I have a lot of different interests. I learned way back when that my gift in life is to "learn new things and tell others about them." And so it has been. This blog is intended to have bits and pieces of my many different interests.
Here is one. This is from an article I wrote in the 1970s. It was the last thing I did as a scholar of French history writing about French and Middle Eastern, specifically Syrian, history.
International Journal of Middle East
Studies
Research Article
The Syrian Revolt of 1925
Joyce Laverty Miller
In the summer of 1925, a revolt erupted in the French mandated territories
of Syria and Lebanon and
rapidly spread throughout the area. The French army of the Levant
seemed powerless to halt it. By autumn, no part of Syria
or Lebanon
was secure against sudden disruption of life and property. Stories of French
incompetence, impotence, and arrogance were widely circulated in the Syrian and
European press. The Permanent Mandates Commission of the League
of Nations, in a rare exercise of its limited powers, refused to
accept the French report for 1925, which covered only the comparatively calm
period preceding the revolt, and demanded instead a full account of the
disturbances, as well as the restoration of peace in the mandate. In October,
when rebels infiltrated Damascus,
the French military administration took a drastic step to end the revolt.
Without warning, General Sarrail, the high commissioner, ordered the ancient
city bombarded continuously for nearly twenty-four hours. When the smoke
lifted, much of Damascus
was in ruins; the reported loss of life and property appalled world opinion and
galvanized Arab dissidents. A torrent of violent and emotional criticism was
unleashed. In some quarters it was even hinted that the League
of Nations would remove the mandate from French control. Yet less
than a year later, the revolt had been quashed and France's hold on the mandate was so
secured internationally that it survived into World War II.
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