Patterns of Anglo-Hellenism: A ‘Colonial’ Connection?

Abstract

The Mediterranean has recently been under-represented in the historiography of the British overseas experience. This contribution highlights the British engagement with the Greek-speaking world in that context. The interactions between the British Ionian Protectorate and the emergence of an 'independent' Greek state are evoked. It is seen that while the British encouraged the latter, they did so within strict limitations and with some regrets. The role of the Royal Navy and the character of the Hellenic monarchy receive special comment. Issues of language and understanding are identified as important sources of 'deception' in Anglo-Hellenic relations. Strategic pressures constraining both British and Greek choices nonetheless maintained the intimacy of the connection through revolutions and wars. The ambiguity of Britain's involvement in the island of Cyprus is shown to be crucial to the eventual erosion of Britain's leading position in the Mediterranean region, though two sovereign 'Special Base Areas' remain today on the island. Residues of the issues covered in this article continue to be discernible at many levels, not least within the contemporary European Union, with its own expanding Mediterranean dimension.For several decades the Mediterranean has been the poor cousin in British imperial historiography. It is generally under-represented, for example, in the Oxford History of the British Empire series. Passing mention in the volume on the eighteenth century is not surprising. Apart from Gibraltar, Minorca (with its successive occupations and re-occupations) and the curious experiment of Anglo-Corsican Union after 1794, the British presence in the Mediterranean up until the Battle of the Nile was in key respects receding. For later periods the sparse treatment is perhaps more striking, given the centrality of the region to the phenomenon encapsulated in the shorthand of Pax Britannica. A comparison may be made with the older Cambridge History of the British Empire, where Mediterranean themes found their place within the whole. One factor in this under-representation has been the modern reading