Car rental Corfu - Glyfada, Greece

Corfu Glyfada - Part 3

If you have read any of my previous articles, then you will know that I was in Cyprus at the time when the outbreak of the civil war in Nicosia brought down the government and the transfer of power to the island of Cyprus was announced. I travelled to Nicosia with my family and I remember the chaos and destruction that took place. I can still remember the ferocity and unprovoked violence that took place between the two sides and this became a regular feature of the news. This led to the Cyprus conflict taking a more personal tone as the people were blaming the government and its military for their plight. I found myself in Cyprus at the time of the Second World War and so I was able to witness first hand what a terrible time it was for the citizens of Cyprus, but my interest was not solely in Cyprus, I was interested in the political situation of the area, and what all went on during the war.

The Second World War in the area was divided into three areas namely the Rokos Republic, the Northern Maritsi Republic and the Northern Aegean (Greece). The Rokos was where the largest number of casualties from the Second World War fell. This was due to the fact that the Rokos was situated in the Northern Aegean and was very close to the Turkish border. The Rokos has a significant Greek minority who are extremely loyal to the Greeks and so they would have been at great risk should the Turks come over into Cyprus. It is believed that the Cyprus Army in Cyprus was not a large enough force to take on such a large percentage of the population, especially when compared with the British army or the Italian army, and thus, the Rokos was a primary target.

When the Rokos fell in September 1944, the Cypriots blamed the German occupying forces of the Second World War for the fall of their capital, but there were also suspicions that the Greeks had done a lot of the work on the ground in Cyprus. These allegations were denied and the Turks, who occupied the Rokos, accused the Greeks for plotting a coup against their rule. The Greek government was quite vocal in denying any involvement in the Rokos, but this did not help the situation and the fighting continued between the two sides. The Cyprus government sided with the Greeks and the fighting spilled over into Nicosia. The Greek government was in no doubt that the Cypriots were responsible for the Cypriot Civil War and they blamed the British and the Italians for supporting the Cypriots. For the Cypriots it was very easy to blame the Greeks due to the fact that the British and the Italians had done nothing to help the island during the Second World War.

The Cypriots did take advantage of the British and the Italians' inactivity by accusing them of being supporters of the British and the Italians for aiding the Cypriots to fight the Turks, so they did not support the Greeks in their struggle to take back the Rokos. The British and the Italians were in the middle of the battle of the war as they were fighting against the Italians in the Mediterranean theatre and so they were in the middle of the Cyprus civil war. The British and the Italians had been at the centre of many battles, many on land and many from the sea, where they fought and suffered heavy casualties. Their inability to protect their own Cyprus allowed the Cypriots to attack their opponents and claim that they had been the ones who had been protecting Cyprus, which in fact they had. If one read the newspapers at the time, there was often a very strong feeling that the Cypriots had been unfairly attacked by the British and the Italians and that they should be treated better by the British and the Italians as they were the ones who had provided the Cyprus with the Cyprus government.

The Cypriots were not the only people who were unhappy with the British and the Italians as the Greek minority in Cyprus did not think that the British were treating them fairly. Many of the Greeks felt that the British were helping the Greeks dominate them and they felt that they were getting preferential treatment. The Cyprus minority did not feel that they were being treated fairly as the Greeks did, even though there were some who did not want the Greeks to have a say in anything. As a result of this, there was a great deal of tension in Cyprus in those days. There was no political mediation between the two sides and there was a great deal of violence that occurred as a result of the Cypriot and Greek arguments. In some cases, the Cypriots were fighting each other and in other cases, the Greeks were fighting against the British and the Italians and the violence escalated as people got frustrated and then killed each other. The Cyprus civil war had many casualties.

The Cyprus civil war ended when the British sent in a peacekeeping force and the war was eventually stopped. There was no need for the British to intervene in the Cyprus war because they had a strong presence in Cyprus in that area to help out with the peace. Many of the Cypriots felt that the British were too weak and not helpful and that they needed stronger allies to help them. The Cyprus government was so worried about the peace and so upset with the British that they gave Cyprus to the Greeks, who did not even want the island, as they did not want to share it with the British, but they wanted peace. The Greek government took over the island and changed it into a military cantonment and later it became the island of Corfu. The peace of Corfu was eventually restored and the Cypriots, and the rest of the world, felt more secure in the fact that the peace was kept.