CYPRUS 1954-1959

Makarios had hoped that a limited campaign of sabotage, coupled with diplomatic pressure, would persuade the British to grant Enosis…In the Seychelles he was in no position to control Grivas and keep violence within bounds.

We probably should mention that the British troops’ derogatory nick-name for Archbishop Makarios was “Black Mak.” By December 1956, British strength on Cyprus was 20,000 troops. The British released Makarios in March 1957 but refused him the right to return home. As a result, he declined to negotiate a peace pact with the British. There was a general strike on the island in April 1958 that brought the island to a standstill. In August of that year, EOKA declared a truce. An agreement on Cyprus independence was signed in London by British, Greek, Turkish and Cypriot leaders in February 1959.

 

President Makarios Victory Poster

It was decided that Cyprus would be independent with a Greek president (Makarios), a Turkish vice president (Dr. Faisal Kutchuck), a ratio of 70 to 30 Greek-Turkish representatives in parliament and government services, and an absolute ban on union with Greece or any other state. In what is certainly the strangest career move for a military officer called a terrorist, Colonel Grivas returned to Greece in March 1959 and was promoted to Lieutenant General, the highest rank in the Greek Army. He was also awarded the Grand Cross of George I and made a Commander of the Order Bravery. In December 1959, Archbishop Makarios was elected President of Cyprus and just 11 days later EOKA declared a cease-fire.

Karyos says that Grivas circulated a pamphlet on 9 March 1959, announcing the cessation of EOKA’s revolutionary activities, calling for the Greek Cypriot people to unify and rally around Archbishop Makarios. He issued a general order to the EOKA combatants on 13 March 1959, ending the irregular warfare and in two other publications stated his gratitude to: the brave fighters of EOKA and especially to the robust youths of EOKA.

It appears that the British also tried to use the threat of International Communism to win support for their occupation of Cyprus. This propaganda campaign was run in part by their top secret Information Research Department. Paul Lashmar and James Oliver say in Britain’s Secret Propaganda War 1948-1977, Sutton Publishing, UK, 1998:

The need to divert attention from the fact that Britain was occupying a country in which the majority of inhabitants wanted self determination was clearly recognized…A telegram suggested:

In seems to me that in putting over our case to the American public opinion, more emphasis could be laid on two points: the Communist danger and the Island’s strategic value. As seen from here, the argument about the Communist danger will carry most weight with American opinion...It would be particularly useful if we could insinuate that the issue of Enosis has been gradually exploited and blown up by the Communists, both in Cyprus and in Greece, as a Cold War gambit…

At the height of the war, the British had about 40,000 troops and perhaps 400 Turkish police "auxillaries" on Cyprus. At its height, EOKA probably had about 300 members. It would seem to be quite one-sided, until one realizes that a Guerrilla army never has to win a battle in the field. They simply need to remain active, causing problems for the government and military, hoping that they will overreact and restrict the local population to the point where they rise up and support the guerrillas. Despite being outnumbered perhaps to the greatest extent in history, the Cypriots ultimately won the conflict. Although they did not win union with Greece, the British granted them independence in 1959, with the government of the island passing to the Cypriots who had mounted the insurgency.

This history of Cyprus has been one of strife and warfare right up to the present time. Cyprus is the third-largest island in the Mediterranean. There have been further battles, partition, UN troops and a host of problems that may never be solved. Hostilities in 1974 divided the island into two autonomous entities, the internationally recognized Cypriot Government and a Turkish-Cypriot community (the so-called North Cyprus). The 1,000-strong UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) has served in Cyprus since 1964 and maintains the buffer zone between north and south. It runs 180 kilometers, encompassing three per cent of the island's surface area.

The UN mandate is; to prevent a recurrence of fighting by assisting pragmatically in the maintenance of the cease-fire; to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of law and order, with particular reference to the security and well-being of the communities as requested and agreed by them; and to contribute to the restoration of normal conditions.

On 1 May 2004, Cyprus entered the European Union still divided. For the purposes of this story, we will only look at that period from 1954 to 1959. Let us now look at the Cyprus war for independence in more depth.

The War Heats up

In April 1951, Greece suggested Unification with Cyprus and offered in exchange to hand over extensive areas in Cyprus and Greece for British military bases. Allegedly, the British and American clandestine services were for the trade, but the British government was against it.

Archbishop Makarios and Colonel Grivas

Colonel George Grivas arrived in Cyprus in October 1952. He wandered through the most remote and mountainous regions of the Mount Troodos and Mount Pentadaktylos, seeking for the best and most defensible places that might provide cover for troops and weapons. During his stay in Cyprus, he reached an important conclusion: His planned guerilla offensive would be carried out solely by Cypriots, despite the expressed will of many mainland Greeks, particularly soldiers, to participate. This would help legitimize the resistance in the eyes of the international community, while Greece would find it much easier to face British accusations and political pressure.

Andrew R. Molnar mentions Grivas’ recruiting techniques in Human Factors Considerations of Undergrounds in Insurgencies:

In Cyprus, one of the first steps taken by George Grivas, the leader of the Greek Cypriot insurgents was to organize a cadre of specialized terrorists. Never numbering more than 50, this small group "terrorized half a million people." Significantly, Grivas developed his cadre of terrorists only from the very young…Young men combine youthful daring and, after indoctrination, fanatical conviction, and can be made to believe they are behaving in a heroic way. Such motivation makes for an absolutely trustworthy cadre of terrorists. Grivas groomed the youths for their role as specialized terrorists through a process of escalating acts of lawlessness: first they smeared slogans on walls, then they advanced to throwing bombs into open windows or bars. Only after an extended period of testing and training were the youths given their first "professional" assignment of killing a selected target.

An example of using youth for assassinations is the murder of Royal Air Force Corporal P.J. Hale on 16 May 1956. According to published reports, two young men approached a hut on the perimeter of Nicosia Airfield where two British airmen were working. The youths asked for a drink of water and after finishing their drink they walked away, then turned and fired a three-shot volley through a window, killing Corporal Hale.

Three youths were eventually caught by security forces, all from Paleometocho village, near Nicosia. They were Michael Koutsottas, 22, Paraskevas Hiropoulis, 18, and Andreas Panaghides, 22. The two older boys were found guilty and hanged; the younger boy was sentenced to life imprisonment.

An almost identical case was reported to me by Corporal Colin Fryer in 2013. He was assigned to the 51st Brigade in Famagusta in 1958. He said:

I was assigned to the 51st Brigade Headquarters in Famagusta and was involved in the retaliation in the city for the shooting of Mrs. Cutliffe. This occurred when I was 21 years old. Whilst in Famagusta we often used to swim daily at the guarded beach. It was absolutely beautiful compared to English beaches and we all loved it. For about 6 months I used to bump into a young English lad named Brian Preece and we had great times mucking about in the warm sea. He was the son of an Royal Army Service Corps Sergeant and worked at one of the regimental barracks in the town as a civilian. He was only 17 years old, but he was very good looking and had blond wavy hair. All the things I aspired to and didn’t have! On 30 October 1958, he was walking to work early in the morning when two Cypriots asked him for a light. One went behind him and shot him in the head with a 45-caliber pistol. I heard reports that they watched him for a minute and then shot him in the head a second time. It was such a tragedy and all to allow that damn Grivas to resurrect his ailing military career. That murder stayed with me a long time and I was about 63 years old before I came to terms with the emotional aftermath. I am now 76 but still think of him. I am sure I am not alone.

In 2020, I received a letter from Douglas Michael Wynne who was a close friend of Brian Preece. Like Brian, his father was a serviceman, a Sergeant assigned to the Royal Engineers. He told me about Brian:

When I was 17, Brian and I lived in the same street. We were best friends and spent many hours together on the beach and at night we used to sit on the roof of his apartment house having a beer and joking around. He was a great mate I was in the police force as a special constable and worked in the radio room. I was on duty when the call came that Brian’s body had been discovered. It was terrible. I have never forgotten him. I used to warn him about taking a short cut through the orange groves on the way to work but he would just laugh it off.

My family and I attended his funeral in Nicosia I will never forget what a great lad Brian was. After he was killed, EOKA printed a leaflet saying I would be next. The Army moved us to Benghazi, Libya. Being young it was great to be alive, but when Brian was killed the reality of Cyprus made us all realize the danger of being British. I will always remember Brian as a young innocent boy murdered by Greek cowards.

Commander Lawrence S. Myers

Commander Lawrence S. Myers found himself in the middle of a bomb-throwing incident near his home in Famagusta one foggy morning. He was in his station wagon with his two daughters following a British lorry filled with married non-commissioned officers enroute to their regiments outside the city.  There was a crowd of Greek students milling about outside the high school entrance which he had to pass:

Suddenly, I was aware of an object thrown by one of the students, aimed at the lorry and its soldiers.   Fortunately, it missed the lorry, but landed just in front of my right front tire, exploding behind me and leaving a large pipe bomb fragment in the back of the rear seat.   One of my daughters said “Daddy that was a bomb!”  Had it exploded one or two seconds earlier, one or both of my daughters would have been killed or injured, as they were sitting on the right side of my American station wagon.

In 2015, Commander Myers, now 94 years old, wrote to me to tell me a bit more about his experiences on Cyprus. He said in part:

I would like to add a few details concerning my own experiences with EOKA, which started up shortly after I arrived there late in the summer of 1954 with my wife (an Army Nurse I married in Japan) and five young daughters, the youngest only about six months old.

We were terribly lucky to get only an 8 to 10-inch piece of pipe bomb shrapnel in the rear seat of the station wagon that the NSA rented for me and my crew to use. Only much later did I learn that Reuters had a short piece on the front page of the Times of London, stating that I was killed by that bomb.

I had an earlier run-in with a Greek mob on the edge of Nicosia one night when, driving a borrowed English civilian's car, I had picked up our mail at the Consulate and was heading back to Famagusta along the Nicosia wall. I ran smack into a milling mob with a British jeep burning on the left side of the street. I did the only thing I could, glass bottles hitting my borrowed car, by going straight ahead and honking my horn and hoping no one got hit. Later, some young Greeks set fire to the tires of my car in my garage, but a neighbor alerted us and the fire was extinguished with only minor damage to the tires.

There were so many terrorist attacks that I slowly found myself hating those Greeks. Some Examples: The Greeks shot and wounded a Greek woman in Sunday church services, and no-one saw a thing. The British moved her to their hospital in Nicosia, and EOKA unsuccessfully attacked her again. They eventually flew her to London for her continued safety.

Later, things had cooled down a bit and the British tried to set a friendlier tone by playing soccer with local teams. But a town just north of Famagusta scheduled a game and on completion of the game the crowd headed for the village well for a cooling drink. However, the Greeks held back and only the British suffered from the buried explosive.

Another event occurred earlier when a British convoy passing through a small town was similarly ambushed and cost some British lives. The troops turned around and cut down a large number of fruit trees surrounding the town, costing the Greeks a lot of income.

In 1963-1966 my anger toward those “civilized” Greeks tempered a bit because one of the friends I met at frequent cocktail parties was the Greek Military Attaché in Seoul, Korea, and we became quite friendly.

We have read Molnar’s American view of Grivas’ use of youth. Here Grivas discusses the same subject in Guerrilla Warfare:

It is among the young people that one finds audacity, the love of taking risks and the thirst for great and difficult achievements. It was to the Youth of Cyprus that I made my main appeal and called on to give their all to the struggle.

The tasks which I assigned to the youth of Cyprus were the following; the printing and distribution of proclamations, the rousing of patriotic demonstrations, the collecting of information and the shadowing of suspects. Subsequently, I assigned young people the task of forming groups of saboteurs, the manufacture of explosives, and the supervision and execution of orders concerning passive resistance. Finally, the youth were a testing ground and nursery from which I selected fighters for my groups of guerrillas and saboteurs. The youth of Cyprus endured everything but never yielded, giving a fine example of self-sacrifice and heroism. They have written pages of history of which the Greek Nation will always be proud. Schoolboys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen undertook dangerous missions such as the blowing up of aircraft at the British air-bases, the laying of mines and the blowing up of police stations. I doubt whether there was a single boy above the age of twelve who did not take part in some mission during the Cyprus campaign. I know no other example in history where the whole of a country's youth, boys and girls, has taken so active and effective a part in the struggle for their country's freedom.

James S. Corum writes about Grivas’ Intelligence coups in Training Indigenous Forces in Counterinsurgency, March 2006:

The insurgent commander, Colonel Grivas, prepared the insurgency by quietly searching out sympathizers among the Greek Cypriot policemen. With morale and conditions in the police force low and desire for enosis high among the Greek population, Grivas had no trouble recruiting selected policemen from every branch of the force who would provide the insurgents with detailed intelligence information. From 1954 to 1958, as many as 20 members of the Cyprus Police worked as active agents for the insurgents. During the insurgency, some police officers actually hid wanted EOKA terrorists on the sound assumption that the last place the British would search would be the home of a police officer.

In October 1952, Archbishop Makarios traveled to the U.S. He organized a three-month information campaign on the Cyprus question. He met with politicians and representatives of Greek community organizations, he talked to radio and TV stations and, finally, he formed a liaison committee called “Justice in Cyprus”, with the support of wealthy Greeks and Americans. This is what we call “Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield.” He was setting up the world public to recognize the legitimacy of the insurrection that he knew was coming.

In 1954, the British intelligence services a “Cyprus Directorate” in the island. It began creating databases with names of Cypriots likely to be involved in an anti-imperialist struggle. London was already aware the movement of Colonel Grivas, and refused to issue a visa for his visit in Cyprus that year. He landed secretly in Cyprus, and the British were informed of his presence. Grivas had certain advantages. Most Cypriots supported EOKA in its fight for independence and the British administration was manned with Greek-Cypriots who could provide the rebels with intelligence.

EOKA Slogan on Wall

We want to join with Greece even if we have to eat stones

Turkish Reaction

Starting about 1947, the Turkish press started directing the public’s attention to Cyprus, expressing Ankara’s concerns over Greek demands for Union. The newspaper Hurriet pioneered in the campaign to return Cyprus to the Turkish “Motherland”, while, in 1948, the “Turkish Culture of Cyprus” Club was founded. The same year, the first massive Turkish-Cypriot rally against Union took place in Nicosia. A young aggressive lawyer named Rauf Denktash urged his compatriots to resort to armed struggle in case the British give Cyprus to Greece.

In August 1954, despite the behind the scenes efforts of Britain and the U.S., Greece brought the issue of Cyprus to the U.N. This move alarmed Turkey. Prime Minister Menderes said in a speech to the “National Committee for the Salvation of Cyprus” that the island would never unite with Greece. Most Turkish political leaders made similar statements. The Turkish press accused the Greek Church of sponsoring the EOKA movement. Under the supervision of the Turkish PM himself, offices of the ultra-nationalist organization “Cyprus is Turkish” were founded in most cities. Kamil Enal, an agent of MIT (Turkish Secret Service) was placed on the executive board of this organization in order to keep it under the full control of the state.

EOKA Strikes

At the end of 1954, George Grivas established a permanent base in Nicosia, under the outmost secrecy, and started training Cypriots in the use of arms and grenades, as well as in the sabotage tactics. A valuable source of support during these difficult initial stages of the armed struggle preparations was the priest Stavros Papagathagelou, leader of the Christian Orthodox Youth Association. His members were involved in the delivery, transportation and storage of military equipment, while the most committed of those were chosen to man armed groups. The priest involved himself with the publication of a secret newspaper and the recruitment of new members to the organization.

On 1 April 1955, EOKA officially announced the beginning of the Cypriot Liberation struggle. Bomb attacks shook the island. Two weeks later, the base of the British 9th Signals Regiment in Aghios Nicolaos was attacked.

It has been suggested that the date of the first attack (April’s fool day) was selected to cause confusion to the British. Were the attacks real or some sort of joke? Grivas stated later that the psychological aim of these attacks was to create the impression to the British and the worldwide public that there was a massive resistance movement, and not just the isolated actions of a few radical individuals.

The First EOKA Leaflet

As the first bombs exploded on 1 April 1955, EOKA leaflets were disseminated in Cypriot villages and towns. The text is:

With God’s help, faith to our righteous struggle, the support of all Greeks, and the help of Cypriots, WE START OUR FIGHT AGAINST THE BRITISH RULERS, having as a dictum what our forefathers left as a holy testament, “COME BACK WITH YOUR SHIELD OR ON YOUR SHIELD”

CYPRIOT BROTHERS

From the depths of the centuries, they look upon us all those who glorified Greek history, the soldiers of Marathon and Salamis, Leonidas’ 300, the fighters of the Albanian front. The fighters of 1821 have turned our eyes towards us and teach us that that freedom is only won with BLOOD.  All of Hellenism is watching us as well, with anxiety and national pride.

Let us show with our actions that we will surpass them.

The time has come to show to the world that, even if international diplomacy is UNFAIR and COWARDLY, the Cypriot soul is nevertheless brave. If the conquerors do not want to give us our freedom, we will take it ourselves with our own HANDS and BLOOD.

Let us show to the world that no modern Greeks can bear slavery. The struggle will be difficult. The tyrant has the means and numbers.

We have the SOUL. We have RIGHT on our side. That is why we will WIN.

INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATS

Look at the result of your work. It is a disgrace in the 20th century for people to shed their blood to win their FREEDOM, this holy present for which we fought on your side, while you claim that you have fought for against fascism and Nazism

GREEKS

Wherever you are, listen to our voice.

FOLLOW US FOR THE FREEDOM OF CYPRUS

                                                                                                                                                E.O.K.A.

CAPTAIN DIGENES

Note: The text uses a great deal of patriotic historical images. “Come back with your shield or on your shield” was the farewell of Spartan mothers when their sons left for war. “Let us show with our actions that we will surpass them” was from the Oath of the Athenian Warriors.

Sir John Harding

With the situation clearly beyond the government’s ability to control it, the governor was fired in September 1955. Recently retired Field Marshall Sir John Harding, formerly Chief of the Imperial General Staff, was appointed Governor General of Cyprus. He was well versed in putting down insurgencies, having already fought them in Malaya and Kenya. The British acted quickly. The British Prime Minister criticized Athens Radio, saying that Athens “nurtures terrorism.” The British blocked the signal of the station, and broadcast messages saying that EOKA is made of “incompetent agents of political terrorism and cowardly killers.” The British authorities published propaganda announcements and the press was censored. Urban streets were filled with propaganda leaflets against EOKA. The initial British priorities were Infiltration of the EOKA, blocking the Athens Radio Station and the sponsorship of a Greek-language moderate newspaper that would present to the Cypriots a plausible “alternative” to Union with Greece.

Corum says:

Harding wanted to build his police force so that the Army could be used against the rebels in the mountains. He greatly expanded the size of the Auxiliary Police against the advice of experienced colonial officials who knew that swearing in Turkish-Cypriots would alarm the Greek Cypriot population and lead to open conflict between the island’s ethnic communities. By 1956, the Auxiliary Police had been expanded to 1,417 personnel mostly of Turkish origin. In September, a new police force, the Special Mobile Reserve, was recruited exclusively from the Turkish community. The Special Mobile Reserve was to serve as riot police and received considerably more training than the Auxiliary Police receive.

Harding refused to worry about the long-term effects of recruiting police from the Turkish community, and failed to ensure that the police had training or competent leadership. Expert advice from the outside generally was ignored…Harding did not see the insurgency as a prolonged war, but rather as a campaign to be completed victoriously by inflicting a few sharp blows against EOKA. He was confident that, with his ample resources, he could finish EOKA quickly.

If Harding carefully had planned to alienate the entire Greek population of the island and push the moderate Greeks into full support of EOKA, he could not have done better than by his policy of unleashing a horde of untrained, poorly-led Turkish police on the population. When the Turks rose against the Greeks, usually in response to an EOKA killing of a Turkish policeman, the all-Turkish Special Mobile Reserve and Auxiliary Police routinely stood by as Turkish mobs assaulted Greek civilians and ransacked their property.

The abusive behavior of the Cyprus Police was a godsend to the insurgents, who made the actions of the security forces a central theme in their international propaganda campaign. Claims of British police abuse were made by the Greek media and brought to world attention with the support of the Greek government.

Security force misbehavior played a key role in mobilizing world opinion against Britain. In the end, the insurgents were grateful for Harding’s strategy. Colonel Grivas, the insurgent leader whom the British never caught, declared that the first act of the new government after Cypriot independence should be to raise a statue to Field Marshal Harding, “since he had done more than anybody else to keep alive the spirit of Hellenic resistance in Cyprus.”

Sir Leslie Charles Glass

Sir Leslie Charles Glass was an Army officer in the Psychological Warfare Division in South East Asia in the Second World War, Director-General of Information in Cyprus during the Emergency and later Chairman of the Counter Subversion Committee. He said in a lecture to the National Defence College on 14 March 1973 to an audience cleared for Top Secret:

I myself held the post of Director General of Information under Field Marshal Sir John Harding during the EOKA troubles in Cyprus, and I believe then we got the machinery about right. I had general supervision over all the government Information Services including broadcasting and the printed word, many aspects of army public relations, and I and my senior officers had access to secret intelligence, and I myself was in the small close inner circle of the Governor’s advisers and knew all the angles of our policy and what we were aiming to do. I was also Chairman of a small Information Committee which contained representatives of all Information Services, Police, Military and Intelligence.

We had some success in white propaganda, that is through straight radio broadcasting and leaflets, but when it came to what most soldiers were looking for, which was successful black propaganda, I can only confess failure. Cyprus was a small island in which everybody knew what everybody was doing. It was impossible to assemble the sort of team of thoroughly reliable Cypriots working to give essentially false information, and unless absolute secrecy was possible the lives of any Cypriots involved and the lives of their families were at very great risk indeed. We managed a few operations using the Cypriot wives of British officials, and I will give you one example. AKEL, the Communist Party of Cyprus has a very big following. We managed after weeks of careful work to reproduce exactly an Akel leaflet correct in paper, typescript, language etc., attacking the British, praising Communism, but containing one new sentence “Comrades must remember that General Grivas is a fascist responsible for the execution of many of our comrades in Greece and he and his followers should be given no help.” I do not know what success this leaflet had but I mention it as an example of the sort of judo that black propaganda has to use.

French adds in Fighting EOKA:

Harding hoped to combine the security forces operations with civic and psychological action programs to capture the hearts and minds of Greek Cypriots…and in 1956 created an Operational Propaganda Office to produce both overt and covert propaganda leaflets…In October 1956 the security forces distributed leaflets insisting that the British would not leave Cyprus even if EOKA committed 20 times more attacks…In October 1956 the security forces issued two leaflets suggesting that Grivas and EOKA were the only obstacles in the way of a return to peace. In November 1956 another leaflet insisted that the Cypriots would only enjoy the freedom to express their own opinion without fear of assassination once the island was free of EOKA.

EOKA took the threat seriously for in January 1957 it issued two leaflets denouncing British efforts by this means “to create confusion among our ranks.”

British Anti-EOKA Leaflet

This British leaflet uses the shocking photograph of an assassinated Cypriot face down in a pool of his own blood to attack EOKA and its gunmen. The text is very straight forward:

TRUE LIBERTY

Which was the crime of this man?

He might have been heard saying that he was tired of all the terrible brutality.

He might have disputed the alleged right of certain bigots to speak on behalf of the Cypriot population.

Maybe it was just due to the fact that the Moloch of EOKA needed a victim in order to maintain his “Kingdom of Terror.”

How can they do such things in behalf of freedom?

The Cypriot population knows that real freedom is in the Atlantic Charter.

Freedom of speech
Freedom of religion
Freedom from hunger
Freedom from fear

There is no freedom under the shadow of an armed man.

Note that the British used the term “Moloch” to identify Grivas. The Moloch is a divinity worshipped by idolatrous Jews. The chief feature of Moloch's worship among the Jews seems to have been the sacrifice of children, and the usual expression for describing that sacrifice was “to pass through the fire,” a rite carried out after the victims had been put to death. The British seem to imply that to follow Grivas is to sacrifice your children.

British Government Leaflet distributed in Limassol in 1956.

WHAT EOKA OFFERS:

Blood, sadness, fear, destruction of the children, the loss of a peaceful life, economic troubles, confinement to your house, terrorism, shootings, that's the bad name they give Cypriots all over the world.

WHY:

It is now very obvious that the British are deeply involved in Cyprus and they are not leaving. The problems EOKA say they are solving EOKA created. It is a big mistake and the people admit it. Grivas is more interested in the personal glory that he hopes to get than the happiness of the Cypriot people.

WHAT IS THE WAY OUT FROM ALL THIS ANIMOSITY?

Stop all the killing by EOKA. Forget the use of force and work together in co-operation that will give Cypriots the chance to have political independence. Know that the beginning of self-government was rejected and it is impossible to have in these conditions.

If all the people work together for the happiness of Cyprus, there will be peace, happiness, and self-government!

It is not impossible to abandon the force of arms, working together for the constitution that will give the Cypriots the chance to conduct their own affairs. The recognition of this is the beginning of self-determination. But it is not possible for it to be done under the present situation that is in force at present.

All people - there are a lot of reasons happiness on the island.

EOKA stop the killings.

PEACE - HAPPINESS - SELF-GOVERNMENT!

Choose for Yourself

This British leaflet contrasts the law and order of the government at the left against the lawlessness and chaos of EOKA at the right. The anti-EOKA comments are surrounded by a black snake which might simply imply evilness. I should also point out that there was a Turkish anti-EOKA organization that called itself the Black Snake. This could be a Turkish leaflet. The text is:

CHOOSE FOR YOURSELF

Self-Government offers:

Peace, Progress; Prosperity; Freedom from fear; A Democratic opportunity for the people to run their own affairs and speak for themselves; Eventual self-determination; and a Constitution.

Constitution and self-government offers:

A new chance for happiness; Normalcy; Economic betterment; A sane future; Education and opportunity; and Better times for everybody.

What does EOKA offer?

More blood; More murder; More violence; More brutality; More hatred, and More fear.

EOKA is the only obstacle for the betterment of the Cypriot people. The violence of EOKA is a useless obstacle to the betterment of yourself, your family and you future.

Not much is known about the British leaflets to Cyprus. We can probably say with some assurance that the majority of them were safe conduct passes, surrender leaflets and leaflets offering rewards for information on the insurgents or weapons caches. There were probably consolidation leaflets too; those that support the government in power and attempt to convince the population that a legal government is better than a rebel government. Finally, I would assume that there were leaflets that featured various known rebels and attacked their cause calling them criminals or Communist terrorists.

We do not know how many leaflets were printed and airdropped over Cyprus by British aircraft. We do have one short description of the propaganda campaign written by Tom Driver of the Glider Pilot Regiment in the June 1963 Falling Leaf, the quarterly publication of the Psywar Society. He says that an average run of leaflets was 120,000 copies. Of those, generally, 105,000 were airdropped and the remaining 15,000 were distributed by hand. The number of leaflets dropped on a specific community was not fixed. If there was guerilla action in a certain area the leaflets dropped there would be increased. In addition, certain important themes like surrender leaflets were often printed in greater numbers than the average. He gives an example of Famagusta; that normally would receive a drop of 2,500 leaflets, but received 8,000 surrender leaflets. In a case where a special leaflet was prepared, the number of villages targeted might be doubled.

David French also mentions the British propaganda leaflets in Fighting Eoka: The British Counter-insurgency Campaign on Cyprus, 1955-1959; David French, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2015:

In 1956 the British created an Operational Propaganda Office to produce both overt and covert propaganda leaflets. In October 1956 the security forces distributed leaflets insisting the British would not leave Cyprus even if EOKA committed 20 more times the attacks. Leaflets were also used to sow dissention within EOKA and between EOKA and the Greek Cypriot populations. In March 1956, they published documents including copies of letters signed by Digenis ordering the murder of particular individuals on the grounds that they were traitors. In October 1956 the security forces issued two leaflets suggesting that Grivas and the EOKA were the only obstacles in the way of a return to peace. Another leaflet, published in November 1956 insisted that the Cypriots would only enjoy the freedom to express their own opinions without fear of assassination, once the island was rid of EOKA.

British troop laden truck with banner in 3 languages warning
the population "Disperse Or We Shoot"

Speaking of Famagusta, several United States Navy personnel were housed there between 1954 and 1957. They assisted the British in establishing an effective electronic intelligence-gathering facility, one of several that were eventually put into operation. They worked closely with the British 9th Signal Regiment at the Ayios Nikolaos (Saint Nikolas) Station, part of the Dhekelia military base. After independence, the United Kingdom kept the base as a sovereign administered area. Commander Lawrence S. Myers, U. S. Navy (Ret.) said that his tour in Cyprus was the most memorable three years of his 25 years' service:

I, and my six Navy Chief Petty Officers, all with families, were in civvies, ostensibly as “Canadians.”  Our job was to keep an eye on the Soviet Black Sea Fleet from Cyprus. As a newly-promoted Lieutenant Commander I was in charge of a Joint US-UK analysis group, assisted by Lieutenant Bryan Lambert, Royal Navy, in charge of six RN ratings, with twelve Royal Signals blokes rounding out the crew.  This was an outstanding group and we did a bang-up job.  My group arrived in Nicosia 9 September 1954, and EOKA began its terror campaign against the British government shortly after that date.

I always thought it was funny that we were there in civvies, supposedly “Canadians.” Ha, ha. Trying to hide Americans in plain clothes is laughable. After our “clandestine” arrival, my household goods arrived in a large shipping box, clearly labeled with my name and rank.

In general, the number of leaflets was decided by the number of people in the village, how their politics were perceived by the British (was it a hotbed of EOKA support?), and how accurately the leaflets could be dropped. Where the villages were on level ground and the drop could be controlled, less might be disseminated. If the village was on the side of a mountain, where many leaflets could be lost or blown away, more would be dropped.

Maria Hadjiathanasiou mentions cartoons from the British:

In his attempt to reach the Greek Cypriot public Governor Harding became interested in using cartoons produced by the psychological warfare Division.

   

Colonel Grivas
Dream and Reality

This British leaflet depicts Colonel Grivas as a heroic Greek soldier being cheered by the people at the top. Below we see the reality. He sits alone in a cave hiding from the British forces. The text on the front is: 

Colonel Grivas
Dream and Reality

The text on the back is:

DREAMS AND REALITIES!

The Cypriot people are beginning to realize that the end of EOKA is only a matter of time. There is a feeling of hope in the air - an atmosphere of confidence in the future.

The U.N. decision which indicated so clearly the futility of violence and political terrorism has helped to make clear the issues which confront us now that we are all looking forward to a peaceful settlement of our problems.

EOKA’s claim to be supported by all the Cypriot people has also been exposed --- the Cypriot people are looking for a PEACEFUL solution - freed from the slavery of political terrorists.

EOKA in their despair continue to traffic in dreams--- they talk of violence and threaten to destroy Cyprus - make fantastic claims of alleged "successes" against the Security Forces and boast of what they are going to do.

Well — they will NOT destroy Cyprus --- their days are numbered and as for their claims of alleged "successes" against the Security Forces these are the product of Grivas’ dreams now that the net is closing around him.

Let Grivas have his dreams --- the Cypriot people well know the difference between ---

DREAMS AND REALITIES!

LOVE

This British propaganda cartoon depicts the entrance to a Greek Orthodox club for young men. Over the doorway the word AGAPE (“LOVE”). Issuing from the door a group of young thugs armed to the teeth with Sten guns, pistols, and hand grenades.

Propaganda and the Cyprus Revolt

We are all EOKA here.

This British propaganda cartoon depicts a butcher’s van on the way to the slaughterhouse. Several unprepossessing sheep, goats and pigs with their heads hanging over the tailboard. One bearing a striking facial resemblance to the Greek Mayor of Nicosia. An inscription on the side of the van is:

"Dhigenis & Co., Butchers."
Propaganda and the Cyprus Revolt

Colonel Grivas and a Young Student

This British propaganda leaflet shows a young Greek school boy about to be pulled into the grasp of an evil-looking Colonel Grivas. The implication that he will be turned into a terrorist and his peaceful life as a student is over.

The British apparently divided Cyprus into “runs.” Each run was a specific area and an aircraft would airdrop leaflets on villages within that area. The runs are identified as: Famagusta, Kyrenia, Lefka, Limassol, Paphos, Nicosia, Troodos and the long narrow northeast strip known as the panhandle. Each run consisted of approximately 40 villages except for Troodos which had only eighteen.

Mother and Dead Child

This British leaflet depicts a weeping Greek mother carrying the limp body of her dead child. The implication is that he was killed by the terrorists and only their defeat will bring peace to Greece. The text is:

 Saint Dometios – Saturday

Making a deplorable sacrifice for the terrible fury of EOKA

Saint Dometios is a suburb located west of the Cypriot capital of Nicosia. It has a population of around 12,100 (in the 2001 census) making it one of Cyprus’ biggest municipalities. I can find no record of an EOKA action in the city but the British clearly are indicating that there was an insurgent attack and a child was killed. Since it mentions “Saturday,” we can assume this was a tactical leaflet, prepared and disseminated just a few days after the action while it was still fresh in the citizen’s minds.

The leaflets were thrown out of the aircraft in lots of about 100 from heights of 30 to 200 feet. If the village was large, the leaflets were dropped from a greater height and the wind was used to disseminate them. If British soldiers were on the ground waiting to hand distribute the leaflets, the aircraft dropped them in packed bundles of about 5000.

There was an attempt to use a method where leaflets were placed in a cardboard folder, secured with a nylon cord and a small fuse. In theory the folders could be tossed from the aircraft at six-second intervals, the cord would set the fuse and they would open 200 feet above the ground. In practice the system was a failure. It was time consuming, the fuses often did not work and it was a fire hazard. On one test run, the cord was accidentally pulled and the leaflets were scattered about the aircraft cabin.

Driver finishes by mentioning some codenames for operations such as Operation Sparrowhawk I and II in Kyrenia and then gives a typical leaflet drop for each of the runs mentioned above. We will mention just one, a typical run over the Lefka area. The number of leaflets dropped on each village is: Phlia 100, Galini 50, Pano Pyrgos 50, Kato Pyrgos 50, Pakhy Ammos 25, Kambos 100, Evrykhou 100, Nikitari 40 and Vizakia 40.

EOKA did not have the luxury of aircraft or radio stations but regularly sent proclamations to the people. After 1,500 commandos were brought to Cyprus from Malta in September 1955, it stated:

The more troops you bring to the island, the greater your losses will be.

Shortly afterwards EOKA issued thousands of copies of one of its most provocative statement. After calling the Cypriot people to the path of honour and sacrifice, the statement concluded as follows:

Since the Americans and the British are in an unholy alliance, we rest our fight upon our moral power and our right. Since the U.N. left us no other means to achieve our freedom, we are left with no choice but to shed blood. And this blood will fill the hands of the Americans and the British. British! LeaveCyprus, or else you will fill it with your blood.

In February 1957, the British closed down some high schools. The British Governor had 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 halt. EOKA published a leaflet full of admiration for the students, reminding them of the weight of their historical heritage:

The petty tyrant closed down some schools, with the excuse that they were using a foreign flag. These are Greek schools, and it was the Greek flag that were waving…

These events demonstrate that EOKA is right to point out that freedom comes first and education shall follow. That is why to give rifles to the teenagers and leave education for later. Because if we do not achieve our freedom now, we will never achieve it, while there is always time in the future for education…”

The leaflet went on to provide examples of teenagers and students who were arrested, tortured, and convicted. On 16 December 1957, Grivas spoke to the youth:

Do not falter in the face of violence. Your chests should turn into volcanoes. Freedom is won with blood, and not through peaceful whining. The latter is for cowards. Honor those who are wounded. War wounds are decorations. Laziness and egoism are signs of national and social decadence. Shame to those who choose them when others fall in battle.

The Greeks regularly attacked the British with stories of brutality and atrocities. The British were forced on to the defensive by the stories from 1956 onwards.  In June 1957, the British Government issued an 11-page statement entitled, Allegations of Brutality by British Forces in Cyprus Refuted. The British called the Greek propaganda campaign “The Smear Technique.” 

EOKA Anti-British Pamphlet
Courtesy: Lee Richards, Psywar.org

This colorful pamphlet is just one example of a sophisticated global propaganda campaign designed to discredit Britain and demonize the Security Forces. Tens of thousands of this and other propaganda literature were mailed around the world. Each item was produced in different languages including English, Greek, French, German, Spanish and Arabic. Published in Athens Greece, it accuses the British of “Nazi” tactics at the left.

British researcher Lee Richards found a Final Report of the Special Investigations Group in the British Archives. The report indicated that to counter the pernicious propaganda, in June 1958 the Cyprus Government formed a Special Investigations Group to document the activities of the Security Forces and expose EOKA lies and exaggerations. The short report said in part:

From experience in the earlier part of the Emergency in Cyprus it was found that allegations against the conduct of Security Forces were one of the main features of the terrorist organization’s campaign. The campaign aimed at: discrediting the Security Forces locally and internationally; engendering hatred locally of the Security Forces; and diverting and discouraging the Security Forces from their proper tasks.

Counter-action against the Campaign of Abuse was divided into two main categories: forestalling complaints and allegations by timely on-the-spot investigation and the publication of the accurate facts; immediate investigation of major complaints and allegations made and issuing a prompt, positive and accurate statement or denial.

The Group dealt with 191 cases during its nine months in office. In the event, there is every indication, including that from captured EOKA documents, that the Group's functions were well-conceived and successfully executed. Had it been formed at an earlier stage during the Emergency it is believed that the battle for public opinion would have had greater chances of s success, the “Smear” Campaign would have been held in check, and the task of the Security Forces made easier.

 

Wanted Man Booklet

The first British arrest warrant was published on 4 April 1955 for Gregoris Afxentiou. Information leading to his arrest would be rewarded with 250 pounds sterling. The Cypriot people destroyed most of the posters. This forced the police to provide its officers with special pamphlets which contained photographs of the wanted persons.

In 2019 a proud Greek named Lucas Stavrou wrote to say:

One of the men in that book is from my village and was my grandmother’s first cousin. Christos Samaras from Liopetri. He was killed in the Battle of the Barn. My Grandfather’s family is also from Liopetri and I still have very close connections with my village. If you would know of where I could somehow find this booklet I would be forever grateful.

Grivas “Wanted” Image

The British next put posters on the walls all over Cyprus with four different photographs Grivas, one with a Greek Army officer uniform. 10,000 pounds sterling were offered as a reward for information that would lead to his arrest. Other EOKA fighters were soon identified, the amounts offered for their arrest up to 5,000 pounds sterling.

Courtesy of David Carter of British Small Wars

The above wanted poster is for Neophytos Sophocleous, a Greek Cypriot employee at the Governor's Mansion. He placed a bomb under Field Marshal Sir John Harding's bed in March 1956. It failed to explode and the unsuccessful assassin fled to the mountains where he joined his EOKA comrades.

Second Lieutenant Michael Buckley of the Royal Norfolk regiment was mentioned in dispatches for his action after this assassination attempt:

On 21 March 1956, 2nd Lieutenant Buckley was in command of the Guard Platoon at Government House. At about 11.50 am he was called to the Governor's bedroom where what was thought to be a time bomb had been found in the Governor's bed. On entering the bedroom he confirmed that the object was a time bomb. He asked for a shovel and using it, carried the bomb out of the house, placing it in a sandbagged weapon pit where it exploded a few minutes later. The bomb was in a very dangerous state and might have exploded at any moment when once disturbed. The calm and gallant way in which this young officer handled the difficult and dangerous situation with which he was faced deserves the highest praise.

Time Magazine of 2 April 1956 added:

"We will get you, even in your bed." Thus the Greek Cypriot underground, in a mimeographed leaflet signed "The Leader Digenis," gave Britain's Field Marshal Sir John Harding its warning several weeks ago…

There, sandwiched between the mattress and springs of Harding's bed, they found a small brown-paper parcel that looked as if it might contain a book—except that a small tube protruded from one end. Guard Commander Michael Buckley took the time bomb outside and placed it in a sandbagged dugout. Ten minutes later its gelignite charge exploded with a force that would have demolished half of Government House itself. The overage World War II pencil-type detonator, which works by acid eating through metal and is normally timed to explode about twelve hours after setting, had taken around twice that time to work. Informed of the bomb, Harding mused: "That's funny. I slept better than usual last night."

Grivas apparently planned at least three attacks on Harding’s life, all unsuccessful. At the same time he was trying to kill Harding he used every available medium to attack him. Greeks were encouraged to send hate letters to the Governor which likened him to Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and Hitler. He was described as a bloodstained ogre whose hands drip with the blood of his victims. At the same time, Radio Athens attacked the Governor, accusing him of tyranny, vandalism, and cowardice.

Another measure that the British adopted was to put a red “X” on the names of fighters who have been arrested or killed, in order to weaken the morale of the Cypriot people. I should mention that this is still done today, most recently on the wanted poster of Iraqi officers and officials after the U.S. “Operation Iraqi Freedom” invasion.

Reward for Arms Leaflet

Later in the war the British administration published a special catalogue with rewards for delivering or supplying information for the existence of firearms and explosives. Notice that the price of weapons have risen considerably. The amounts offered as a reward for each type of weapon were the following:

Light machineguns: £ 500
Automatic rifles: £ 150
pistols: £ 150
rifles: £ 50
hunting rifles: £ 40

British propaganda booklet Corruption of Youth

The British 1957 propaganda booklet Corruption of Youth gives various examples of Cypriot youth being led into criminal acts by EOKA. Some of the text is:

There is one aspect of the Cypriot terrorist organisation, EOKA, which has received but little attention: the use by the organisers of violence of young people, including boys and girls of school age, to do their dirty work. They scruple nothing that these young people are thus perverted from a natural abhorrence of crime and seduced from parental control, only to be abandoned when they have served their purpose—with every prospect that their lawless generation will become an easy prey to communism.

British propaganda booklet Terrorism in Cyprus

The British propaganda booklet Terrorism in Cyprus is heavily illustrated with photographs of EOKA actions such as destroyed buildings and aircraft and assassinated Cypriots. It was published by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office for The Colonial Office about 1956 and detailed EOKA terrorist activity in Cyprus from its start in 1954. Captured Grivas documents and diaries show photograph of terrorists in their mountain camp and graphic pictures of terrorist killings and bomb attacks on two aircraft at Nicosia Airport. It details the oath taken by combatants and general orders from their leader. It attempts to prove that EOKA was in part funded by Archbishop Makarios.

Only a delayed departure saved the lives of 68 members of service families – mostly women and children – when two time bombs exploded and burned out this aircraft at Nicosia Airport on 4 March 1956.

Sir Anthony Eden, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955-1957 blamed all the Cyprus problems on Greece in Full Circle , The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden, London, 1960:

EOKA received direct support from Greece in money, arms, organization and propaganda. Greek-speaking Cypriots were awed by EOKA terrorists and subject to bombardment by Athens radio.

An example of the British concept of Radio Athens is mentioned by Stanley Mayes in Cyprus and Makarios, Putnam and Company, 1960.

The author says in part;

To the Athens broadcasters, all Cyprus had become a vast concentration camp, rivaling Buchenwald and Dachau. British troops indulged in “Hitlerite orgies”. “Patriots” were subjected to “mediaeval tortures” by “sadists” and “cannibals”. “The British set their dogs to bite their victims to death; they bind and strike the genital organs; they kick their victims in the belly to leave no mark; they inflict burns with red-hot irons; they place metal binders on the heads of patriots and screw them tight to force a confession; they use narcotics and injections to wring confessions; they pierce the breasts of women with needles; they stretch their naked victims on ice… and when the patriots die they claim that they were shot while trying to escape.

Byford Jones adds:

Radio Athens made the most savage attacks Sir John Harding…Likened him to Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and Hitler. Others called him "Anthropoid Harding." He was also described as the "bloodstained ogre whose hands drip with the blood of his victims." Another radio speaker said "Field Marshal Harding commits tyranny, vandalism, cowardice and incites treachery."

The British regularly replied to the claims of torture. An example is the Picture Post of 22 September 1956. The article says in part:

The TRUTH about the ‘BRITISH BELSEN’

Next week Lord Radcliffe returns to Cyprus with a draft constitution for the island. The fate of suspected terrorists held in British detention - Athens Radio calls them “British Belsens” - camps will depend upon his mission.

Everyone in Cyprus calls it simply “Camp K.” Obviously British troops stationed here against EOKA's bombs and terrorists would not wrestle with its full name, which is Camp Kokkinotrimithia. It is too much of a mouthful even for Greek-speaking Cypriots. Camp K is one of two installations housing suspected terrorists whose colleagues are still at large.

In its broadcasts beamed towards Cyprus, Athens Radio does not simplify either the facts or the name. It rolls out each syllable of Camp Kokkinotrimithia to symbolize charges of inhumanity on a scale unknown since Hitler. With sinister satisfaction approaching masochism, Athens broadcasts invoke the shadow of the swastika and unfold this tale of terror in its own inflammatory words.

Having known the real meaning of Dachau, we went out to Camp K through the heat of an August afternoon. Camp K is certainly surrounded by barbed wire. It has guard towers with machine-gunners posted in them. There the analogy with anything Hitlerian ends abruptly, as we discovered.

Camp K was formerly a Cyprus isolation hospital. What Athens Radio called “miserable and dirty wooden sheds” are, in fact, barracks-style buildings with some reinforced insulation against heat. Parachute troops living under smothering tentage in the same sort of bare, rocky site would consider it luxury.

Superintendent Timothy O'Donnell, who runs Camp K…says he had no preconceived ideas about administration of such a camp until he came to Cyprus, then added, with typical British approach: “We are here to give the same sort of humane, just treatment and respect for the individual we would give to anyone incarcerated at home. All the men are compensated for their incarceration. There never have been any women here. Bachelors get a minimum of five Cypriot pounds monthly out of which they can shop at a NAAFI-type store operated by detainees themselves. However, some prisoners draw up to 35 Cyprus pounds a month.

Detainees do absolutely no, repeat no, work. Prisoners buy their own food from outside contractors; decide their own menu, preferring Greco-Cypriot traditional food.

Each prisoner is allowed one visitor's card for adults, plus a reasonable number of children weekly, and families bring food packets. The prisoners are brown and healthy and in good spirits. When we toured the encampment they brought out EOKA signs and sang Battle Songs, but in high good humor. One got the impression that these men regarded this as adventure. Certainly they will return to their homes and villages as martyrs. There is no line-up as Athens Radio charged. There is no lights-out after a day that begins at 0630, with breakfast at 0730, lunch at noon and supper at 1800. Visits are allowed each day and O'Donnell had a Greek radio playing music all day over the loudspeaker system."

The British tried to make collaboration safer by suggesting that anyone could post information using a code name in order to avoid risking their lives. If the information was correct, the one who posted could go to any police station, report his nickname and receive his reward. The British also offered to send successful informers to London where they would be safe from retribution.

British officer shot in the street

Grivas talked about this selective use of terror and assassination in his memoirs:

The British who arm their commandoes with knives and instruct them to kill…from the rear – protested vigorously when such tactics were applied to themselves. It may be argued that such things are only permissible in war. This is nonsense. I was fighting a war in Cyprus against the British, and if they did not recognize the fact from the start they were forced to at the end. The truth is that our form of war, in which a few hundred fell in four years, was more selective than most, and I speak as one who has seen battlefields covered with dead. We did not strike, like the bomber, at random. We shot only British servicemen who would have killed us if they could have fired first, and civilians who were traitors or intelligence agents. To shoot down your enemies in the street may be unprecedented, but I was looking for results, not precedents.

In November 1955, at a time when British casualties were rising, British officers interviewed by the New York Times said that after the re-organization of Intelligence Services, EOKA would be eliminated within a month.

In 1958, two British paramilitary groups appeared; one called AKOE (the word EOKA written backwards) and the other “Cromwell.” Both groups prepared propaganda leaflets.

Cromwell Leaflet

The British Governor of Cyprus writes in a letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies that the above Crowell leaflet was distributed on 9 September 1958. The long text attacks both the EOKA and the Russian Orthodox Church. The grammar is weak but we know what they mean. I suspect that "Bauble" should be "Babble." At the end it threatens to take action if the killing continues. Some of the text is:

TO ALL BRITONS

TAKE HEED – WE MUST REMOVE THE BAUBLE

I can wait a little longer but my patience is running out.

If any more Britons are murdered my “Men of Iron” will strike back hard and mercilessly – not at the Greek Cypriot villager but at the Mangli’s, Dervis’s, Lanitis’s who by their greed for power have reduced this island to the level of postwar Greece.

Who or what was Cromwell? Some believe he was a member of the Royal Horse Guards in Cyprus because they trace their origins back to a force raised by Oliver Cromwell prior to the second invasion of Scotland. Others believe the Cyprus “Cromwell” adopted the name because the original Oliver Cromwell was the last strong man to govern England.

“Sergeant Philip” – Typist of the Cromwell Letter

Sergeant Philip on a military exercise. You can just make out the Gestetner on his right on which he copied the Cromwell leaflet. The Gestetner is a type of duplicating machine. The Gestetner Cyclograph was a stencil method duplicator that used a thin sheet of paper coated with wax. Ink was forced through the stencil, originally by an ink roller, and it left its impression on a white sheet of paper below. Ricoh has owned the brand since 1995.

In 2013, I received a letter from the United Kingdom from a former British RAF sergeant who wished to remain anonymous. He said:

I was posted to Royal Air Force Nicosia about February 1957. Because of the murder of Mrs. Sutcliffe by an EOKA terrorist my wife and my two sons were not allowed to join me until October 1957. We lived in a bungalow on Cyprus until I returned home in November 1959.

Our job in the Royal Air Force Regiment was the protection of airfields with the Bofors 40mm cannon and small arms. Our role in Cyprus extended beyond airfield boundaries into local villages.

I typed and reproduced the "Cromwell" leaflet. "Cromwell" was a Royal Air Force Regiment officer. I pointed out the poor grammar thinking that it might discredit the writer and message, but was told it was carefully prepared to detract attention away from the real identity of the originator. They did not want the letter to appear to have been written by a college-educated officer.

Yiannis and Wife

I have several EOKA leaflets that were given to me by my landlord, Yiannis. He was a Greek Cypriot who was brought up by an English family and spoke excellent English. My bungalow had a large room blocked off from the rest of the house and only entered from outside. Except during times of a truce I was armed by both a handgun and a British 9mm Sten sub-machine gun. At that time there was only scrub-land between my house and the next village which was Turkish. There were many skirmishes by the Turks against my village. Some of these skirmishes are better called massacres because both Greeks and Turks would be killed and the bodies abused. I was ordered not to take any action other than to protect myself and family. I never needed to do that.

Yiannis, knowing I was armed, would plead to be allowed to move with his family into my blocked off room. I always agreed. Yiannis gave me lots of EOKA, PEKA, ANE and other leaflets telling me they were in gratitude for my protection. PEKA (Politiki Epitropi Kypriakou Agona - The Political Committee of the Cypriot Struggle), was the political wing of the EOKA movement, ANE (Alkimos Neolaia Tis EOKA - Valiant Youth of EOKA) was the youth movement. Both fought against the British and Turkish Cypriots for the union of Cyprus with Greece. I turned those leaflets in.

In 1990, I went back to Cyprus on holiday and contacted Yiannis. He invited me to spend a day at my old bungalow where he and his wife now lived. He asked me if I remembered that he regularly visited his aged mother. I replied that he was a good son. He said that in this case that was not true. He told me that whenever the British found and destroyed an EOKA hideout he was called upon to use his skills as a carpenter to build a new hideout. He said he did it under threat of his and his family's life. EOKA told him he must developer a relationship with me and give me their leaflets as if he had found them in the street. He told me from that time my life was useful to EOKA and I was safe. Apparently, I was the unknowing conduit for EOKA propaganda to reach the British authorities.

On the bright side, I recently discovered that the Cromwell leaflets affected Grivas’ thinking. How satisfying it is to think that his use of me may have meant some soldiers’ lives were saved.

The EOKA leaflets also affected officers on our side. The officer I handed the leaflets to was very frustrated. There was a belief among our troops that there was no will to win among the politicians. The rules of engagement required us to hold fire until we had called out "halt…stomata...dur" three times. Even though we knew certain priests were carrying guns to EOKA under their robes we were forbidden to stop and search them.

The RAF officer eventually invented Cromwell and wrote the propaganda leaflets because he felt that EOKA was winning the psychological war. The only people who were involved in the Cromwell leaflets were Cromwell, a second officer and me. There were only two leaflets, the original one and a second one threatening to kill two random Greek Cypriots for every British soldier. I typed and duplicated both leaflets whilst on exercises around Nicosia. I assume they were disseminated during those exercises. When I asked why there were no further leaflets I was told "I intend to frighten Grivas, not my country.”

Both Yiannis and Cromwell are dead. Both were good men. Cromwell became a prominent member of government.

Since we mention PEKA above let me quote some material from Maria Hadjiathanasiou’s Propaganda and the Cyprus Revolt: Rebellion, Counterinsurgency, and the Media, 1955-59, about PEKA:

PEKA was established in August 1956 and was to be the political arm of EOKA. It was responsible for leaflet production and dissemination in Cyprus. These leaflets were meant to boost the Greek Cypriots' morale but were also essentially instructing them how to behave against the colonial forces and to continue in their anti-colonial struggle for independence and enosis with Greece. In a secret telegram of 15 September 1956 from Harding to the Secretary of State for the colonies, Harding wrote about this new subversive organization PEKA. From a series of PEKA leaflets made available to him after confiscation, Harding came to the realization that PEKA's views and aims were identical to those of EOKA. Therefore, PEKA was also to be banned, making the reproduction by any newspaper of a PEKA leaflet illegal, as was the case with EOKA's leaflets.

EOKA's and PEKA's first printing facilities were found at the Theological (College in Nicosia. A duplicating machine/mimeograph printed the leaflets in batches, and these were then sent to EOKA's cells. When Constantinos Lefkosiatis, the College Director, was arrested in June 1956, the process of reproduction had to be decentralized and therefore EOKA’s cells took over. Decentralization created problems, as it became increasingly difficult to find typewriters and duplicating machines. This problem was solved by acquiring new machines from schools, unions, and offices. There were cases when these were ‘stolen’ in agreement with the school’s principal. Until this problem was solved hundreds of leaflets were handwritten and typed for dissemination.

EOKA Heroes Victory Parade

After Cyprus became independent, Makarios returned to the island on 1 March 1959. Thousands of Cypriots came out to greet him. One of our friends in Cyprus was Roger Aston. He was married to Makarios’ niece. My wife Joy persuaded him to take her to the victory parade and celebration. He agreed providing she dyed her blond hair and dressed in typical Cypriot women's clothes loaned by his wife.  

 

The Makarios/Grivas Victory Parade Flag

It was still a dangerous place to be British. She watched as General Grivas and Archbishop Makarios drove by in a big flag-bearing car. My brave wife had a flag showing Makarios on one side and Grivas on the other. She waved the flag as their car drove by

If a British civilian were murdered, Cromwell demanded swift retribution by killing two or more Greeks. Should Grivas bomb a British establishment, Cromwell wanted to destroy the equivalent amount of Greek property. British Intelligence Officers discovered several British soldiers were in league with Cromwell. They had duplicated his pamphlets on military duplicating machines and scattered them while on patrol. To avoid bad publicity in the press back at home, those service personnel found to be co-operating with this clandestine organization were quietly and quickly shipped back to the UK.

How many were returned is not known, but at least one NCO of the Royal Signals, based at Dhekelia was sentenced to nine months’ detention and reduced in rank for distributing leaflets urging security forces to answer EOKA terrorism with violence against Greek Cypriots. In another case, a member of the Royal Air Force was removed from his job at Nicosia.

It is interesting to note that Greek translation of the above leaflet appears in Colonel Grivas' official memoirs so it is clear that he was aware of the anti-EOKA movement.

A member of the Royal Artillery mentioned seeing a Cromwell graffiti comment on a Greek wall:

I came across Cromwell for the first time, when I was on a one-week “Pussy Foot Patrol,” three of us patrolling in the countryside, by night, laying up by day and getting our rations from secret supply points. One night I crept into a Greek Cypriot village and saw written on a wall, “CROMWELL WILL GET YOU,” painted above a partially crossed out EOKA slogan saying, “KILL THE BRITISH.” 

An EOKA Leaflet from Sergeant Philip

This is one of the leaflets that Sergeant Phillip was given by his secret EOKA agent landlord. It depicts Greek patriots firing rifles at the top and bottom and a Kladia tree at the left labeled “Freedom” and “25 March,” the date that began the 1821 revolution against the Turks. The rifleman at bottom is labeled “Greece 1821” The text says in part:

Today Cyprus with the heroism of its lads, writes a new 21. [Referring to 1821 presumably.]

Freedom blooms with the Kladia tree. The tree has deep roots in the Greek Revolution of 1821, where Greece was freed from the Turkish grip.

On 25 March, Greece turned on the street lights in order to see Freedom. Today, Cyprus writes with the heroism of her children in the new 1821.

The leaflet was distributed in Nicosia on 24 March 1957.

Here is an ANE leaflet from Sergeant Philip. The translation is very rough because many of the words do not translate well to English. I believe the monster is the new constitution that kept the island divided:

CHOSEN YOUNG PERSONS AND THE NEW CYPRUS

Our waiting exhausted us. We were consumed with the hope that in the final hours the miserable employee Lloyd would see the logic and fear to fuel our rage. However the mercenaries, advancing with harsh steps imposed on our population, the constitution - a monster that only a sick brain might expect all to accept and cooperate with.

This monster that will fall, saw the light of day and soon will die. You that are always first; you gave examples of true human value, ready for new fights, new sacrifices, and also new triumphs. The Homeland calls you. All to the bastions! Your heart lights up with the desire of freedom. Your arms are as strong as the Greek soul. Teach the mad governor that the brave youth of Cyprus knows, lives, fights, dies and is overcome with the love of freedom. Learn from our mouth that our decision to bury his monster creation is irrevocable and final.

With faith in the final victory; forward to the fight. Your steps light up the glow of eternal Greece. He, our legendary leader Diogenes, the Titan of Cyprus walks through fire. To the front, children of Greece.

YOU BRING FREEDOM TO THE HOMELAND

A.N.E

Chosen Youth of the EOKA.

The “Lloyd” mentioned in the leaflet would seem to be Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, the British Foreign Secretary who had a great part in the events leading up to the Constitution of Cyprus.

Sergeant Philip sent me a number of Greek leaflets so I could fill the rest of this article with them. I think I will end with this one. Another all-text rather tedious item distributed in Nicosia on 17 October 1958. Researcher Lee Richards provided the translation from British military records:

E.O.K.A

IMPUDENCE AND TRUTH

The propaganda of the Tories impudently repeats again that the solution of the Cyprus question is hindered by the anomalous situation which prevails in the Island for which EOKA and the people of Cyprus are responsible.

We would have refused to reply to such hypocritical pretexts if we did not see that persons in whose good will we still wish to believe are being misled. So we reply.

Now, Messrs. Tories, the abnormal situation in Cyprus prevents you from finding a political solution to the question. What have you been doing during the period of the three truces which the struggling people of Cyprus offered to you and which total 17 months? What else have you been doing apart from ignoring the truce and the people of Cyprus and misleading them in order to impose a plan which would make them captives of your interest and those of your unlawful allies the Turks? You have used all means from provocation to the most disgraceful and distressing force, but have not succeeded, neither will you succeed, in bringing the Cyprus people to their knees.

We have declared that we are struggling for our freedom and on the altar of freedom any price is small. Our decision is to win. By refusing to use political means you have forced on us this armed struggle.

If you wish the struggle to cease, follow, even belatedly, the straight way of honest and sincere political means. Then the anomaly will end.

Long Live our Fighters

E.O.K.A.

LONG LIVE OUR FIGHTERS

Another hero dies and joins the Pantheon of the Cypriot fight: KYRIAKOS MATSIS.

His heroic death marks once again the bloodstained path that every fighter will follow, to face the tyrant always with a finger on the trigger and with the firm decision either to destroy the enemy or to die. It shows every Cypriot Greek (man, woman, and child) the path of the honor and the duty that has to be followed for the success of our fight. It cries out to the civilized nations of the ideals, self-sacrifice, and ethical strength that the fighters for Cypriot Freedom are endowed with.

The gaps of those that leave us forever are filled immediately with our reserve, which in their turn look forward to joining this fight and with the noble ambition to become even more heroic than their predecessors.

The nation of brave men, with their heroic dead and their titanic fighters never dies, but always WINS.

May the memory of our dead fighters be eternal.

Long live our fighters.

EOKA
THE LEADER
DIGENIS

TO CYPRUS YOUTH

EOKA

TO CYPRUS YOUTH

You have shown once again that the inextinguishable torch of the Nation burns within yourselves. With the enthusiasm of the fighters of our liberation struggles and with the self-sacrifice of those who prefer death to slavery you daily raise the glory of our struggle to higher standards and you will continue to do so until it reaches the zenith.

I proudly follow the titanic struggle you wage by the side of our titans who strike the tyrant with arms and bombs, and I command you: ‘Do not bend in front of any force. Let your breasts become volcanoes pouring out lava in order to clear away the dirty miasma of Nazism and tyranny from our island. Let your bodies become leveling-rollers to sweep away the neo-Nazism from Cyprus”.

Enslaved people achieve their freedom by shedding blood and not with peaceful cries. Only COWARDS cry.

Wounds sustained in struggle are medals. Honor to those who bear them.

Inactivity and selfishness are characteristics of national and social downfall. Shame on those who remain inactive at a time when others fight and fall.

Be ready for new struggles and new glories if it becomes necessary for Cyprus to ask you to join the ranks of legendary A.N.E.

EOKA
THE LEADER
DIGENIS

NOTE: A.N.E. is Alkimos Neolaia Tis EOKA (Valiant Youth of EOKA). ANE’s wide range of duties included surveillance and intimidation. As they demonstrated proficiency as gunmen, they were promoted to full membership of EOKA

Signalman Norman Barber

Signalman Norman Barber of the 2nd Squadron, 2nd Wireless Regiment, picked up this leaflet on King Edward Street in the town of Famagusta while he was stationed in Cyprus with the British Army in 1958. He said that EOKA regularly threw leaflets from speeding cars. He believed that this leaflet was addressed to Cypriot Youth.

The British PSYOP specialist Lee Richards helped find the translation of this leaflet from his regular visits to the British Archives. He told me:

There was a real battle of leaflets in Cyprus. For example between the beginning of 1957 to the end of 1958, security forces found over 1,200 different leaflets on the streets of Cyprus produced by both Greek and Turkish insurgent groups, e.g. EOKA/PEKA, AKEL, EK, TNT, and Volkan. Most of these were simple cyclostyled typewritten leaflets with occasional crude line drawings.

On 9 January 1956, Kyriakos Matsis was arrested by the British. He was personally questioned by Cyprus Governor Sir John Harding who offered Matsis £500,000, a new identity and relocation if he would reveal the whereabouts of EOKA leader Colonel Grivas. Matsis replied, “This struggle is for virtue not for money.” Matsis was imprisoned and escaped with six fellow inmates on 13 September 1956. Matsis and two companions were eventually surrounded by British troops and he ordered his comrades to surrender but refused to do so himself. When the British commanded him to come out, he answered, “I'll come out shooting!” The British then firebombed his hideaway. When the smoke cleared, his dismembered body was found.

The strategic goal of EOKA was never to beat the British. The goal of EOKA was the systematic exhaustion of the opponent, through merciless and continuous guerilla attacks, in order to create a political environment that would facilitate the achievement of Union. This was clarified by Grivas himself, who noted that the aim of EOKA was to increase the awareness of international public opinion and to internationalize the Cypriot question, in order to force the UN to take the appropriate actions that would satisfy the demands of Hellenism.

The Turkish resistance to EOKA is mentioned in depth in A History of Cyprus, by Dr. Stavros Pantelli, East-West Publications, UK, 2000. Pantelli points out that soon after the EOKA campaign began, a counter Turkish underground organization was established. It was called Kara Yilan (Black Snake). It was the predecessor of Volkan (The Volcano).

French-speaking Dr Fazil Kutchuk and British trained barrister Rauf Denktash represented Turkish nationalism. Turkish Cypriots joined Dr Kutchuk's Turkish Cypriot Popular Party. The party later became the “Cyprus is Turkish Party” under Hikmet Bil, who arrived in the Island in 1955 from Turkey for this purpose. Kutchuk then became chairman of the “Cyprus is Turkish Party,” which propagated the theory that self-determination for Cyprus would result in the annihilation of all Turks, civil war and ultimately total unrest in the middle east.

As EOKA hit harder at British military personnel and installations, more British jobs were taken away from Greek Cypriots and given to Turks. Separate police units were formed, manned mainly by Turks under British officers, whose task it was to control Greek disturbances and help the army fight EOKA.

On 11 January 1956 Abdullah Ali Riza, a Turkish police sergeant who had given evidence at the trial of EOKA members, was shot dead. This precipitated Turkish Cypriot attacks against Greek stores in Nicosia. The Turkish underground organization Volkan issued leaflets on that occasion threatening reprisals - five Greek lives for every Turk killed.

Kutchuk protested to Governor Harding and in a message to Makarios demanded that the Greek community condemn the murder. At Vassilia village, fighting broke out between Greeks and Turks on 19 March 1956 and about 20 people were hurt. On the following day, 500 Turks smashed the windows of Greek-owned shops and offices in the Turkish quarter of Nicosia. On 23 April fighting again broke out after another Turkish police officer was shot dead. On 25 May, crowds of Turkish Cypriots attacked Greek stores and premises in Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos. Similar disturbances took place in January and February of 1957.

Turkish Leaflet

The Turks answered their Greeks rivals in kind. This 17 August 1957 leaflet attacks a number of Greek political positions and even the Greek Church. It says in part:

Did you forget that archbishops succeeded their predecessors by poisoning them and that street fights were fought between your left and right brothers? Don’t you know that the Greek youths shot in the streets as traitors were killed for the sole reason of strengthening the position of your archbishop? Are you claiming it in the name of freedom? Now I am asking you WERE YOU NOT NEARER TO ENOSIS BEFORE EOKA WAS IN EXISTENCE?

The Turks were now determined to achieve their object of taksim (partition) and Volkan, led by Rauf Denktash, would be their means. The fighting arm of Volkan, and its successor late in 1957, was called the Turk Mudafaa (sometimes Mukavemet Teskilati, the Turkish Defense or Resistance Organization. For short, it was known as the TMT.

David Carter (left), the editor of the Cyprus section of the Britain’s Small
Wars website and Rauf Denktash, the leader of the Turkish Cypriots
and later president of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,”
meet in 1989 at a briefing on the Cyprus Question.

In November 1957, the Turkish TMT published its first leaflet, in which it claimed that it would act throughout Cyprus and urged the Turkish-Cypriot people to support its actions. The members of TMT took an oath on the Koran and the Turkish flag:

I give my word that I will resist to any attack against Turkish lives and property. Our organization will only be dismantled when the glorious Turkish flag waves in Cyprus . I dedicate myself to the Turkish nation.

A TMT leaflet distributed in Larnaca on 6 June 1958 included the following:

O Turkish Youth! The day is near when you will be called upon to sacrifice your life and blood in the PARTITION struggle - to the struggle for freedom. You are a brave Turk. You are faithful to your country and nation and are entrusted with the task of demonstrating Turkish might. Be ready to break the chains of slavery with your determination and will-power and with your love of freedom. All Turkdom, right and justice and God are with you. PARTITION OR DEATH

David French mentions a TMT leaflet distributed on 23 January 1958 in Fighting EOKA:

We will frustrate all the plans of those who are seeking to prepare a dark fate of the Turks of Cyprus. It will be your shield against barbarous Greek attacks. It will retaliate if need be. It will not for a moment desist from striving with self-sacrifice TO THE LAST MAN until the Turkish cause is recognized.

The TMT, though smaller and less well organized, followed EOKA tactics. Hence, the boycott of British goods, which EOKA had ordered on 6 March 1958, was now applied by the Turks to Greek produce. Turks caught smoking Greek cigarettes or using Greek shops were beaten up by gangs of youths. Any Turk who deviated from the national line that coexistence with the Greeks was impossible was liable to be denounced as a traitor.

In spring 1958 two Turkish Cypriot democrats who belonged to a Greek and pre-dominantly left-wing trade union were murdered by TMT, not primarily for their ideological beliefs but mainly because such membership involved co-operation with the Greeks. EOKA was taking similar action against its “traitors.”

By mid-1958 Turkish Cypriots were sure that soon the tide would turn their way. On 7 June 1958, Turkish Cypriots started fires in Nicosia. In two months of bitter communal strife, 56 Greeks and 53 Turks were killed. Paphos were burnt down. In Nicosia, the Olympiacos club and other places suffered the same fate.

Passions reached a climax on Thursday 12 June 1958, when the Turks massacred eight Greeks during a clash near the Turkish village of Guenyeli. The report by the Commission of Inquiry (Sir Paget Bourne, Chief Justice of Cyprus, was the sole Commissioner) was published in Nicosia on 9 December 1958. The commission sat from 20 June to the 28th. It found that the 35 Greek “prisoners” from Skylloura had been rounded up by the security forces and, surprisingly, released on the same day near Guenyeli, seven miles from where they were arrested and a considerable distance from the nearest Greek villages. This incident has gone down in Cypriot history as the “Guenyeli Massacre,” organized by the British and executed by the Turks.

On 4 August, Grivas issued a cryptic leaflet declaring a five-day cease-fire against the British and Turks, but reserving the right to future action in the event of provocation.

The TMT responded two days later with orders that all armed groups should stop their activities until further notice, that no Greek property should be touched unless Turkish property was touched and that no pressure should be brought to bear on Greeks.

Although communal strife did not break out again the August cease-fire soon broke down because the authorities continued to hunt EOKA men. Grivas, who had by now become more of a legendary figure and was described as Apiastos (the one who cannot be taken), ordered his execution squads back to work.

Rauf Denktash, who was becoming increasingly popular among the Turkish-Cypriot community during that era, said later:

Everyone, including the British services, believed that I was the leader, that I was making all the decisions! But I was not. Army officers in Turkey were in head of TMT.

As the Cypriot Turks entered the conflict EOKA responded by intensifying its activities and with a rigorous propaganda campaign as well. One of its leaflets to the British conquerors and their Turkish collaborators said in part:

We shall not negotiate our right to LIBERTY .

We shall immediately answer the horrible crimes of the Anglo-Turks. That is to say:

For the murder of every Greek by the British, we shall execute Englishmen.

For the murder of every Greek by Turks, we shall execute Turks….

The Greeks finally decided to compromise from their hard line approach of “Union, and Union only.” Both Makarios and the Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis started referring to the possibility of independence, or even autonomy. It might be that some of the Cypriot Greeks were tiring of the war. For instance, we know that in 1958 EOKA published a leaflet in which it named Cypriots who acted as agents of the British.

In October 1957, John Harding submitted his resignation. He was replaced by Hugh Foot. The new governor appeared to be appeasing and conciliatory. In Christmas of 1957, for example, he freed 222 prisoners, including 24 priests.

EOKA Leaflet Urging Boycott of British Goods

Warrant Officer Richard Hitchcock (Recipient of the British Empire Medal) was a member of the Royal Air Force stationed in Cyprus during the EOKA "troubles." His son remembers him telling stories of having to leave the house each day by a different opening and at a different time so that he would have no pattern that might make him an easy target for the Guerrillas. Hitchcock brought this leaflet home. It depicts a Greek that might be Grivas pointing a weapon at a fat and wealthy symbol of Great Britain holding a bag of money. Greeks hang in the background. The text is:

Greek People

The British Government takes money from the people of Cyprus for their own pockets. Cypriots must not purchase British goods.

In spring 1958, EOKA published leaflet, urging “passive resistance.” The main aim of the economic sabotage of firms that cooperated with the British or imported British, was to show to the world that the struggle of the Cypriot people enjoyed wide acceptance, and was not a case of fanatical extremists, as was claimed by British propaganda. The Cypriot people responded to the call of EOKA , causing some damage to the British economy that may have amounted to millions of pounds. The boycott of British goods was probably not successful and was eventually abandoned on the instructions of Archbishop Makarios after some merchants faced bankruptcy.

Grivas gives his own view of passive resistance in Guerrilla Warfare:

This was a powerful weapon which reinforced and supplemented the armed struggle. I know of no other case in which this method was used on such a wide scale and with so effective an organization, except in India under Mahatma Gandhi. My principal object in organizing the boycott was, first, to make a moral impression on the British people and, second, to create difficulties for the Government of Cyprus by reducing its resources. It is a fact that, as the result of our passive resistance, the Cyprus Government became bankrupt. No longer able to meet its expenditure, it was forced to borrow from the Cyprus banks and from public corporations, besides instituting a government lottery.

British R.A.F. Warning Poster depicting numerous EOKA Attacks

This 11 February 1959 Royal Air Force Nicosia warning poster entitled “Apathy + Laxity” is a warning poster for the troops to keep up their alertness and watch out for bombs and other terrorist activities. It is not unlike the WWII “Loose Lips sink Ships” poster. Numerous acts of sabotage are depicted on the poster such as: Hermes destroyed by bomb – April 1956; bomb explosion station cinema – January 1957; bomb in water chlorination plant – April 1958; and two bombs found under NAFFI settee – September 1958. Curiously, the captions are sometimes humorous.

The EOKA bombs were usually home-made devices that used sugar and potassium Chlorate as an explosive. They were very unstable. They could blow up at any time or not at all. They did not have the power of military grade explosives. One reason the British loss of life was so low is that it is estimated that more than half the EOKA explosives failed.

This is not to imply that EOKA was passive. Quite the contrary. In the latter part of 1958 EOKA shot and killed a British Sergeant named Hammond in Ledra Street in Nicosia. In October they shot two British Army wives, killing one. This caused the Army to lose control and they arrested over a hundred Cypriots, many of whom were beaten so badly that they died. Some British defenders refute that Greek claim and one stated to me that only three Greek Cypriots died, one from natural causes, and none was killed by beating. He adds:

British Forces were furious at EOKA’s tactics to place bombs in prams and throw grenades into family bedrooms. Mrs. Cutliffe, the wife of a sergeant in 29 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, was murdered by Kikis Constantinou. At the end of the 1955-59 conflict, he joined the Greek Army contingent based in Cyprus as an officer and continued to train Greek Cypriot militia irregulars for attacks against Turkish Cypriots in the post-December 1963 “civil war.”

A British soldier is quoted:

There is no disguising the fact that a degree of force was used during the roundup. I have the utmost sympathy for those injured and their families, and will not try to make excuses for the behavior of some of our troops. I will merely state that during my tour of duty in Cyprus, I saw very few acts of gratuitous violence used by British troops. I saw plenty of callous behavior by Greek Cypriots towards their own people and how they walked ignored injured British troops and civilians, some of them mere children. Even after all these years it makes my blood boil thinking about it. The majority of servicemen in Cyprus were 19 & 20 year old men, friendly to a point of naivety.

The soldier above mentions “a degree of force.” A British woman named Hilda Brown who was married to a Cypriot saw the violence in Famagusta and wrote a letter to the Manchester Guardian on 20 October 1958. She was apparently embarrassed by the overabundance of force shown by the British Troops. I quote a small portion of the letter:

On the night of Friday, October the 3rd, right outside my house, I saw a sight that will stay with me forever, enacted by the British Army. When the sirens went, the people started to leave the town, passing through various road blocks. When they arrived outside my house, the troops stopped each car or bus with epitaphs which I never knew existed in the English language...The soldiers bashed in car doors with their pistols and rifles; they rough-handled the drivers and passengers from their seats…People were made to sit in groups…They sat with their hands on their heads and were hit on the back of their heads by any passing British type. Old men were hit across their legs, then across their backs with batons and rifles.

It was a scene that should have been set in Hungary during the uprisings there, not in a British colony…The young ones were taken up to the camp across from my house. The organized beatings must have been terrible. They arrived home with clothes torn, hands, arms, heads and legs bandaged. A pitiful sight! A blot of the British nation.

It was a brutal murder that had been committed…Were all of these people – one thousand, responsible for the murder? These people were innocent. I would go so far as to say not one of them even knew what happened. I am willing to stand by all I have said – I saw it. And as an English woman I was appalled.

When this news clipping was sent to me my first question was “why were the British so infuriated? There must be a reason.” Further investigation showed that was the same day that Mrs. Cutliffe, the wife of a British Army Sergeant was murdered and the wife of a second sergeant was wounded. The British were furious and seem to have overacted, which of course favored EOKA. It creates more volunteers for their forces.

The British House of Commons investigated and during the meeting the official report of the incident was discussed. This report seems to back the letter we mention above:

Standing Orders exist that whenever a murder takes place sirens are blown which inform the security forces that an immediate curfew is to be imposed in the particular area. This makes it possible to arrest all likely assailants for screening. If there were to be any hope of arresting the assailants in this instance quick and inevitably drastic action was essential. Orders were given to round up all youths, and road blocks were established, as well as cordons to prevent people leaving the town. About a thousand were arrested and taken to holding centers, from where they were released later that night after questioning. Many tried to escape and to resist arrest. In the course of this operation two Greek Cypriots died and a number were injured. Twenty-one were detained in hospital. All but one has now been discharged. The inquests on the two men who died are due to take place on 13th November. Damage was also done to a few motor vehicles and to some shops.

The British NAAFI Club after the bomb explosion.

On the eve of Remembrance Sunday, Saturday 7th November 1958, two Royal Air Force members were killed by a bomb in a Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) club.

On Christmas Day, 1958, the UN Assembly unanimously approved the proposal which called for “a peaceful, democratic, and just solution in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter.” On the morning of 11 February 1959, the radio station of Cyprus announced that Athens and Ankara reached to an agreement regarding the Cyprus question on the basis of independence .

The British detention camps were closed in February 1959. It is estimated that more than 3,000 fighters were jailed there, some of them for two to three years. Thirteen fighters are believed to have died from torture in police stations and detention camps.

In 9 March 1959, Grivas issued his message Cypriot He wanted to visit the graves of his deceased comrades The British refused. It was not until 1987 that Greece officially recognized EOKA and the national resistance of the Cypriot people.

Bernard B. Fall said in the Naval War College Review, Winter 1998, “The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency”:

Remember that the British fought in Cyprus, and seemingly had everything in their favor. It is an island half the size of New Jersey. The Royal Navy, which can be trusted to do its job, sealed off the island from the outside. There were 40,000 British troops on Cyprus under Field Marshal Sir John Harding, and his opponent, Colonel George Grivas, had 300 Greeks in the EOKA. The ratio between regular troops and guerrillas was 110-to-1 in favor of the British! After five years the British preferred to come to terms with the rebels.

EOKA Medal

Curiously, although it is known that there were never more than 300 to 400 members of EOKA, during 2005 and 2006 the Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos awarded no less than 21,000 EOKA medals to so-called EOKA members. Apparently, like the thousands of alleged veterans of the Vietnam War in the United States, there are many Greek “wannabees.”

The EOKA medal depicts Gregoris Afxentiou, code names “Zedhros” and “Zodro.” Grivas called him, “The eagle of Pentadactylos.”

A former truck driver from Lysi, he served as a lieutenant in the mainland Greek Army from 1948 to 1952. He was EOKA’s second in command, an effective guerrilla, killed 4 March 1957 in a 10-hour-long battle near the Machairas Monastery in the Troodos Mountains. His final battle was between his small gang and the Security Forces, including members of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers and the Grenadier Guards. Of the 5-man Greek Cypriot gang, four surrendered.

Despite his comrades’ surrender, Afxentiou refused to come out of the cave. Eventually a Royal Engineer dropped gasoline into a hole in the roof. It was set alight and the cave exploded. When the troops were able to enter, they found his charred body. Underneath was a copy of “Christ Recrucified” by Abbot Irineos.

While some British troops give Afxentiou respect for his stand, considering him one of the few EOKA members who stood and fought, others are more critical. One has cynically observed:

This engagement has fast become one of the epics of Greek history, taking its place in the exaggerated speeches and writings of Cypriots with Koungi, Arkadi, Thermopylae and Gravis. The inexperienced EOKA gunmen, who took part, are likewise being likened to the Titans and the half Gods.

Today there is a large monument to Afxentiou’s memory, erected by the Greek Cypriot authorities. They have carefully restored his hideout, which has become a pilgrimage site for school children.

One of the most interesting things about Gregoris Afxentiou is that a bomb was named after him. During WWII the Russians used an incendiary bomb usually containing gasoline in a bottle that they called the "Molotov Cocktail" in honor of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, the Foreign Minister and Secretary of War of the Soviet Union during World War II. In Cyprus, a similar "cocktail bomb" was named after Afxentiou. This "Afxentiou Cocktail Bomb" could be made in different variations and used as an incendiary time bomb or an electronically detonated incendiary bomb.

The British side never did recognize EOKA as anything but terrorists. The 1956 official guidance booklet issued to all service members: Why we are in Cyprus states:

Since March 1955, the political agitation of the Church, the active sponsorship of the Greek Government, and the violent outpouring on Athens Radio in support of the cause of ENOSIS have been supported by an underground terrorist organization known as EOKA. This organization, which copies Stern Gang methods, is an extremist right-wing organization, led by a Greek national, Colonel Grivas, who led a similar strong-arm Fascist organization in the Greek troubles after the war. The organization represents only a small minority of the people of Cyprus. Their immediate aims are far more extreme than is demanded by Greek Cypriot public opinion.

The British presented EOKA as a group run by hot-blooded extremists and reactionary churchmen. They could not admit the simple fact that the struggle of the Cypriot people was massive and expressed the perpetual demand of the Greek community to unite with the national fatherland. The demand for Union was adopted by all social classes, from the bourgeois of the cities to the simple villagers. This entire dynamic is summarized in three words only, the words of the mayor of Nicosia, Themistoclis Dervis, to the British Governor, John Harding:

WE ARE ALL EOKA

David French concluded his book with the idea that everyone was equally guilty of what we might today call “war crimes,” and nobody held the moral high ground. I will edit his comments greatly here and just give a sample:

The security forces used coercion in the form of curfews, cordon and search operations, arrests without a warrant, and detention without a trial. EOKA and TMT have insisted that they only used lethal violence against the enemies of their community. Both EOKA and TMT detested “traitors.” EOKA practiced the wholesale intimidation of the Greek Cypriot community, culminating in the assassination of over 180 of its own compatriots. TMT, starting later and operating on a smaller scale, still managed to assassinate its share of Turkish Cypriots.

It is interesting to note that even today the Greeks and Turks see the war in a completely different light. What is really amazing is that both sides have commemorative museums on the island with the same name.

The Greek Cypriot Museum of National Struggle

The Greek Cypriot Museum of National Struggle was built in the 1960s in commemoration of the EOKA struggle against the British. The letters EOKA are spelled using photos of dead heroes. Guns are on display to show how well equipped the British were in contrast to the EOKA fighters. The Museum focuses mostly on the struggle between the British and the Greek Cypriots, making only passing references to Turkish Cypriots.

The Turkish Cypriot Museum of National Struggle

The Turkish Cypriot Museum of National Struggle was constructed in 1978. The letters TMT are spelled using photographs of dead fighters and the comparison is made between the guns used by TMT and the guns used by Greek Cypriots in order to show the latter’s military might.

Alleged Home-made weapons made by the Turk Cypriots to defend their communities

A Memorial to Turks killed fighting the Greeks

The Greek Cypriots are presented as the archenemy in this museum with only passing references to the British.

The Turkish Invasion of Cyprus – 1974

Turkish Patriotic Poster

Armed conflict returned to Cyprus in 1974. On 15 July 1974, the military Junta in Greece backed an uprising in Cyprus that overthrew Cypriot president Archbishop Makarios and installed Nikos Sampson in his place. Makarios had begun to move away from the concept of Enosis with Greece and leaned instead toward national independence for Cyprus distinct from that of Greece.

At the same time, civilian paramilitary groups on the island, namely, the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters; Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B (EOKA B) and the Turkish Resistance Organization; Turk Mukavemet Teskilati (TMT) were becoming more powerful. The Greek Cypriot National Guard joined the traditional call for Enosis and no longer supported Makarios.

Turkey, apparently believing that the Turks on Cyprus were in danger and using the overthrow of Makarios as an excuse, launched a military invasion of the island on 29 July 1974 called Operation Attila. Turkish troops eventually seized 37% of the territory of Cyprus in the north. About 142.000 Greek Cypriots living in the north, nearly one quarter of the population of Cyprus, were forcibly expelled from the occupied northern part of the island.

The Turkish invasion ended in the partition of Cyprus and the authorization of an UN-monitored buffer zone known as “the Green Line” which still divides Cyprus today.

To the Turkish and Greek Population of Cyprus.

The Turks dropped numerous propaganda leaflets on Cyprus before and during their invasion. I have seen about a dozen, but will just depict a few of the ones that have interesting images. The leaflets are sometimes found with Turkish and Greek text (since the two peoples lived together at that time) and sometimes in Turkish only. As might be expected, the former leaflets spoke mostly of peace because the Greeks could read them; the latter leaflets were patriotic and encouraged the Turks on Cyprus to join the battle. The first three leaflets we show are in both languages, the last two just in Turkish.

The leaflet above depicts a smiling Turkish soldier holding the flag of a united Cyprus and promising peace and brotherhood to all. It is amusing to see an invasion leaflet promising peace and love, but the Turkish civilian name for the invasion was “the Cyprus Peace Operation" (Kıbrıs Barıs Harekatı).

To the Turkish and Greek Population of Cyprus.

We bring you Peace + Fraternity + Freedom

Greek Soldier...

Another Turkish leaflet depicts a Greek military officer sitting on a throne, with a weeping woman chained to one leg. She hugs two children. At the bottom of the leaflet are numerous graves. The text is:

Greek soldier, you do not serve the Junta, which is far from your house, your children, your woman and those you love, You are deceived by the Fascist adventurers, your leaders that murder the Greeks of Cyprus. Do not let this island become your grave.

Cypriots

The third two-language leaflet I will show from this second Cyprus conflict depicts Turkish fighters diving on Cyprus and destroying Greek tanks and bombs. Curiously, there are three English words on this leaflet, “boom,” and “weapons & Ammo.” One wonders why English words would be on a leaflet aimed at Greeks and Turks, but perhaps the Turks felt that the Americans and British would see this leaflet and hoped to make clear that this was an anti-military operation and not an invasion to take land and kill Greeks. The text is:

Cypriots

The objective of the aircraft which you see above is up to you and your families.

Their objective is to attack those forces that have polluted this island forever by their continued selfish interests and to eliminate the use of weapons and military supplies to kill innocent Turks.

The Commander of the Turkish Peace Forces in Cyprus.

The Time for Your Reward…

The first Turkish text only leaflet depicts a Turkish soldier taking aim with his rifle. A Turkish flag is behind him. The text is:

The time for your reward for your heroism has come. Defend the borders of your homeland.

The Commander of the Turkish Peace Forces in Cyprus.

It will be your own Heroism…

The second all Turkish leaflet depicts a soldier on a hilltop in front of a Turkish flag. The text is:

It will be your own heroism that will become the key of our victory and our safety.

The Commander of the Turkish Peace Forces in Cyprus.

While researching this article a retired Royal Air Force corporal Statistician mentioned the British emergency exit from Cyprus. It is not exactly propaganda but it is interesting. He told me:

When the Turks invaded in 1974 they landed in the north of the Island where the most popular holiday destination, Kyrenia, was located. It was August so there were thousands holiday tourists there. There were also 1000 British military families living on the bases of Akrotiri and Episkopi, and more than 15,000 people living in the nearby town of Limassol. It was our job to get them safely off the island. The evacuation center was at RAF Episkopi and a small statistical staff of six worked through the whole emergency. It was a logistical nightmare. We moved people out day and night, from an airfield at Kingsfield to RAF Akrotiri and then on flights back to the UK. The priority was to return the British tourists back to the UK.At the same time, Turkish Cypriots from the southern part of the island were being protected by the British near Akrotiri. They were housed in tents and were evacuated to Turkey for their safety by boat. There have been many books written about the Turkish invasion but it was one of the British militaries finest hours. Things like that tend to go unnoticed.

The worst part was the initial attempted coup by the Pro-enosis Greeks on the island. If that had not taken place it is doubtful that the Turks would have invaded. What I found most annoying was that sometimes we couldn't get our families off the island but a lot of Greek Cypriot youths took advantage of the chaos, told the RAF authorities that they had been evacuated from northern Cyprus and were flown to the UK where they started a new life. For some people, every cloud has a silver lining.

Decades after I wrote this article, Michele Kambas wrote an article for Reuters titled “In race with time, Cyprus leaders appeal for help to find conflict victims (edited for brevity):

NICOSIA, 28 July 2023 (Reuters) - Rival leaders on war-split Cyprus appealed on Friday for witnesses to help trace hundreds of people missing in the violence that tore the island apart, saying time was rapidly running out for families to learn the fate of their loved ones. Forensics teams operating under the auspices of the United Nations have been working on suspected decades-old mass grave sites on the island since 2006, relying heavily on tips from witnesses, often given anonymously. Those missing are Greek Cypriot victims of a war in 1974, and Turkish Cypriot victims of intercommunal clashes dating from the early 1960s.

But the number of individuals found and identified has been dwindling over the years. Of a total of 2,002 people missing, 1,204 have been exhumed and of those, 1,033 people identified. Forensics experts from both communities painstakingly try to piece together human remains and match it with DNA samples offered by relatives.

Greek and Turkish Cypriots have lived divided since a Turkish invasion in 1974 prompted by a brief Greek inspired coup. Sporadic fighting between the two communities’ dates from the 1960s shortly after independence from Britain. Some 1,510 Greek Cypriots vanished in 1974, while 492 Turkish Cypriots disappeared between 1963 and 1974.

As always, the author invites comments on this article. Kindly write to him at Sgmbert@hotmail.com. In addition, anyone who has either British or Greek leaflets used in Cyprus is invited to send them so that we might add them to the article.

End: 23 June 2007