The Great War and the Isle of Cyprus

Abstract

The Isle of Cyprus was de facto taken from the Ottoman Empire by England in 1878
and was annexed by a unilateral decision with the outbreak of the First World War. However,
it wasn’t only the First World War that improve Cyprus’s importance. The opening
of the Suez Canal in 1869 increased it as well. For this reason, England began to look for
an opportunity to seize control of Cyprus and found that opportunity after the 1877-1878
Ottoman-Russian War. England, which demanded Cyprus in order to counter Russian
expansionism in the Mediterranean, settled on the island after that war. The administration
of the island was left to England. During the First World War, which started in 1914,
Cyprus was used as a logistic support base because it was very close to the Anatolian
peninsula. Although the Turkish population on the island disturbed the British administration,
the British administration tolerated the Turkish presence as it was a balancing factor
against the Cypriots. During the First World War, the idea of annexation to Greece spread
among the non Muslim population on the island, and this idea came to forefront due to
the weakening of the British administration after the war.