Showing posts with label French League of Nation Mandates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French League of Nation Mandates. Show all posts

Friday, June 6, 2025

Saturday, June 6, 1925. The Great Syrian Revolt.

Walter P. Chrysler incorporated the company that bears his name.

The Great Syrian Revolt against the French started when representatives of the Jabal Druze State were treated poorly by the French administrator.  Syrian rejection of French rule, however, had been smouldering since the end of World War One.

Indeed, this ties right into the events we've been otherwise cataloging regarding France at the end of World War One.  Syria and Lebanon had been granted near independence during the war, which France tried to renege on as soon as the Germans were defeated. Only British intervention, which nearly resulted in fighting between the French and British, stopped that from occurring and assured rapid Syrian and Lebanese independence.  French insistence on occupying the same territory at the end of the Great War nearly resulted in fighting between the same two European powers then and France had never been welcome by most of the regions inhabitants.

French attachment to the region is hard to really explain, but it is in part cultural and goes all the way back to the Kingdom of Jerusalem,1099–1187, 1192-1291, the long running "Crusader Kingdom" in the same region. Lasting almost two hundred years, the kingdom, which was mostly governed by French Crusaders, formed a strong cultural attachment to the region with the French.

The Saturday magazines hit the stands.





Last edition:

Wednesday,. June 3, 1925. Blimps and Stormy Weather.

Saturday, May 31, 2025

Thursday, May 31, 1945. Intervening in Syria.

Churchill informed de Gaulle that British forces had been instructed to intervene in the Levant in order to end the fighting and the threat it posed to Allied supply lines to the Pacific.  The British soon arranged a ceasefire but British intervention would bring the UK and France to the point of war.


The Norwegian government started to return to Oslo.

Odilo Globocnik, age 41, Austrian Nazi  committed suicide after being captured by the British.

On Okinawa, the Japanese pulled out of Shuri.

Japanese resistance ended on Negros in the Philippines.

Last edition.

Wednesday, May 30, 1945. Czech reprisals.

Friday, May 30, 2025

Wednesday, May 30, 1945. Czech reprisals.

The forced expulsion of ethnic Germans from Brno began.

The French Army took control of the parliament building in Damascus while French aircraft bombed other parts of the city.

On Okinawa US forces reached Shuri and the southeast edge of Naha.

Last edition:

Tuesday, May 29, 1945. Hitting Yokohama.

Thursday, May 29, 2025

Tuesday, May 29, 1945. Hitting Yokohama.

"Men of Co. B, 184th Inf. Regt., inspect a Jap 75-mm gun they captured on Okinawa. 29 May, 1945. Company B, 184th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division."

85% of Yokohama was destroyed in a B-29 raid.

The second Sandakan Death March begins in which the Japanese guards commence a force march of Allied POWs in Borneo.

The French Army shelled Damascus and Hama.

Last edition:

Monday, May 28, 1945. Memorial Day.

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Tuesday, January 1, 1925. Marines in China.




Christiania, Norway, was renamed Oslo, it's old and original name.

Marines landed at Nanjing to patrol near the university and to protect Americans in the vicinity.

Costa Rica, unhappy with the League of Nations failure to address regional issues, withdrew form the body.

The French mandate states of Aleppo and Damascus were united in the State of Syria.

Last edition:

Wednesday, December 31, 1924. Final Home Edition.

Thursday, December 5, 2024

Friday, December 5, 1924. Shades of the modern Middle East

The Sultanate of Nejd, ruled by Abdulazia Ibn Saud defeated the Kingdom of Hejaz in Mecca itself.  Hejazi forces remained thereafter only at the port of port of Jeddah.


The State of Syria (Dawlat Sūriyā) was created within the French Mandate for Syria by Decree No. 2980.  This united the State of Aleppo and the State of Damascus under one common native assembly and administration.


Of course, in what was united, things are current disunited.

The State of Syria was smaller than contemporary Syria, in that it did not include the Alawite State.

The Italian fascists introduced legislation bringing about press censorship.

Last edition.

Thursday, December 4, 1924. Greed.

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

The conflict in Lebanon. A few items.

By Sergey Kondrashov - http://www.katagogi.com/LV2009/LebMap.aspx?l=EN, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23421707

Israel is not "fighting Lebanon".  I've seen that claim made, but it isn't. 

It's striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

Hezbollah, which translates as the "Party of God" is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group.  The party does control large sections of Lebanon where Shia is dominant religious group.  

Lebanon itself was carved out of Syria by the French during the French mandate period as it had a majority Christian population.  It's one of the few areas of the Middle East which still does, with Islamic repression over centuries having forced conversions and emigration throughout the Middle East.  Be that as it may, Lebanon is no longer a majority Christian state, and its a mess because of internal strife and division.

That came in due to the conflicts in the region, with the Palestinian refugee population of the 1970s being particularly problematic.  The country fought a civil war that lasted in one form or another from 1975 to 1990.  It's never been stable since.

It's very difficult to see a positive future for Lebanon in any form. That doesn't mean it won't occur, but it's hard to see.  

What can be seen, in my view, is an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon coming in the next week or so.

Friday, August 30, 2024

Saturday, August 30, 1924. Late summer scenes.

The Dawes Plan went into effect.

Germany replaced paper marks with a coin, due to hyperinflation.

Clashes with the Ku Klux Klan resulted in six deaths in Herrin Illinois.

The French High Commission of the Levant created Lebanese citizenship.

Edwards, Prince of Wales, met with Calvin Coolidge.

Saturday magazines were out.




Last edition:



Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Thursday, July 10, 1924. Before electronics.

The around the world flight of pilots and aircraft from the U.S. Army flew 560 miles from Aleppo, Syria, to Constantinople, Turkey.

I unfortunately have not tracked a lot of the flight, which had gone from Japan, to China, to Indochina, and on into India.

A glimpse into the pre electronic age (although radio was coming on strong), a short story magazine that ran 196 pages in length.  

The first few pages:



Monday, January 1, 2024

Saturday, January 1, 1944. Sort of independence.

Syria became independent theoretically, but the French mandate continued.

The RAF bombed Berlin again.

The War Department was pondering its policies regarding African American soldiers.





From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—January 1, 1944: Gen. Alexander Vandegrift replaces Gen. Thomas Holcomb as commandant of the US Marine Corps. US penny production switches from steel to a copper & brass alloy.

USC Trojans beat the Washington Huskies 29-0 in the Rose Bowl, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets defeated Tulsa Golden Hurricane 20-18 in the Sugar Bowl., the LSU Tigers beat the Texas A&M Aggies 19-14 in the Orange Bow, the Cotton Bowl Classic ended in a 7–7 tie between the Randolph Field Ramblers and the Texas Longhorns.

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Monday, December 17, 1923. Closing in on Mexico City.


The revolution in Mexico looked as if it was about to topple the government.

Subhi Bey Barakat was elected President of the Syrian Federation, a French mandate. He'd be its only president as the state would be succeeded by the State of Syria, also a French mandate, which he'd also be the chief executive of.


Thailand adopted the metric system.

An agreement was reached on the formation of the Imperial Air Transport Company, which soon became Imperial Airways.