Great Syrian Revolt - Background

Background

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the victorious powers arranged to partition it under the terms of the Sykes-Picot Accords and the Treaty of Sevres. All of the Arab-Ottoman Lands of Iraq and Greater Syria became League of Nations mandates under British and French rule. The French League of Nations mandate for Syrian and Greater Lebanon began in 1920.

The idea of independence was itself nothing new. In 1918, Faisal ibn al-Husain had founded a Kingdom of Syria and Iraq, and though he was driven out of the Mandate of Syria by the French two years later in the Franco–Syrian War, most Syrian nationalists chose not to follow him to Iraq, but to remain in Syria and advocate for independence.

The years between 1920 and 1925 were not by any means peaceful. Rather, they were marked by small, localized, sporadic revolts against French rule. From 1920-1921, the Alawites and the Bedouin revolted. They were followed in 1921 by insurrections among the nobles of Aleppo and the inhabitants of the Hauran, a region in southwestern Syria. In 1923, in an effort to forestall a similar revolt on the part of the Druze population, the French negotiated a separate treaty that subsequent years would show to have been unsuccessful.

French forces entered Damascus on July 25, 1920 after the Battle of Maysalun. King Faisal fled to Jordan and General Henri Gouraud became High Commissioner. Upon arrival, the French partitioned Syria into five states: Damascus, Aleppo, Alawite State (Latakia), Greater Lebanon, and Jabal el Druze.