Military Recruitment and Selection in a British Colony: The Cyprus Regiment 1939-1944.

Abstract

Between 1939 and 1945, several thousand Greek and Turkish Cypriots enlisted and served in the Cyprus Regiment, a colonial regiment of the British Army. Using archival material, this paper aims to examine the parameters set by the colonial authorities for the recruitment and selection of the personnel (Cypriot and other). Seen in this context, the selection of personnel for the regiment offers us an interesting vantage point from which to explore the relationship between the British authorities and their Cypriot subjects during the watershed years of the Second World War.