Cyprus Bitter Lemons of Cyprus by Lawrence Durrell 1957 271pg 7/8/22

This is written in a novel form of the writers life on the Island during a period of turmoil

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus by Lawrence Durrell  1957  271pg  7/8/22

Venice and Genoa fought over Cyprus when trade to India was done through the East, when the Western route was opened to India, Egypt, Syria, Cyprus (the Levant) were forgotten till the opening of the Suez canal.

He speaks Greek but says that any "educated" person speaks to him in English to show they are middle class and not peasants.

He lives with a teacher and looks for a home to buy,  not far from Nicosia and is told to go to a Turkish merchant for a house, he is offered a house in Bellapaux , Kyrenia made of straw and mud when they enter find a heifer in one room and another full of grain, they find out that a water pipe will reach there in a short while.  He buys the house for 200 pounds plus the 65 pound mortgage on it. Now they get a Greek builder to renovate. 

He meets the Muhtar of Bellapaux, whose home is part of the church. He also meets a whole lots of the people in the region and his nearest neighbor's. In renovation they cannot give him a quote as the cost of building materials depends on availability, especially imported products. Labour  is only available seasonally when workers are not picking olives or carobs, pressing olive oil operating the farms.  

Athens radio is broadcasting "Enosis"  that is that all Greek speaking places should be part of Greece. There is a danger that a few Greeks with bombs or outsiders like Cretans might start a crises. Greece wants to bring the UNO into the issue but it is not a moral matter. Officially Enosis does not exist for the British administration. At this stage Enosis was whipped up by a few fanatical  clergy but it had no public support.

33BC The Eastern Roman Empire was a misnomer, Constantine move the Roman capital to Byzantium and founded a spiritual Empire , with complete unification of church and state.

1260 the long persecution of the Orthodox church under the dictatorship of Venice culminated in the bulla Cypria and the Latin Archbishop and the clergy was forced to take a oath to the Holy Sea.

1575 The Ottoman Empire took over 

1670 The orthodox Church the Ethnark became leader of the Greek church and population.

1804 an uprising against the archbishop was quelled 

1821 The Ottomans executed the Cyprus Archbishop, Bishops and church leaders, as a result of the uprising in Greece. 

Durrell taught English as the Nicosia gymnasium, and could know the nationalist feeling of the older students. 

No fight against the British who they loved ' Enosis contains anti British barbs.'

1821Lord Byron died in the Greek Independence war England greatest poet was a symbol of liberty, and they recited Byron with tears in their eyes. How could Cypriots want Enosis with conscription to the Greek Army and crippling taxes, bankruptcy and  poor administration. Greeks in the Commonwealth enjoyed the best of both worlds.

He was appointed to head Public Information office. The Nationalist press and Athens radio say that Cyprus under Atilla the Hun with the British plucking out Hellenism and perpetual enslavement of the Greeks. A lot of fire and brimstone came from the pulpit but a lot came from politicians on the make even though they loved England. Like the mayor of Nicosia who was proud of his  OBE. There was now talk of a constitution an admission that not all was well.. At this stage the island was quiet despite strikes and demonstration the press was free and nobody was in jail for a political offence.

The press went on strike. The Lusigans were here for 300 years and the Venetians for 82. The Ottomans 300 and the British 72.

1920s Potterism about arrogance, snobbery and egotism. It was normal for a certain class of society to have the right to express their views for the benefit for the paying public.

Cyprus considered Greece so for advanced compared to their capital Athens was Europe. Nicosia did not compare to advanced cities nearby like Beirut and Alexandria.

The British had neglected enormously, like the Police Force had remained unchanged since 1878. The phone system was so out of date even hotels did not have phones and the police could not communicate.

1751 The victorious Turks entered the city after less than a 12 month siege, Famagusta has Othello's tower.

Turkish feelings both on the island and abroad had now been aroused and communal disorders with medieval religious hatred might easily be aroused. 

They Cypriot government were now marionettes jumping to the tune of London and Athens.  Antony Eden and in London  Alexandros Papagos the Greek PM raised the Cyprus question in the UN.  The headmaster of the Nicosia  gymnasium was beaten up by 6th grade students for not showing sufficient patriotism.

A caique (sail fishing boat) of ammunition had set off for Cyprus to land near Paphos.

Their was a camel trail loaded with grain. Carobs are an important crop in Cyprus.

Middle class Greeks realized that Enosis would do great economic harm.

The Youth Organization of EOKA, youths  took an oath to sacrifice them selves for Enosis. There was evidence Cypriots had received paramilitary training abroad - Greece. The population were sympathetic to the trouble makers.

Cyprus in geography and politics was part of the backbone of the British Empire to be defended at all costs. The Greek government accepted an invitation to London with out preconditions  the communists and Makarios, had preconditions. The Tripartite conference was rumored to be a trap and put Papagos on a white line. and it was destabilizing the Greek government. Any moderation was considered unpatriotic. Nicosia was wagging Athens and Greek, Turkish Alliance were under a thundercloud with things not linked to Cyprus, it also meant that Greece's relationship to the Moslem and Arab world, Middle Eastern affairs were now being challenged.

Detention Laws were  introduced in Cyprus and then Athens radio accused the British of "fascism or even genocide"

They Cyprus question. He was sent to see a prison camp at Kokkinotrimithia  sent to check the conditions where he found 2 of his students. One was a weak scholar inside for throwing a bomb but there were intellectuals amongst the prisoners. They were complaining that they could not sit for Matric exam.

"If we had been Russians or Germans the problem would have been solved in half an hour by a series of mass deportations or murders"

6000 civil servants now began to feel the squeeze, not obeying the terrorist demands might be death.  The failed conference cut a frail cord , Cyprus was a political orphan. To restore public order force was met by force, but with the arrival of soldier the spirit of resistance spread, igniting sleepy villages. There were lulls in violence on full moon nights. The new governor reopened talks with the Ethnark. 

Curfews with bloody incidences so that tourism flickered out, and Durrell decided to leave, he did not want to give the Greek press the chance to say he left because of policy decisions.

Cyprus had become a weak spot in the NATO Alliance, Britain was not fighting Greece but the Greek spirit.

Karaolis a young was going to be hanged for killing people, in a way Cyprus was not mourning Karaolis but England. This day was a general strike.

Nicosia government house stands on the site of Coeur de Lion's first camp was outside the unwalled  city.

Durrell's friend who he was worried that his son had  joined EOKA    instead his son had won a scholarship and was going to England. Durrell leaves Cyprus.  

 Time Line and other historical material on Cyprus

 526 BC conquered by Persians 

333BC conquered by Alexander the Great and became part of Ptolemaic Egypt.

58BC  under Rome 

4 th Century Under the Greek speaking Byzantine Empire

1191 Richard 1 Coeur de Lion conquered Cyprus

1571 Cyprus became a province of the Ottoman Empire, by defeating the Venetians.

1869 Suez Canal opened.

1878 Treaty of San Stefano

1878Congress of Berlin

1878 Russo Turkish war  Cyprus now under the British but by the Cyprus convention

1914 Britain annexed Cyprus unilaterally.

1925 Cyprus became a Crown Colony on the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

1931 Greek Nationalist Movement formed EREK riots put down by British.

1950 Greek Orthodox Church organized referendum of enosis

1955 to 1959 George Grivas  EOKA liberation struggle 

1960 Republic of Cyprus given independence by the British.

1964 UNO peace keepers

1974  Turkish Invasion

1983 North Cyprus unilaterally declared independence.

2004 Joined the EU

The Cyprus Problem what everyone needs to know by James Ker -Lindsay 2011 (Free sample)11/67/22

This had the potential to ignite a confrontation between to NATO allies Turkey and Greece. 6 UN Secretaries Generals have devoted time to this and it has been called a  'diplomats graveyard'

TRNC Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is only recognized by Turkey. 18% of the population. A large number of Turkish settlers have arrived since 1974 from mainland Turkey.  30 to 40 thousand Turkish troops are based on the island.

Nicosia decides Athens follows

Under the Ottomans Christians were more heavily taxed.

Brief History of Cyprus: Story of a divided island. by Tommy Clark

Turkish north is about 35% of the land. Republic of Cyprus 60% and 5% is the UN controlled buffer.

Since 1984 the economy is based on Tourism and financial services and offshore tax havens for Russia  and Israel.

In the Roman period copper was mined here giving it the name Cyprus.

Britain maintains military bases and used them in campaigns against Syria, Afghanistan , Iraq. 1956 used as a base during the Suez Crises.

The Roman Western Empire was Latin speaking and became the Catholic Church the Roman Eastern Empire or Byzantine was a Greek speaking and had the Orthodox Church.  Richard ! conquered Cyprus but needed money for his crusades and send it to the Knights Templar.

Under the Ottomans Christians had more freedom than they had in Europe.

The British and Cyprus : An outpost of the Empire to sovereign bases 1878 -1974 by Mark Simmons 2015

1974 The author flew a RAF Nimrod from Luqu airbase Malta to Cyprus. The Kolossi Castle an original castle  built in 1210 possibly built by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, (Hospitaliers ) this order still has its headquarters in Valetta Malta.

Mainland Greek plot by the Military Junta in Athens to bring about 'Enosis 'the union of Cyprus and Greece. This resulted in the Turkish invasion thus the Greeks had scored a home goal.

There were atrocities' on both sides In the mixed village of Tokhi an EOKA -B gang murdered all the Turkish men over 16 about 300.  EOKA -B also killed more Greek opponents than Turks. About 2000 Greeks disappeared in Turkish hands

1953  EOKA formed by Archbishop Makarios and George Grivas with the sole aim of  a union with Greece by force.  

The whole f the Middle East was Christian before the Turks.

Sultan Abdul Hamid II ceded Cyprus to British control. Britain was prepared to support Turkey as a buffer against Russian designs on India

1189 Richard 1 crowned King of England

1878 Young Lieutenant of the Engineers Herbert Kitchener was sent to survey the island.

1879Major General Sir Robert Biddulph the High Commissioner  pushed for the survey to be completed. Publish in 1885.

1899 Sir Rider Haggard visited  He published a book A Winter Pilgrimage in Italy Palestine and Cyprus.

1898 Sir Ronald Ross identified malaria carrying mosquito as the cause of Camp fever. It would take til 1948 that the marshes were drained and Cyprus was declared malaria free.

1843 The British consular agent reported Famagusta  was a town of squalor with a population of 500 Turks, with in a few years of British arrival the harbor was dredged and it was restored to ocean going traffic. Famagusta is the setting of Othollo.

1914 When WW1 began there was no certainty what side Turkey would join. The young Turks played the powers off against each other and finally joined Germany when Britain withheld 2 battleship under construction in Britain , Germany replaced them.

The Greek Revolution :1821 and the making of modern Europe. by Mark Mazower 2021  

The port of Ermoupolis was born when the ottoman irregulars crushed a Greek uprising at Chios island. Survivors fled bringing mercantile skills..

  Mid 19C one third of Greece's shipping was based there. Cables laid by Submarine Telegraph Company linked  Ermoupolis

to Athens Chios and Constantinople. In this period you had the revolutions first the USA the France, South America and Haiti. Nationalism - nation would not be governed by foreigners.

1820 the population of the Ottoman Empire was about 24 million the Greeks were possibly 3 million. Many Greeks felt it was foolish fighting the might of the Turks. Guidebooks and maps of Greece were totally out of date.      

Ove the years  commerce and the Orthodox church had extended the Greek language far beyond Greece 'Citoyen Grec' stretched from the Danuban islands and Black Sea ie the Balkans. The uprising was not launched with specific territorial demands.

1797Rhingas Velestinlis called for all to fight for freedom under the sign of the cross against the Ottomans. The sultan represented the principles of tyranny and antichrist. It was thought that the Tsar or European powers would intervene.

 

 

Prisoners of the Castle : The epic story of survival and escape from Colditz Castle by Ben Macintyre 2022 ,312pg

The story of Colditz prison, there were more escape attempts from this than any other POW camp.  4/11/22

 Michael Sinclair an amateur actor had spent 4 months studying the gait posture accent and routine of the commander of Colditz, but the fake pass he had was grey when it was supposed to be yellow and the sentry was not conned.

Reinhart Eggers the deputy commander was a schoolteacher and anglophile who had been to Gloucestershire to learn English culture. He was not a Nazi supporter and thus not popular with the German establishment.

1929 Geneva convention on POWs signed by 37 nations including Germany.

1939 Some 420,000 Polish soldiers were captured by the Germans, there were 140 Polish officers at Colditz. The food they got from the prison kitchen was ersatz coffee thin soup and black bread.  

1940 1.8 million Frenchman were made captive by the fall of France.10% of the entire male population. 2000 British officers and 39000 other ranks were captured. After the adrenaline of battle the boredom of prison.

Pat Reid believed that escaping was the sworn duty of all officers, they were there as they had escaped from other POW camps, the punishment for escaping was a month in solitary. If they were caught by the SS or Gestapo they might be tortured or shot. Some officers had batmen or orderlies to look after them who were never part of the escapes or never wrote memoirs on prison.

Colditz town had 6000 citizens and was dominated by Nazis. Prisoners received Red Cross parcels and would have died without them. There were 200 French officers which included 60 Jewish ones but the French had swallowed Nazi propaganda and  refused to be with them. The British invited the Jews to dinner in their mess.  Some of the French supported Vichy and others supported de Gaul.  Many prisoner paired off to learn each others language. Robert Blum son of Leon Blum as well ass Elie de Rothschild were in Colditz. Anglo French relation were soured by the destruction of the French fleet at Mer- el Kebir.

The Frenchman made a "home run" and this encouraged other to try escape. Escape tunnels were kept secret as there were always stool pigeons. Peter Allen the smallest officer was packed into a mattress dressed as a Hitler Youth. He walked to the station with no papers. He got to Vienna and asked the neutral  US embassy for help but was told that " the consulate exists under diplomatic privilege of te German government, so Allen gave himself up starving after 23 days.

Amongst the British officers the class system still existed separating the aristocrats or different Public school groups.  15000 Dutch soldiers were captured and most signed a pledge to take no further part in the war and were released. 68 Dutch arrival refused to do this. Escapees tried to get 400 miles to the Swiss border.

The Dutch officer Hans Lerive was caught trying to get into Switzerland  on a train and the boasting SS officer told him about Ramsen salient that 300yards of Swiss territory jutted out into Germany and unguarded back door. This proved valuable knowledge to Colditz prisoners.

The Poles set up games and so they were given a  wire enclosed soccer field outside the castle .  

Birendranarth Mazundar and Indian doctor, was a Brahmin and spoke a refined English as well as Bengali , Hindu, Urdu and French and German. He was the only Indian officer in the corps and the only British officer, he had joined as a London resident. Subhas Chandra Bose was an Indian nationalist and Nazi collaborator, he had been under house arrest in Calcutta and escaped to Afghanistan where the Germans sent a plane to fetch him. He formed the Tiger Legion and his soldiers swore allegiance to Hitler. 2.5 million Indian served in the allied army in WW2.  Several thousand Indians were captured in North Africa and the Germans tried to persuade them to switch sides.  Mazundar refused  to  join the German Indian enterprise, to get away went on a hunger strike, after 2 weeks her was transferred to an Indian POW camp in Chartres, France.  He escaped and found that poor French farmers were willing to help him, but to avoid the wealthy. He and a friend walked 900km through occupied France and into Switzerland. 1943 Hitler sent Bose in a submarine to Japanese occupied Singapore to head the provisional government of free Singapore.

Fascist William Joyce or "Lord Haw Haw" broadcast Nazi propaganda, a well spoken Indian could perform a similar role. Walter Purdey was an assistant of Joyce and was sent to Colditz to act as a stool pigeon but was found out, after the war he was jailed for 9 years.

Denholm Elliott (humour) , Clive Dunn,(Dad's Army) Donald Pleasence (actor) Talbot Rothwell (wrote the Carry On movies)

Prominente  were people the German though could swop for German officers. Giles Romilly was related to Clementine Churchill. Elie de Rothschild married Liliane Fould - Springer his childhood lover, by mail while at Colditz.  Douglas Bader with tin legs the pilot fighter later portrayed in Reach for the Sky was one of the best known in Colditz. Michael Alexander was caught in Libya on an SAS raid. He was supposed to be shot as a spy but he led Rommel to think that he was General Harold  Alexanders nephew and so sent to Colditz.   John Arundel as well as the son of the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow, George Lascelles and John Elphinstone both nephews of King George VI, George Haig son of the late Field Marshal Haig, Max Hamel a distant cousin of Churchill.

John Winant J. the son of the US Ambassador to London.

1941 March. "Sparrow" was a group of 3 American sent to Hungary to encourage them not to join Germany, the Germans knew about this and immediately 16 German Divisions  marched into Hungary.

1941 June Soviet Union brought into the conflict 

1941 Dec Pearl Harbor brought the US to war. 

Some Poles people were skeptical of as felt they were Volksdeutshe. A Polish officer was accused of being a stool pigeon and was taken away the same day. Note Poland never formally surrendered. Later it was mostly British left at Colditz while the other nationalities were moved to other prisons, except for hardened escapers.

Letter were sent to England in a code and families that received them knew to take them to the war office and later send a letter back to the prisoners in the same code with observations of German troop movements in the area. M19 was set up to process this information. Getting the prisoners maps of enemy territory and compasses was priority. Red Cross parcels were never used to smuggle escape equipment. Hardback books were banned when one book was used to smuggle things. The Germans started x-raying parcels that were not Red Cross. The night before the parcels were x-rayed they was put into a cupboard , so the prisoner made a key to the cupboard and took out the contraband first. Till the prison cat was found locked inside.

Micky Burn was a journalist who had had a passionate affair with Guy Burgess the KGB spy. Earlier he had been a Nazi supporter and was introduced to Hitler by Unity Mitford, who became fascist Oswald Mosely's wife.  When war began Burns volunteered and was in Operation Chariot, the Germans now tried to recruit him as a stool pigeon. He was the one who transcribed the BBC news onto paper to be circulated.

Prisoners had a hidden radio and were up to date with BBC news. Colditz was a highly literate place. Unlike convicts the release date of POWs is unknown and depends of distance world events. Reihnhart  Eggers  was waiting for the war to end and was secretly listening to BBC.

76 British officers who had staged a breakout from the Eichstatt camp Bavaria were brought to Colditz.

1943 July Operation Gomorrah dropped 9000tons of bombs on Hamburg killing 37000 people, in December bombing killed 1800 Leipzig residents.

1943 Aug Allied landing on Sicily.

The dentist Captain Julius Green was taken to other POW camps to treat both inmates and guards gathered information on troop movements and train timetables which he sent back home by code, till he was sent to Colditz where he continued this.

1944 March, From near Sagan, lower Silesia, 76 allied soldiers escaped 73 were caught and 50 were executed  on Hitters orders by the SS. This was the story of "the Great Escape"

1944 June D day Normandy landings. Now only total capitulation of Germany would be acceptable to the allies.

Under Himmler the Gestapo and SS were starting to have a say in dealing with POW camps. A Czeck was no longer regarded as a POW but a German traitor in a RAF uniform, luckily Rudolf Denzler of the Red Cross was involved and he was returned to Colditz. At this stage best chance of getting home was to stay at Colditz till the allies arrived hoping the SS never came first. There started being a gentleness between guards and prisoners, while at the same time Germany was starting to starve .Personal packages  were reduced to a trickle and letters stopped arriving.

1944 July Plot led by Claus von Stauffenberg, when this failed 5000 suspects were executed on Hitler's orders.

Rudolf Denzler the Red Cross representative found that the SS was starting to get involved and it was becoming harder to protect the POWs.

M-19 smuggled smuggled 5000 Allied soldiers and airmen out of Occupied Europe. This was run by Airey Neave who had escaped Colditz.

In the town of Colditz anti Nazis were planning to set up an alternative local council.

Lee Carson an American on of very few women  war correspondents, persuaded an American pilot to hide her on a  spotter plane plane so she reported on Normady landings and the bombing or Cherbourg, she was the first jounalist into Paris and later arrived with US troops at Colditz.

1944 December Malmedy Massacre where the SS slaughtered 84 American POWs in Belgium. Dresden till now unscathed was bombed killing 25,000people.

A prison camp east of Leipzig had a thousand French officers who were now moved ahead of the Russian advance into Colditz. Just before Christmas they received  the last Rec Cross parcels. The Prominante were taken to Konigstein Castle.

The prisoners were given the keys to the ammunition depot as Prawitt the German in  charge of Colditz realized he had more to fear the SS than the Americans, so they were now protecting their jailers against both the SS and advancing Americans. The "rule of law" was dissolving in Germany. Nobody knew of the slave labour camp of Hungarian Jews on the outskirts of the town of Colditz owned by HASAG manufacturing munitions. The SS guards had systematically murdered the prisoners here.

Rudolf Eggers was a historian and the artifacts he collected to form the Colditz museum were packed in boxes in the cellar. The SS now had fled south and in the Colditz town white flags started going up, swastikas' and copies of Mein Kamf started disappearing  Guy Nun and David Walker were 2 of the "Sparrows " and both became novelists. Herr Schmidt who had set up the Anti Nazi spy network that supplied them with information prepared to become burgomaster of Colditz town.  At Colditz Castle the American arrived and freed

By now Munich the capital of the Nazi movement fell without a fight. Berger now delivered the Prominante to the allies hoping to save himself from the hangman once the war was over.

1945 April 16th the American liberated Colditz Castle by they had to wait till it would be safe to send them out. A month later the Red Army arrived there and it would be part of the Soviet Zone of East Germany.

A total of 32 escapees from Colditz had made home runs.

2006 the Castle was refurbished to make a small museum in it and now many of the artifacts of WW2 were found.