Crisp, hard Sir Ronald Storrs, who was with Kitchener in Egypt and with Lawrence in Arabia, was not half quick enough last week for the Greeks of Cyprus, a Mediterranean Island which he rules as British Governor.
While Storrs snored in his big bed in Government House, in the inland capital of Nicosia, chattering Greeks (who never seem to go to bed) worked themselves up to riot. Some were inflamed by Orthodox priests who told of a "fiery cross" raised against British rule on the heights of Limassol two nights before. According to the priests, the Orthodox Patriarch of Cyprus (who jealously guards his 1,000-year-old right to sign his name in red ink) had proclaimed the end of British rule and the union of Cyprus with Greece "because the people will it!"
More mobsmen were inflamed by six members of the Cyprus Legislative Council who denounced Storrs for enforcing a recent order-in-council by His Majesty George V. It erects tariffs explicitly rejected by Cyprus' own Council. "Citizens! Greeks!" cried the disgruntled Councilmen, "KATΩ OI TΥPANNOl!" ("Down with the Tyrants!"), "KATΩ OI ΞENOl!" ("Out with the Foreigners!")
Pell-mell upon Government House rushed the Greeks bearing brickbats which they presented to Sir Ronald Storrs through his bedroom window (Lady Storrs was asleep in England). In five minutes brickbatters had spattered every windowpane in Government House to splinters. Sir Ronald & staff, leaping for their trousers, escaped in disorder while a handful of police covered their retreat.
Mobsmen drove the police first from Sir Ronald's garage, poured gasoline on the six Government cars, burnt them with yells of triumph and great stench of rubber & paint. Next they stove in the locked door of Government house, smashed Sir Ronald's choice parlor ornaments, knifed his oil paintings, fouled his bedroom. Setting fire at last to Government House in five places, Cyprus' Greeks burnt it utterly to the ground, sang as it burned the National Anthem of the Greek Republic:
We knew thee of old Oh divinely restored By the light oj thine eyes And the light of thy sword.
From the graves of our slain Shall thy valour prevail As we greet thee again Hail, Liberty! Hail!*
From this pitch of lyric arson, Cyprus' revolt inevitably calmed down as armed Britons rushed to Storr's aid. It took a troop of Royal Welch Fusiliers all night to bump 50 miles over awful roads from their encampment on Mount-Troodos. But soon after dawn their mud-spattered trucks snorted into Nicosia and the mob was cowed.
Next to arrive were 50 Tommys from Egypt, who flew in. After them flew six more British troop planes from Alexandria 350 miles away. Late in arriving were 300 British Marines from Crete (400 mi.). Unable to fly to Cyprus, they came on four fleet British war boats.
In Athens, where Premier Eleutherios Venizelos of Greece might have offered hopeless encouragement to Cyprus' revolutionaries, the foxy old Greek statesman mercifully said: "The question of Cyprus does not exist between Greece and Great Britain. It exists only between Britain and the Islanders."