Britain's Gift to the Greeks

The handover of the strategically important but troublesome Ionian Islands was an act rare for its time.

Ionian innings: a cricket match at the Corfu garrison, 1853One hundred and fifty years ago, on June 2nd, 1864, General Sir Henry Storks, Lord High Commissioner, formally handed over the Ionian Islands to the Greek monarchy. Only six years earlier, William Gladstone had been sent out as Extraordinary Lord High Commissioner to create a constitution that would give British rule a new lease of life in what were considered to be islands of great strategic importance.

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