After World War I broke out in August 1914, people in Syria
then “suffered tremendously between 1914 and 1918,” “hundreds of thousands” of
Greater Syrian men were drafted into the Turkish military and “hundreds of
thousands” of Syrians “died in the famine that accompanied the war,” according
to Michael Provence’s The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab
Nationalism. As the same book recalled:
“…A crushing famine gripped most of Greater Syria…The most
devastating element was effective British blockade of all Arab Mediterranean
ports…The British kept any grain from entering the country…British policy led
indirectly to the deaths by starvation of hundreds of thousands in the cities
of Greater Syria…”
And, according to the Palestine Book Project’s 1977 book Our
Roots Are Still Alive, “in Greater Syria, one-eighth of the population
died of starvation,” during World War I.
According to Philip Khoury’s Syria and the French Mandate,
“France’s sphere of influence was recognized” during World War I “by the
Anglo-French partition plan known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement” in which
“Britain and France had agreed in 1916 to set up an Arab state in part of
Syria,” but “British rather than French influence” had become “paramount” in
Syria by 1918. So “when Arab nationalists called for an independent Syria”
after Arab rebels entered Damascus with UK troops on Oct. 1, 1918 and the UK
government initially supported the establishment of a nationalist regime in
Syria headed by the Arab leader Emir Faisal, the French “accused Britain of
trying to deprive them of Syria and their share of the Ottoman Empire,”
according to the same book.
In response to the French imperialist government’s
complaints and pressure, however, the UK imperialist government’s prime
minister, Lloyd George, then “revealed a plan…whereby Britain would immediately
hand over to France military command in Cilicia, followed by its garrison in
western Syria,” according to Syria and the French Mandate. And
although “the nationalist-dominated Syrian Congress in Damascus declared Syria
an independent constitutional monarchy” and “Emir Faisal was crowned king of
the state of Syria in March 1920,” the French imperialist government “was never
really prepared to accept any nationalist government in Damascus” in 1920,
according to the same book.
So, predictably, as Syria and the French Mandate noted:
“In the third week of July [1920], General Gouraud [of
France] gave Faisal an `ultimatum’ that he must demobilize his army, recognize
the French Mandate, and dismiss his `extremist’ supporters or else he would be
removed from Damascus. Even though Faisal reluctantly accepted the ultimatum,
the French Army was already advancing. By July [1920], Damascus had fallen into
French hands and Faisal had to leave Syria for good…Although the vast majority
of inhabitants of the region opposed the French coming, France had realized her
claim to Syria…”
(end of part 3)
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