On 12 January 1934, Henry Blackall, the Attorney General since 1932, gave notice of his intention to marry Maria Severis, daughter of Demosthenis Severis and first cousin of Loulla Triantafyllides, Antonios's wife, in the Orthodox Church (which happened on 21 April 1934). But that night he returned to his diary (noticeable by the darker ink) to enter the details of what was then ‘an attempt to assassinate Triantafyllides’. Blackall rang and then visited the General Hospital where Triantafyllides was being operated on. One shot had entered the intestines, which were perforated in four places, and the ‘doctors regard his condition as very serious, but there is […] some hope’. His immediate view was that this was ‘the first political assassination here and it is doubtless owed to the poison instilled by the local press’, and therefore ‘censorship should be revived’. Blackall noted that Triantafyllides had ‘helped a lot towards our engagement’. The next day, Blackall entered the death of Triantafyllides and how he influenced the immediate actions of Governor Palmer (Figure 3.1).

Palmer agreed and also called a company of troops from Limassol to Nicosia, which Blackall disagreed with because

Meanwhile, in Athens, Savvas Loizides, Bishop Makarios, Theophanis Tsangarides and Theodoros Kolokasides must have received the news that Triantafyllides had died with a mixture of excitement and apprehension.