I entertained the hope, although I confess a very slight one, that our example would be followed, and that the Germans would publish in similar fashion those of their despatches which covered the same period. In the interviews which I granted to German journalists I did my best to suggest such a course, but their Minister for Foreign Affairs turned a deaf ear. If Germany had had a clear conscience, would she not have followed our example? The fact that she has not done so gives rise to grave suspicion as to the honesty of her diplomacy during the whole of that period.

It is, moreover, a notorious fact that Bismarck did no more than half open the doors of the Prussian archives to the historians of German unity; this was clearly so in the case of von Sybel and Treitschke, who were his friends and admirers, and whose political morality was in no way superior to his own. He showed them only what suited him; above all, he allowed them no glimpse of the well-known documents which are missing from our archives, and which relate to the negotiations between Napoleon III and the South-German States, Bavaria, Württemberg, and Hesse-Darmstadt, between 1866 and 1870. Rouher, the Minister of State, had carried off these documents to his Chateau de Cerçay, where, in 1870, they were seized by a party of German troops. This happy accident placed in Bismarck's hands a powerful weapon against the Ministers of South Germany, who had endeavoured to negotiate an alliance with France and Austria against Prussia. These secret documents had an important bearing on the establishment of the German Empire under the headship of Prussia, for they enabled Bismarck to force its acceptance upon those Ministers at Versailles in November and December 1870.

It would have been easier to have crushed Prussian tyranny at its birth than it is now to deliver Europe and the world from its grasp. Tyrants are hard to overthrow,' said a Conventional of Robespierre. But overthrown they must be.

JOSEPH REINACH.

Art. 7.-CYPRUS UNDER BRITISH RULE.

1. Reports of H.M. High Commissioners for Cyprus. 2. Handbook of Cyprus. Revised and edited by A. C. Lukach and D. J. Jardine. With maps, plans and illustrations. Seventh issue. Stanford, 1913.*

3. Cyprus as I saw it in 1879. By Sir Samuel Baker. Macmillans, 1879.

FROM the dim vista of the bronze ages Cyprus emerges archæologically and historically upon its conquest by Thothmes III in 1450 B.C. Since that date it has known To the Egyptians

the domination of many masters. succeeded Assyrians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Persians and again Egyptians, till 58 B.C. when Rome annexed the island. Upon the partition of East and West in A.D. 395 it fell to the Byzantine Empire, and so remained, subject to divers Moslem incursions from Syria, till 1184. In that year Isaac Komnenos, the Byzantine, usurped and held it till it was relieved from his oppressions by Richard I of England, who married his wife Berengaria of Navarre at Limassol. Richard sold the island to the Knights Templars in 1191; but in 1192, being unable to control the rebellious Greeks, the Knights withdrew to Syria, leaving Richard to transfer it to the Lusignans, who ruled for 300 years. In 1372 the Genoese ravaged the island and captured Famagusta, which was, however, recovered by the Lusignan King James II in 1464. In 1489 the rights of the Lusignan dynasty were renounced by Queen Katherine in favour of the Venetian Republic, which held the island till 1571, when it was conquered by the Turks. Thenceforward, for three centuries, it formed part of the Ottoman Empire, until, in July 1878, by treaty with the Porte, it passed under British control.

The Convention of Defensive Alliance between Great Britain and Turkey with respect to the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey signed at Constantinople on June 4, 1878, commonly called the Cyprus Convention, runs as follows:

ARTICLE I.-'If Batoum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of them shall be retained by Russia, and if any attempt shall be made

* I desire to express my obligations to the editors of this work, which is a mine of information, and has been of great use to me.

at any future time by Russia to take possession of further territories of H.I.M. the Sultan in Asia as fixed by the Definitive Treaty of peace, England engages to join H.I.M. the Sultan in defending them by force of arms.

*

'In return, H.I.M. the Sultan promises to England to introduce necessary reforms, to be agreed upon later between the two Powers, into the Government and for the protection of the Christian and other subjects of the Porte in those territories. And, in order to enable England to make necessary provision for executing her engagements, H.I.M. the Sultan further consents to assign the Island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England.'

On July 1, 1878, an Annexe to the Convention was agreed to, in the following terms:

1. That a Mussulman Religious Tribunal (Mahkemé-iSherieh) shall continue to exist in the Island, which will take exclusive cognizance of religious matters, and no others, concerning the Mussulman population of the Island.'

2. That a Mussulman resident in the Island shall be named by the Board of Pious Foundations in Turkey (Evqaƒ) to superintend, in conjunction with a Delegate to be appointed by the British Authorities, the administration of the property, funds and lands belonging to mosques, cemeteries, Mussulman schools and other religious establishments existing in Cyprus.'

3. 'That England will pay to the Porte whatever is the present excess of revenue over expenditure in the Island, the excess to be calculated upon and determined by the average of the last five years.'

4. [This article, which empowered the Sublime Porte to sell and lease lands, etc., in Cyprus belonging to the Ottoman Crown and State, the produce of which did not form part of the revenue of the Island referred to in Article 3, was abandoned by the Porte under a supplementary Convention dated Feb. 3, 1879, in return for a payment of 5000l. per annum.]

5. [This clause empowered the English Government to buy land for public purposes.]

6. That, if Russia restores to Turkey Kars and the other conquests made by her in Armenia during the last war, the Island of Cyprus will be evacuated by England, and the Convention of June 4, 1878, will be at an end.'

* Treaty of Peace between Russia and Turkey signed at Constantinople, Jan. 27 (Feb. 8), 1878.

On July 12, 1878, Vice-Admiral Lord John Hay hoisted the British flag in Nicosia, the capital; and on July 22 Lieut-General Sir Garnet Wolseley assumed the government of the island as Her Majesty's High Commissioner, bringing with him a large force of British and Indian troops, certain special service officers and three civilian officials. The troops camped in the island appear to have suffered severely in health; but it is probable that single bell-tents and a too generous canteen, under the burning summer sun of Cyprus, had something to do with this. Experience has remedied these defects; and the remark attributed to Sir Garnet Wolseley, that the island was a pestilential hole, is an opinion with which few British officials who have lived there will be found to concur. On June 23, 1879, Colonel Robert Biddulph, C.B., now General Sir Robert Biddulph, was appointed High Commissioner; and in 1880 the island came under the Colonial Office. It was subsequently administered as a Crown Colony, although always officially recognised as forming part of the Ottoman Empire, until its recent annexation.

On Nov. 5, 1914, after the declaration of war between Turkey and Great Britain, a Proclamation, published simultaneously with an Order in Council, announced the annexation of the island. By the terms of this document, Ottoman subjects born in Cyprus and resident in Cyprus at the date of the annexation became British subjects, while Ottoman subjects not born in Cyprus but resident there on the date of the annexation were allowed one year within which to leave the island, failing which they would become British subjects. This Proclamation was revoked on March 3, 1915, by a new one, which decreed that all Ottoman subjects resident in Cyprus on Nov. 5, 1914, became British subjects, but that any such Ottoman subject who desired to retain his nationality might, by notice under his hand addressed to the High Commissioner, elect to do so within one month of the Proclamation coming into force, in which case he had to leave Cyprus within two months of so electing, failing which he would be treated as a British subject. Only a few persons, and those chance visitors to Cyprus, elected to retain their Ottoman nationality. The announcement of the annexation, it is stated in the High Commissioner's Report, was received generally with enthusiasm, not only

by the Christian population but by the large majority of the Moslem inhabitants.

Cyprus is, after Sicily and Sardinia, the largest island in the Mediterranean. In 1885 Captain (afterwards Earl) Kitchener, on a trigonometrical survey, worked out the area of the island at 3,584 square miles, or a little more than the area of Norfolk and Suffolk. Its extreme length is about 140 miles, its greatest breadth from north to south reaches 60 miles. In some places but 35 miles in width, it suddenly narrows to ten miles and runs for some 45 miles at this breadth in a long spit towards the north-east called the Karpass, its shape in old days having been considered to resemble a deerskin, the spit representing the tail.

A great part of the island is occupied by two mountain ranges, both having a general direction from E. to W., of which the Troodos Range is the most extensive. This range occupies most of the southern portion of the island and is surmounted by a summit termed by the ancients Mount Olympus, 6046 ft above sea level. It is scantily clothed with pine trees. The other range is termed the Northern, and extends for about 100 miles from Cape Kormakiti in the west to Cape Andrea in the east, the highest point of which is Mount Buffavento (3135 ft), an almost treeless tract of rocky pinnacles and ridges. Its aspect from the capital, Nicosia, under varying lights and shadows, is a never-ending source of pleasure to a lover of Nature.

A broad tract of treeless plains, running from the Bay of Morphon on the west to that of Famagusta on the east, produces, under still primitive agriculture and irrigation, large crops of wheat, barley and cotton. On the southern slopes of Tröodos, overlooking Limassol, are to be found pine trees bordering irregular patches of vineyard, increasing in size as the descent proceeds till they are joined by the cultivated fields, wherein grow innumerable caroub or locust-bean trees and great groves of olives. The wild flowers of the island in the early months of the year are numerous and beautiful. They comprise the anemone, narcissus, ranunculus, cyclamen, marguerite, gladiolus, poppy and iris; and the joy of a ride through these luxuriant beauties of nature in