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This article explores the impact of civil-military relations and an unreliable -even disloyallocal population upon intelligence-gathering and counter-espionage in Cyprus, and therefore adds to the existing literature on British Near and Middle East military intelligence during the First World War. Drawing upon archives in Britain and Cyprus, and a range of published primary sources, a fresh contribution to First World War intelligence studies is offered through a focus on British counter-espionage efforts in Cyprus after 1916. The article covers Anglo-French intelligence cooperation on the Syrian and Cilician coast, the wartime loyalties of Cypriots and their value as spies, and insights into Ottoman and German human intelligence activity in the region. The primary focus is on the civil-military relations between the Cyprus colonial government and the military intelligence officers. It is argued that Cyprus acquired some importance as a post for intelligence-gathering and especially counter-espionage, but the problems derived from inadequate civil-military relations, disloyal Cypriot subjects, and the island's status as a backwater hindered its development as a valuable asset in the Near and Middle East theatre.At 4 a.m. on 26 December 1915, Mustapha Hadji Izzet opened the municipal slaughterhouse in Larnaca, as he did every day. When he opened the back door, which overlooked the shore, three men entered. In his statement he described them as tall, fair, with large moustaches, wearing black clothes and caps, and holding revolvers. In refined Turkish, one man asked Izzet if this was the petroleum store. When Izzet replied that this was the slaughterhouse, the man spoke to his two friends in a language foreign to Izzet. He subsequently opined that the black caps resembled the fez worn in Cyprus. Conceivably they