Law-abiding by nature, Armenian-Cypriots always had a high-profile with the British administration and many became conscientious civil servants and disciplined policemen or were employed at the Cyprus Government Railway and at Cable and Wireless. Throughout the 1920s–1950s, many worked at the asbestos mines at Amiandos and the copper mines at Mavrovouni and Skouriotissa, some of whom had been trade unionists. Some Armenian-Cypriots participated in the 1897 Greco-Turkish War, the two World Wars and the EOKA struggle. Also, the Eastern Legion was formed and trained between December 1916 and May 1918 in Monarga village, near Boghazi, consisting of over 4,000 Diasporan Armenian volunteers who fought against the Ottoman Empire. Some Armenian refugees arrived from Palestine and Egypt. The Armenian-Cypriot community prospered throughout the British Era, by establishing associations. In many ways unique across the whole Armenian Diaspora, it was built just outside Nicosia between 1924–1926, after the generous and benevolent donation of the Egyptian-Armenian tobacco trading brothers Krikor and Garabed Melkonian, initially in order to shelter and educate 500 orphans of the Genocide, who planted the trees in front of the school in memory of their slaughtered relatives. From an orphanage (1926–1940), it gradually became a world-renowned secondary school with a boarding section.