High commissioner
From that date, it was under British administration, but Istanbul retained nominal sovereignty until Cyprus was fully annexed by Britain on 5 November 1914.
A high commission could also be charged with the last phase of a decolonisation, as in the crown colony of the Seychelles, granted autonomy on 12 November 1970: the last governor, Colin Hamilton Allen (1921–1993), stayed on as the only colonial high commissioner from 1 October 1975, when self-rule under the Crown was granted, until 28 June 1976 when the Seychelles became an independent republic within the Commonwealth.
The best known of these high commissioners, Alfred Milner, who was appointed to both positions in the 1890s, is considered responsible by some for igniting the Second Boer War.
The British governor of the crown colony of the Straits Settlements, based in Singapore, doubled as high commissioner of the Federated Malay States, and had authority over the resident-general in Kuala Lumpur, who in turn was responsible for the various residents appointed to the native rulers of the Malay states under British protection.
He was represented in each of the other islands units by a resident commissioner, consul or other official (on tiny Pitcairn a mere chief magistrate).
Exceptions were: In the later period of decolonisation, the office of high commissioner in a colony to become an allied nation was intended to become remarkably analogous to the Commonwealth's 'close relationship diplomats' in President General De Gaulle's project for a French Union to match the Commonwealth, but it soon started to fall apart, so they actually just presided over most of the peaceful decolonisation.
In one case a French Haut Commissaire was the exact match and colleague of a British high commissioner: they represented both powers in the south sea condominium (i.e. territory under joint sovereignty) of the New Hebrides, which became the present-day republic of Vanuatu.
Altos Comissários (or Comissários Régios when indicated) had been nominated for: Alto comisario was the Spanish title of the official exercing the functions of a governor in the following colonial possessions: The title Alto Comisario was also used for the representative of Spain in its protectorate zone within the Sherifan sultanate of Morocco (most of the country was under French protectorate), known as el Jalifato after the Khalifa (Spanish: Jalifa), the Sultan's fully mandated, princely Viceroy in this protectorate, to which the high commissioner was formally accredited, but whose senior he was in reality.
These protecting powers appointed the following as High Commissioner (Greek: Ὕπατος Ἁρμοστὴς) until 1908, when the Cretan Assembly unilaterally declared union with Greece (with Crete subsequently formally becoming part of Greece in 1913, after the Balkan Wars): Following the capitulation of the Ottoman Empire in the Armistice of Mudros, on 8 December 1918 the Allies occupied the shores of the Bosporus, the Dardanelles, the eastern coast of the Sea of Marmara up to 15 km deep, and the islands of Imbros, Lemnos, Samothrace and Tenedos.
Often the main/locally concerned members of an alliance would not set up a joint occupation authority (as in Italy after the Nazi defeat) but simply each appoint one for each of the zones into which they physically divided amongst themselves an occupied state or territory, e.g. after World War II: As the 'world community' became a widely accepted ideal in diplomacy and was embodied first in the League of Nations and later the United Nations, these often came to play a key role in extraordinary situations that would earlier probably have been dealt with by states as above, sometimes reflected in the appointment of high commissioners under their auspices, sometimes just from the same leading powers, sometimes rather from 'neutral' member states.
