ABSTRACT
For a century after the Crimean War, the Greek political elites had viewed Britain as the regional hegemon. At the same time, at least since the last third of the nineteenth century, the Greek political system tended to see British parliamentarism as a model. Thus, Britain’s withdrawal from Greece in 1947 and the eruption of the Cyprus dispute in the 1950s signalled the end of an era, and raised a series of dilemmas for the Greek political leadership. This chapter argues that the post-war search for a new balance in bilateral relations was not a linear process, determined by Britain’s ‘descent from power’, but a complicated and painful affair, which also depended on the particular team holding power in Athens. The Centre parties in the early 1950s and in the mid-1960s tended to look to Britain for leadership and guidance more than the new Right that held power in 1952-1963 and was led by members of a younger generation. The leaders of the Right tended to look to the US and to the novel processes of (continental) European integration. Reaching a new balance was thus an interactive affair; it involved both Britain’s effort to adjust to the post-war world, and Greece’s agonising effort to become a member of the First World.
