Every year, in every city, at 08:20 in the morning on the 15th of July, the wailing of sirens sounds across the Republic of Cyprus.
They sound to mark the exact time that the coup against President Archbishop Makarios III began, on the morning of 15 July 1974.
The coup was the culmination of years of political confrontation, competing visions for the future of Cyprus and an escalating conflict between Makarios, the military dictatorship ruling Greece, and EOKA B.
The story that would end, five days later, with the Turkish invasion, begins before Cyprus even gained independence.
Enosis, taksim and the end of British rule
Great Britain first assumed administrative control of Cyprus in 1878. For much of the Greek Cypriot community during British colonial rule, the dominant political aspiration was not just independence but enosis: the union of Cyprus with Greece.
The demand had deep historical and cultural roots, and became the objective of EOKA, the National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters, which launched an armed anti-colonial campaign against British rule in 1955.
The Turkish Cypriot community increasingly opposed enosis, fearing that union with Greece would leave it a vulnerable minority within a Greek state. Turkish Cypriot nationalism instead came to support taksim, or partition.
Neither enosis nor taksim became the basis of the settlement that ended British colonial rule.
Instead, Cyprus became an independent republic in 1960.
Independence was a compromise, reached through the Zurich and London agreements between Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, with representatives of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities accepting a new constitutional order.
The Republic of Cyprus was established as a bicommunal state. Its president would be Greek Cypriot and its vice-president Turkish Cypriot, each directly elected by their respective community. The constitution included detailed power-sharing arrangements, and safeguards intended to protect both communities.
Archbishop Makarios III became the first president of the Republic. Dr Fazıl Küçük became its first vice-president.
But the birth of the new state didn’t remove the fundamental disagreements over what Cyprus’s future should look like.
Why did Cyprus have three guarantor powers?
The independence settlement also created an unusual international arrangement that would become central to the events of 1974.
Under the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, Cyprus undertook to maintain its independence, territorial integrity, and security, and to prohibit political or economic union with any other state.
The treaty also prohibited any activity aimed directly or indirectly at either union with another country, or partition of the island.
Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom became the three guarantor powers. They undertook to recognise and guarantee the independence, territorial integrity, and security of the Republic, as well as the constitutional order established at independence.
Article IV stated that, in the event of a breach of the treaty, the three guarantors would consult on joint action. If joint or coordinated action proved impossible, each reserved the right to take action with the sole aim of restoring the state of affairs established by the treaty.
The meaning and legal scope of that provision would become intensely disputed in 1974. For the story of 15 July, however, one fact is essential: the treaty spelled the end of Enosis as a possibility.
The young republic descends into violence
Cyprus’s constitutional order soon entered crisis.
In 1963, President Makarios proposed 13 constitutional amendments intended, in his view, to make the state more workable. Turkish Cypriots opposed the proposals, seeing them as an attempt to weaken the safeguards provided to their community under the 1960 settlement.
Intercommunal violence erupted in December 1963. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots were killed, thousands of people were displaced, and the constitutional partnership effectively broke down.
The question of precisely how Turkish Cypriots ceased participating in the institutions of the Republic remains framed differently by the two communities. Greek Cypriot accounts generally say Turkish Cypriot officials withdrew from the government, while Turkish Cypriot accounts maintain that they were forced out.
What is not disputed is that the bicommunal constitutional arrangement ceased to function as originally designed, and that Turkish Cypriots increasingly lived in separate enclaves amid violence, insecurity, and deepening division.
In March 1964, the UN Security Council established the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, UNFICYP, following the intercommunal fighting. It remains on the island today.
By 1974, Cyprus had already endured more than a decade of constitutional breakdown, intercommunal conflict, and separation. But another confrontation had also emerged, this time within the Greek Cypriot community itself.
Makarios, Enosis, and an independent Cyprus
Archbishop Makarios III occupied a position almost unique in modern European politics: he was both the head of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Cyprus, and the elected president of the Republic. Church leaders in Cyprus had traditionally been leaders of the community, particularly during the Ottoman occupation, so electing the Archbishop as president was a logical step.
During British colonial rule, Makarios had been a leading figure in the struggle for Enosis. But independence transformed the political reality he faced.
Whatever Makarios’s personal feelings about union with Greece, his actions as president increasingly prioritised the preservation of Cyprus as an independent state. He resisted attempts to subordinate the Republic’s policies to Athens, and came into growing conflict with those demanding the immediate pursuit of Enosis.
This distinction is important. The political struggle was not simply between people who felt culturally Greek and those who did not. It was increasingly a confrontation over whether an independent Republic of Cyprus should survive, and who had the right to determine its future.
For Makarios, the answer was increasingly clear: decisions concerning Cyprus should be made in Cyprus.
That position would bring him into direct conflict with the military dictatorship ruling Greece at the time.
The colonels seize power in Greece
On 21 April 1967, a group of army officers seized power in Greece and established a military dictatorship.
The regime abolished democratic freedoms, imprisoned and exiled political opponents, used torture against detainees, and remained in power for seven years.
Its relationship with Makarios was fraught.
The situation became still more dangerous after November 1973, when Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannidis emerged as the regime’s strongman following an internal coup in Athens.
US diplomatic records from the period describe the longstanding differences between Athens and Makarios as becoming acute after Ioannidis’s rise to power. Ioannidis viewed Makarios as too independent of Athens, and was frustrated by his inability to control Nicosia’s policies.
The same records point to another critical element in the events that followed: the Cyprus National Guard was led by officers seconded from the Greek army.
This gave the junta in Athens a powerful instrument within the armed forces of an independent Cyprus.
EOKA and EOKA B: Two different organisations
For readers unfamiliar with Cypriot history, the distinction between EOKA and EOKA B is essential.
They were not the same organisation.
The original EOKA fought an armed anti-colonial campaign against British rule between 1955 and 1959, with enosis as its objective. It was led militarily by Georgios Grivas, also known by his nom de guerre, Digenis.
More than a decade later, in 1971, Grivas secretly returned to Cyprus and founded EOKA B.
The new organisation sought enosis and opposed Makarios’s government, carrying out a campaign of violence and subversion against the state.
Grivas died in January 1974. According to contemporary US diplomatic records, Ioannidis then launched a campaign to gain control of EOKA B, using the National Guard, whose leadership included officers seconded from the Greek army.
The confrontation was becoming increasingly dangerous. EOKA B violence was escalating, Makarios regarded the National Guard as subservient to Athens, and the president had created and expanded a Tactical Reserve Unit loyal to his government.
The US assessment at the time was stark: the Tactical Reserve could never hope to match the roughly 10,000-strong National Guard.
The confrontation between Makarios and Athens reaches breaking point
By the summer of 1974, the conflict could no longer be contained.
Makarios believed that the junta was using Greek officers in the National Guard and supporting EOKA B in an effort to undermine his government.
On 2 July 1974, he wrote to the Greek leadership demanding a drastic reduction in the number of Greek officers serving in the Cyprus National Guard.
The letter was an extraordinary confrontation between the president of Cyprus and the dictatorship in Athens.
Thirteen days later, the coup began.
15 July 1974: Tanks attack the Presidential Palace
On the morning of Monday, 15 July, Makarios returned to the Presidential Palace from his weekend residence in the Troodos mountains.
When the coup began at 08:20, he was hosting a group of Greek Cypriot schoolchildren visiting from Egypt.
Tanks and National Guard forces attacked the palace. Heavy gunfire broke out, and the building was set ablaze.
Amid the attack, Makarios escaped through the palace grounds.
The coupists believed they had killed him.
State radio announced his death.
But Makarios was alive.
He made his way first towards the Kykkos area and then to Paphos, where a local radio station put him on air. His voice was broadcast across the island.
“Greek Cypriot people! The voice you hear is familiar. You know who is speaking to you. I am Makarios.”
The message shattered the coupists’ claim that the president was dead.
“The coup of the junta has failed. I was its target, and as long as I am alive the junta will not succeed,” he said, according to a contemporary account of the broadcast.
It is difficult to imagine the impact of that moment without understanding the circumstances. The Presidential Palace had been attacked and was burning. The state broadcaster had announced that the president was dead. Then, from Paphos, came Makarios’s own voice.
He was alive.
Who was Nikos Sampson?
While Makarios escaped, the coup leaders needed someone to take the presidency.
They installed Nikos Sampson.
Sampson was a journalist, former EOKA gunman, and committed supporter of enosis. His selection carried particular significance because of his controversial reputation and his past involvement in violence.
The constitutional government had been overthrown. A president committed to maintaining the Republic’s independence had been replaced by a figure closely associated with militant Greek nationalism and union with Greece.
The coup was not bloodless. Fighting took place between forces supporting the coup and those loyal to Makarios, and people were killed during the violence.
Sampson’s presidency would last only eight days.
Makarios leaves Cyprus
From Paphos, Makarios was evacuated by the British, first to the Sovereign Base Area at Akrotiri, and then abroad.
By 17 July, he had reached London, where he met British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Foreign Secretary James Callaghan. The following day, he travelled to New York.
On 19 July, Makarios addressed the UN Security Council.
He told its members that the coup had not been an internal revolution by Greek Cypriots but had been organised by the Greek military regime, and warned that the events affected both Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
The president who had been declared dead four days earlier was now addressing the world from the United Nations.
Cyprus on the brink
By the evening of 15 July, Cyprus had been transformed.
The constitutional government had been violently overthrown. Makarios had escaped an attack on the Presidential Palace. Nikos Sampson had been installed as president. The military dictatorship in Athens had expanded its confrontation with Makarios into a coup against the government of an independent state.
The 1960 settlement had explicitly prohibited both enosis and partition, while Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom had undertaken to guarantee the independence, territorial integrity, and security of the Republic.
Now that constitutional order had been shattered.
Five days later, on 20 July 1974, Turkish forces invaded Cyprus.
Turkey invoked its position as a guarantor power under the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee. The military operations that followed, including a second Turkish offensive in August, would leave approximately 37% of the island under Turkish control, force mass displacement, and create a division that remains unresolved more than half a century later.
That part of the story deserves to be told fully and separately.
But on 15 July, Cyprus remembers how the final five days before the invasion began: with tanks outside the Presidential Palace, a coup directed by the Greek junta, and a president whom the plotters had declared dead telling his people over the radio:
“I am Makarios.”
Also read: Announcements expected on Cyprus talks developments
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