George Grivas was the militant Greek Cypriot soldier who led the armed campaign against British colonial rule in Cyprus in the 1950s, fighting for the island's union with Greece. Born in Cyprus, he made his career as an officer in the Greek army, serving in Greece's wars and forming hard-line, fiercely anti-communist nationalist views.
Convinced that only force would end British rule, Grivas returned secretly to Cyprus and in 1955 launched a guerrilla insurgency under the name EOKA — the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters. Operating from mountain hideouts under the code name "Dighenis," he directed a campaign of sabotage, ambushes, and assassinations against British forces that tied down tens of thousands of troops and helped force Britain to the negotiating table.
Grivas's goal was "enosis," union with Greece, and he was bitterly disappointed by the 1960 settlement that made Cyprus an independent republic instead, under Archbishop Makarios.
He returned to the island in later years and resumed armed struggle, founding a new underground movement, EOKA-B, that opposed Makarios and continued to agitate for union with Greece — deepening the divisions among Greek Cypriots and contributing to the instability that led to the catastrophe of 1974. Grivas died of a heart attack early that year, still in hiding, shortly before the events that partitioned the island.