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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 SELECT BIBLIOGRPAHY Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation Travelogues [http://eng.travelogues.gr/, accessed 13 January 2016] Elizabeth Baigent, ‘Lyon, George Francis (1795–1832)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2013 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/172 74, accessed 15 Dec 2015] Roderick Beaton. Byron's war: romantic rebellion, Greek Revolution. 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