CYPRUS TAKEN OVER BY GREAT BRITAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15760, 7 November 1914, Page 8

CYPRUS TAKEN OVER BY GREAT BRITAIN.

TURKEY SAYS SHE IS ONLY AT WAR WITH RUSSIA, ALLIES HAND PASSPORTS TO AMBASSADORS, London, November 5. k is officially announced that Great Britain has annexed Cyprus. Tli- 1 Turkish Ambassadors in London and Paris have received their passports. ■ Advices from Constantinople, via Rome, state that it is semiofficially stated that Turkey at present restricts herself to war.': against Russia. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean, in the Levant. It ts about 50 miles from the Syrian coast and 40 miles from Asia Minor. The, length of the island is MO miles and the breadth from 40 to 50 miles. t Cyprus is divide'! into six districts—Nicosia, Larnaca,, Limasol, Famagustd, Paplis and Kvrenia. The island is traversed by two chains of mountains, the Kyrenia and the Korpas ranges. Between them lies the wide and exceedingly fertile plain of the .Mes'a'-rea. About 23 per cent, of the inhabitants of Cyprus are Moslems, the rest principally Christians of the Greek Church. The principal products are grain and wine. By the Treaty of Berlin, 1878, the island was placed under British administration. The British paid £92,800 annually to the Porte, which up to the present date has nominally exercised dominion over the island, tho administration having been vested in a High Commissioner.