Dodecanese / by J.L. Myres [and others].

  • Great Britain. Naval Intelligence Division
Date:
1943
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dodecanese / by J.L. Myres [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Casos command the straits between Asia Minor and Crete. Rhodes, Leros, and Astypalaea provide bases for aggression against south- west Asia Minor and for exploitation of it, such as was reseryed to Italy in 1919 by the First Treaty with Turkey at Sévres, and they have been treated by Italy as such. Leros has been heavily fortified and equipped as naval base and air base; Astypalaea has accom- modation for surface-craft and sea-planes; Rhodes, though its only natural port, Lindos, is small, has centres for aviation at Maritza, Kalatho, and Katavia, and a considerable garrison. Distances are as follows (approx. nautical miles): Rhodes to Beirut 390 m. Leros to Dardanelles 200 m. Port Said 434 m. Salonika 320 m. Alexandria 378 m. Athens 1g0 m. Athens _ 279 m. Suda Bay 200 m. Smyrna 250m. Carpathos to Alexandria 300 m. Istanbul 450m. Cyprus 300 m. Limassol 275 m. Haifa 500 m. Tobruk 390 m. | Principal heights are as follows: Calymnos (Parasiva) 2226014. Carpathos (Kalolimn1) 3,965 ft. Caso (Kapsalo) 1,895 ft. Chalk: (Meravigli) 1,836 ft. Cos (Dikeo) 2,870 ft. Leros (Klidi) 1,140 ft. Rhodes (Atairo) 4,068 ft. The name ‘Dodecanese’ The title of the “Twelve Islands’ has been differently applied in medieval and in modern times. Under Leo III, the Isaurian Emperor of Byzantium (a.D.7!7—40), the three naval commands were Cibyra (the Lycian District), Samos, and the ‘Dodecanese or Aigaion Pelagos’. } In Byzantine historians of the ninth century, referring to events of A.D. 780 and A.D. 802, a group of islands within the Cyclades was under naval command of the ‘Drungarios of the Dodecanese’ or ‘of the Aigaion Pelagos’, from which the later word ‘Archipelago’ is corrupted; and the “T'welve Islands of the Cyclades’ formed a civil and ecclesiastical province. But in the tenth century Rhodes and Symi were under Cibyra (Thema XIV), and the Aegean Thema was
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