Skip to main content Site map

Fighting EOKA: The British Counter-Insurgency Campaign on Cyprus, 1955-1959


Fighting EOKA: The British Counter-Insurgency Campaign on Cyprus, 1955-1959

Hardback by French, David (Professor Emeritus, Professor Emeritus, University College London)

Fighting EOKA: The British Counter-Insurgency Campaign on Cyprus, 1955-1959

£122.50

ISBN:
9780198729341
Publication Date:
19 Mar 2015
Language:
English
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Pages:
348 pages
Format:
Hardback
For delivery:
Estimated despatch 28 May - 2 Jun 2024
Fighting EOKA: The British Counter-Insurgency Campaign on Cyprus, 1955-1959

Description

Drawing upon a wide range of unpublished sources, including files from the recently-released Foreign and Commonwealth Office 'migrated archive', Fighting EOKA is the first full account of the operations of the British security forces on Cyprus in the second half of the 1950s. It shows how between 1955 and 1959 these forces tried to defeat the Greek Cypriot paramilitary organisation, EOKA, which was fighting to bring about enosis, that is the union between Cyprus and Greece. By tracing the evolving pattern of EOKA violence and the responses of the police, the British army, the civil administration on the island, and the minority Turkish Cypriot community, David French explains why the British could contain the military threat posed by EOKA, but could not eliminate it. The result was that by the spring of 1959 a political stalemate had descended upon Cyprus, and none of the contending parties had achieved their full objectives. Greek Cypriots had to be content with independence rather than enosis. Turkish Cypriots, who had hoped to see the island partitioned on ethnic lines, were given only a share of power in the government of the new Republic, and the British, who had hoped to retain sovereignty over the whole of the island, were left in control of just two military enclaves.

Contents

Introduction ; 1. The British Colonial Administration and Enosis, 1878-1950 ; 2. Makarios, Grivas, and EOKA ; 3. 'A game of cops and robbers': The Start of the Insurgency, April 1955-March 1956 ; 4. EOKA versus the Security Forces, March 1956- March 1957 ; 5. Loosing Hearts and Minds ; 6. 'The Nazi Methods of Hitler': EOKA's Counter-narrative ; 7. The Governorship of Sir Hugh Foot and the descent into inter-communal violence, 1957 - 1958 ; 8. The Macmillan Plan and the Zurich and London Agreements ; Conclusion ; Bibliography ; Index

Back

University of Salford logo