Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, to 1930

During the Great War, Britain, Russia and France sought control over the territory of their wartime enemy, the Ottoman Empire. In November 1914 the British annexed Cyprus. And that month Britain invaded southern Mesopotamia and defeated a rump force of Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Basra on December 10 - the main force of Turks having withdrawn.

In 1915 the Allied powers worked out secret agreements that included taking for themselves small portions of Asia Minor - today Turkey, with France and Britain promising the Russians Constantinople (now Istanbul). In 1916 they agreed to the division of territory would be called Greater Syria, today Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and what was then called Palestine, across the Sinai desert to the Suez Canal. This was the Sykes-Picot Agreement - imperial powers dividing the control of lands without consulting the people who dwelled on these lands.

In April 1916 at Kut al-Amara, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, a British force from India surrendered, and troops were taken away to slave labor. Thousands of British and Indian troops died, adding to the 40,000 who were to die in Mesopotamia during the war. But in December the British went back on the offensive, overran Kut in February and reached Baghdad in March.

When the Bolsheviks came to power in late 1917 they acquired access to the secret agreements among the Allies, and being ideologically opposed to imperialism they were happy to expose the treaties. And, out of the war, Russia was not to benefit from the Allied victory. Russia's Eastern Orthodox churchmen had lost their influence and an opportunity to regain what in the 15th century had been the center of Greek Christianity: Constantinople.

Arab royalty in the west of Arabia, along the Red Sea, including Mecca and Medina - the Hejaz - had been agents of the Ottoman Turks, until the Turks were obviously losing the war. Then this royalty began cooperating with the British, who were driving the Turks northward. This was the Hashim family, which in the Muslim tradition clung to monarchism and a claim to power on the grounds that they were direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad The British wanted to make the Hashim subservient to them, as they did with the King Faud of Egypt and as conquerors had with local rulers back to ancient times. By 1917 the Hashim family head, Sharif Hussein ibn Ali, was the official leader of the revolt against the Turks. He remained the nominal power in Mecca and north in the Hejaz. He was 69 then and he had his son Faisal deal with the British.

The Turks were driven north from Jerusalem. A British force from Egypt entered the city on December 11, 1917, the commander, Allenby, doing so on foot out of respect for what Christians considered a holy city.

On October 1, 1918, Australian cavalrymen entered Damascus. Turkey's army had left. And the Turks agreed to an armistice on October 30. A declaration by the British and French described their goal as freeing people who had been oppressed by the Turks and helping these people to establish governments freely chosen by themselves. In Damascus people rejoiced. But a few worried that the declaration was not explicit in its support for full independence. From these doubters came friendly words, such as wanting European influence "like a lighthouse" that guides a navigator, but this was accompanied by an expressed desire for complete political independence. A senior British officer saw it as coming from a "small party" of "fanatical Muslims and 'Young Arab' hotheads."

Faisal respected the power of the British and tried to be agreeable. In January 1919 he signed an agreement with the British, accepting Jewish migration into Palestine on condition that the Arabs receive the independence promised them and that Arabs peasants and tenant farmers in Palestine be protected in their rights. The British were for all these, but what they meant exactly by independence and when the Arabs were to get that independence were perhaps not clear to Faisal.

Faisal attended the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919, representing the interests of Arabs. The Allies, wanting to carry through on their decision to divide the Middle East among them, resorted to a rationale: that the Arabs, just freed from Ottoman domination, were not yet ready for self government, the Arab were in need of their tutoring. President Wilson accepted this and was appeased by the claim that eventually the Arabs would gain their independence.

Right away there were people who rebelled against being ruled by foreigners, or Christians. Syrians were especially upset. Their experience with rule by the Turks had been a horror for them as recently as 1916. In January Faisal returned to Damascus. Faisal appointed a new Council of Directors. A congress was also organized, and on March 7 it declared independence and chose Faisal as king of a Greater Syria. But the League of Nations mandate ruled Syria and Lebanon to be under French control - with precise boundaries not specified. On July 14 the French commander in the area, General Henri Gouraud, sent an ultimatum to Faisal, saying that he, Gouraud, would take over Syria by force unless the Arab government in Damascus accepted without reservation France's mandate, among other things. King Faisal ordered that the French not be resisted, but he was ignored. Syria's Minister of War, Yusuf al Azmah was determined to fight the French, resulting in the Battle of Maysalun Pass, on July 24, 1920 - about 12 miles west of Damascus. Gouraud's army easily defeated a few hundred Arab soldiers and some hastily-summoned citizen volunteers. Yusuf al Azmah died in the fighting and into the 21st century remains a hero to Arabs. Gouraud is said to have celebrated his victory by going to the tomb of Saladin, to have kicked it, and to have said: "Awake Saladin, we have returned. My presence here consecrates the victory of the Cross over the Crescent."

In Damascus a pro-French government was formed. In August, Faisal was expelled from Syria, and he went to live in Britain. In Syria unrest remained. A train that the pro-French prime minister was on was attacked and the prime minister killed. A new pro-French prime minister was appointed.

In November 1920, Faisal's brother, Abdullah, was planning to take a force from the British controlled Hejaz to restore his brother’s throne in Damascus. Winston Churchill, Britain's Secretary of State for the Colonies, invited Abdullah to a "tea party" where he told Abdullah that French forces were superior to his and that the British did not want any trouble with French. He convinced Abdullah to refrain from attacking the French. The British rewarded Abdullah with rule in an area to be called Transjordan. Abdullah accepted. Britain recognized Transjordan as a state on May 15, 1923, with Abdullah clinging to his plan for an eventual unity of the Arabs - under Hashimite authority.

By the end of 1921 the French had quelled rebellions north of Damascus, including the city of Aleppo (Halab). In 1922 the French and League of Nations divided Syria and Lebanon - Syria the larger of the two, its population numbering about 2.2 million, 85 percent of whom were Muslim (about four-fifths of them Sunni). with about one-quarter of them living in urban centers. The artificial boundaries left Lebanon a mix of Muslim (some of them Sunni, some Shia and some Druze) and Christians, the latter reduced to barely 50 percent of the population.

In Mesopotamia (Iraq) meanwhile, the British occupation force was being attacked. There were disgruntled former officials under the Turks who had been marginalized. There were Arab nationalists who wanted independence, tribesmen who resented British taxation and Shiites hostile to the presence of a Christian foreign power. For the first time, Sunnis and Shiites, tribes and cities, came together in a common effort. The British were still suffering from the Great War, and the public support for war in Iraq evaporated.

In 1921 a conference presided over by Churchill was held in Cairo to settle Middle Eastern affairs in British ruled areas. Faisal was nominated to the Iraqi throne with the provision that a plebiscite be held to confirm the nomination. Faisal was considered suitable to both Sunni and Shiites because of his dependence from the Prophet Mohammad. Rival candidates were rejected and a plebiscite of dubious authenticity was held in July, which gave Faisal overwhelming approval. Faisal arrived in August, to an unenthusiastic reception, and on August 23 he was formally crowned. Agreements were signed. The League of Nations mandate was to be respected, as was religious freedom and the rights of foreigners. Britain, it was agreed, would "offer advice" on foreign and domestic affairs, including military, judicial, and financial matters.

A rebellion erupted in Iraq. The British were low on the number of troops they could afford to send to Iraq and low in money it could spend on the war. For the British, air power was an economical response. Aircraft bombed and machine-gunned the Iraqis. Winston Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia urged the use of gas, and mustard gas is said to have been used on occasion, and delayed action bombs. Britain Air Commodore, Lionel Charlton resigned his commission in disgust in 1924. A squadron leader in Iraq, Arthur Harris, supported the bombing strategy, saying that "The only thing the Arab understands in the heavy hand." The rebellion was defeated and British rule restored. The British lost about 500 troops and the Iraqis perhaps 6,000 combatants. Arthur Harris would become commander of British air power during World War II, while believing in bombing German civiliian targets.

In Iraq Faisal would always be looked upon as a foreigner and his rule a British creation. Meanwhile, Iraqi military officers would remain largely secular, influenced by the same attraction to modernization that Turkish military intellectuals had been, and they were interested in a unification of all the Arabic countries. Among them the Sunnis dominated. Shiites were accepted only if they endorsed the unity of all Arabic countries. Shiites would tend to perceive the Iraqi state as an enemy because it was Sunni and gave them no voice in politics. And the Kurds in the north would continue to seek to extend their autonomy to real independence.

By 1924, the Turks were claiming Mosul should be under their control. The British were interested in oil in the area around the city of Mosul. So too was Turkey. Turkey and the U.S. discussed Turkey giving support to an American share in the oil around Mosul in exchange for support for Turkey's claim to the area. That was superceded by the British making a deal with Turkey, the U.S. and others. Beginning in 1925 oil concessions were granted, the Turks, the U.S., the French and Dutch to receive ten percent share in royalty payments from what came to be called Iraq Petroleum.

The year 1925 saw another revolt by the Syrians. The French were not as slick as the British in handling the Arabs. They lacked the experience that the British had gained in recent years. The Syrians, moreover, had remained most nationalistic. The French struck back with artillery, tanks and the firepower of military aircraft. Despite this the latest rebellion lasted into 1928.

In 1926 a constitution was created for Lebanon that required Lebanon's president to be a Christian (in practice, a Maronite) and the prime minister a Sunni - a bit of self-government while remaining under French domination. Lebanon was not to be independent until 1943.

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