In preparation for the peace conference that was expected to follow World War I, in the spring of 1917 the British Foreign Office established a special section responsible for preparing background information for use by British delegates to the conference. Greece with the Cyclades & Northern Sporades is Number 18 in a series of more than 160 studies produced by the section, most of which were published after the conclusion of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The book covers physical and political geography, political history, social and political conditions, and economic conditions. The part on political history focuses on the period between the War of Independence (1821−29), in which Greece secured its independence from the Ottoman Empire, and the First and Second Balkan Wars (1912−13), by which Greece acquired lands from Bulgaria and Turkey that nearly doubled its territory and population. The Cyclades and the Northern Sporades are islands in the Aegean Sea that came under Greek control during the Balkan Wars, but whose incorporation into Greece had not yet been formally recognized by the Great Powers. The appendix includes the texts of important documents relating to Greece in the 19th century. These include the Protocol of London of March 22, 1829, in which the Great Powers of Britain, France, and Russia guaranteed the status of Greece as an autonomous entity under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire; the Protocol of London of February 3, 1830, in which the same three powers guaranteed Greece’s status as a fully independent kingdom; and the Treaty of London of March 29, 1864, in which Greece gained sovereignty over the Ionian Islands, a British protectorate since 1815. Greece was at first neutral during World War I, but it entered the war on the side of Britain and France in June 1917. Greece’s involvement in the war itself is not covered in this study.