Everyone in Cyprus knows that the Turks intervened in Cyprus in July 1974. However, thanks to clever, well-funded and unremitting Greek propaganda, the world has been led to believe that this was nothing less than a brutal and uncalled-for invasion against the peace-loving Greeks – an Ottoman jackboot to seize Greek land and occupy Cyprus.

Nothing could be further from the truth – but for once the victors have not written the true story of events. Thanks to Turkish Cypriot laziness, incompetence and a refusal to see the PR importance of explaining what really happened, the Greek Cypriots’ mendacious version of events is finding its way into the history books.

The true story is simple. On 15 July 1974, the Greek army, in conjunction with fascist Greek-Cypriot gangs, mounted a coup to overthrow and murder the island’s president. A panic-stricken Archbishop Makarios III fled in his socks to be rescued by the British and flown to safety. An EOKA thug and admitted murderer called Nikos Sampson became the new ruler of Cyprus.

On 19 July 1974, President Makarios addressed the UN Security Council in New York and denounced a Greek invasion. The next day, the Turkish army intervened – quite legally – as a guarantor of the1960 Cyprus Constitution. The British forces on the island were ordered to sit tight and become mere spectators. In 1976, the UK House of Commons Select Committee found that Turkey had proposed joint Anglo-Turkish action under the Treaty of Guarantee. However the then Labour Government in Britain refused to help (see written evidence submitted on 30 September 2004 by former MP Michael Stephen to the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs).

They argued that Britain was under no duty to act, even though Article II of the Treaty provided that Britain would guarantee the state of affairs established by the 1960 Constitution. The Parliamentary Committee concluded that ‘Britain had a legal right to intervene; she had a moral obligation to intervene. She did not intervene for reasons which the Government refuses to give.’ In other words, this was not Whitehall’s finest hour.

One of the other inexplicable mysteries of the affair is the extraordinary stupidity of the Greek military junta in Athens not to think through the inevitable consequences of their actions on Cyprus in 1974. A bloody civil war among the Greeks, together with attacks on Turkish Cypriots, gave Ankara the political excuse to move into Cyprus that Turkey had been seeking for years.

The Greek word hubris springs to mind, in its sense of human pride, arrogance and defiance of the Gods. However, hubris is inevitably followed by nemesis – retributive justice from vengeful Olympus – to squash over-ambitious mortals. Nemesis now struck the new Greek-Cypriot regime a fatal blow.

The Greek-Cypriot National Guard and their Greek allies made things worse by making a monumental strategic blunder. One of the principles of war is ‘concentration of force.’ The Greeks should have sealed off the Turkish beach head in the north and counter attacked. Instead, blinded by a determination to wipe out the hated Turkish minority once and for all, they spread their forces all over the island in a muddled attempt to crush the widespread Turkish-Cypriot armed enclaves. The notorious Akritas Plan, to get rid of all the Turks in Cyprus, became the Greeks’ ruinous priority.

This dispersal of effort failed. Turkish forces broke out of the beachhead, and parachute and helicopter infantry were flown in. Outgunned, outnumbered, out-manoeuvred and – critically – lacking air superiority, the Greeks fell back and (on 22 July 1974) the UN Security Council was able to broker a ceasefire that brought an uneasy end to the fighting by 24 July. Turkey had intervened, got her foothold on the island and protected her minority. By then the Turkish forces were in command of a wide land corridor between Kyrenia and Nicosia

Thus far, this part of Turkey’s ‘illegal invasion’ is common knowledge. What happened next is not so well known and is blurred in the history books, because there were two phases to the ‘Cyprus war’. After the July lull there were numerous breaches of the cease fire as both sides jockeyed for position and played for time. The UN ceasefire was more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

On 2 August 1974 Greek forces captured a Turkish armoured resupply column, including an M47 tank and an armoured personnel carrier. (The captured M47 later engaged a confused Turkish tank squadron near Skylloura on 15 August, hitting seven M47 tanks.) Also, on 6 August, Turkey’s 28 Division launched a surprise attack supported by 30 tanks and overran the Greek forward positions around Lapithos (Lapta) and Karavas (Alsanjak), west of the bridgehead to straighten out their line.

By 14 August the Geneva talks, aimed at a political solution, had broken down. Turkey’s demands for a bi-zonal federal state plus complete population transfer shocked Cyprus’ new acting President Glafcos Clerides, who begged for an adjournment in order to consult Athens and Greek-Cypriot politicians. The long shadow of the Machiavellian archbishop fell over the negotiating table, however. No one trusted Makarios, who was dissembling, lying and stalling to the last.

Turkey flatly refused any more delays and the Prime Minister ordered Phase 2 of Operation Attilla. Now with two divisions, an armoured brigade, 200 tanks (many of them the newer M48) and over 150 guns on the island, plus total air supremacy, the result was inevitable. The outnumbered Greeks could do little in the face of such overwhelming Turkish superiority.

The breakout to the West was spearheaded by 28 division and the Commando Brigade, heading for Morphou (Guzelyurt) and Kormakiti. The Greek defenders were pushed back to their final ‘Troodos Line’ to the south. To the east, 39 division’s tanks and armoured personnel carriers attacked along two axes: one raced east towards Famagusta and another to the south east towards Mia Milia (Haspolat), and on towards Larnaca. The 10 Greek battalions and 20 tanks defending the Eastern sector were overwhelmed.

In the centre of the island, a vicious battle developed on 16 August around the Greek national contingent (ELDYK) near the grammar school close to Nicosia International Airport. After the area had been softened up by bomb and napalm attacks, 2000 men of the reinforced ‘Turkish Cyprus Regiment’, supported by 17 M48 tanks, assaulted the regular Greek Army positions. Both sides fought hard. From somewhere near the Star Chinchilla Farm, an unknown Greek Forward Observation Officer (FOO) managed to call in artillery fire from widely dispersed batteries of different guns. This artillery tour de force separated the Turkish armour from the infantry, causing serious casualties until a napalm airstrike silenced the FOO for ever. The fighting went on all day. Four Turkish M48 tanks were knocked out and 100 Greeks died in the fighting before the survivors slipped away.

The final battle was at Pyroi (Gaziler), south east of Nicosia on 16/17 August. As the Turks advanced south, a single Greek infantry platoon with tank support attempted to repel a Turkish infantry battalion. In the fighting four T-34s were abandoned on the road as the defenders fled. The Turks followed, creating the ‘Lourajina Appendix’ in the ceasefire line, bringing Larnaca within range of their guns.

After three days of continuous advance and confused fighting it was all over. Cyprus was sliced in half. The two communities were ethnically separated. Thousands of refugees were displaced from their homes. The Greek Junta and their puppet Sampson went to jail. The UN’s temporary ceasefire still remains the legal position.

Who was responsible? Even the Greek Court of Appeal in Athens ruled in 1979 that the Turkish intervention was legal: ‘The real culprits… are the Greek officers who engineered and staged a coup and prepared the conditions for the invasion.’

Council of Europe agreed: in Resolution 573 it supported the legality of the first wave of the Turkish intervention of 20 July 1974, under the Guarantee Treaty of 1960.

The bitter truth is that Athens and the Greek Cypriots brought it on themselves. Arrogance, pride and stupidity had brought defeat and disaster.

The ancient Greeks were right: hubris invites nemesis…