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Cyprus entered the Empire under rather unusual circumstances in 1878. The Ottoman Empire had just been at war with Russia and were very much in danger of losing control of their capital Constantinople. The British intervened in the crisis on the side of the Ottoman Turks by sending a fleet to intimidate the Russians. The Ottoman Sultan was so thankful for the British intervention that he granted the control of the island of Cyprus to the British under the Cyprus Convention.
The timing was quite auspicious for the British, the Suez Canal had opened less than a decade before and so the sea-borne traffic in the Eastern Mediterranean was rising substantially. Much of this traffic was British en route to or from India. Some 4 years later, the British would use the island as a major base of operations for the invasion and occupation of Egypt. This would confirm Britain's growing dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus' role would rise commensurate with that influence. By 1906 the major harbour at Famagusta was completed to this end.
The British were supposed to be running Cyprus on behalf of the Ottomans, but this informal agreement would be unsubtly ended at the outbreak of World War One, when the Turks and British found themselves on opposing sides. Indeed many of the Greek Cypriots on the island, as British subjects, joined the British Army and fought against the Ottomans. The island itself was a very useful base of operations against the Turks.
Rising Greek nationalism in the post war period saw political tensions rise as the Greek Cypriotss on the island wanted to unite with Greece, whilst the Turkish Cypriots were equally keen to join with Turkey. Riots became increasingly violent as the British themselves resisted claims from both sides in order to keep their important military bases there.
Much of the strategic rationale for maintaining Cyprus would disappear after the Suez Canal debacle in 1956 saw Britain climb down from their invasion of the canal zone. In many ways this event marked the beginning of the end of the British Empire in Africa and the Middle East. Consequently nationalists on the island of Cyprus took heart and increased their demands for independence. Although the intractable demands of the two major constituencies made these negotiations particularly difficult.
In the end, the British negotiated to keep their military bases as sovereign areas on the island whilst ceding control to an independent island which allocated government posts and public offices by ethnic quota. However, this arrangement did not last long into independence and is still to be resolved to this day.
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