Abstract
Antonis Pitrakkou, my wife's uncle by marriage, related to me how, aged about 15, he was tending to his family's goats on the south-eastern outskirts of Rizokarpaso during the Second World War when two Indian soldiers invited him to try their meal, which was still cooking in their pot, of peppers in a tomato curry, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He asked them what they were doing there, and they explained that they were looking out for enemy ships. He asked them how they could see anything out at sea from so far away, and they showed him their telescope. He was amazed by the technology that brought the far away up close and personal. He instantly realized that there were wondrous technologies out in the world that Cypriots were clueless about, and resolved then and there to leave the island to discover them. In 1948, he hopped onto a plane and emigrated to Adelaide, Australia. Although his short-term memory might be fading, his long-term memory is intact, as he vividly recalled this beautiful encounter between two colonial people in the British colony of Cyprus during the Second World War.
Marios Siammas' book on the contribution of Cyprus to the Second World War is an excellent research achievement. This is not the first book on Cyprus during that conflict, but it is undoubtedly the best. It is especially good when discussing the contribution of the Cyprus Regiment. The chapters covering its formation, service and demobilization provide excellent data on various aspects of this neglected wartime story, especially around enlistment patterns, the large numbers rejected, its various units, the type of work it did and soldiers’ experiences in service and once demobilized. I agree with the main conclusions, especially the debunking of the nationalist myths that the Greek Cypriots enlisted because Greece was attacked and because they believed that the British would grant them enosis, and rather they enlisted, as I showed for the Cypriot Mule Corps during the First World War, because of the financial rewards and the adventure.
The book could have been improved with a few changes and additions. Removing the literature review, methodology and theoretical framework from the thesis (upon which this book is based) made it harder to situate the contribution Siammas wanted to make to the existing literature on Cyprus, the Second World War and the British Empire; how theory may have informed aspects of the story; and why the methodology taken was adopted and whether there were any issues with sources. On the methodology, I was interested in the use of the oral histories from the Cyprus Research Centre, but no information was given about them or discussion about the use of oral history more broadly. No theoretical framework was presented, but it may have been useful to consider the theories within imperial studies, especially on the subaltern, as I did to explain the power imbalance between colonizer and colonized and the questions surrounding the loyalties of the colonized to their rulers and the war. There was some literature on Cyprus that was not mentioned or utilized enough, such as works by George Georghallides, Alexis Rappas and my own. Siammas used and understood the literature on the Second World War, but not so much on the British Empire, which reflected the expertise of his supervisory team and limited his explanations. It also meant that sometimes military details were favoured over the social aspects of the war's impact and vice versa.
The book would have benefitted from a background chapter that presented an account from the recent research starting from British rule in 1878 until the eve of the Second World War to provide the necessary context. Instead, this came in dribs and drabs, until some dedicated background appeared at the start of chapter 7. This should have come earlier. The information on the impact of the war on Cyprus was well researched and presented, yet needed a section on public health, an important issue, as I showed with the Cypriot Mule Corps, and because the British were tackling it from the 1930s, with efforts to combat malaria and tuberculosis. Section 7.7 about the impact of the war on Cyprus after the armistice should have been a standalone chapter, needing further development, including the referencing of secondary sources and discussion of how the war has been remembered and forgotten in Cyprus.
Overall, Siammas has produced a definitive account of the formation and role of the Cyprus Regiment and how its service impacted upon both the British war effort and upon Cyprus. As the author states at the end, there is still more to research on the story, including the relationship of the Cypriots with forces stationed in Cyprus, including the Indian troops. I hope that Siammas does so.