Suchergebnisse

British Cyprus 1878-1915: the inconsequential possession -- Elite loyalties: enosis, the Greek schism and the war effort -- Middle-class loyalties: military intelligence and the war effort -- Lower-class loyalties: Cypriots at war -- Refugees and settlers: inclusivity and exclusivity -- "Remember Heligoland": retaining Cyprus against the Enosis Policy -- Colonialism, Enosis and democratic deficit, 1921-25.

Historiography and theories -- British Cyprus, 1878-1918: from backwater to bustling war base -- The formation of the Cypriot Mule Corps -- Mule and muleteer recruitment: pushed or pulled? -- Contracts, challenges, hardships and the 'liminal space'-- Conditions for mules and muleteers -- Muleteer behaviour during service -- Veterans and their families after service -- Remembering and forgetting the Cypriot Mule Corps

This article explores how mules were procured in Cyprus for the Salonica campaign and how they were treated by Cypriot muleteers in the British army in Macedonia. Cyprus provides an ideal case since over 6,000 mules were recruited for the Salonica campaign, presenting a sizeable sample for analysis of recruitment strategies and practices. Equally, since over 12,000 Cypriot muleteers served in the British army in Salonica and later in Istanbul during and after the Great War (from July 1916 to April 1920), the focus on the treatment of mules by Cypriot muleteers offers a significant sample. This article contributes to the growing historiography on the role of equines and their treatment and condition in the Great War. It argues that Cypriot mules were procured in significant numbers and became important to British supply and logistics in Salonica. Cypriot muleteers treated their mules relatively well, and therefore mules in Salonica, although overworked, were generally in reasonable condition.

Throughout history, colonial and foreign legions have been a part of larger armies but rarely have they been as politically 'loaded' as the three proposed to the British government during the Great War. Cypriot, Armenian, and Jewish political elites proposed the formation of volunteer legions in the British army in late 1914 and early 1915. The primary sources show that they were initially rejected for political as well as military reasons. In 1916 the British agreed for the French to establish an Armenian legion, while in April 1917 the British agreed to establish a Jewish legion. When the French and British authorities accepted the Armenian Legion in the French army and the Jewish Legion in the British army respectively, the same political reasons for initially rejecting them were overcome or set aside. Imperialism was the key to understanding the initial rejecting of all three and the acceptance of those two: the Cyprus proposal threatened British rule in Cyprus and so was never accepted; the Armenian proposal did not play into British imperial interests, but once the British accepted French imperial interests in Cilicia in the Sykes–Picot Agreement the British accepted it; the Jewish Legion was accepted after the British embarked on their conquest of Palestine. Using British, French, and Cypriot archives, this article explores the official British reasoning for rejecting offers of Cypriot, Armenian, and Jewish legions and then accepting the latter two during the Great War.

In the summer of 1916, the British Salonica Army and the Cyprus colonial government established the Cypriot Mule Corps (officially called the Macedonian Mule Corps), composed of mostly of Christian (Eastern Orthodox, and smaller numbers of Catholics, Armenians, and Maronites) and Muslim Cypriot muleteers and interpreters. These men served mostly in Salonica during the war and in Istanbul after the armistice. Although given the title of "Macedonian" Mule Corps, it was almost exclusively Cypriot in composition, with a staggering enlistment of about 12,000 Cypriots from every religious group in Cyprus. This article explores the formation of the corps, muleteer numbers, and recruitment strategies. It argues that there were both push and pull factors in understanding the striking enlistment of between 20 and 25 per cent of peasant and labouring men aged between 18 and 39.