Britain’s links with the Continent were once deeper and more extensive than those of any other European country. Paris, Rome and German universities played as vital a role in British culture as many native cities. Mediterranean connections were especially strong. Most cities on its shores contain an English church and cemetery. From Minorca to Cyprus, there are few Mediterranean islands that have not been occupied by British troops: the oldest company in Beirut is Heald and Co., the shipping agents (est.1837).
Blue-Water Empire aims to tell the story of ‘the British in the Mediterranean since 1800’: 1800 is the year that Malta, soon to be the headquarters of the British Mediterranean fleet, was conquered from France, with Maltese help. For a time Britain was regarded, by many living around the Mediterranean, including the Maltese, as a saviour and moderniser.
Robert Holland, Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London, is a specialist on modern Greece, and he shows how regularly Britain intervened there, from the War of Liberation in 1821 until the 1960s.
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