Britain took control of Cyprus under an 1878 agreement tied to a pledge to help protect the Ottoman Empire against Russia. During World War I, Britain offered the island to King Constantine I if Greece joined the Allies, but he refused. Cyprus became a British Crown Colony in 1925. Enosis, or union with Greece, later became a declared goal of Greek Cypriot leaders and was opposed by the island's Muslim minority. By autumn 1955, insurgent violence was directed at British colonial authorities and the Muslim community. This background explains why HMS Birmingham's Mediterranean commission abruptly became a troop transport mission.
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The colonial and communal tensions behind the Cyprus Emergency
British administration, the Enosis movement, and opposition from the island's Muslim minority set the immediate context for the violence of 1955.