ABSTRACT
The strategic imperatives and competition between the European powers had been identified as the primary motives for the British imperial expansion during the Victorian era. Accounts from John Hobson and Vladimir Lenin illustrated the economic factors portraying imperialism as a product of capitalism. Theorising imperialism and empire has traditionally developed through a Eurocentric understanding of world history. During the late Victorian period, when there were many imperial scholars, an increasing number of those studying the British Empire had been drawing an analogy between British imperialism and Roman imperialism. The 'divide and rule' strategy has been described as an essential feature of imperial policies. British rulers adopted the 'divide and rule' policy, allied to territorial separation through segregation and partition. The imperial governments divided populations into distinct groups on the basis of linguistics, religion, ethnicity and race. The three entities in the Cypriot case were the British government, the Greek Cypriot community and the Muslim Cypriot community.
