Conquest of the island of Cyprus
conquering the Limassol Castle
the late 15th century the Ottoman Empire began to extend its
control over the Aegean islands. The conquest of Egypt in 1517
and of Rhodes in 1522 put Cyprus on the front line. The delay in
the Ottoman invasion was due to the embroilment on other
frontiers and to Venice's punctual payments of tribute.
accession of Selim II in 1566 saw a switch in Ottoman priorities
due, according to a mischievous folk tale, to the Sultan’s
obsessive fondness for Cypriot wine. In planning the occupation
of Cyprus, the Ottoman high command was more wary of the
Christian fleet than the fortifications in Cyprus. An alliance
between Spain, Venice, and Papacy had put a fleet of 200 ships
into the eastern Mediterranean.
the spring of 1570, the Ottoman fleet divided into three
squadrons, crisscrossed the Aegean to hide its intentions and
then united to carry the occupation force across to the southern
coast of Cyprus, but in the background was the continuous
expectation on both sides of intervention by the Christian fleet
based at Crete.
It came in October 1571 when virtually entire
Ottoman fleet was destroyed at Lepanto, 10 weeks after Famagusta
had fallen to a 13-month siege.
the peace negotiations two years later, the Grand Vizier told
the Venetian ambassador, `by conquering Cyprus we have cut off
one of your arms, but by defeating our fleet you have only
shaved our beard. You can not expect another arm to grow to
replace the cut one, whereas the shaven beard always grows again
and even more abundantly'.
liberation and Turkish settlement
conquest of 1571 of the island by the Ottoman Turks was a
liberation for the bulk of the Greek Orthodox population.
Indeed, in some areas, such as Lefkara, there had been local
risings against the Venetians in support of the Ottoman forces.
Serfdom was abolished and the peasant families were given the
freehold of the land they had worked for centuries.
Orthodox Church was also freed from centuries of control by the
Latin hierarchy and its previous tradition of independence
reasserted under a revived archbishopric. On the other hand, the
Catholic Church of the Crusader and Venetian rulers were
expelled. Its building were confiscated and converted into
mosques, or were sold to the Orthodox Church. Catholics on the
island were given the choice of conversion (either to Islam or
Orthodoxy) or exile.
At the same time a number of soldiers, and craftsmen from
Anatolia, were settled on the island. Apart from a reservation
within the walls of Famagusta, there was no strategic placement
of these immigrants, and they were fairly evenly distributed
around the island. The policy was energetically pursued until
about 30,000 Muslim Turks had been settled on the island amongst
a population of perhaps 150,000 Greek-Cypriots. This proportion,
around, 1:5, is still true today.
Cyprus in the 16th and 17th centuries
Ottoman conquest of Cyprus coincided with the gradual stagnation
of the Near Eastern economy due to the discovery of the Atlantic
trade routes in the mid-15th century. Within a century, the busy
waters of the eastern Mediterranean had become a neglected
backwater. Many of the islands profitable crops, such as sugar,
were also ruined by American competition in the 17th century.
This was partly offset by cotton plantations which tied in well
with a tradition of producing fine textiles. Morphou exported
linen, the Marathasa valley was known for its woolens and
Nicosia famed for its silks and gold embroidery.
Throughout this period there was a series of armed tax-revolts
which often united both Greek and Turk against an especially
avaricious governor or an over-mighty community leader. The
system of selling the office of governor (pasha), the collection
of taxes by ethnic group or -millet- and the farming, or
auctioning, of taxes, helped established a powerful body of
community leaders on the island.
actual governor of the island, though he commanded a small
garrison of 3,000 troops, was relatively powerless. He held
authority for a brief period and was principally concerned with
recouping the purchase of his office with the minimum of fuss
and maximum profit. He was only able to do this through the -aghas-
(community leaders) of the Turkish community and the bishops of
archbishop grew particularly influential, and in 1660 became
recognised as the official representative of the Greek Cypriots,
with the rights of direct access to the Sultan's palace in
Istanbul. In 1754 the archbishop was made responsible for the
collection of taxes and later gained the right to appoint the
dragoman of the serai, who was the head of the civil service. By
the early 19th century the archbishop had almost become of
greater consequence than the governor.
from 1821 Greek War of Liberation to mid-19th century
gradual and promising developments were reversed in 1821. In
1818 Archbishop Kyprianos became a member of the Philike
Hetaireia, a secret organization that planned to establish an
independent Greek state out of the Ottoman Empire. Kyprianos was
fully aware of Cyprus’ isolated position and its resident
Turkish garrison, and only felt able to promise financial and
In 1821 revolts broke out all over the Greek-speaking provinces
of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish governor of Cyprus, having
previously requested reinforcements from Syria, received
permission from the Sultan to launch campaign of crackdown. The
archbishop and other prominent members of the secret
organisation were hanged on grounds of treachery. The crackdown
effectively destroyed the Greek Cypriots chance of joining the
Greek rebellion. It also indelibly stamped Greek Cypriots with a
loathing of the Ottoman administration and a desire for Enosis,
or union with the independent Greece that was born of this
After the peace of 1830, the Ottoman Sultan, Mahmud
II, and his
I, made an attempt to reform the administration
of the Empire. Taxes were now collected directly, but few of the
well-intentioned new laws that aspired to turn the Ottoman
Empire into a multi-ethnic commonwealth were put into practice.
of the Ottoman Rule
from a few eccentric travellers and a medieval king, Britain had
no involvement with Cyprus before 1878. But the island’s sudden
and peaceful absorption into the British Empire is not difficult
to explain. The keystone of the British imperial policy in the
19th century was to protect the sea route to India, and to
support the Ottoman Empire against the ambitions of an
ever-expanding Russia. The Crimean War of 1853-6 had been fought
for just such a purpose.
In 1875 British policy took a vital shift when Benjamin
purchased a key block of Suez Canal shares. Three years later
the Congress of Berlin was convened to defuse another crisis
caused by Russian ambitions over the disintegrating Ottoman
Empire. While Otto
von Bismarck skillfully assumed Britain's old role as
the Ottoman Empire's honest broker, the British prime minister
began to show signs of distinctly predatory interest in the area
nearest to the Suez Canal. During these negotiations in 1878
Cyprus was acquired by Britain as a -Place of Arms- in order
better enable Britain to assist the Ottoman Empire. The nature
of that assistance was to be more fully revealed four years
later, in 1882, when Britain absorbed into her own Empire the
old Ottoman province of Egypt.
had been a mere stepping stone to the greater prize and within
four years of occupation by Britain, the island had become a
colonial backwater. The island remained under the nominal
sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire until it was formally annexed
in 1914 and given the status of a British crown colony in 1925.
Rogerson, B., (1994), "Cyprus", Cadogan Books.