fco_850329 - SYRIA - THIRD REPUBLIC Bon pour 1 Franc Cie de Menthe de Syrie N.D.

SYRIA - THIRD REPUBLIC

Organized into a "Greater Lebanon", the protectorate is made up of four provinces: the sanjaks of Damascus and Aleppo, the Alaouite state (1920), the Jebel Druze state (1921) and the sanjak of Alexandretta (in north) populated by Turks. In 1923, General Gouraud created the Syrian Federation bringing together Damascus, Aleppo and the Alawite State, without the Djebel Druze or Alexandretta. Knowing the close end of the mandate, Turkey refused in 1936 that the Turkish minority of the Sandjak of Alexandretta pass under Syrian authority. To spare Turkey in the event of war with Germany and to protect its interests in the region, France ceded the Sandjak of Alexandretta which became the province of Hatay. Still attached to France, Syria came under the control of the Vichy government in June 1940.