The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (; , also referred to as the Levant States; 1923−1946)League of Nations Official Journal, Vol 3, August 1922, p. 1013 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. Also 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.John Morrison & Adam Woog, Syria, 2nd Edition, Infobase Publishing 2009 p. 37
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,Ali A. Allawi, Faisal I of Iraq, Yale University Press, 2014 p. 139 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,Eliezer Tauber, The Arab Movements in World War, Routledge 2014 p. 242 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.Isaiah Friedman, British Pan-Arab Policy, 1915-1922, Transaction Publishers 2011 p. 241 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.Philip S. Khoury, Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus 1860–1920, Cambridge University Press 2003 p. 90 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.Philip S. Khoury, Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus 1860–1920, Cambridge University Press 2003 p. 91 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.Elie Podeh, The Politics of National Celebrations in the Arab Middle East, Cambridge University Press, 2011 p. 54
On 14 July 1920, General Gouraud issued an ultimatum to Faisal that gave him the choice between submission or abdication.Ali A. Allawi, Faisal I of Iraq, Yale University Press, 2014 p.285 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.Sami M. Moubayed, Steel & Silk: Men and Women who Shaped Syria, 1900–2000, Cune Press, 2006 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 were based in part 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 independemlty. 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.William Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, 5th edition (Westview, 2012) p218-223
State of Greater Lebanon