The federated United States of the Ionian Islands included seven islands off the coasts of Epirus and the Peloponnese, that had remained in Venetian hands until 1797 and escaped Ottoman rule. Of the seven, six lay in the Ionian Sea, off the western coast of the Greek mainland. These six states were Corfù (Kerkyra), Ithaca(Ithaki), Paxò(paxoi/paxos), Cephalonia, Zante (Zakynthos) and Santa Maura (Lefkas). Cerigo (Kythera) was also a state of the federation, although it is situated southeast of the Peloponnese.
Ever since Greece had become independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1832, the people of the Ionian Islands had pressed for enosis with Greece. At a Cabinet meeting in 1862, British Foreign SecretaryHenry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston decided to cede the islands to Greece. This policy was also favoured by Queen Victoria. The practical reasoning was that maintenance of ownership in the area was too expensive. Besides, the islands did not have great strategic importance; Britain would still maintain a strategic presence in the Mediterranean from the island of Malta. It may also have been a British manoeuvre to increase its support in Greece as a counterweight to the newly established Kingdom of Italy, which had interests in the area.
The decision to cede the islands was also influenced by the accession to the Greek throne of the Danish prince George, a committed Anglophile. Indeed, in a referendum in November 1862, the Greeks had elected Queen Victoria's second son, Prince Alfred, as their king, partly in the hope of receiving the Ionian Islands.
After long negotiations with Greece, the Treaty of London was signed by Greek delegate Charilaos Trikoupis on 29 March 1864. On 2 May 1864 the British departed and the Ionian Islands became three provinces of the Kingdom of Greece, although Britain retained use of the port on Corfu.
This can be seen as the first example of voluntary decolonization by Britain. For Greece, the incorporation of the Ionian Islands was the first of several territorial increases to 1947.
Maps
In yellow the situation of the islands in relation to the current borders of Greece. The islands formed the British protectorate of the United States of the Ionian Islands from 1815 and were transferred to the Kingdom of Greece in 1864.
Anderson M. S. The Eastern Question 1774–1923, A Study in the International Relations (London, 1983).
Paschalidi, Maria. "Constructing Ionian identities: the Ionian Islands in British official discourses; 1815-1864" (PhD dissertation. UCL (University College London), 2010) online.
Xenos, Stephanos Th. East and West: A Diplomatic History of the Annexation of the Ionian Islands to the Kingdom of Greece (Trübner, 1865) online.
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