British Scholar: January 2007 Book of the Month

Review by:
Gail R. Hook
University of Texas at Austin

The British and the Hellenes: Struggles for Mastery in the Eastern
Mediterranean 1850-1960 Robert Holland and Diana Markides (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006), 252 pages

Robert Holland’s 1998 book, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus 1954-1959 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press), explained the intricacies of Cypriot resistance to British rule that
led to violence and eventual British withdrawal from the island in 1960. Now he
and Diana Markides situate British Cyprus within its context of the other British
territories in the Mediterranean with The British and the Hellenes: Struggles for
Mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean 1850-1960.

The “Hellenes” refers to the Greeks and Greek irredentists seeking to fulfill the
aspirations of the “Meghali Idhea”, or Great Idea. The mission of the Great Idea
was the redemption of the majority of Greeks still remaining outside the frontiers of
the new independent state of Greece after the Greek Revolution of 1821. The
“struggle for mastery” refers to the native resistance in these territories to Ottoman
or British rule with the end goal of union with Greece (enosis), and the grappling
for power that occurred at various times between the British, Greeks, Ottomans,
and within these groups themselves. Throughout these struggles, Britain sought
to balance her own desire for hegemony in the Mediterranean with the need to
preserve the integrity of peace in Europe and the Middle East. This proved to be
a difficult task as Britain fought to avoid the impression of defeat in giving over her
possessions to decolonization and independence or cession to Greece.

The British and the Hellenes discusses specifically the Ionian Islands, Crete, the
Dodecanese, and Cyprus. One would like to read more about Malta, and even
Gibraltar, in a study of Britain in the Mediterranean. But the authors explain up
front that their study focuses on “those islands with Greek-majority populations
where Great Britain played a leading role in climaxes leading either to union with
Greece, or—in the case of Cyprus—to a rather different ‘solution’”. Indeed each
case ended differently, depending upon the strength of irredentist motivations
among the native inhabitants and Greek leaders in Athens, as well as on evolving
relationships with Britain. Where the Ionian Islands joined with Greece under
British patronage in 1864, Cretan enosis “succeeded in the teeth of growing British
hostility” in 1913. The Cretan experience further “fed into the movement for
Cypriot enosis”, which erupted in violence and independence from Britain, but not
union with Greece, in 1960. The “Dodecanese Experience”, entangled with British
post-war strategy in Palestine and India, resulted in cession to Greece in 1948.

By comparing and connecting the irredentist ambitions of Greek nationalists to
British rule in these four different cases, Holland and Markides make a much-
needed contribution to the scholarship on British Empire as well as the modern
Mediterranean. Although dense with facts, and potentially confusing with its back-
and-forth looks between the territories, the book nevertheless flows well
chronologically and proves an interesting and valuable tool for understanding this
complex region. Particularly exciting, for those of us who look forward to such
things, are the sixteen historic black and white photographs, three maps, and
beautiful cover illustration—a circa 1850 watercolor of the Old Fortress of Corfu.
Beyond the illustrations, Holland and Markides provide a very readable, concise
text that surely will become a classic in the study of the British Empire and the
Mediterranean.

Click Here to Purchase from Oxford University Press

Book of the Month

January 2007