Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon
The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon was a League of Nations mandate founded in the aftermath of the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, concerning the territories of Syria and Lebanon. The mandate system was supposed to differ from colonialism, with the governing country intended to act as a trustee until the inhabitants were considered eligible for self-government. At that point, the mandate would terminate and a sovereign state would be born.
During the two years that followed the end of the war in 1918—and in accordance with the Sykes–Picot Agreement signed by the United Kingdom and France during the war—the British held control of most of Ottoman Iraq and the southern part of Ottoman Syria, while the French controlled the rest of Ottoman Syria. In the early 1920s, British and French control of these territories became formalized by the League of Nations' mandate system. And on 29 September 1923 France was assigned the League of Nations mandate of Syria, which included the territory of present-day Lebanon and Alexandretta in addition to modern Syria. The League of Nations monitored the mandates through the Permanent Mandates Commission. The PMC allowed other states to voice their thoughts on the management of the mandates, such as in economic matters.
The administration of the region under the French was carried out through a number of different governments and territories, including the Syrian Federation, the State of Syria and the Mandatory Syrian Republic, as well as smaller states: Greater Lebanon, the Alawite State, and the Jabal Druze State. Hatay State was annexed by Turkey in 1939. The French mandate lasted until 1946, when French troops eventually left Syria and Lebanon, which had both declared independence during World War II.
Background
With the defeat of the Ottomans in Syria, British troops, under General Sir Edmund Allenby, entered Damascus in 1918 accompanied by troops of the Arab Revolt led by Faisal, son of Hussein bin Ali, King of Hejaz. Faisal established the first new postwar Arab government in Damascus in October 1918, and named Ali Rikabi a military governor.The new Arab administration formed local governments in the major Syrian cities, and the pan-Arab flag was raised all over Syria. The Arabs hoped, with faith in earlier British promises, that the new Arab state would include all the Arab lands stretching from Aleppo in northern Syria to Aden in southern Yemen.
However, in accordance with the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement between Britain and France, General Allenby assigned to the Arab administration only the interior regions of Syria. Palestine was reserved for the British. On 8 October, French troops disembarked in Beirut and occupied the Lebanese coastal region south to Naqoura, replacing British troops there. The French immediately dissolved the local Arab governments in the region.
France demanded full implementation of the Sykes–Picot Agreement, with Syria under its control. On 26 November 1919, British forces withdrew from Damascus to avoid confrontation with the French, leaving the Arab government to face France. Faisal had travelled several times to Europe since November 1918, trying to convince France and Britain to change their positions, but without success. France's determination to intervene in Syria was shown by the naming of General Henri Gouraud as high commissioner in Syria and Cilicia. At the Paris Peace Conference, Faisal found himself in an even weaker position when the European powers decided to renege on the promises made to the Arabs. Throughout the early period of colonial administration, collaboration persisted between British and French authorities in the region, in fulfillment of economic interests of both parties in the region, such as in the establishment of a customs-free zone for goods produced within the British and French controlled territories.
In May 1919, elections were held for the Syrian National Congress, which convened in Damascus. 80% of seats went to conservatives. However, the minority included dynamic Arab nationalist figures such as Jamil Mardam Bey, Shukri al-Kuwatli, Ahmad al-Qadri, Ibrahim Hanano, and Riyad as-Solh. The head was moderate nationalist Hashim al-Atassi.
In June 1919, the American King–Crane Commission arrived in Syria to inquire into local public opinion about the future of the country. The commission's remit extended from Aleppo to Beersheba. They visited 36 major cities, met with more than 2,000 delegations from more than 300 villages, and received more than 3,000 petitions. Their conclusions confirmed the opposition of Syrians to the mandate in their country as well as to the Balfour Declaration, and their demand for a unified Greater Syria encompassing Palestine. The conclusions of the commission were ignored by both Britain and France.
Unrest erupted in Syria when Faisal accepted a compromise with French Prime Minister Clemenceau. Anti-Hashemite demonstrations broke out, and Muslim inhabitants in and around Mount Lebanon revolted in fear of being incorporated into a new, mainly Christian, state of Greater Lebanon. A part of France's claim to these territories in the Levant was that France had been acknowledged as a protector of the minority Christian communities by the Ottoman Empire.
In March 1920, the Congress in Damascus adopted a resolution rejecting the Faisal-Clemenceau accords. The congress declared the independence of Syria in her natural borders, and proclaimed Faisal the king of all Arabs. Faisal invited Ali Rikabi to form a government. The congress also proclaimed political and economic union with neighboring Iraq and demanded its independence as well.
On 25 April, the supreme inter-Allied council, which was formulating the Treaty of Sèvres, granted France the mandate of Syria, and granted Britain the Mandate of Palestine, and Iraq. Syrians reacted with violent demonstrations, and a new government headed by Hashim al-Atassi was formed on 7 May 1920. The new government decided to organize general conscription and began forming an army.
These decisions provoked adverse reactions by France as well as by the Maronite patriarchate of Mount Lebanon, which denounced the decisions as a "coup d'état". In Beirut, the Christian press expressed its hostility to the decisions of Faisal's government. Lebanese nationalists used the crisis against Faisal's government to convene a council of Christian figures in Baabda that proclaimed the independence of Lebanon on 22 March 1920.
On 14 July 1920, General Gouraud issued an ultimatum to Faisal, giving him the choice between submission or abdication. Realizing that the power balance was not in his favor, Faisal chose to cooperate. However, the young minister of war, Yusuf al-Azma, refused to comply. In the resulting Franco-Syrian War, Syrian troops under al-Azmeh, composed of the little remaining troops of the Arab army along with Bedouin horsemen and civilian volunteers, met the better trained 12,000-strong French forces under General Mariano Goybet at the Battle of Maysaloun. The French won the battle in less than a day and Azmeh died on the battlefield, along with many of the Syrian troops, while the remaining troops possibly defected. General Goybet captured Damascus with little resistance on 24 July 1920, and the mandate was written in London two years later on 24 July 1922.
States created during the French Mandate
Arriving in Lebanon, the French were received as protectors by many Maronite Christians, who saw their rule as a step toward autonomy, but in the rest of Syria, the French faced widespread resistance.The mandate region was subdivided into six states. They were the states of Damascus, Aleppo, Alawites, Jabal Druze, the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta, and the State of Greater Lebanon, which became later the modern country of Lebanon.
While these divisions were partly were based in part on the sectarian demographics, they also reflected French colonial strategy. By encouraging localized identities, the French sought to weaken nationalist movements prevent the emergence of a unified identity. Many of the different Syrian sects were hostile to the French mandate and to the division it created, as shown by the numerous revolts that the French encountered in all of the Syrian states. The Maronite Christians of Mount Lebanon, on the other hand, were a community with a dream of independence that was being realized under the French. Therefore, Greater Lebanon was the exception among the newly formed states.
It took France three years from 1920 to 1923 to gain full control over Syria and to quell all the insurgencies that broke out, notably in the Alawite territories, Mount Druze and Aleppo.
Although there were uprisings in the different states, the French deliberately gave different ethnic and religious groups in the Levant their own lands in the hopes of prolonging their rule. The French hoped to fragment the various groups in the region, to mitigate support for the Syrian nationalist movement seeking to end colonial rule. The administration of the state governments was heavily dominated by the French. Local authorities were given very little power and did not have the authority to independently decide policy. The small amount of power that local leaders had could easily be overruled by French officials. The French did everything in their power to prevent people in the Levant from developing self-sufficient governing bodies.
State of Greater Lebanon
On 3 August 1920, Arrêté 299 of the Haut-commissariat de la République française en Syrie et au Liban linked the cazas of Hasbaya, Rachaya, Maallaka and Baalbeck to what was then known as the Autonomous Territory of Lebanon. Then on 31 August 1920, General Gouraud signed Arrêté 318 delimiting the State of Greater Lebanon, with explanatory notes stating that Lebanon would be treated separately from the rest of Syria. On 1 September 1920, General Gouraud publicly proclaimed the creation of the State of Greater Lebanon at a ceremony in Beirut.Greater Lebanon was created by France to be a "safe haven" for the Maronite population of the mutasarrifia of Mount Lebanon. Mt. Lebanon, an area with a Maronite majority, had enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy during the Ottoman era. However, in addition to the Maronite Mutasarrifia other, mainly Muslim, regions were added, forming "Greater" Lebanon. Those regions correspond today to North Lebanon, South Lebanon, Biqa' valley, and Beirut. The capital of Greater Lebanon was Beirut. The new state was granted a flag, merging the French flag with the cedar of Lebanon.
Maronites were the majority in Lebanon and managed to preserve its independence; an independence that created a unique precedent in the Arab world, as Lebanon was the first Arab country in which Christians were not a minority. The State of Greater Lebanon existed until 23 May 1926, after which it became the Lebanese Republic.
Most Muslims in Greater Lebanon rejected the new state upon its creation. Some believe that the continuous Muslim demand for reunification with Syria eventually brought about an armed conflict between Muslims and Christians in 1958 when Lebanese Muslims wanted to join the newly proclaimed United Arab Republic, while Lebanese Christians were strongly opposed. However, most members of the Lebanese Muslim communities and their political elites were committed to the idea of being Lebanese citizens by the late 1930s, even though they also tended to nurture Arab nationalist sentiments.