Syrian campaign
| Syria–Lebanon campaign | |||||||||
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| Part of the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of the Second World War | |||||||||
 Australian troops among the ruins of the old Crusader castle at Sidon, Lebanon, July 1941 |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Czechoslovakia
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 Germany Italy
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Archibald Wavell Henry Maitland Wilson John Lavarack Paul Legentilhomme Karel Klapálek
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 Henri Dentz
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| Strength | |||||||||
| ~34,000 troops 50+ aircraft 1 landing ship 5 cruisers 8 destroyers |
45,000 troops 90 tanks 289 aircraft 2 destroyers 3 submarines |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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c. 4,652 Australian: 1,552 Free French: c. 1,300 British and Indian: 1,800, 1,200 POW, 3,150 sick 27 aircraft |
6,352 (Vichy figures) 8,912 (British figures) 179 aircraft 1 submarine sunk 5,668 defectors |
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The Syria–Lebanon campaign, also known as Operation Exporter, was the British invasion of Vichy French Syria and Lebanon from June–July 1941, during the Second World War. The French had ceded autonomy to Syria in September 1936, with the right to maintain armed forces and two airfields in the territory.
On 1 April 1941, the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état had taken place and Iraq had come under the control of Iraqi nationalists led by Rashid Ali, who appealed for German support. The Anglo-Iraqi War (2–31 May 1941) led to the overthrow of the Ali regime and the installation of a British puppet government. The British invaded Syria and Lebanon in June, to prevent Nazi Germany from using the Vichy French-controlled Syrian Republic and French Lebanon as bases for attacks on the Kingdom of Egypt, during an invasion scare in the aftermath of the German victories in the Battle of Greece (6–30 April 1941) and the Battle of Crete (20 May – 1 June). In the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) in North Africa, the British were preparing Operation Battleaxe to relieve the Siege of Tobruk and were fighting the East African Campaign (10 June 1940 – 27 November 1941) in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
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