The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (French: Mandat pour la Syrie et le Liban; Arabic: الانتداب الفرنسي على سوريا ولبنان, romanized: al-intidāb al-faransī ʻalā sūriyā wa-lubnān, also referred to as the Levant States; 1923−1946) 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 (now Iraq) and the southern part of Ottoman Syria (now Israel, Palestine and Jordan), and the French controlled the rest of Ottoman Syria (including Lebanon, Alexandretta and portions of Cilicia). In the early 1920s, British and French control of those territories became formalised by the League of Nations' mandate system. 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 (PMC), which allowed other states to voice their thoughts on the management of the mandates, such as on 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 (1922–1924), the State of Syria (1925–1930) and the Mandatory Syrian Republic (1930–1946), 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 finally 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 and were accompanied by troops of the Arab Revolt, led by Faisal, the 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, trusting earlier British promises, hoped that the new Arab state would include all Arab lands stretching from Aleppo, in northern Syria, to Aden, in southern Yemen.
However, in accordance with the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement between the United Kingdom and France, General Allenby assigned to the Arab administration only the interior regions of Syria (the eastern zone). Palestine (the southern zone) was reserved for the British. On 8 October, French troops disembarked in Beirut, occupied the Lebanese coastal region south to Naqoura (the western zone) and replaced the 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 and left the Arab government to face France. Faisal had travelled several times to Europe since November 1918 to attempt to convince France and Britain to change their positions. However, 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 that had been made to the Arabs. Throughout the early period of colonial administration, collaboration persisted between the British and the French authorities in the region in fulfillment of economic interests of both parties in the region such as the establishment of a customs-free zone for goods produced within the territories that were controlled by the British and the French.
In May 1919, elections were held for the Syrian National Congress, which convened in Damascus, had 80% of the seats go to conservatives. However, the minority included dynamic figures of Arab nationalism such as Jamil Mardam Bey, Shukri al-Kuwatli, Ahmad al-Qadri, Ibrahim Hanano and Riyad as-Solh. The head was the 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. It visited 36 major cities, met with more than 2,000 delegations from more than 300 villages and received more than 3,000 petitions. Its conclusions confirmed the Syrians' opposition to the mandate in their country and to the Balfour Declaration, as well as their demand for a unified Greater Syria encompassing Palestine. The commission's conclusions were ignored by both Britain and France.
Unrest erupted in Syria when Faisal accepted a compromise with French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau. Anti-Hashemite demonstrations broke out, and Muslim inhabitants in and around Mount Lebanon revolted for fear of being incorporated into a new, mainly Christian, state of Greater Lebanon. Much of the French claim to those 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; declared the independence of Syria in its natural borders, including southern Syria and Palestine; 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 (including Lebanon) and Britain the Mandate of Palestine (later including Trans-Jordan) 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 organise general conscription and began forming an army.
France responded to those decisions by violent suppressions, along with 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 Baabdam which proclaimed the independence of Lebanon on 22 March 1920.
On 14 July 1920, General Gouraud issued an ultimatum to Faisal that gave him the choice between submission or abdication. Realising that the power balance was not in his favour, 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 few 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 al-Azmeh died on the battlefield, along with many of the Syrian troops. 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
Arriving in Lebanon, the French were received as protectors by much of the Maronite population, which saw French rule as a step toward autonomy, but in the rest of Syria, they faced widespread resistance.
The mandate region was subdivided into six states: the states of Damascus (1920), Aleppo (1920), Alawites (1920), Jabal Druze (1921), the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta (1921, modern-day Hatay) and the State of Greater Lebanon (1920), the last of which became later the modern country of Lebanon.
While those divisions were partly based on the sectarian demographics, they also reflected French colonial strategy. By encouraging localised 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 that it created, as was shown by the numerous revolts that the French encountered in all of the Syrian states. The Maronites of Mount Lebanon, on the other hand, were a community with a dream of independence that was being realised 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, France deliberately gave different ethnic and religious groups in the Levant their own lands in the hope of prolonging its rule. The French hoped to fragment the various groups in the region and to mitigate support for the Syrian nationalist movement, which sought 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 decide policy independently. 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 (French: État du Grand Liban, Arabic: دولة لبنان الكبير) at a ceremony in Beirut.
Greater Lebanon was created by France to be a "safe haven" for the Maronite population of the mutasarrifia (Ottoman administrative unit) of Mount Lebanon, an area with a Maronite majority that 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 that merged the French flag with the cedar of Lebanon.
The Maronites were the majority in Lebanon and managed to preserve their independence, which 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, when it became the Lebanese Republic.
Most of the 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 between Egypt and Syria, which was strongly opposed by Lebanese Christians. However, most members of the Lebanese Muslim communities and their political elites ahd become committed to the idea of being Lebanese citizens by the late 1930s even though they also tended to continue to nurture Arab nationalist sentiments.
State of Alawites
On 19 August 1920, General Gouraud signed Arrêté 314, which added to the autonomous Sandjak of Alexandretta the Cazas of Jisr el-Choughour, the madriyehs of Baher and Bujack (caza of Latakia), the Moudiriyeh of Kinsaba (Caza of Sahyoun) "with a view to the formation of the territories of Greater Lebanon and the Ansarieh Mountains", where the "Ansarieh Mountains" area was to become the Alawite State. On 31 August 1920, the same day that the decree creating Greater Lebanon was signed, General Gouraud signed Arrêté 319 delimiting the State of Alawites, and Arrêté 317 adding the caza of Massyaf (Omranie) into the new State.
The Alawite State (French: État des Alaouites, Arabic: دولة العلويين) was located on the Syrian coast and incorporated a majority of Alawites, a branch of Shia Islam. It capital was the port city of Latakia. Initially, it was an autonomous territory under French rulem known as the "Alawite Territories". It became part of the Syrian Federation in 1922, but left the federation again in 1924 and became the "Alawaite State". On 22 September 1930, it was renamed the "Independent Government of Latakia". The population at this time was 278,000. The government of Latakia finally joined the Syrian Republic on 5 December 1936. The state witnessed several rebellions against the French, including that of Salih al-Ali (1918–1920).
On 28 June 1922, Arrêté 1459 created a "Federation of the Autonomous States of Syria", which included the State of Aleppo, the State of Damascus and the Alawite State. However, two-and-a-half years later, on 5 December 1924, Arrêté 2979 and Arrêté 2980 established the Alawite State as an independent state, with Latakia as its capital, and separately unified the States of Aleppo and Damascus into the "État de Syrie" ("State of Syria"), which was formally established on 1 January 1925.