Chapter 49: The Cypriot Affair
French support for the Khedivate of Egypt originally began in the years following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. At its onset, the relationship between Egypt and France was an attempt by Muhammad Ali to strengthen his grip on the Eyalet of Egypt through the modernization and reformation of the Egyptian military and economy. The restored Bourbon Monarchy in turn used it as an opportunity to export liberal officers and troublesome intellectuals to serve in Muhammad Ali’s court while also buying and selling various commodities between one another. Over the years, this relationship would expand to include the shipment of arms, munitions, and even warships which would help cement the Egyptian military as one of the finest in the world.
These shipments of officers and engineers, weapons and ships would continue unabated through the Greek War of Independence, despite French intervention on the sides of the Greeks in 1827. Even the overthrow of the Bourbons and the rise of the July Monarchy in 1830 failed to impair the relationship between Egypt and France.
[1] The French support of Egypt would finally pay dividends during the First Syrian War as the Egyptian Navy, comprised almost entirely of French built warships, completely overwhelmed the cities and fortresses of the Ottoman littoral in Syria and Palestine. The effect was so great that the Ottoman position in the Levant had collapsed within a matter of weeks, rather than the months originally anticipated, bringing the conflict to a swift and decisive conclusion in favor of Muhammad Ali. This result would in turn lead the Ottoman government to seek military aid of its own from the Prussians, Austrians, and British, helping them to narrow the gap between themselves and the Egyptians.
When the Second Syrian War broke out in March 1840, it came as no surprise that the French continued to support their client in the face of the Ottoman aggression. If anything, the surprising success of the Ottomans on the battlefield in the initial weeks of the war necessitated further involvement by the French to prop up the beleaguered Khedivate lest they lose their foothold in the region entirely. As early as mid-April, French flagged ships began appearing along the Levantine coast bearing food, clothing, and medical supplies at first, but soon thereafter they were hauling rifles, cannons, and Egyptian soldiers to the front in Syria from Egypt stretching the bounds of their neutrality to the limit.
Unsurprisingly, the Ottoman Government would take great umbrage with this interference in their internal affairs and a formal complaint was dispatched to Paris, and the French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Edouard Pontois was publicly lambasted by the ailing Sultan Mahmud II. Beyond this however, no hostility actually took place between the Ottomans and the French as both feared an escalation of the conflict between them. Eventually, tensions would cool as the conflict in Syria ground to halt following the battle of Ar Rastan, the death of Sultan Mahmud, and Sultan Abdulmejid’s subsequent call for a ceasefire. The magnanimous young Sultan even offered the French a seat at the peace conference as a mediator, alongside Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia. But before that conference could take place, an incident at sea would threaten to unravel everything.
Sultan Abdulmejid I (circa 1840)
On the 3rd of July, the French Frigate
Résolue and her sister ship
Thetis left port in Alexandria alongside 3 smaller merchant ships carrying the latest shipment of arms and munitions for the Egyptian soldiers in the Levant. Though the fighting had officially ceased, skirmishes and the occasional raid still occurred between the Ottomans and Egyptians necessitating the continued influx of military supplies into the region. The lack of a firm response to their earlier behavior by the Ottomans had made them careless, however, leading the French ships to choose the shorter route directly across the Mediterranean rather than the safer, albeit longer route along the Levantine coast. This decision would unfortunately be their undoing as it put them in the direct path of an Ottoman naval patrol that had set out from Cyprus earlier that same day.
By chance, the four Ottoman warships; the third rate
Sadiye, the two frigates
Chabal Bahari and
Naoum Bahari, and the sloop
Bayramli, successfully managed to intercept the French vessels some 22 nautical miles off the South-Eastern coast of Cyprus on the 4th of July. Initially, the Ottoman ships proved cordial enough to the French vessels, asking about their journey thus far, where they had departed from, and where they were headed towards. When it became clear that the ships were headed for Syria, the Ottoman commander Enver Reis requested to see the manifests for the ships. When these documents proved insufficient, he then requested permission to search the French ships of their cargo; baring that, the French vessels would have to be escorted to an Ottoman port where they would be docked until the end of the conflict between Egypt and the Porte to ensure that no breach of the cease fire took place. Panicked at this sudden development, the new Captain of the
Résolue, Louis-Adolphe Bonard immediately cut communication with the Ottoman ships and made course for the Levantine Coast at full sail with the other French ships following its lead.
Enver Reis took great umbrage at this and after several attempts to peacefully divert their course, he directed his ships to fire a series of warning shots just ahead of the lead ship, the
Résolue. A miscommunication would instead result in the
Sadiye firing upon the
Résolue itself rather than ahead of it as intended by Enver Reis. This shot was unfortunately well placed, punching through the ship’s stern, instantly killing three sailors who had unfortunately been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and wounding another seven. This act immediately prompted the young Captain Bonard to return fire on the chasing Ottoman ships with his full complement of guns. This in turn was followed seconds later by the
Thetis which opened fire on their pursuers as well leading the Ottoman ships to retaliate as well.
What had been a relatively peaceful interaction only moments before, quickly degenerated into a bloody brawl as the French and Ottoman ships fired round after round on each other with complete abandon. Though the Ottomans technically had the advantage in number of warships at 4 to 2, the French frigates proved especially adept at hitting their targets while still maintaining their course for the Levantine coast. In an attempt to stop the violence before matters escalated any further, Enver Reis unilaterally ceased fire, an act which the French reciprocated, ending the confrontation three and a half minutes after it began. Despite its brevity, nearly 65 men would lose their lives in the skirmish, and another 384 suffered from varying injuries, from gunshot wounds to shrapnel wounds. Though the Ottoman ships would continue their pursuit of the French ships a little longer, they eventually gave up the chase and turned for the nearest port as night began to fall on the Eastern Mediterranean.
While the incident at sea was bad enough, it was unfortunately compounded even further by events on land when the damaged Turkish ships arrived in port at nearby Larnaca for repairs. The
Bayramli had lost its main mast, the
Chabal Bahari was taking on an alarming amount of water, the
Sadiye was riddled with holes, and the
Naoum Bahari has suffered damage to its rudder. More importantly, however, 38 Ottoman sailors had lost their lives in the engagement and another 194 had been wounded including the Squadron’s commander Enver Reis who had been struck in the shoulder by a flying piece of shrapnel. The return of the Ottoman squadron so soon after it had departed was a concerning development for the gathered crowd, but the sight of mutilated ships and numerous men being carried away on stretchers infuriated the placid crowd that had gathered at the docks.
According to accounts of the incident, several individuals proceeded to gin up the angry mob to the point of violence. Hellbent on avenging the wrongs that had been committed that day, the enraged populace soon marched from the docks in the direction of the French quarter in the town. French traders were harassed, their stores were vandalized, and their goods were stolen. Windows of French owned properties were smashed, buildings were set ablaze, and some Frenchmen were even killed in the streets in retribution for the attack at sea. A more brazen act would take place in Nicosia on the following day, when the Turkish populace of the city marched on the French consulate once they learned of the events at sea. In their anger, the crowd threw rocks, roof tiles, and other projectiles at the diplomatic compound striking one French official dead and injuring several others in the process. Shouts of anger and cries of sorrow filled the air as protestors angrily berated the French for their impropriety. The violent mob even attempted to storm the consulate before the Ottoman soldiers moved to secure the scene finally ending the confrontation.
The riots were not limited to the French communes in Nicossia and Larnaca sadly, as the neighboring villages of Lakatamia, Strovolos, Lympia would also report incidents of violence and unrest as well. Despite their innocence in the whole matter, some Greek Cypriots were targeted for attacks by the angry masses of Turkish Cypriots who wantonly terrorized their neighbors, looted their homes and stores, and even killed some unfortunate Greek Cypriots who attempted to calm the situation. Eventually the violence on Cyprus would come to an end when the Ottoman authorities cracked down on it, but by that point 17 Frenchmen had been killed as had an undetermined number of Greek Cypriots who had unfortunately been caught up in the commotion.
Some of this anger can be attributed to the incident itself between the French convoy and the Ottoman Squadron, as a handful of Turkish Cypriots had been aboard the effected ships during the engagement against the French, but a more likely cause of this expression of rage originated from the French role in the war against the Egyptians. Many Turkish Cypriots had been conscripted into the Ottoman Army and Navy to fight in the ongoing conflict and those left behind were beset with heavy taxes to support the war effort. While certainly burdensome, these policies were tolerable so long as the Ottomans continued to find success on the battlefield and the prospect of a short war remained alive. However, thanks to French efforts to aid the Egyptians through the continued shipment of arms and munitions the war had stalemated and the Egyptians spine had been steeled. As a result, the ongoing standoff in Syria was as much France’s doing as it was Egypt’s. Regardless of the rationale behind it, the Larnaca and Nicosia Riots unnecessarily escalated an already tense relationship between the French and Ottomans.
In the days and weeks that followed the incident at sea and the ensuing riots on land, relations between the French and Ottomans Governments steadily declined with each blaming the other for the confrontation. The Ottomans blamed the French for refusing to accept Ottoman demands to search their ships, while the French for their part blamed the Sublime Porte for deliberately firing upon a neutrally flagged ship and failing to prevent the violence on Cyprus. The only success after several days of tense negotiation was an official statement by the Ottoman government lamenting the loss of life on both sides, but saying little on the events that resulted in that loss of life nor offering any restitution to the French for their destruction of their property and the deaths of their men. Suffice to say, this response proved unsatisfactory to the French Government who responded by dramatically escalating the situation in the following days.
Four weeks after the skirmish at sea on the 31st of July, the majority of the French Mediterranean Fleet departed for the Eastern Mediterranean under the command of Admiral Julien Pierre Anne Lalande.
[2] Their target was the island of Cyprus which they were resolved to blockade until the Porte complied with their demands for proper restitution and a formal apology for causing the incident. Cyprus was deemed a satisfactory target for French retribution due to its proximity to the initial naval confrontation some 20 miles off its coast and for its involvement in the ensuing riots and pogroms against French citizens on the island. Provided they did nothing further to antagonize the Sublime Porte, it was believed by the crowned heads at Tuileries that a French blockade of Cyprus would be deemed insufficient to elicit a proper military response from the Ottomans given Cyprus’ peripheral strategic and economic importance to the Ottoman empire. Once they made a show of their determination to seek reparation, they believed that the Ottoman Government would submit to their demands to save face and the confrontation would be ended peacefully.
Unsurprisingly, the Ottoman Government refused to acquiesce to French saber rattling, especially once the governments of Britain and Austria openly sided with the Porte against the French. Though Austria and Britain had sympathized with France over their loss of life at Larnaca and Nicosia, they recognized that this outcome was a direct result of their actions to flagrantly aid the Egyptians in their war against the Ottomans. Moreover, their blockade was completely irresponsible and a blatant display of gunboat diplomacy. Though they made no official act against the French initially, they believed that diplomatic pressure would be enough to persuade the French Government from its current course once it became clear that Britain and Austria would not allow the Ottomans to cave to French demands. The French however, proved especially stubborn in the maintenance of their blockade despite the protests of London and Vienna and as a result, this tense standoff would continue for nearly 10 days without resolution.
While the blockade had little effect on the French or the Ottomans it did have a significant effect on the island of Cyprus itself as law and order on the island slowly collapsed despite the best efforts of the Ottoman officials to the contrary. In the neighboring Kingdom of Greece, the French blockade of Cyprus would elicit a flurry of activity and debate as well once news from the island made its way to Athens in the following days. Seeking to take advantage of this opportunity, members of the Kingdom’s small, but relatively influential Cypriot community practically begged the Greek Government to intervene and liberate the island for Greece on their behalf. Many believed that the poor treatment of the Greek Cypriots in recent days demanded action by the Greek state, however, King Leopold and much of the Greek Government proved reluctant to interject themselves militarily in this present matter, a matter which was deteriorating by the day.
Although the French were belligerent towards the Ottomans, they were not quite at war with one another yet, and while the treatment of the Greek Cypriots was appalling, it was not apparent that it had been carried out on behalf of the Ottoman government. It was clear that the Greek Government was content to wait and see what took place on Cyprus for good or for ill. Aside from refitting the aging
RHS Hellas for active duty following a brief sojourn as a training ship and authorizing the raising of an additional 4 battalions for Hellenic Army and 4 battalions for the Ethnofylaki (National Guard), they made no definitive efforts to provoke the Ottomans, nor did they make any official claims to the island of Cyprus.[3] Without official backing from the Greek Government, some Cypriots would ultimately back down on the call for war, others like the Cypriot hero from the Revolutionary War, Nicholas Theseus did not, however, and began making their own preparations.
Next Time: The Labor of Theseus
[1] Several French Naval officers were aboard the Egyptian ships at Navarino on October 20th, 1827 in OTL but they were sent ashore after some negotiation by Codrington and de Rigny right before the battle took place.
[2] Lalande was the French admiral in command of the French Levant Fleet during the OTL Second Egyptian Ottoman War. He actually proposed that the French seize the Ottoman forts in the Dardanelles region, thus preventing the Russian Black Sea fleet from joining with the Ottoman, British, and Austrian fleets in the Mediterranean. Suffice to say, this would have been an act of war by France and an escalation of the OTL war into something much worse.
[3] The Greek Prefix for their ships is ΒΠ (VP) which stands for Βασιλικόν Πλοίον (
Vassilikón Ploíon) "Royal Ship", hence the English translation being "Royal Hellenic ship" (RHS).
