Great Syrian Revolt | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Shaykh Hilal al-Atrash, rebel celebration in Hauran, 14 August 1925 |
|||||||
|
|||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
France | Syrian rebels | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Maurice Sarrail Roger Michaud Maurice Gamelin Henry de Jouvenel Charles Andréa |
Sultan Pasha al-Atrash Fawzi al-Qawuqji Hasan al-Kharrat † Said al-As Izz al-Din al-Halabi Nasib al-Bakri Muhammad al-Ashmar Ramadan al-Shallash (defected to France) |
The Great Syrian Revolt (Arabic: الثورة السورية الكبرى) or Great Druze Revolt (1925–1927) was a general uprising across Mandatory Syria and Lebanon aimed at getting rid of the French, who had been in control of the region since the end of World War I. The uprising was not centrally coordinated; rather, it was attempted by multiple factions – among them Sunni, Druze, Alawite, Christian, and Shia – with the common goal of ending French rule. The revolt was ultimately put down by French forces.
In 1918, towards the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire's forces withdrew from Syria after being defeated by the Allied Powers (Great Britain and France) and their Hashemite Arab allies from the Hejaz. The British had promised the Hashemites control over a united Arab state consisting of the bulk of Arabic-speaking lands from which the Ottomans withdrew, even as the Allies made other plans for the region in the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement.
The idea of Syrian and Arab independence were not entirely new concepts. French forces entering Syria faced resistance from local actors in the north in 1919, with the prominent Alawite sheikh Saleh al-Ali launching a revolt in the coastal mountain range and Ibrahim Hananu leading a revolt in Aleppo and the surrounding countryside. The leaders of both uprisings were vocally supportive of the creation of a united Syrian state presided over by Emir Faisal, the son of Sharif Husayn. In March 1920 the Hashemites officially established the Kingdom of Syria with Faisal as king and the capital in Damascus.