CHAPTER THIRTEEN
(1959 to 1974)
As a sense of pre-1955 normality returned to Cyprus, the consequences of the future of the island began to sink in. The Cyprus Government was expected to pay for the Emergency unless London could be persuaded to contribute; in the meantime, the Cypriots would have to bridge the gap. The departure of British troops and their families led to unemployment as barracks, tented camps and fortified outposts outside police stations and the mines were dismantled. A recession bit as fuel prices rose and harvest prices and revenue crashed. Some Cypriots emigrated, mostly to Great Britain and Australia. The island had yet to be discovered as a mass tourist destination.
Within days of the treaty being signed, the 950 men of the Hellenic Forces Regiment in Cyprus arrived, as did the 700 soldiers of the Turkish National Contingent, and they moved into separate camps about a mile north of Nicosia Airport. The Greeks were often known as ELDYK (Elleniki Dynami Kyprou) or sometimes the 1st Greek Battalion.The Turkish-Cypriots vetoed amalgamation into the joint Special Mixed Staff, Cyprus Headquarters and consequently both units reported to their national GHQs.
The Greek-Cypriot drive for enosis had irreversibly damaged community relationships with the Turkish-Cypriots, and while troops provided medical, agricultural and construction aid to ease their reconciliation, in the towns and villages that had supported EOKA patrols often encountered hostility. During the summer, there were several outbreaks of violence, including an alleged police informer burnt to death and off-duty British servicemen attacked, in one instance by Greek-Cypriot youths seeking small arms. A bomb exploded under a culvert between Lefka and Pedhoulas. Some former EOKA formed the United Democratic Party (EDMA) and although they professed support for Makarios, their allegiance was to Grivas, because it was he who had fought for enosis whereas the Archbishop had betrayed the cause. Nevertheless, he was shrewd enough to invite several EOKA into his cabinet, including Polycarpos Georgadjis, whom he appointed to be responsible for employment and labour affairs. Several enosis hardliners formed the Cyprus Enosis Front (KEM), however the Cyprus Police were more adept than in 1955 and they effectively nullified the threat with arrests.
The Turkish-Cypriots seemed largely tranquil until on 18 October 1959 a Royal Navy boarding party from the minesweeper HMS Burmaston boarded the Turkish MV Deniz off Cape Plakotti and found its holds full of weapons and ammunitions destined for the TMT. As the crew then opened the seacocks and she began to sink, the boarding party grabbed two cases of ammunition as evidence and returned to the minesweeper. Two days later, the three crew were remanded in custody charged with importing ammunition without a valid permit. The seizure sparked community sectarian tension, particularly when reports emerged that 5,000 TMT were in Turkey for military training; however, three weeks later charges against the Turkish seamen were dropped because the evidence was sitting on the seabed.
Social and political instability led to concerns that Independence Day planned for 19 February 1960 might be delayed; indeed, such was the sectarian tension that some believed that if the British Army left Cyprus, there would be civil war. Talks between Makarios and Dr Kutchuk collapsed, however Athens and Ankara insisted they must negotiate and it was thus on 16 August that Cyprus was declared to be a Republic under the Treaty of Guarantee. The Honour Guard for the lowering of the Union Jack was provided by 1 Black Watch. It was now up to the Cyprus Government to govern, defend and police the island.
In spite of their differences, the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots were proud of their respective origins and believed that they were better educated and less conservative that their mainlander cousins; however, as the colonialism that had bound the two communities into a single nation disappeared the underlying fractures that had emerged during the Emergency deepened. The communities retreated into separate and polarized cultural and social traditions and secularization fostered nationalism, with the Turkish-Cypriots focusing on the nationalist principles of the father of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk. The Greek-Cypriots feared that the separate Turkish-Cypriot municipalities agreed in 1960 would result in takism (Turkish-Cypriot partition). Some suspected that the minority had been assigned a larger share of governmental posts than the size of their population warranted and believed it would give their delegates opportunities to make government difficult.
By 1963, RAF Akrotiri was an important airport until the flying ban over Israel and her Arab neighbours quickly reduced the value of Cyprus as a military base. HQ Middle East Command was then split into two with HQ Middle East Command covering East Africa and the Persian Gulf based in Aden while Eastern Mediterranean operations were transferred to the new HQ Near East Command at Episkopi. Defence cuts and commitments in Aden and Borneo saw the one brigade still in Cyprus, 3 Infantry Brigade, providing battalions to defend the Sovereign Base Areas. Troops from England frequently used the training areas and ranges.
In November, tensions between the two communities began to escalate, in particular frequent vetoing on legislation and taxation. When Makarios forced the resignation of the independent West German judge and then informed Kutchuk that the President and Vice-President would lose their vetoes, that the separate municipalities would be abandoned and the Civil Service adjusted to reflect population ratios of 82:18 in favour of the Greek-Cypriots, thereby giving them more power, he essentially undermined the Treaty of Guarantee. While the Greek-Cypriots saw the proposals as necessary to prevent Turkish-Cypriots frustrating government, the Turkish-Cypriots saw them as a ploy to reduce their status as the minority and the first step towards enosis. Behind the proposals lurked the hardline Polycarpos Georghadjis, now Minister of the Interior with responsibility for law and order and the Cyprus Police. Earlier in the year, when he had said that ‘There was no place in Cyprus for anyone who was not Greek’, this was backed up by Makarios suggesting that until the Turkish community was expelled, the duty of EOKA was incomplete. For several months, Georghadjis and several hardline EOKA, such as Nicos Sampson, had been developing Plan Akritas to mobilize a secret army of mainly EOKA hardliners to rid Cyprus of undesirable elements and, in the event of Turkish intervention, to defeat it with a knock-out blow. By ‘undesirable’, was meant Turkish-Cypriots. Makarios rejected the concept. When he then began to expose the NATO Southern Flank by dallying with Eastern Bloc countries keen to invest in and trade with Cyprus and Communist intelligence services were also keen to establish a base in the Eastern Mediterranean, Washington and London discreetly encouraged Turkey to develop plans to land 10,000 troops and take over a bubble from Kyrenia to Lefka and south to the northern suburbs of Nicosia in order to prevent the Eastern Bloc gaining a foothold in Cyprus.
The simmering sectarian tensions burst into violence in December 1963 when several Greek-Cypriot ‘special constables’ investigating a quarrel in a Turkish-Cypriot quarter in Nicosia clashed with a crowd, leaving one man dead and a woman injured. And then early on 21st, a Turkish-Cypriot couple driving between Kyrenia and Nicosia were stopped at a roadblock by several Greek-Cypriots claiming to be police officers conducting searches for illegal weapons. A brief burst of automatic fire killed the driver and fatally wounded his pregnant passenger, but she was able to tell Turkish-Cypriots who came to her assistance what had happened. Escalating sectarian protests in Nicosia gave Georghadjis the opportunity to activate Plan Akritas and he instructed that Turkish-Cypriot police officers should be disarmed, on the pretext of defying Cypriot legislation, and that Turkish-Cypriot civil servants be dismissed from their posts. His close ally, Nicos Sampson, then used Radio Cyprus to encourage the Greek-Cypriots to storm the Turkish-Cypriot enclaves; however, the Turkish-Cypriots had secretly prepared for such an eventuality and up went the barricades. On Christmas Day, Greek soldiers from ELDYK joined Sampson and his mob of EOKA attacking the Turkish-Cypriots in the mixed suburb of Omorphita. Confrontations spread to Famagusta, Larnaca, Limassol and Paphos, eventually peaking when about 150 Turkish-Cypriots were taken hostage at Kumsal and the wife of a Turkish National Contingent Army major, another woman and three children were butchered, the children being left in a bloodstained bath. In three days of clashes in Nicosia, seventeen Turkish-Cypriots and eleven Greek-Cypriots were killed and about 700 taken hostage. With Cyprus slipping into civil war, for the first time Turkey placed its navy on standby, sent jets to buzz Nicosia at low level and ordered its contingent in Cyprus to take up strategic positions around Geunyeli and Ortakoy and dominate the road from Kyrenia to Nicosia.
Realizing that he could not rely on the impartiality of the Cyprus Army, Makarios sought British military muscle to restore order. Such were the concerns that the British Cabinet abandoned their Christmas Day lunches to hold an emergency meeting at which it was agreed that Cyprus District and the Cyprus Army would form a Truce Force to be commanded by Major General Peter Young, a former World War Two Army commando leader, late of the Ox and Bucks and now commanding Near East Command. The 3rd Green Jackets (The Rifle Brigade) immediately deployed from Dhekelia to protect Service families living in Larnaca. On Boxing Day, 1 Glosters in Episkopi and 3rd Wing, RAF Regiment based at RAF Akrotiri moved to Nicosia Airport. By the 27th the British had negotiated a ceasefire and stepped into the no-man’s-land between the communities and arranged the release of hostages. Meanwhile, when the UN Security Council reviewed a complaint by Cyprus accusing Ankara of intervening in its internal affairs, Turkey retorted that for two years Makarios had been trying to reduce the rights of the minority community. By the end of the year, about 190 Turkish-Cypriots and 130 Greek-Cypriots had been killed and about 210 Turkish-Cypriots and forty Greek-Cypriots were missing. More significantly, the UN estimated that about 30,000 Turkish-Cypriots had abandoned 103 villages, with many of the inhabitants fleeing to the overcrowded suburbs of Nicosia.
Two days later, Young and several community leaders formalized the demarcation line that ran through the centre of Nicosia named the Green Line – from the British practice of using green pencils to mark obstacles on maps. Soldiers and the RAF Regiment erecting barriers were seen by Greek-Cypriots as interfering without authority but by the Turkish-Cypriots as protectors. Young divided Cyprus into three zones that paralleled the Brigade Districts during the Emergency, placing Eastern Zone under control of the Dhekelia Garrison with 1st Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters taking over from the Green Jackets. The Western Zone included 2 Light Regiment RA moving its guns to Episkopi. Two dismounted batteries were sent to Nicosia to join 1 Para and the Guards Independent Parachute Company with its Ferret Scouts Cars. It was replaced by a Royal Dragoons squadron. The Northern Zone was placed under command of HQ 16 Parachute Brigade and was reinforced by a 14/20th Hussars armoured car squadron until it was relieved by the Life Guards at the end of January. In mid-February 1964, when HQ 3rd Division, from the Strategic Command in UK, arrived ostensibly as a peacekeeping force but in reality as a public demonstration to counter Turkish murmurings of intervention, Major General Young handed over the Truce Force to Major General Mike Carver and returned to HQ Cyprus District. Then 1st Battalion The Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment arrived from Malta and over took the Nicosia sector along with the armoured cars of Life Guards and a second Royals squadron and the 1 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and dismounted 26 Medium Regiment RA, all arriving from England.
At the end of February Makarios ignited regional international tension when he established links with the Soviet airline, Aeroflot. The combination of this bombshell and the sectarian violence led to London and Washington secretly agreeing that the long term solution to the impasse between the two communities, the instability of the Cyprus Government and the threat to the NATO Southern Flank was the geographical and sectarian partitioning of the island. The Turks supported the notion. The Greeks did not. Makarios attacked Turkish diplomacy at the UN by accusing Ankara, in spite of the considerable evidence to the contrary, of interfering with the sovereignty of an independent state. Under pressure from London, three weeks later, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 186 in which the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) was to be established on 27 March 1964 with a mandate to:
…in the interest of preserving international peace and security, to use its best efforts to prevent a recurrence of fighting and, as necessary, to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of law and order and a return to normal conditions.
But within ten days of the Resolution being passed and the news that UNFICYP would take over from the British on 2 March, communal violence broke out during an exchange of hostages and inquiries into missing people.
In the small town of Ktima near Paphos, the Turkish-Cypriot community had been planning to attack the Greek-Cypriots while they were celebrating a religious festival on 7 March. Advice from the local Turkish National Contingent commander against the plan was ignored, then tension escalated when a Greek-Cypriot shot a Turkish-Cypriot postman during a day of rioting. Several Greek-Cypriots were then taken hostage. Next day, the Greek-Cypriot militias and ELDYK soldiers used mortars, machine guns and bulldozers to drive the Turkish-Cypriots back into the Muttalo quarter and then seized a large number of hostages and killed several Turkish militia. Of the ninety-five British troops in the town, seventy gunners of 18 Battery, 26 Medium Regiment pinned down in Ktima Police Station used a .30-inch Browning machine gun to dissuade the Greek-Cypriots from using an armoured bulldozer to attack a minaret which they believed was a machine gun post. In another part of the town, a Royal Dragoons Troop was threatened by a police chief insisting on disarming the Turkish-Cypriots. When Major General Carver flew to Paphos by helicopter and was pinned against his car by 3,000 furious Greek-Cypriots, a Greek-Cypriot police inspector swinging his cane prevented further violence. Elsewhere, at Mia Milia, a Glosters platoon ignored threats of an attack on their base at a school. In the Kyrenian Mountains, a Life Guards Troop rescued schoolchildren under Turkish-Cypriot fire, only to be stoned by the same children when passing their school several days later. Two troopers were killed when their Ferret crashed as they were speeding to the scene of a Greek-Cypriot attack.
When Ankara again threatened intervention unless UNFICYP was established within the day, a Canadian journalist wondered if the force of peacekeepers from largely neutral countries would be any more successful in enforcing a UN Resolution drafted in distant New York than the British. The Browning was used as a last resort! A few minutes before the Turkish deadline, Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Sweden joined Great Britain in supplying military and police contingents to the UNFICYP force of 6,500 men. On 27 March, the British Contingent of the 2 Light Regiment RA, 1 Para with G Battery, 7 Royal Horse Artillery RA under command, 26 Medium Regiment, 1 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and 1 Sherwood Foresters exchanged their headgear for the distinctive light blue berets of UN troops and passed under command of the Indian Major General Prem Singh Gyani. However, he was on a fortnight’s leave and command was delegated to Major General Carver, his deputy. When the Inniskillings hosted the Irish, the units discovered they had much in common, not the least of which was that several men had deserted from each and re-enlisted with the other. By the end of March, Finnish patrols in the Ktima area and the Swedes pacifying Famagusta allowed the British to return to the Sovereign Base Areas. In April the Canadians took over the Northern Zone from HQ 16 Parachute Brigade, but could not prevent the Greek-Cypriots attacking Kokkina, which had become a conduit of arms, ammunition and equipment from Turkey.
In an attempt to appease the minority, Makarios invited the UN to supervise the disbandment of the Cyprus Army, but the Turkish-Cypriots rejected this and appealed for the restoration of the 1960 Constitution. On 25 April, UNFICYP intervened when Greek-Cypriot paramilitaries attacked the Turkish-Cypriot stronghold at St Hilarion but did not interfere with a Turkish National Contingent force that had taken up strategic positions overlooking the Kyrenia Pass. In the second week of May, the murder of two Greek officers and the son of a senior Greek-Cypriot police officer in Famagusta induced further violence and more kidnapping. UNFICYP began taking casualties, including some deaths. The Turks raised the tension by landing a small force of military advisers at Kokkina and practising amphibious landings off their southern coast. Divisions between the two communities deepened when the Turkish-Cypriots created independent administrative functions in their enclaves in Famagusta, Larnaca, Limassol, Nicosia and Paphos and the Turkish Army created the Turkish Cypriot Fighters home defence battalions, each commanded by a Turkish officer.
Part of the UNFICYP role was to settle disputes. Major Edward Macey RAOC, a Greek and Turkish linguist who had served in Greece during the Second World War and had been awarded two medals for bravery by the Greeks during the civil war, was appointed the UN Special Liaison Officer to the Republic’s Vice President Dr Kutchuk. Archbishop Makarios also had a liaison officer in a similar role. One of Macey’s assignments was to investigate the disappearance of thirty-two Turkish-Cypriots captured in Famagusta in mid-May. Sometimes regarded as a ‘lone wolf’, Macey was distrusted by the Greek-Cypriots who claimed that he was MI6 and was supplying the Turkish-Cypriots with the military information. Part of his role was to make regular visits to Turkish-Cypriot communities, and when he said that he intended to visit Galatia, a village on the Panhandle, to investigate concerns raised by the villagers, he was warned by the Cyprus Defence Ministry that he was being watched. On 7 June, Macey and his Land Rover driver, Driver Leonard Platt RASC, drove to Galatia. Platt was a short term replacement driver. Both wore UN insignia and were armed with personal weapons. As usual, Macey called in at the Police Station and was then entertained to cold drinks by Mr Hallil, the assistant Mukhtar. As they were walking around the village and Hallil asked for a lift to Nicosia, Macey mentioned the Greek-Cypriot allegations about him and commented that he was not sure if he was going to make it home. During the afternoon, Macey and Platt left Galatia. They were never seen again. On the 11th, the Daily Mirror reported that the UN was checking reports that their Land Rover had been seen overturned and Platt shot dead beside it. Of Macey there was no sign. The Guardian implied that if Makarios was involved, it ‘will be an affront not so much to Britain as to the United Nations (whose help the Cypriots sought) and a matter of urgent concern.’ In spite of appeals for information, offers of rewards and UN and British investigations, nothing was forthcoming, and five weeks later Major Macey and Driver Platt were declared ‘missing presumed dead’. There was a belief that a former hardline EOKA in Famagusta was probably responsible for their murders and that it had been sanctioned by the Cyprus Government because it was rumoured that Macey was training and equipping Turkish-Cypriots. As a memorial, the Junior Rank’s Club at the Ordnance Depot, Cyprus was named the Macey Club.
Operating in an altogether more tranquil way, Lieutenant Commander Martin Packard, a Greek-speaking naval intelligence officer despatched from Malta, was also working with the UN. Always accompanied by Greek and Turkish officers, he promoted reconciliation between the communities, much to the frustration of American politicians and diplomats working hard to force the partition of Cyprus. After successfully resolving the theft of sheep by Greek-Cypriots from a Turkish-Cypriot village, Packard was congratulated by the US Acting Secretary of State George Ball, but Ball suggested that his efforts were deluded because partition was inevitable. Packard was planning the return of Turkish-Cypriot communities to their abandoned villages when Major General Carver had him flown out of Cyprus for his own safety after the disappearance of Macey and Platt. At the time, Packard had been investigating the killing of twenty-five Turkish-Cypriots in Nicosia General Hospital when his efforts were complicated by the discovery of a mass grave at Vasilios in which it seemed that the victims had been buried after being brought from the hospital mortuary. Nicos Sampson was strongly suspected of involvement in the murders.
By mid-June, HQ 3rd Division had returned to Great Britain, and by August the British UNFICYP Contingent, the largest national contingent, had slimmed to a roulement infantry group at Wolseley Barracks on six-month tours manning the Green Line in Nicosia and a sector around Limassol. Faced with the usual tests of patience, particularly from the Greek-Cypriots, they manned sandbagged observation posts and visited communities in the knowledge that UN rules of engagement prevented them from returning fire at anything that was not aimed at them. Hours were spent parleying over cups of coffee and Turkish Delight.
In the early summer, the Cyprus House of Representatives disbanded the Cyprus Army and raised the Cyprus National Guard from Cypriot men aged between eighteen and fifty-nine years conscripted for one year. In mid-June, Makarios, with the indirect support of Washington intent on reducing Eastern Bloc influence in the region, invited Lieutenant General Grivas to command the new force. Next month, he forced the Turkish-Cypriot representatives to abandon the Articles in the 1960 Constitution stating that the minority should provide forty per cent of the strength. In effect, the National Guard became a Greek-Cypriot force. Grivas set up National Guard Command in Athalassa and over the next few months he divided Cyprus into the British division-sized East, Centre and Western Sectors and established brigade-sized Higher Military Commands (HMC) in Tactical Groups at Famagusta, Larnaca, Limassol, Paphos, Morphou and Kyrenia, each supported by several conscript and reserve infantry battalions with artillery and logistic support grouped into Tactical Groups. His best forces were four Raiding Force Units (RFU) of commandos. The Navy had two motor torpedo boats, three fast patrol boats and several smaller vessels from the Soviet Union. When Grivas invited Athens to send an infantry division to Cyprus, Ankara mobilized, until brusquely warned by Washington to relax. He developed Operation Aphrodite as a contingency plan to defeat a Turkish landing using the sandy beaches at Famagusta Bay and the flat Mesaoria Plain for a fast armoured thrust to Nicosia. He planned to neutralize Turkish-Cypriot Fighters, support for the landing by seizing key Turkish-Cypriot enclaves. His main problem was that while the Turks were well supplied with NATO equipment, the National Guard had a wide variety of Second World War, ex-Soviet and locally made equipment, which played havoc with his logistics.
Tension increased on 5 August in the Tyllira District when the National Guard disarmed the Swedish UNFICYP in the Kato Pygros, and the 12th Tactical Group, which was built around 206 Infantry Battalion and 31 RFU, attacked several villages and seized Mount Lorovoumu; however, their main objective of Kokkina held out. Four days later, Turkish aircraft retaliated by attacking the two fast patrol boats T1 and T2 lurking offshore but lost an F-100 Super Sabre shot down. Its pilot was captured and murdered. A Turkish naval task force then appeared off Kyrenia while British aircraft from RAF Akrotiri intercepted several Greek Air Force jets over Cyprus. After the UN had negotiated a ceasefire, UNFICYP troops entered Kokkina after its four-year siege and found the port wrecked and its 800 civilians emerging from the safety of surrounding caves. A political solution a distant dream, Cyprus was extremely tense. Although the Americans had dissuaded the Turks from launching interventions, the UN Secretary-General accusing the Turkish-Cypriot leaders of being:
committed to physical and geographical separation of the communities as a political goal, it is not likely to encourage activities by Turkish Cypriots which may be interpreted as demonstrating the merits of an alternative policy. The result has been a seemingly deliberate policy of self-segregation by the Turkish Cypriots.
Nothing was mentioned of the Greek-Cypriot manipulation of the House of Representatives to remove Turkish-Cypriot influence in government or the determination of Makarios to break the will of the Turkish-Cypriots by restricting their goods reaching market and imposing a heavy tax on grain.
When a junta of Greek colonels seized power in Athens in April 1967, Makarios, not wishing Cyprus to be part of the dictatorship and wary of strong Turkish retaliation, distanced himself from the coup. Learning that Grivas was heavily implicated in the coup, Makarios, fearing his unpredictability and loyalty within the National Guard, strengthened the Cyprus Police with loyal paramilitary units of battalion strength. In July, London believed that the Colonels were planning a coup in Cyprus, however the British Government was somewhat taken aback when they offered Ankara a military base and ten per cent of the island in exchange for enosis. Ankara, backed up by Washington, suggested two bases, but this was rejected. Meanwhile, the crisis in the Middle East, the 1967 Six Day War and the loss of oil supplies driving Great Britain into deep economic trouble led to London announcing substantial defence cuts. Although this infuriated Washington which was then increasing its involvement in South-East Asia, London had one resource important to NATO strategy – the signals intelligence listening post on Cyprus. UNFICYP despatched troops to intervene during the war.
Kophinou was a Turkish-Cypriot stronghold that overlooked the important road junction connecting Nicosia, Larnaca and Limassol. On 20 July, Turkish-Cypriots opened fire on some Greek-Cypriots in Ayios Theodhorous and warned 1 Duke of Wellington’s, the Limassol UNFICYP sector force, that any encroachments into the village would be resisted. In November, 1st Battalion, The Royal Green Jackets (1 RGJ) took over the sector and the manning of several observation posts near Kophinou. For several months Turkish-Cypriot Fighters had been denying Cyprus Police patrols access to Ayios Theodhorous, but Grivas, frustrated by Makarios and angry at the temerity of the Turkish-Cypriots, on his own initiative escalated the tension in mid-November by sending a National Guard battalion to threaten the two villages. When he turned up accompanied by a battery of photographers and journalists, it was inevitable that the violence would escalate. The trigger was the Turkish-Cypriots in Kophinou firing on National Guardsmen removing a roadblock. This precipitated a ferocious four-hour battle in which National Guard infantry supported by artillery attacked the village, and led to about twenty-five Turkish-Cypriots being killed. ELDYK soldiers attached to the National Guard demanded that the Royal Green Jackets surrender their weapons, but the British soldiers replaced their UN berets with their light infantry green berets and resisted with fist, boot and rifle butt; nevertheless, one small post had no alternative but surrender. When the National Guard consolidated beyond the villages, Ankara warned the UN that if the National Guard did not withdraw immediately and was not disbanded as a force, the Turkish Armed Forces would restore the status quo. The Turks also insisted that Grivas return to Greece immediately and that compensation should be paid to the victims of Kophinou. To show its determination, Ankara mobilized its forces on the border with the northern Greek province of Thrace, sent aircraft to buzz Cyprus and assembled an amphibious task force in southern Turkey. Athens knew that its bluff had been called and in mid-November Grivas was recalled, ostensibly for consultation. Makarios ordered the National Guard to withdraw from Kophinou and Kokkina, which had been besieged for nearly four years, and arranged for the compensation to be paid, but he refused to disband the National Guard. Among those who were dismissed was Polycarpos Georghadjis, the Minister of the Interior. Since 1959 he had used his influence to infiltrate virtually every aspect of Cypriot life except for AKEL with his private army of EOKA thugs and cronies and he posed a threat to Makarios.
Two NATO members, who had fought as allies in Korea and were key to the defence of NATO’s Southern Flank, had come close to war, and it was only agreements brokered by Washington that prevented hostilities. Realising that enosis with an unpredictable government in Athens was not achievable, in December Makarios thinned the Greek military presence to its 1960 force level of 950 men; nevertheless, a substantial number of Greek officers were still in command positions. National Guard Command revised its anti-invasion plans to Operation Aphrodite Two, still aimed against a landing in Famagusta Bay and offensives against the Turkish-Cypriot enclaves. Makarios reformed the Cyprus Police into a mixed constabulary and instructed that weapons held by militias and unauthorized civilians be surrendered. He also agreed that the UNFICYP mandate to keep the peace and protect the minority was to be enforced. US high-level U-2 recce flights over the Soviet Union used RAF Akrotiri, and the CIA was permitted to set up listening posts to complement the British assets. In 1968 the Turkish-Cypriots escalated the underlying sectarian tension by creating an administration that replicated the Greek-Cypriot one. But when President Nixon came to power and warmed to the Colonels’ junta, he joined them in mistrusting Makarios as an Eastern Bloc lackey. In January 1970 Makarios survived assassination when his helicopter was shot down in Nicosia during a commemoration for Gregoris Afxentiou. The attempt was part of a National Guard coup organized by a Greek colonel and several former EOKA, including Polycarpos Georghadjis. He was murdered.
When a general election in Cyprus in July saw a slide toward AKEL, secret talks within NATO again examined the principle of the partition of the island. During a visit to Moscow, Makarios gained Soviet support for the removal of foreign troops on the island – that is to say, principally troops from Britain, a member of NATO. In 1971 Grivas escaped from house arrest in Athens and returned clandestinely to Cyprus where he formed EOKA-B with the specific aims of overthrowing Makarios and implementing enosis, encouraging the same terrorism that he had fostered during the Emergency – theft of weapons from police stations, intimidation and leaflet distribution. When Makarios organized the importation of a large quantity of Czech weapons for the Cyprus Police, this alarmed Washington and Ankara, who again saw yet more Eastern Bloc influence and the increased risk of sectarian attacks. Makarios rejected Greek demands to surrender the weapons but did agree to store them in a UN compound.
By 1972 the National Guard numbered 10,500 serving men and 29,500 reservists with at least one year’s military service. Their structure was as follows:
HQ National Guard Command
Eastern Sector Command
1st (Famagusta) Higher Military Command
5th (Famagusta) and 15th (Trikomo) Tactical Groups of four infantry and four Reserve infantry battalions, two field artillery battalions and one anti-tank battalion
Central Command
3rd (Nicosia) Higher Military Command
3rd (Kyrenia) Tactical Group of two reserve infantry battalions.
9th and 11th Tactical Groups of two infantry and one reserve infantry battalions
12th (Kythrea) Tactical Group of two infantry and one Reserve battalions
4th (Limassol) Higher Military Command
6th (Larnaca) Tactical Group of two infantry and two reserve infantry battalions
Western Command
2nd (Morphou) Higher Military Command
4th and 6th (Morphou) Tactical Groups of three infantry and three reserve infantry battalions
5th (Ktimi) Higher Military Command
8th Tactical Group of one infantry and two reserve infantry battalions
In July the Cypriot intelligence services unearthed a third coup d’etat planned by Greek officers attached to the National Guard; nevertheless, in spite of the escalating destabilization from terrorism but with the near total support of AKEL, Makarios was elected for a third term as President during the spring of 1973. Although politically and diplomatically isolated, with very few allies in Cyprus and the international community outside the Eastern Bloc, he craftily used the newly-established Tactical Police Reserve to tackle the subversive EOKA-B. A fourth assassination attempt using a mine on a road failed in August, as did a fifth attempt using the same technique in October. In November a student uprising in Athens against the Colonels led to the coup d’état by the Chief of Military Police, Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannides, which brought in General Phadedon Gizikis as President. Ioannides had served in Cyprus in the mid-1960s and, forming an alliance with Nicos Sampson, had been furious in 1964 when Makarios rejected Plan Akritas. The potential re-appearance of Sampson on the stage added further instability to an already simmering situation, particularly as the Greek-Cypriots were seeking a powerful character to succeed Lieutenant General Grivas who had died in Cyprus on 27 January 1974 from a heart attack. During Grivas’ funeral in Nicosia, Sampson was noted for his extravagant show of grief.
Ioannides quickly assumed indirect control of EOKA-B, however in the spring, after a large consignment of weapons had been stolen from a National Guard armoury and inhabitants had been beaten up during raids on two Turkish-Cypriot villages, the Cypriot Intelligence Service discovered another plot to overthrow Makarios. Makarios reacted by proscribing the subversives. When the Tactical Police Reserve then seized documents implicating Athens, at the end of April, he protested to the Greek Ambassador about the subversion of his authority, demanded that the length of Greek Army officers’ postings to Cyprus be reduced and stated that only 100 instructors were needed to train the National Guard. But the interference continued and at the beginning of July, after Makarios had become impatient with Athens, he wrote to General Gizikis complaining about his support to EOKA-B, and leaked the letter to journalists and publicly accused Athens of challenging his authority. It was a risky initiative to a regime whose principal aspiration was single-minded Greek-speaking Hellenic nationalism. Meanwhile, the uncompromising attitude towards Ankara by Ioannides and the finding of oil raised regional tension. Washington believed that Athens was spoiling for a fight. The stance taken by Makarios encouraged the Greeks to protest at the excesses of the regime. Ioannides badly needed a diversion and encouraged EOKA-B to seize power in the knowledge that UNFICYP could not interfere in Greek-Cypriot affairs.
By 1974, the UN force had slimmed from 6,500 in 1964 to 2,500, with Austrians, British, Canadians, Danes, Finns and Swedes manning observation posts and patrolling throughout Cyprus, controlled from a HQ in Nicosia. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and Egypt and Syria, Austrian, Finnish, Irish and Swedish elements of UNFICYP were sent to Egypt to form the United Nations Emergency Force 2. When the Irish 25th Infantry Brigade Group did not return to Cyprus, the Austrian Contingent took over the Irish sector at Larnaca and the British sector also took over, with 2 Coldstream Guards arriving in May, its companies deploying to Paphos and Limassol, each supported by a Troop of the Royal Armoured Corps Independent Parachute Squadron. The remaining two companies were in the Western Sovereign Base Area (WSBA).
During the early morning of 15 July, HQ UNFICYP started receiving reports of heavy fighting in Limassol. When news that the National Guard had attacked Police HQ, rumours circulated that Archbishop Makarios was dead and that Nicos Sampson had been appointed provisional President to head a ‘Government of National Salvation’. There was widespread disbelief that the Greek Junta had selected him, in spite of his controversial history.
At about 5 pm, Major Richard Macfarlane, who commanded No. 1 Company in the Paphos Sector, was handed a note by the Paphos District officer allegedly sent from Makarios to say that he was alive and well and in the Paphos Bishopric. He wished to meet with the UN Representative in Cyprus and the UNFICYP commander in order to press for a meeting of the Security Council. Makarios had returned to the Presidential Palace from his Troodos Lodge early on the 15th, one of his first appointments being to meet a party of schoolchildren visiting from Egypt. But as soon as the National Guard knew that he was back in Nicosia, the conspirators had struck, and disloyal infantry and tanks in the city fought pitched battles with pro-Makarios police and National Guard. Makarios was meeting the schoolchildren and when he learnt that rebel forces were at the Palace gates, he ushered them into the shelter of a corridor. With a small escort he then escaped from the Palace and while flagging down cars met a loyal officer, who guided his party around roadblocks; they then headed for Kykko Monastery. There he broadcast that he was still alive and then set out for the Paphos Bishopric. Although doubting the authenticity of the note, Macfarlane agreed to meet Makarios and pass on his requests. When the BBC reported that an UNFICYP officer had met Makarios, and rebels in Paphos moved against the Bishopric, the Archbishop sent a note to Macfarlane asking for a helicopter to fly him to RAF Akrotiri. Amid a sharply deteriorating situation, Makarios pitched up at Battalion HQ at St Patrick’s Camp and was shown to the Officers’ Mess. At Episkopi, Air Chief Marshal Sir John Aiken, who commanded HQ Near East Command, discussed the situation with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the UN Representative in Cyprus and suggested sending a helicopter to Paphos to collect Makarios and that he then be flown to London. Not wishing to be involved in a local difficulty, when London was unenthusiastic and suggested that he been given sanctuary in RAF Akrotiri, Aiken protested that this would place the Service families living in married quarters outside the SBAs at risk from Greek-Cypriot retaliation. Agreement was eventually granted for a UNFICYP Whirlwind helicopter to take Makarios to RAF Akrotiri where within fifteen minutes he had boarded a RAF Argosy bound for London via Malta. He had no doubt that Turkey would invade.
As Cyprus slid into the chaos of bitter civil war, 3,000 British and their families in the SBAs were defended by 1 Royal Scots, two 2 Grenadier Guards companies, a 16/5 Lancers armoured car squadron and support units. Immediate reinforcements were HQ 19 Infantry Brigade and 12 Light Air Defence Battery, then both on exercise in Cyprus. Under Operation Platypus, several units quickly began arriving from UK, including 40 Commando, as the Spearhead Battalion, which usually meant training for rapid deployment to Northern Ireland, and 41 Commando en route to Malta from New York on board HMS Hermes. Other ships also converged on Cyprus including a US amphibious task force, a US carrier force and a Soviet Black Sea Fleet destroyer.
Such was the concern at HQ Near East Command of the implications of Sampson being declared President that Air Chief Marshal Aiken used the British Forces Broadcasting Service to warn dependants living in hirings that they were to be evacuated into the SBAs. At about 4 pm, as a convoy of Army and RAF lorries sent to collect the dependants in Limassol approached a road junction with the M1, Cyprus Police advised them that EOKA-B intended to ambush about 500 armed Greek-Cypriot Makarios loyalists en route to Limassol from Paphos at Kolossi Castle. Since the British soldiers were unarmed, the convoy returned to Episkopi. Next day at noon a large concentration of National Guard were cleared from the M1 by unarmed RAF Police, and the convoy, this time with an armed escort and displaying Union Jacks, collected the dependants, their baggage and private cars. Many had experienced an anxious night amid outbreaks of shooting. A National Guard contingent later drove through Episkopi, the picture of a disciplined force and keen to impress. The families moved into empty married quarters or stayed with friends. Those living in Larnaca were collected by the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and landed at the Dhekelia.
Ankara had no doubt that Athens was behind the coup and, with Sampson declared President, assessed that there was an imminent threat against the Turkish-Cypriot minority. On 18 July, the Turkish government invoked its right under the Treaty of Guarantee to protect Turkish-Cypriots and guarantee the independence of Cyprus and instructed its VI Corps to activate Operation Attila and intervene in Cyprus. Commanded by Lieutenant General Nurettin Ersin, the landing force consisted of:
The Special Strike Force Landing Brigade
2nd Parachute Battalion (Cyprus Turkish Forces Regiment)
Air Force
Naval elements
The landing force numbered about 3,500 men and even though most were conscripts, the Turks had served with distinction in Korea and were trusted allies defending the NATO Southern Flank. There was no artillery support except for naval gunfire from the destroyers. Ashore were 20,000 Turkish-Cypriot Fighters divided into regiments with HQs in Nicosia, Chatos, Boghaz, Famagusta, Larnaca, Limassol, Paphos and Lefka, and commanded by Turkish officers. The follow-up force was the 28th Infantry Division.
Reports from Greek Intelligence Agency officers of the embarkation of the Brigade at Mersin Naval Base and the deployment of the Turkish Cypriot and Turkish National Contingent into defensive positions led to the Greek General Staff debating the implications of going to war with a NATO ally. Meanwhile Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit flew to London to solicit British aid, as agreed by the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee; but London, largely influenced by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, was unwilling to interfere in Cypriot affairs. Washington was quietly content that Makarios had been removed and the Cypriot links with Eastern Europe cut. But when Ankara indicated it could not watch the Turkish-Cypriots be placed at risk from a resurgent EOKA backed up by an unstable Greek Government, a US envoy was sent to Ankara to prevent Turkish intervention should her demand that Sampson be removed, the Greek Army officers leave and Cyprus remain independent be ignored. At least, that was the public perception. Ecevit returned to Ankara on 19 July and confirmed intervention for 6.30 am on Saturday 20 July.
On the same day, the Greek tank-landing ship Lesbos arrived at Famagusta for the regular rotation of ELDYK. The Swedish contingent had to intervene when Turkish-Cypriot dockers downed tools. When the Lesbos left during the early evening, the rotation had been reduced by twelve soldiers. The Greek Navy deployed its three Type-209 submarines to the Rhodes area. During the early evening, the BBC broadcast images of the Turkish task force leaving Mersin during the afternoon.