Download WEST OF SUEZ: BRITAIN AND THE MEDITERRANEAN,

WEST OF SUEZ:
BRITAIN AND THE
MEDITERRANEAN,
1704-1967
EXHIBITION GUIDE
This exhibition examines the history of British
involvement in the Mediterranean, a
strategically important region that provided the
former British Empire with bases and territories
to consolidate and further its military and
trading objectives. From its first territorial
acquisition, that of Gibraltar in 1704, until the
disbandment of the Mediterranean Fleet in
1967, Great Britain obtained a chain of
territories stretching from the Pillars of Hercules
at the entrance to the Straits of Gibraltar, to
Port Said at the northern end of the Suez Canal.
As the British Empire in the regions east of Suez
declined, so did her power and influence on the
islands and shores of the Mediterranean.
The cases each deal with a different
geographical location as they follow the sea first
eastwards from Gibraltar to the Levant, and
then back westwards along the North African
coast. Through themes such as diplomacy,
government, cultural exploration and migration,
the exhibition explores how the significant
British presence in the region helped to shape its
history.
Most exhibits are drawn from the holdings of
the Foyle Special Collections Library,
particularly from the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office Historical Library
collection, transferred to King’s College London
in 2007. This collection provides a wealth of
material on former British colonies and
protectorates in the region, on the British
Overseas Territory of Gibraltar and on Cyprus,
where Britain retains military bases. In the final
case we also exhibit items from King’s College
London Archives’ Liddell Hart Centre for
Military Archives, which cast light on 20th
century conflict in the Mediterranean.
We are grateful for the support and advice of
Professor Roderick Beaton, Koraes Professor of
Modern Greek and Byzantine History,
Language and Literature at King’s, and
Professor Robert Holland, Visiting Professor in
the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s.
Exhibition curators: Lavinia Griffiths and
Adam Ray
CASE 1
GIBRALTAR AND
THE TREATY OF
UTRECHT
Treaty of Utrecht (1713). Tratado de paz
ajustado entre las coronas de España y de
Inglaterra en Utrech. En Madrid: en la Imprenta
Real: hallaràse en la libreria de Manuel Bot,
junto al Hospital de los Italianos, 1713
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection KZ1334 TRE
The Treaty of Utrecht was a series of
documents signed in 1713 by the powers of
Great Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands
and Portugal to mark the end of the War of the
Spanish Succession (1701-14). This conflict
followed the death of Charles II of Spain and
involved European states concerned with the
balance of power in Europe and the inheritance
of the Spanish empire following Charles’s death.
The Treaty formally ceded Gibraltar to Britain
following its 1704 capture as part of this
conflict. Significantly, it marked Britain’s first
territorial gain in the Mediterranean and
allowed the establishment of a military base
which would play an important role in future
conflicts, as well as providing (like Malta to the
east) a stopping-off point on the trade route to
India, particularly following the opening of the
Suez Canal in 1869.
The copy shown here is notable for a variety of
reasons. It was previously held in the Foreign
Office Library and on the final page a small slip
of paper inserted by a bookseller describes it as
the ‘Ambassador’s copy, with documents signed
by the King of Spain’. This refers to Philip V of
Spain, who has placed his signature ‘Yo el Rey’
at the end of two large manuscript leaves
inserted into the book. His signature is
witnessed by others and dated 5 June 1714.
Previous owners have also left their mark on this
copy of the Treaty, including a William Smith
whose name is visible at the top of the woodcut
title page shown here.
Frederick Sayer. The history of Gibraltar and of
its political relation to events in Europe. London:
Saunders, Otley, and Co, 1862
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DP302.G38 SAY
In August 1704, under the overall command of
Sir George Rooke, an Anglo-Dutch force
captured Gibraltar from Spain. This limestone
promontory, at the end of an isthmus that joins
the Spanish mainland to the north and juts out
southwards into the Mediterranean Sea, has
remained a British territory since.
The battle for Gibraltar began with the fleet,
commanded by Admiral Bynge and situated off
the west coast of the peninsula, initiating a fierce
bombardment which is described below:
… the cannonade then commenced all along the
line, and was kept up with unabated fury for six
hours, during which time not less than 15,000 shot
were thrown into the town.
At the south end of the territory, a now
undefended fort called New Mole was the first
point at which sailors came ashore, although
many were killed by an explosion of armaments
at the fort. Allied to this, marines who had
landed to the north and succeeded in cutting off
Gibraltar from the mainland, strengthened their
position and the Anglo-Dutch force now had
the territory within its grip.
In the aftermath of the invasion, most of the
Spanish residents fled the territory believing it
would soon be re-captured and no doubt in fear
of a hostile foreign invading force.
The strategic location of Gibraltar, as guard to
the western gate of the Mediterranean Sea, has
seen it play an important role in trade and
conflict. This book traces the history of the
territory known to the ancients as Mons Calpe,
one of the Pillars of Hercules, through its preBritish history, the 1704 battle to capture it and
the sieges and battles that followed its
acquisition by Britain.
The famous Rock of Gibraltar is shown in the
frontispiece on display here, viewed from the
west.
Major Richard Hort. The rock: illustrated with
various legends and original songs and music.
London: Saunders and Otley, 1839
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DP302.G41 HOR
The author of this book was attached to the 81st
Regiment of Foot and garrisoned in Gibraltar
between 1836 and 1845. He describes how,
… wearied with the dull routine of garrison duty …
the author availed himself of the many hours
placed at his disposal, to explore the numerous, and
in many instances, magnificent beauties which
abound throughout and around the Rock.
These explorations are recounted and also
woven into songs and three fictional tales: ‘The
lost nun’, ‘The Spanish lancer’ and the ‘Moorish
maid’, which offer a view of the territory away
from the monotony of garrison life.
The accompanying illustrations, which are
drawn by a fellow officer, reflect both the
natural history of the Rock, the diverse
influences on its history and its developing
British culture. The author and his companion
encounter the famous Barbary macaques who
live on the Rock, visit Martin’s Cave (said to
have been discovered by an inebriated soldier in
1821) and witness the streets of the city
crowded with ‘Moors, Jews, Greeks, Genoese,
Africans and natives from every province in
Spain’.
The book includes a dedication leaf to Queen
Victoria and the illustration shown here is of her
cousin Prince George’s Gibraltar quarters and
Trinity Church. Prince George was attached to
the Army staff in Gibraltar in 1838-9 and would
later become a (much criticised) commanderin-chief of the British Army.
The Major’s experience of being garrisoned on
the Rock was shared by thousands of British
soldiers between 1704 and 1991, after which
the home defence unit, the Royal Gibraltar
Regiment, took over internal security duties.
Great Britain. Central Office of Information.
Gibraltar (set of six plates).
London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1958
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection
OVERSIZE DA11 GRE
The Foyle Special Collections Library has
catalogued 47 sets of black and white
photographs issued by the Central Office of
Information and published by HMSO. Some of
these have the title: Colonial empire picture sets
and all were published between 1948 and 1962.
Although these compilations were published at
the end of empire, when many colonies were
gaining independence, some of the colonies
referenced in these picture sets did remain part
of Britain, with Gibraltar and the Falkland
Islands being two of the most notable examples.
The picture set shown here is concerned with
Gibraltar, a strategic ‘rocky promontory’ of
Empire which played an important role as a
naval port in both world wars. The images here
show a British policeman and his Spanish
counterpart checking documents at the frontier
with Spain, with the famous Rock of Gibraltar
in the background; some of the residents and
administrative personnel of the territory; and
Spanish workmen returning home after a day’s
work. Spanish workers, both male and female,
were crucial to life on the Rock until Franco
closed the frontier in 1969. The border did not
fully re-open until 1985, when Spain formally
joined the European Community.
Gibraltar [photographic set] [Sl: sn, 1965]
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DP302 GIB
Gibraltar is classified as a British Overseas
Territory; it is defined as being self-governing,
but foreign policy and defence remain under the
control of Britain. British Forces Gibraltar, the
collective name given to security forces in the
territory, is made up of the Royal Gibraltar
Regiment, which is concerned with internal
affairs, and British Naval and Air Force
personnel.
In 1967 and in 2002 Gibraltarians voted
overwhelmingly to remain part of Britain and to
reject claims of Spanish sovereignty. Although
the status of Gibraltar remains politically
contentious in relations between Britain and
Spain, most of the 32,000 Gibraltarians, as
evidenced through these processes of selfdetermination, are determined to remain British
citizens.
An insight into life in Gibraltar is provided by
this unpublished collection of photographs from
the 1960s, previously held in the
Commonwealth Office Library. The opening
shown here illustrates elements of political life.
On the left are scenes from a 1963
demonstration in support of self-determination;
on the right are scenes from the 1964
constitutional conference and a meeting of the
Trade Union movement.
Other photographs included in the work
illustrate tourism, religious life and the
Ceremony of the Keys, where the locking of the
gates to the Old Town and garrison of Gibraltar
is symbolically re-enacted. This ceremony
marks the period in the 18th and 19th centuries
when the four outer gates to the town would be
secured at night to prevent them being breached
by hostile parties.
CASE 2
ITALY AND
SICILY
John Northall. Travels through Italy. London: S
Hooper, 1766
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DG424 NOR
During the 18th century a key element of
British engagement with Italy was through
travel and the literature of travel. A visit to the
Italian states was an essential stage in the Grand
Tour, which served to introduce wealthy young
men to the cultural life of the great cities of the
Continent, taught them to appreciate classical
and Renaissance art and architecture and
inspired them with magnificent landscapes.
The author of these Travels is identified as John
Northall, an officer in the Royal Regiment of
Artillery who had seen action during the War of
the Austrian Succession (1740-8) and who died
in India in 1759. Little else is known of his
career, although there is evidence that he was at
Capua, near Naples, in April 1752. Earlier that
year, he seems to have sailed from Menorca,
then a British possession, to Leghorn (Livorno),
with its community of British merchants, from
where he began his tour.
When his Travels were published in 1766, they
were advertised as the writings of ‘a scholar; a
gallant officer, and an experienced engineer; a
good draughtsman, and a fine judge of paintings,
sculpture and architecture.’
The Grand Tour, however, was often the
subject of much satire. In a derisive notice in
the Critical review, the English novelist Tobias
Smollett pointed out that Northall’s work had
drawn heavily on JG Keysler's Travels
(published in an English translation in 1756).
Such compilations were not uncommon at a
time when publishers were eager to satisfy a
market for Italian travels.
The copperplate illustrations ‘from drawings
taken on the spot’ seem to be original to the
publication. This plate depicts Solfatara, west of
Naples, where travellers could observe volcanic
activity at close quarters. Passages in the text
are taken verbatim from Keysler, but there is a
technical description of the extraction of sulphur
and alum that bespeaks of an artilleryman.
John Goodwin. Review of the Sicilian
government: from the Norman Conquest to the
present time [manuscript]. 1840
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection
FOL. HC307.S5 GOO
The British government's first major
involvement in the affairs of Italy began with
the French Revolutionary Wars and continued
until Napoleon's abdication in 1814. Between
1806 and 1811 the emperor had succeeded in
extending French rule to the whole of
peninsular Italy. Britain's priority at this period
was to safeguard the Savoy and Bourbon
regimes on their islands of Sardinia and Sicily,
respectively.
The manuscript on display here contains an
account of events in Sicily, with particular
reference to British involvement. The author,
John Goodwin, was British consul at Palermo
from June 1834 until his death in 1869. This is
one of five manuscripts by him on Sicilian affairs
(the others cover contemporary politics,
industry and agriculture) from the Foreign
Office library.
In December 1798, faced with a French
invasion of Naples, Nelson had overseen the
temporary evacuation of Ferdinand IV (III in
Sicily) to Palermo. In 1806 the royal family
were forced into a second period of exile which,
guaranteed by British protection until 1814,
lasted nine years.
A proposal to reform the island’s feudal
parliament was supported by the British envoy
to the Sicilian court, Lord William Bentinck
(1774-1839), who arrived in Palermo in 1811.
On 12 July 1812 the general parlamento
approved a new constitution that established,
among other reforms, parliamentary institutions
based on the Westminster model. The page
displayed here contains a synopsis in English of
the 15th article of the 1812 constitution.
The new parliament met in 1813, but Bentinck,
who was also commander-in- chief of British
forces on the island, became disillusioned; and
the British government, which had previously
tolerated his interference in the internal affairs of
the kingdom, withdrew its support. The
parliament was dissolved in 1815, on
Ferdinand's return to Naples, and the
constitution became defunct with the union of
the two states as the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies in 1816.
However, the British-designed Sicilian
constitution of 1812 was to be an inspiration for
many Italian liberals in the decades leading up
to the Risorgimento, and as late as 1848 there
was an attempt to resuscitate it.
Giuseppe Bertoldi. Memoirs of the secret societies
of the south of Italy, particularly the Carbonari.
London: John Murray, 1821
Rare Books Collection HS263 BER
The ‘Carbonari’ (charcoal-burners) was the
name given to adherents of one of a network of
secret societies active in Italy after the
restorations of 1814 and 1815. The aims of the
conspirators focused on Italian independence
and constitutional government.
In 1820 there was a military revolt in Naples,
led by members of the Carbonari and inspired
by the success of the revolution in Spain earlier
that year. The king, now ruling as Ferdinand I
of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, portrayed
here in the frontispiece, was forced to adopt the
constitution originally imposed on the king of
Spain in 1812, and restored by the 1820
revolution.
These events alarmed Austria, guarantor of the
post-Napoleonic settlement in Italy. Ferdinand
was required to withdraw the constitution and
allow an Austrian army to occupy Naples. In
the meantime, a revolution in Sicily that had
sought to restore the island's independence was
brutally put down by an army from the
mainland. Despite Ferdinand's proclamation
bestowing a pardon on all who had been
members of the secret societies, some of those
involved sought exile in Great Britain and
elsewhere.
The book displayed here contains documents
that provide a background to these events; it
also describes the organisation and customs of
the secret societies, with illustrations of their
uniforms and ceremonies. The text is a
translation from a manuscript by an unknown
Neapolitan author (ascribed to ‘Bertoldi’) who,
to accommodate his English translator, wrote in
French; it was important to him, he says, to
publish in London, as ‘The continent is
accustomed to receive the truth with less
distrust when it proceeds from Great Britain.’ A
version in Italian was published in 1904.
Our copy belonged to the family of Gabriele
Rossetti (1783 -1854), a Sicilian poet and
scholar mentioned in the text. Rossetti, who
spent three years in exile in Malta before
moving to London in 1824, was the father of
Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In 1831
he was elected professor of Italian at King's
College London.
Hugh William Williams. Travels in Italy, Greece
and the Ionian Islands.
Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co, 1820
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection D974 WIL
From the second half of the 18th century the
literature of the Grand Tour became less
didactic and more concerned with the
sensibility and personal experiences of the
author. This development is often attributed to
the influence of Lawrence Sterne’s A
sentimental journey through France and Italy
(1768).
Travel in Italy was difficult during the
Napoleonic period, when all of the peninsula
was either a part of France or ruled by a French
(Napoleonic) prince. When peace was restored,
British writers and painters returned to Italy in
search of subject matter for essays, poems and
works of art.
In 1816 the Scottish landscape painter Hugh
William Williams (1773-1829) began a twoyear tour of Italy and Greece. He published an
account of his travels in 1820, written in the
form of letters and illustrated with engravings
made after his own drawings.
The account of his Italian travels begins in
Florence. En route to Rome, he stopped in
Livorno and visited the English cemetery to
view the grave of Tobias Smollett. Continuing
south, he went to see the excavations at
Pompeii.
Williams sailed to the Ionian Islands from the
port of Otranto in Puglia. His sketch of the
Norman castle would have had resonances for
his British readership. Horace Walpole’s novel
The Castle of Otranto (first published in 1764)
had done much to associate Italy in the English
literary imagination with mystery and romance.
CASE 3
MALTA
Thomas Walsh. Journal of the late campaign in
Egypt: including descriptions of that country, and
of Gibralter, Minorca, Malta, Marmorice, and
Macri.
London: printed by Luke Hansard, for T Cadell
junior and W Davies, 1803
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DC225 WAL
Malta officially became part of the British
Empire in 1814, ceded to Britain from France
under the terms of the Treaty of Paris – though
it had been under British control since 1800. It
remained part of the British Empire until
gaining independence in 1964 and its position in
the centre of the Mediterranean gave it
importance as both a military base and,
following the opening of the Suez Canal in
1869, a stopping-off point on the trade route to
India and the East.
The hand-coloured plate shown here beautifully
illustrates the carriage and costumes
encountered by Captain Thomas Walsh, an
officer in the 93rd Regiment of Foot as he travels
via Malta as part of an expeditionary force to
Egypt, to counter the actions of the French in
their Egypt and Syria Campaign of 1798-1801.
In his observations of the island and its
archipelago, Walsh remarks on the ‘extremely
spacious’ harbour of Valletta and on the church
of St John, which is ‘far superior to the rest …
beautifully sculptured and adorned with some
good paintings’. The Order of the Knights of St
John of Jerusalem, or the Knights Hospitallier
were a religious order which ruled the island
from 1530 to 1798, building fortifications and
undertaking extensive infrastructure projects.
Travel narratives such as this fulfilled a growing
public desire among a British readership for
accounts of interesting and exotic places abroad.
As is the case with other examples in this
exhibition, they were often written by military
officers and thus included military content; the
appendix in this work details the Battle of
Alexandria, with information on casualties of
battle and disease, letters sent by officers, plans
of battlefields and sizes of regiments and corps.
Great Britain. Central Office of Information.
Introducing the Mediterranean colonies. London:
His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1948
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection
OVERSIZE DA11 GRE
The island of Malta was home to the
Mediterranean Fleet from the early 1800s until
the 1930s, after which the fleet was moved to
Alexandria because of the fear of bomber attack
from Italy. This left the island largely
undefended and the Siege of Malta by Axis
powers from June 1940 to November 1942 saw
huge damage inflicted on the island and
population from bombing raids, as German and
Italian naval and air forces attempted to disable
the British base and bomb the island into
submission.
In late 1942, with allied gains in North Africa
and Spitfires and Navy submarines combatting
Axis threats, the Siege of Malta effectively
ended. Allied convoys were now increasingly
able to travel in the Mediterranean theatre of
the war, and their forces could attack Axis
ships.
The island was collectively awarded the George
Cross in April 1942 and the award citation
delivered by George VI recorded that this
honour would ‘bear witness to a heroism and
devotion that will long be famous in history’.
The photograph shown here is of the Grand
Harbour of Valletta and the naval base, which
was used by Britain until 1959. Queen Elizabeth
II (then Princess Elizabeth) and her husband
Prince Philip lived at Villa Guardamangia, on
the outskirts of Valletta, while Philip undertook
naval service between 1949 and 1951. It is the
only time the present Queen has lived abroad
and their time on Malta is said to be
remembered fondly by the royal couple.
Great Britain. Colonial Office. Coronation 1953:
Booklets, programmes, etc. showing manner of
celebration in colonies. [1953]
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection
FOL. BX5147.C6 ELI
Malta gained independence from Britain in
1964, eleven years after these photographs of
the 1953 coronation celebrations were taken.
The photographs show floats, huge crowds and
street party celebrations and are from a
collection of documents on the coronation
assembled by staff of the Colonial Office
Library.
The souvenir programmes and photographs still
present a picture of an empire united in loyalty
to the sovereign, but some of the confidential
despatches tell a different story; in Malta’s
Mediterranean neighbour, Cyprus, for example,
no details of the celebratory programme were
released until a fortnight before the event, so as
to minimise opportunities for planned
disruption.
The relationship between Britain and its former
possessions had changed to that of a partnership
of nations, a partnership which the British
government hoped would provide some degree
of counter-balance to the two great Cold War
superpowers, filling the vacuum created by the
collapse of continental European power in 1945.
CASE 4
THE IONIAN
ISLANDS
Sir William Gell. The geography and antiquities
of Ithaca. London: printed by J Wright ... for
Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807
Rare Books Collection FOL. DF901.I8 G3
From the 13th century onwards, Venice
progressively obtained control of islands and
territories outside Italy that had once been part
of the Byzantine Empire. Among the former
were the seven ‘Illustrious’ Ionian islands of
Corfu, Paxo, Santa Maura, Ithaca, Cefalonia,
Zante and Cerigo. Other Venetian possessions
in mainland Greece (the Morea) and the Greek-
speaking islands, such as Crete and Cyprus,
became part of the Ottoman Empire, but the
Ionian Islands remained under Venetian rule
until the end of the Republic itself.
The Treaty of Campo Formio (October 1797)
dissolved the Venetian Republic, and the islands
briefly became part of the French Republic. The
following year, a combined force of Russians
and Ottomans began a successful campaign to
capture the islands from the French. From 1800
the Ionian Islands enjoyed nominal
independence as the ‘Septinsular Republic’,
under Ottoman suzerainty and Russian military
occupation.
In 1806 William Gell, (1777-1836), an
antiquarian who travelled extensively in the
eastern Mediterranean at the beginning of his
career, sailed from the Peloponnese,
accompanied by a fellow antiquarian, Edward
Dodwell, to visit the island of Ithaca.
The plate shown here, probably engraved from
one of Gell’s own drawings, depicts the capital
of the island, the port of Bathi, where they
arrived on Ascension Day. Gell describes the
festivities and the charm of the island in spring,
noting, ‘the only military force consisted of a
Russian serjeant and twelve privates, who lived
in perfect harmony with the inhabitants.’
The chief purpose of his visit, however, was to
look for locations from the Odyssey. There was
much contemporary interest in ancient sites
with a Homeric connection, and Ithaca was
renowned as the home of Odysseus.
Address of His Excellency Sir Thomas Maitland to
the Ionian Legislative Assembly [manuscript]
[1821]
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DF901.I65 ION
The Ionian Islands re-entered the
Mediterranean theatre of Anglo-French conflict
when they were re-ceded to France by the
Treaty of Tilsit (1807). Beginning in 1809, the
islands were progressively occupied by British
forces, until at the conclusion of the war in 1814
Corfu alone remained in French hands. The
Congress of Vienna (1815) granted
independence to the ‘United States of the
Ionian Islands’ but placed them under the
‘amical protection’ of the United Kingdom.
Thomas Maitland (1760-1824), a Scottish army
officer who was already governor of Malta, was
appointed the first Lord High Commissioner of
the Ionian Islands. At the request of the British
government, Maitland drafted a constitution
which was ratified in 1817. The constitution
gave his position of office significant powers.
Maitland improved the administration on the
islands and oversaw improvements to transport
links, public buildings and health. A new system
of taxation, however, was considered oppressive
by the local population.
The bound volume on display contains a
collection of Maitland’s speeches to the Ionian
Legislative Assembly from 1820 to 1823. This
address from 1821, the year of revolutions in
Italy and Greece, demonstrates a characteristic
mixture of condescension and good will. He
reminds the Assembly how ‘safe under the
protection of the British aegis’ they are fortunate
to live undisturbed by the ‘civil broils and
sanguinary contests’ then afflicting their
neighbours.
In the text on display here, he announces the
need to place more restrictions on foreigners
arriving on the islands. What follows this has,
significantly, been crossed through: ‘at the same
time publicly proscribing the formation of
associations or clubs destructive alike of all
general and individual security.’
Isaac Lowndes. Λεξικόν της Αγγλικής και
Γραικικής γλώσσης. Εις το οποίον προτίθεται
μία σύντομος γραμματική της Αγγλικής
διαλέκτου. Corfu: printed at the Government
Press, for the author, 1827
Miscellaneous Collection PA445.E4 LOW
This early English-Modern Greek dictionary,
was printed at what was then the only printing
press on the Ionian Islands. It was compiled by
an English missionary, Isaac Lowndes (1790?-
1873) who spent 25 years in the Ionian Islands
between 1819 and 1844, having previously
served for three years at a mission on Malta. He
seems to have been an accomplished linguist: he
went on to publish a Greek-English lexicon in
1837, and to oversee the printing of translations
of the Old and New Testaments into various
languages of the eastern Mediterranean for the
British and Foreign Bible Society.
The dictionary must have proved a
lexicographical challenge for Lowndes at this
time, when there was no standardised version of
either spoken or written ‘modern Greek.’ In the
title, he calls the language Γραικική γλώσσα
(Graikikē glossa) rather than the more usual
Ρωμαίικα (Romaic).
As was the case throughout the British colonies,
missionaries in the Mediterranean took a
particular interest in education. In October
1835, Lowndes was appointed inspectorgeneral of schools in the Ionian Islands, with
responsibility for every department of education
except the Ionian Academy. This, the first
university to use Greek as a medium of
instruction, was founded by the philhellene,
Frederick North, fifth earl of Guilford (17661827), to whom Lowndes dedicates this
lexicon.
The copy of the dictionary on display here is
inscribed with the name of Henry Hucks Gibbs
(1819–1907) director, and some time governor
(1875-7) of the Bank of England, who had an
interest in lexicography; he sub-edited the
letters C and K of the New English dictionary.
Charles James Napier. The colonies: treating of
their value generally, of the Ionian Islands in
particular. London: Thomas & William Boone,
[1833]
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DF901.I65 NAP
Charles James Napier (1782-1853), was an
army officer who had served in the Peninsular
War. In 1821 he was appointed to the post of
British resident in Cephalonia. He devoted his
time to overseeing the construction of roads,
lighthouses and public buildings. The most
important of these was the Markato, the first
courthouse on the island of Cephalonia,
depicted in the plate displayed here.
His plans for further improvements – a prison
and a new barracks – were thwarted by a
shortage of funds. After suggestions that he had
made unauthorised use of public money, and
that he had built his roads using forced labour,
he was removed from his post in 1830.
This book, written after Napier’s return to
England, is a sustained attack on the second
Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands,
Sir Frederick Adam (1784-1853), whom he
held responsible for his dismissal. It also gives
his views on international relations in the region
and the future of the British protectorate. He
supported the cause of Greek independence, but
he leans to the received British opinion that
‘many years must pass before a national Greek
government would be a safe protection for the
Ionian Islands.’
Britain was reluctant to part with a territory
which, together with Gibraltar and Malta,
formed part of chain of commercial ports and
naval bases that secured her power in the
Mediterranean. Despite increasing nationalist
sentiment and resentment of British colonial rule
amongst the population, the islands did not
achieve enosis, or union with Greece, until
1864.
CASE 5
GREECE
William Martin Leake. Travels in the Morea.
London: John Murray, 1830
Rare Books Collection. DF725 LEA
Leake (1777-1860) was an officer in the British
army whose training in the art of artillery
provided him with the skills in topography that
inform much of his published work. During the
French wars he was engaged in official duties in
different parts of the vast Ottoman Empire that
then ran from Egypt through the Levant and
Anatolia to the Aegean and much of the
Balkans.
In 1804 Leake was sent by the British
government on a mission to liaise with the
Ottomans, and to gather intelligence to support
plans for the defence of Greece against a feared
invasion by the French. After the Ottoman
Empire entered into an alliance with France in
1807, he was ordered to make his first
diplomatic approach to Ali Pasha, the powerful
governor of the Ottoman province of Ioannina
in what is now north western Greece. His
second mission to Ioannina lasted for over a
year, ending in the spring of 1810.
After he retired from the army, Leake was
active in a number of learned societies,
including the Society of Dilettanti, and the
Numismatic Society. In 1838 he married
Elizabeth Wray, the widow of William
Marsden, part of whose library of printed books
is held in the Foyle Special Collections Library.
This is the first volume of a three-volume work,
based on the journals Leake kept during the
survey of the Peloponnese, which he began in
February 1805. It provides a valuable firsthand account of what was then a largely
unexplored region, containing information
about ancient and contemporary topography
and the social and economic conditions of the
population. The maps and plans are based on
measurements made during the course of his
survey.
The plate shows the site of the Battle of
Sphacteria, where in 425 BC the Athenians
won a celebrated victory over the Spartans. It
would also have been known to Leake’s readers
as Navarino Bay, the site of the 1827 naval
battle at which a British squadron, under the
command of Admiral Edward Codrington,
together with vessels from the French and
Russian navies, sank the Turkish fleet, marking
a significant stage in Greece’s path to
independence.
John Cam Hobhouse, Baron Broughton. A
journey through Albania and other provinces of
Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople,
during the years 1809 and 1810. London: James
Cawthorn, 1813
Rare Books Collection DR425 HOB
In 1809 the politician John Cam Hobhouse
(1786-1869) accompanied Lord Byron, with
whom he had been a student at Trinity College,
Cambridge, on a journey to the eastern
Mediterranean by way of Gibraltar, Malta and
Albania, culminating in an audience with the
Sultan, Mahmoud II, in July 1810. The work on
display here is Hobhouse’s account of this
Grand Tour, told in the form of letters,
accompanied by colour illustrations.
Hobhouse and Byron arrived in Malta during a
period of British naval activity in the eastern
Mediterranean, as preparations were in train for
the capture of the Ionian Islands from the
French. The two young men were entertained
by members of the British diplomatic
community and persuaded to travel into
Albania, furnished with an introduction to Ali
Pasha, at whose capital, Tepellene, William
Martin Leake was then in residence.
On 24 January 1810 Hobhouse and Byron
visited the village of Marathon, illustrated in this
hand-coloured aquatint. It was here, in 490 BC,
that the Greeks, although outnumbered, had
defeated the army of the Persians. Byron was to
refer to Marathon in the celebrated philhellenic
lines in the third canto of Don Juan, published in
1821 on the eve of the Greek Revolution:
The mountains look on Marathon
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there a while alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free
Leicester Fitzgerald Charles Stanhope, earl of
Harrington. Greece, in 1823 and 1824: being a
series of letters and other documents on the Greek
revolution, written during a visit to that country.
To which is added the life of Mustapha Ali.
London: Sherwood, Jones, 1824
Rare Books Collection DF806 H3
The British government adopted a position of
neutrality towards the Greek War of
Independence. But there was considerable
support for the cause in Great Britain among
those who had travelled in Greece or took an
interest in Greek affairs. This support was
coordinated by the London Greek Committee,
established by John Bowring and Edward
Blaquiere in order to publicise the Greek
struggle, to collect finances for a military
expedition to Greece and to raise a substantial
loan for the Greek government. Its first meeting
was held on 28 February 1823 in the Crown
and Anchor tavern on the Strand and its early
membership included Lord Byron and Jeremy
Bentham.
Leicester Stanhope (1784-1862), a lieutenantcolonel in the British Army, became the
committee’s agent and travelled to Greece in
September 1823, where he met his fellow
representative, Byron, in Cephalonia. In
December he arrived in Missolonghi, where
Alexander Mavrocordato, the leader of the
Greeks in the west of the country, was based.
Byron and Stanhope had both been nominated
by the London Greek Committee as
commissioners to look after the distribution of
the committee’s loan. Byron died from fever in
April, and Stanhope, as a serving army officer,
was recalled to England by the foreign
secretary, George Canning. Their absence
caused difficulties when the gold sovereigns
reached Zante in late April 1824; the first and
second loans were eventually despatched to the
Greek government but spent without any
intervention from the committee.
Stanhope’s letters to the London Greek
Committee were published in September 1824.
The Turkish boy shown on the frontispiece,
Mustapha Ali, lost his family during the war and
was brought back to England by Stanhope.
Stanhope set up several schools while in Greece
and the committee arranged for a number of
Greek boys to be educated in England, with the
intention of sending them back to Greece as
school teachers.
Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt. Travels and
researches in Crete. London: John van Voorst,
1865
Rare Books Collection DF901.C8 SPR
In a naval career that extended for over 30
years, Captain TAB Spratt (1811-88) took part
in surveys in the eastern Mediterranean,
preparing nautical charts for the Admiralty
Hydrographic Department. He served in the
Black Sea and the Sea of Azov during the
Crimean War (1855); surveyed the approaches
to the projected Suez Canal (1856); and from
1858 was involved in taking soundings to assist
the laying of submarine telegraphic cables.
Between 1851 and 1853, while surveying the
coast of Crete, Spratt took the opportunity to
explore the hinterland of the island. Crete at this
time was still part of the Ottoman Empire (it
was not to be joined with Greece until 1913)
and little was known about its topography and
population. The item displayed here is the first
of a two-volume work in which he records his
observations on the island’s ancient settlements,
geology, fauna, and flora and on the everyday
life of the people of Crete.
The chromolithograph on display is taken from
a sketch by the author and illustrates the ‘small
caïques or half-decked boats … very handy little
craft’ used for sponge diving on the eastern
coast of Crete, where this enterprise played an
important role in the local economy. Spratt
reminds his Victorian British readers that the
‘gentleman at his morning ablutions’ has little
idea of ‘the hard and peculiar trials and
exertions some fellow-creature has gone through
before he was enabled to procure for [his]
gratification this valuable and peculiar marine
production.’
Spratt was a friend of Edward Forbes, professor
of Botany at King’s College London from 1843.
He corresponded with William Martin Leake,
Sir Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin, who was
interested in the evidence he adduces of Bronze
Age civilization on Crete, and to whom he sent
a copy of this book.
CASE 6
CYPRUS
FH Fisher. Cyprus: our new colony and what we
know about it. London: George Routledge and
Sons, 1878
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DS54 FIS
Between 13 June and 13 July 1878 Germany
hosted the Congress of Berlin, a meeting of the
principal powers of Europe. One of its main
items of business was the situation in the
Balkans following the defeat of the Ottoman
Empire in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8.
On 7 July delegates were informed that Great
Britain and the Ottoman Empire, at a
conference a month earlier in Constantinople,
had agreed a defensive alliance that guaranteed
British aid to the latter in the event of Russian
incursions into Anatolia. In return, Great Britain
had been awarded the administration of Cyprus,
together with the right to garrison the island.
Reaction at home was generally favourable
though some naval experts were hesitant about
the real worth of the island. And by the end of
July, FH Fisher, a former member of the Bengal
Civil Service, had completed a 128-page guide
to Cyprus.
The guide begins with advice on how to get to
the island from Great Britain. All the routes
suggested follow the first stages of the much
longer journey to India by way of the Suez
Canal, but Fisher's own preference was to take
the train from Calais to Paris and from there to
Turin and Genoa via the recently completed
Mont Cenis tunnel.
The author was able to look forward, with
optimism, to the British High Commissioner's
likely reception: ‘We think we may say to Sir
Garnet Wolseley, as Othello did to his bride,
“You shall be well-desired in Cyprus.”’
In the event, when on 22 July 1879 Wolseley
reached Larnaca, he was received civilly by
representatives of the Greek community. But it
was said that the local ethnarch pointedly
recalled the 1864 union of the Ionian Islands
with the kingdom of Greece, foreshadowing the
demand for enosis that was to colour BritishGreek Cypriot relations for the following 80
years.
Annie Brassey. Sunshine and storm in the East,
or, Cruises to Cyprus and Constantinople.
London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1880
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection D972 BRA
In November 1878 Annie, Lady Brassey (183987) spent three nights as the guest of the high
commissioner, Sir Garnet Wolseley, at his
headquarters at the ‘Monastery Camp’ outside
the walls of Nicosia. She had arrived in Cyprus
on board the Sunbeam, a schooner with a 350
horsepower steam engine, in which she and her
husband, the liberal politician Thomas Brassey
(1836-1918), had previously circumnavigated
the world.
Told in the form of journal entries detailing her
experiences and impressions, and those of her
crew, various companions, husband and
children, her accounts of these cruises proved
very popular when they were first published.
Here she gives an informative and entertaining
picture of Cyprus shortly after it became a
British possession, and one which domesticates
and illuminates some of the names from the
historical accounts.
The book is illustrated with wood engravings,
some based on drawings by AY Bingham, and
some from photographs taken by the author.
The cover design is by Gustave Doré. The
conceit is explained in the Preface:
The good genii of the sea, pleased with the
Sunbeam's frequent and lengthened visits to their
ocean home, are spreading out before her a
panorama of the world ...Constantinople and
Cyprus being faintly indicated on the scroll.
Agnes Smith Lewis. Through Cyprus. London:
Hurst and Blackett, 1887
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DS54 LEW
This illustrated account of a tour of Cyprus,
eight years after it had become a British
possession, is notable both as another example of
Victorian women’s travel writing, and as
evidence of how the advent of steam and rail
travel, and the publication of John Murray’s and
other guidebooks to the Mediterranean region
had democratised the Grand Tour.
The author and her companion endured an
uncomfortable train journey from Paris to
Marseilles, from where they sailed to Port Said.
They took the steamship Rio Grande of the
Messageries Maritimes, from Beirut to Larnaca.
The frontispiece, based on a photograph, shows
their tents and travelling party, ‘a strangely
assorted cavalcade which consisted of two
ladies, an Arab dragoman, an Arab waiter, a
cook, one Arab muleteer, and five Cypriots,
each of whom owned three mules.’
The author was born Agnes Smith (1843–
1926), the daughter of a Scottish Presbyterian
lawyer. Her education, partly at boarding
schools and partly at home, inspired in her a
lasting interest in languages and in the ancient
world. She inherited a sufficient income to
enable her to travel in the eastern
Mediterranean and to pursue her studies of
Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and Syriac. Later in her
life she became distinguished as an antiquarian
and scholar.
Great Britain. Central Office of Information.
Cyprus to-day. London: Her Majesty’s
Stationery Office, 1955
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection
OVERSIZE DA11 GRE
Turkish claims to sovereignty in Cyprus were
relinquished in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923)
and in 1925 the island became a British crown
colony, coming under English rule for the first
time since Richard, Coeur de Lion was Lord of
Cyprus in the 12th century.
During the era of decolonisation that followed
the Second World War questions arose about
the future of Cyprus. However, Britain valued
the strategic importance of its ‘Gibraltar in the
east’ and made the island its new British Middle
East Land Force Headquarters, after the
withdrawal from Egypt in 1954.
The introduction to this collection of 12
photographs, published by the Central Office of
Information in 1955, states:
The island is today an essential part of the
defensive system of the free world. Cyprus enjoys a
stable exchange within the sterling area. Its trade
prospers and much progress is being made in
agriculture, education, forestry and other fields
through the £8,000,000 development plan.
This photograph shows the new British army
base at Dhekelia. The United Kingdom still
retains two Sovereign Base Areas at Akrotiri
and Dhekelia.
A Cyprus pocket book: containing indisputable all
British documentary evidence of the seventy-eight
years colonial exploitation of the people of Cyprus
by and for the enrichment of their British colonial
masters and British achievements in apathy,
negligence, and incompetence in the
administration of Cyprus. [Athens: The Greek
Youth of Cyprus, 1956?]
Adam (Grindea) Collection HC415.2 C9 GRE
This pamphlet was published by ‘the Greek
Youth of Athens’ in response to a new economic
development plan for Cyprus allegedly proposed
by the Conservative government in 1956 ‘in the
hope of bribing its Greek population to consent
to the perpetuation of British colonialism over
the island.’
Supported by photographs and copies of letters
and other documents, the authors compile a list
of charges, beginning with a historical
grievance, the British misappropriation of the
‘tribute to Turkey’ which, under the Cyprus
Convention, the island was obliged to pay to the
Ottoman Sultan; they also include the
discouragement of industry, the depression of
agriculture, and the plundering of antiquities.
During this period the Greek Cypriots had
continued to agitate for union with Greece.
Political opposition to British colonial rule in
Cyprus was led by Archbishop Makarios III. In
April 1955, EOKA (‘National Organisation for
Cypriot Struggle’) began a guerrilla campaign,
attacking public British targets.
After the Suez Crisis of 1956, a compromise
began to take shape. The British were prepared
to grant Cyprus independence on condition that
they could retain military bases on the island. A
union between Cyprus and Greece, however,
was not considered feasible and would have
been opposed both by the Turkish minority on
the island and by Turkey.
The Zurich and London agreements of
February 1959 approved the setting up of an
independent Cypriot state. This came into
existence in August 1960, and shortly
afterwards the Republic of Cyprus became a
member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The
Agreement allowed for a form of power sharing
between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
However, this arrangement was to prove
unstable, leading to intercommunal violence,
and, in 1974, to the partition of the island that
still obtains today.
CASE 7
THE LEVANT
AND THE HOLY
LANDS
Charles Colville Frankland. Travels to and from
Constantinople in the years 1827 and 1828.
Volumes 1 and 2. London: Henry Colburn,
1829
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DR425 FRA
The two-volume travel journal displayed here
was written by an officer of the Royal Navy as
he travelled extensively around southern Europe
and an area historically known as the Levant.
The work is dedicated to his uncle, Lord
Colville of Culross, also a naval officer, who, in
the tradition of the Grand Tour, may have
financed the author’s travels.
The etymology of the word ‘Levant’ comes
from the Latin ‘to rise’ (ie the sun rises in the
east) and generally refers to areas of the eastern
Mediterranean, including areas of North Africa.
In the past few years it has gained negative
connotations through being included in the
acronym ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant).
Frankland was an enthusiastic traveller,
remarking on the hospitality of the monks in
Syrian monasteries and commenting on his
journey from Beirut to Mount Lebanon, ‘I have
seen some of the most picturesque parts of
Europe and America, but I really think I have
never yet beheld such scenery as here presents
itself’. The work also recounts his travels to the
historic Mediterranean port cities of Alexandria,
Venice and Naples.
On his eventual return to London in 1828 after
three years’ absence, he landed, unimpressed, at
the ‘dirty and disagreeable Custom-house
wharf’, in the busy docklands area of east
London.
The hand-coloured frontispiece shown in
volume 1 shows three portraits. The first is of a
Mamaluke, a term that encompasses a diverse
demographic of people from across the eastern
Mediterranean and Middle East. Historically,
Mamalukes were emancipated slaves trained as
military personnel and they held power in parts
of the Ottoman Empire. The second portrait
shows a lady of Mount Lebanon from the
Maronite community; and the third an Arab
princess who wears a similar cone-like
headdress known as a tantour.
The frontispiece portraits in volume 2 show
Christian ladies of Damascus and Aleppo and an
Arab sheikh of the mountains.
William Turner. Journal of a tour in the Levant.
Volumes 1 and 2.
London: John Murray, 1820
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DS48 TUR
The author of this two-volume tour of the
Levant, William Turner (1792-1867) was a
diplomat who worked in various roles at the
British Embassy in Constantinople and spent a
considerable amount of time exploring the
region.
Constantinople was from 1453 to 1922 the
capital of the Ottoman Empire and therefore an
important commercial and strategic
transcontinental city, at the centre of the Silk
Road trade route.
The work relays the author’s experiences while
on ambassadorial business, including an
encounter involving a British vice-consul at a
Greek port in the Morea. The vice-consul, a
foreign employee of the Levant Company,
which existed from 1592 to 1825 to further
British trade in the region, is kidnapped by
French privateers over a dispute involving a ship
taken at sea. Turner less than sympathetically
confesses:
I wish the French would carry them all off to
America. They are in general Greek merchants,
without public character, and without pay, who
are respected by neither Turks, Greeks or Franks.
Information on the currency, weights and
measures of Turkey are also included in the
Journal, perhaps useful to the author in his role
as embassy clerk and secretary in
Constantinople.
The work is dedicated to George Canning,
former British foreign secretary and prime
minister, and a friend of Turner’s father, who
gave him a clerkship at the Foreign Office.
The frontispiece on display from volume 1
illustrates the ‘mode of travelling in Turkey’.
The men to the left are Surigees (conductors)
‘leading the baggage horses, whose load is
covered with a carpet or piece of cloth to save it
from rain’; and the figure in the middle is the
Janissary, an elite military guard, of the
travellers. Turner states that both the costumes
and the country house are accurately depicted
in the plate.
The frontispiece to volume 2 shows ‘Specimens
of Turkish drawings’.
Ludwig Preiss and Paul Rohrbach. Palestine and
Transjordania.
London: Sheldon Press, 1926
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection FOL. DS108.5 PRE
When this book was published, eight years after
the Balfour Declaration had stated the British
government’s support for ‘the establishment in
Palestine of a homeland for the Jewish people’,
the British administration of Palestine
(Mandatory Palestine) was in effect.
The British mandate lasted from 1920 to 1948
and British involvement in the area and wider
region is recognised to have had lasting effects.
Attempts by the British to manage Arab and
Jewish interests, as well as the self-interest of a
declining imperial power, were not without
cost. Conflicts took hold between parties, with
the Arab Revolt of 1936-9 aimed against the
occupying colonial power and the Zionist
insurgency of 1944-7 similarly targeting British
forces and notoriously blowing up the King
David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946.
The work on display here contains photographs
of Palestine, depicting life there before large
scale Jewish immigration to the territory. There
are photographs of the many holy sites of Islam,
Christianity and Judaism; as well as portraits of
Bedouin in the desert, Jews at the wailing-wall,
Arabs in the old city of Jerusalem and Christian
worshippers.
Ellen Thorbecke. Promised land. New York,
London: Harper and Bros., [1947]
Adam (Grindea) Collection DS126.T5 THO
The foreword to this book states that ‘The
transformation of Palestine was achieved by a
trickle of settlers which, since Nazi persecution
began, has swelled into a stream of over 600,000
people’. This Aliyah, or return, saw the
demography and landscape of the region
transformed, with such developments as the
establishment of the city of Tel Aviv and of
kibbutzim to farm the often barren land. Images
in the book illustrate these widespread changes
to urban and rural life.
In the period preceding Israeli independence,
the British Mediterranean Fleet made
successive efforts to limit the numbers of Jewish
immigrants, many Holocaust survivors, from
entering Palestine. A year after this book was
published the state of Israel was formally
declared at the cessation of the British mandate
in Palestine; Israel was then immediately
invaded by a military coalition of Arab states,
resulting in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
The Foyle Special Collections Library holds
collections which examine the history of
Palestine and Israel. We hold the library of HG
Adler, a Holocaust survivor, and the former
library of the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, which includes material on ‘Mandatory
Palestine’ as well as pre-20th century accounts
of the region. The item on display is from the
Adam (Grindea) Collection, the former library
of literary journalist, Miron Grindea (1909-95),
a Romanian Jewish émigré to Britain.
CASE 8
NORTH AFRICA
Stanley Lane-Poole. Social life in Egypt.
London: JS Virtue and Co, [1884]
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection FOL. DT70 LAN
Stanley Lane-Poole (1834-1931) was a
historian, archaeologist and numismatist, who,
like other members of his close family, spent his
working life involved in the study of the Arabic
and Islamic world. He catalogued Islamic coins
at the British Museum under the tutorship of his
uncle, as well as working at the Khedival
Library at Cairo, for the Egyptian government.
The attitude of Western powers, including
Britain, to the procurement of antiquities from
colonial territories for display and collection in
national museums was lax by modern standards
and many items from across the former Empire
and elsewhere are now housed in Britain.
Disputes over items such as the Greek Elgin
Marbles and the Rosetta Stone, taken to Britain
from Egypt in 1801, still wrangle today.
Lane-Poole spent considerable time in Egypt
and the book on display here illustrates – using
techniques of both wood and steel engravings –
a diverse array of Egyptian customs. There are
illustrations of grand mosques in Cairo and
Alexandria; street scenes of townsfolk in their
daily lives and depictions of life on and around
the Nile. The illustration shown here is a steel
engraving of ‘A daughter of the East’.
The history of Britain’s involvement in Egypt
went far beyond the study of antiquities. From
1882 to 1956 British forces were stationed in
the country; at first under the guise of various
declared protectorates and, following the
granting of nominal independence in 1922, as
guarantors of British interests in the region.
Following the Suez Crisis of 1956 (see case 9)
the last British troops were forced off Egyptian
soil in a humiliating episode that vividly
illustrated Britain’s declining imperial might.
GF Lyon. A narrative of travels in northern
Africa in the years 1818, 19 and 20.
London: John Murray, 1821
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection FOL. DT219 LYO
In 1821 the explorer and naval officer George
Francis Lyon (1795-1832) published this
account of his travels in northern Africa,
illustrated with hand-coloured lithographic
plates made after his own drawings.
Lyon was keenly interested in the local life and
customs of the communities he encountered and
the images here, from two copies of the featured
work, show costumes worn in the port city of
Tripoli. In the group portrait, the figure on the
right wears a pink waistcoat called a sidrea, ‘in
the same manner of the Guernsey frock worn by
seamen’; the figure in the centre wears a
beneish, a type of short-sleeved caftan; and the
woman is covered with a barracan, ‘so arranged
to envelop the body and head’.
The single portrait of the magnificently attired
upper-class woman shows her wearing a
different type of barracan, ‘of silk or fine cotton
of the most gaudy colours, which is so put on as
to form a species of petticoat’. The text opposite
this image, in contrast to the beautiful image,
also reveals the severe punishments meted out
for ‘capital crime’ and theft in Tripoli.
Lyon adopted the alias Said-ben-Abdallah and
had accompanied Joseph Ritchie, secretary to
the consul in Paris, on his ill-fated expedition
into the African interior. Ritchie unfortunately
died on the expedition and Lyon himself
contracted dysentery, one of a number of
diseases from which he would suffer on his
worldwide travels. In the 19th century British
and European explorers and missionaries
increasingly ventured further into the hinterland
of Africa; with many, like Ritchie, meeting their
fate through disease or misadventure.
Ruled by the Ottomans from 1551 to 1911 and
then by the Italians for the first half of the 20th
century, Libya became the centre of the North
African Campaign in the Second World War
(see case 9). Britain and France administered
the country until independence was declared in
1951.
Hewson Clarke. The history of the war, from the
establishment of Louis XVIII on the throne of
France to the bombardment of Algiers. London: T
Kinnersley, 1817
Rare Books Collection DC239 CLA
On 27 August 1816, under the command of
Admiral Lord Exmouth (1757-1833), an AngloDutch fleet undertook a huge bombardment of
Algiers, the aim of which was to stop the Dey of
Algiers from pursuing the policy of enslaving
Christian Europeans.
Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars,
Britain no longer needed the North African
Barbary states (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and
Morocco) for supplying Gibraltar and its
Mediterranean Fleet, so an intervention of this
kind appeared both expedient and moral. Allied
to this, anti-slavery movements were gaining
credence and support in the early 19th century,
with the slave trade banned in the British
Empire in 1807. It would however be a further
26 years before slavery itself was outlawed in
the Empire.
Following the bombardment, a letter was sent
by Lord Exmouth to the Dey of Algiers
demanding surrender. Unknown to the Dey,
however, was the fact that the Anglo-Dutch
fleet had used nearly all its ammunition during
the bombardment, so the letter was in effect a
bluff. Nevertheless, it was accepted – the
Algerian forces had suffered heavy losses, as did
the British and Dutch themselves – and a treaty
was signed in a bomb-damaged room resulting
in the eventual freeing of 3,000 slaves, and the
British Consul.
European powers’ military interventions in the
Mediterranean region were often played out for
more explicit national self-interest. In the period
leading up to the bombardment of Algiers,
Britain and France battled for territory and
influence, in the Mediterranean Campaign of
1798 and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars.
The plate on show here shows the
bombardment of the harbour at Algiers. It has
been said that the writer CS Forester based the
character of ‘Hornblower’ on Lord Exmouth, or
Edward Pellew, as he was before ennoblement.
CASE 9
20th CENTURY
CONFLICT
The history of conflict in the Mediterranean is
as old as the civilisations that have for millennia
occupied the banks of its shores. Through the
Roman Empire and the journeys of the
crusaders, to the later modern conflicts
mentioned in this exhibition, control of the ‘sea
between the lands’ has long been sought and
fought over.
Throughout the 20th century the Mediterranean
region was a theatre of war for the period’s
major conflicts, with Britain, its imperial forces
and allies heavily involved. The Foyle Special
Collections Library and King’s College London
Archives, including the Liddell Hart Centre for
Military Archives, hold extensive resources and
individual collections on war and conflict in the
Mediterranean and in relation to the wider
theatres of 20th century conflict. The items in
this final case and the collections referenced
give a small snapshot of these important and
diverse holdings.
Staff in Special Collections and Archives are
always happy to discuss research needs. Please
feel free to contact us and we will be pleased to
advise on available material and individual
collections. Research guides available in this
room can also help with your studies.
The First World War in the Mediterranean
Gallipoli
The Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
(LHCMA) holds nearly 200 collections relating
to the First World War; and the Foyle Special
Collections Library’s holdings relating to the
conflict include much material from the library
of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
transferred to King’s in 2007.
The single largest LHCMA collection relating
to Gallipoli comprises the papers of General Sir
Ian Hamilton, with extensive material relating
to his command of the Mediterranean
Expeditionary Force at Gallipoli in 1915,
including official and semi-official
correspondence, despatches, telegrams, situation
reports, operation orders, maps and
photographs.
Gallipoli proved to be one of the Ottoman
Empire’s greatest victories, and an expensive
failure for the Allies. It left an estimated overall
total of 100,000 dead.
This photograph shows a view of ‘V’ Beach, the
landing beach on the southern edge of Cape
Helles. It was taken from the deck of SS River
Clyde, a requisitioned and converted collier, on
1 June 1915, five weeks after the disastrous
landings on 25 April (commemorated as
ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand),
when nearly three quarters of Allied troops
landed on V Beach were killed or wounded.
LHCMA Hamilton 7/12/11
Palestine
The papers of Field Marshal Viscount Allenby,
Commander-in-Chief, Egyptian Expeditionary
Force, Palestine and Egypt, 1917-19 include
semi-official and personal correspondence and
press cuttings – many of which, like the Punch
cartoon on show here, explicitly compared the
conquest of Palestine to the medieval crusades.
LHCMA Allenby 2/5/27
The Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First
World War saw the British and Ottoman
Empires clash across the region, with the
eventual British victory resulting in the
establishment of ‘Mandatory Palestine’ (see case
7).
The Second World War in the Mediterranean
Col GF Taylor (1903-79) served as Director of
Overseas Groups and Missions in the Special
Operations Executive (SOE) in 1942-3. His
correspondence, reports and memoranda chiefly
relate to his later service as Director of SOE’s
Far East Group in 1943-5, but also include
briefing notes on SOE operations in Greece and
Yugoslavia in 1943.
This map show the locations of SOE personnel
in Greece in October 1943.
LHCMA GF Taylor
Brigadier ECW Myers (1906-97) commanded
the British Military Mission to Greek guerrillas
in German occupied Greece from July 1942 to
September 1943. His collection in the LHCMA
includes diaries, correspondence, signals, maps,
photographs and reports, notably on two of
SOE’s biggest and most successful acts of
sabotage, the destruction of the Gorgopotamos
railway viaduct in November 1942 and of the
Asopos viaduct in June 1943.
Shown here is the first page of a report on
Operation WASHING, for the Asopos viaduct
bombing, written by Captain Keith Scott
(‘Kilt’), detailing the plastic high explosive
(PHE) used, and the punning code names of the
men who did the work.
LHCMA Myers 1/2
Cyrenaica (Territory under British occupation,
1942-9). Handbook on Cyrenaica. [Cairo]:
Printing and Stationery Service, MEF, 1944-5
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical
Collection DT238.C8 CYR
The area of Cyrenaica forms the eastern coastal
region of Libya. Following its capture by British
and Allied Forces in the North African
Campaign (1940-3) it was administered by the
British until 1951.
The book acts as a handbook for the occupying
British forces and an editor’s note at the
beginning reads:
This handbook which for convenience is being
brought out in parts, has been prepared on the
instructions and under the guidance of Brigadier
DC Cumming, OBE, deputy chief civil affairs
officer, British Military Administration,
Cyrenaica.
The book – which came to the Foreign Office
Library via the War Office – contains
information on anything the British
administration might need in dealing with the
territory and its people. There is information on
the geology and physical features of the land;
various tribes and their divisions and the Italian
colonial period.
It also includes extensive bibliographies of
related literature and fold-out maps.
The opening here shows an overview of the
region.
The Suez conflict of 1956
General Sir Hugh Stockwell was commander of
Ground Forces in the Suez Crisis of 1956. The
joint Anglo-French-Israeli invasion, which
aimed to regain control of the Suez Canal from
Egypt and depose President Abdel Nasser,
ended in humiliation for Britain, with the
United States leading worldwide
condemnation.
The collection includes reports, messages, maps
and photographs relating to Operation
MUSKETEER, for the seizing of the Suez
Canal by a combined Anglo-French force under
Stockwell’s command.
Stockwell’s own report, written in February
1957, is shown here.
LHCMA Stockwell 8/2/2
This photograph from November 1956 shows
Stockwell (in glasses) and an angry Egyptian
crowd in Port Said, which had been the main
target of the Anglo-French invasion force.
Stockwell himself captioned this ‘Rioting in
Port Said brought under control’. His placatory
stance contrasts with the tension apparent in the
trigger finger of the soldier on the left.
LHCMA Stockwell 8/7/1
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