leader who got away. He was awarded the George Medal. This showed that the British had insufficient troops to cover the terrain effectively, but with operations against the Mau Mau in Kenya winding down, there were troops to spare. January 1956 saw the Parachute Regiments 1st and 3rd battalion arrive in Nicosia, with more troops arriving a few weeks later.
February saw the crisis in the secondary schools reach its height, a riot resulting in a ringleader being fatally wounded by the security forces in a bid to avoid serious injury. The Governor ordered the schools to either take down the Greek flags Grivas had ordered flown or close. The headmasters of the schools were so severely intimidated by the EOKA that this brought secondary education to a hla. By the spring of 1956, only eighty-one out of 499 elementary schools still functioned. Grivas saw this as a major achievement for the EOKA. The British were portrayed as the persecutors of Cypriot schoolchildren and were powerless to influence the situation.
29th
February saw the next EOKA bombing offensive started. This caused Harding
to form the opinion that the Cypriot leader Makarios had no faith in the
peace talks and he took the decision to resist Enosis and on 9th March
Makarios was arrested at Nicosia and put on a plane for the remote British
controlled Seychelles. On the day he was deported, Harding outlined the
Archbishops support of the EOKA and his use of church funds for the movement.
He also condemned the Archbishops' silence while policemen, soldiers and
civilians were murdered in cold blood. The deportation coincided with a
dramatic increase in the EOKAs hostilities. The army was forced to suspend
some offensive operations in order to safeguard the civilian populace.
The second half of March also saw an unsuccessful attempt by the EOKA on
Harding's life, Five British soldiers were killed in the bombing which
was carried out by a Cypriot member of his staff. Pictured
left are members of the Berkshire regiment on " Cat Patrol " on the streets
of Nicosia.
By
15th May, the Army had fifteen fighting units on the island, and was back
on the offensive. Two thousand troops took part in a sweep of the Troodos
mountains, aided by Auster spotting aircraft and helicopters. The series
of cordon operations covered 400 square miles, seventeen leading guerillas
and large quantities of weapons were captured. Thousands of documents exposing
the EOKA's plans and identities of its members were also found. The mountain
gangs were smashed and no longer able to operate with impunity as they
had done for so long. Grivas narrowly evaded capture, but the operation
cost the army twenty death and sixteen seriously injured i a forest fire
in the Paphos area. The cause of the fire was unknown, it could have been
the guerillas or the army's own mortar fire. Terrorist attacks in the rest
of the island did not decline in response to the collapse of the mountain
gangs.
The 16th June EOKA bombed a restaurant and unintentionally killed the American vice-consul. The end of july saw the Suez campaign erupt and soldiers were diverted to the Suez Canal operation, although veteran units from malaya were brought in to replace them. Anti-aircraft regiments were also deployed against the prospect of Egypt bombing Cyprus.
In
early October, Operation Sparrowhawk captured Pilots Christofi a gang leader
with £5,000 on his head. The EOKA gained the offensive as more troops
were withdrawn to aid the Suez campaign and the Army suffered fifteen casualties.
December found the Suez troops returning and the rise in British operations
resulted in several captured guerillas and only two casualties. As the
British successes grew, Grivas was killing Cypriots he believed were betraying
him, although many were completely uninvolved. January 1957 saw the British
forces now commanded by Major-General Kendrew as director of operations,
capture fifteen terrorist alone. March saw the death of Gregoris Afxentiou,
one of the few gang leaders who escaped the previous summer, when the British
burned him out of a hideout when every conventional method had failed at
Makheras Monastery. The four months ending in february had been a bonanza
for the army, sixty-nine EOKA terrorist were dead and the sixteen terrorist
gang were reduced to five. Rioting and bombing had virtually stopped and
most of EOKA's victims were Cypriot targets.
Grivas
was encouraged by the Greek Government to issue a cease-fire on 14th March
if the British agreed to negotiate with Makarios. Anglo-Greek relations
improved dramatically, although the Turkish relations worsened. During
the summer ceasefire the EOKA rearmed and recruited but refrained from
overt operations. Harding was replaced by Sir Hugh Foot on 3rd November,
who did not arrive until four weeks later. During that delay, the EOKA
blew up a canberra bomber at Akrotiri airfields. Rioting followed in Nicosia
on 27th january 1958, and the incident precipitated a pitched battle between
British soldiers and thousands of Turkish youths. Seven Turks were killed
and twelve soldiers injured.
Not
trusting Foot, Grivas' EOKA resumed its campaign in late March. Fifty bombs
exploded in the first ten days of April. Foot sent a letter to Grivas on
16th April, in which he appealed for a ceasefire and although Grivas acquiesced
he did not reply fearing a British attempt to track the latter back. The
Turkish community was whipped into a frenzy by broadcasts from Turkey calling
for the partition of Cyprus. Violence between the turks and Cypriots broke
out in early June and climaxed when eight Greeks were massacred in a cornfield
near the Turkish village of Geunyeli. Again, the British were forced into
partitioning the two communities. At this stage, the British Army in Cyprus
reached it highest number as more units arrived from mid-June. There were
now twenty-six fighting units in Cyprus. In desperation, Fott ordered an
island wide swoop and they arrested fifty turks and 1,500 Greeks. In under
two months ninety-five civilians had been killed in the inter communal
violence and many more injured.
The
assault upon the army reached it peak in the summer and autumn of 1958,
August saw Sergeant Hammond shot dead in Ledra Street in Nicosia, the 'Murder
Mile', while walking his two-year old son. The murder of an Army wives
in October and the wounded of another was too much for the Army. In less
than two hours, the Army arrested over a hundred Cypriots and took them
to detention centers for questioning. Some of the Cypriots died as a result
of the bad feeling roused in the Army from the assaults. An estimated 256
people were injured in the round-up. The EOKA's cause was severely damaged,
but the assault on the British armed forces continued with two RAF men
killed on 11th November by a bomb in a NAAFI establishment. Pictured
right are two Sergeants of 3 Para escorting a Greek Orthodox Priest with
EOKA connections
In
February 1959, the Greek and Turkish prime Ministers reached an accord
and the British Government ratified the Zurich agreement on 19th February
in LOndon. On 9th March Grivas reluctantly ordered a ceasefire. As a leader,
he had tied down 40,000 British troops and killed ninety-nine. The following
1960 talks ended in July and the British retained two Sovereign Base Areas
(SBA) at Dheklia and Akrotiti as well as some British Armed Forces installations
in other parts of the island which are republican territory. On 16th August
1960, the Republic of Cyprus came into existence after eighty-two years of British
rule.
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