Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 9,001
When France really miscalculated...!
Let's be honest: Who has ever heard of the "Republic of Hatay"...?
Well, it didn't last long either.
Until 1918, the province of Hatay, located between modern-day Turkey and Syria, belonged to the Ottoman Empire...:
After the military bankruptcy of the Ottomans at the end of World War I, French troops occupied the province...:
... and established their local headquarters in the provincial capital of Antakya...:
"Antakya" sounds almost like "Antalya" but in reality it is nothing more than historical Antioch! And the province of Hatay was called the "Sanjak" in the West at that time!
In addition to the occupied province of Hatay, the French - smart! - In the Treaty of San Remo in 1920, the other victorious powers of the First World War also transferred the provinces of Lebanon and Syria, which were also separated from the Ottoman Empire, as a so-called "mandated area".
This was decided by the victorious powers (Great Britain, France and Italy) in the Italian gaming metropolis...:
... completely to themselves - the Ottomans, Lebanese and Syrians were not asked and were not even allowed to be present as observers.
The British got something too: they "were allowed" to take the oil in northern Syria!
And Italy was given a free hand in its North African colonial adventure.
A pretty win-win deal for three thieves!
In their view, the Grande Nation had won the most - namely at the negotiating table and without a shot of powder - a pretty landmass, but left the Sanjak or Hatay neatly separated from their "mandated area" Syria and Lebanon.
The political strategists in Paris at that time had in mind dividing their "mandate" into four separate "independent" states - of course none of them could survive without France, which would have given the French an influential position there for many decades!
But it turned out differently:
In the long run, France could not master the nationalist protests of the occupied with the war-weary troops it intended to deploy there!
Although the Grande Nation under General Henri Henri Gouraud...
... in March 1920 against a Pan-Arab force under the Syrian Yusuf al-'Azma...
... win again on July 23, 1920 at the Battle of Maysalun Pass (9,000 French with tanks, artillery and planes against 3,000 Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Arabs with poor and outdated equipment, Yusuf al-'Azma fell in battle !)...
... but at the latest since the newly founded League of Nations took on the issue, it became clear that the French position there could not be maintained for long.
However, the decisive factor in the fact that the French - strongly urged by the British - let the robbery they thought was certain out of their clutches was the ever-increasing strength of Hitler's Germany!
Italy, the third state that had prolonged the land grab, had already left the front anyway - the dictator there, Mussolini, had entered into a close alliance with Hitler...:
Against a promise of neutrality from the new Turkey (the successor state to the Ottoman Empire that fell in 1918) in an already foreseeable conflict with Germany, the French vacated the province of Hatay on December 7, 1938...
...though not without leaving behind what they felt was a small but ticking treacherous time bomb.
Since, in addition to the Turks, the Syrians also laid claim to Hatay, the French quickly supported the proclamation of an "independent" state, the "Republic of Hatay" - in the hope that the Turks and Syrians would soon turn heads over the little artificial republic.
But at the latest when the first flag of the new republic was hoisted there...
...and the first stamps were issued...
...it dawned on the French that they had miscalculated!
On June 29, 1939, the "Republic of Hatay" was annexed to Turkey after a completely unambiguous referendum monitored by the League of Nations - the next picture shows the invasion of Turkish forces in Antakya..:
The Syrians living there, who had now become "Hatay Republicans" and Turkish citizens overnight, were only left with impotent demonstrations...:
By the way, the Turks kept their promise to behave neutrally in the event of a conflict between France and Great Britain with Hitler's Germany...!
Let's be honest: Who has ever heard of the "Republic of Hatay"...?
Well, it didn't last long either.
Until 1918, the province of Hatay, located between modern-day Turkey and Syria, belonged to the Ottoman Empire...:
After the military bankruptcy of the Ottomans at the end of World War I, French troops occupied the province...:
... and established their local headquarters in the provincial capital of Antakya...:
"Antakya" sounds almost like "Antalya" but in reality it is nothing more than historical Antioch! And the province of Hatay was called the "Sanjak" in the West at that time!
In addition to the occupied province of Hatay, the French - smart! - In the Treaty of San Remo in 1920, the other victorious powers of the First World War also transferred the provinces of Lebanon and Syria, which were also separated from the Ottoman Empire, as a so-called "mandated area".
This was decided by the victorious powers (Great Britain, France and Italy) in the Italian gaming metropolis...:
... completely to themselves - the Ottomans, Lebanese and Syrians were not asked and were not even allowed to be present as observers.
The British got something too: they "were allowed" to take the oil in northern Syria!
And Italy was given a free hand in its North African colonial adventure.
A pretty win-win deal for three thieves!
In their view, the Grande Nation had won the most - namely at the negotiating table and without a shot of powder - a pretty landmass, but left the Sanjak or Hatay neatly separated from their "mandated area" Syria and Lebanon.
The political strategists in Paris at that time had in mind dividing their "mandate" into four separate "independent" states - of course none of them could survive without France, which would have given the French an influential position there for many decades!
But it turned out differently:
In the long run, France could not master the nationalist protests of the occupied with the war-weary troops it intended to deploy there!
Although the Grande Nation under General Henri Henri Gouraud...
... in March 1920 against a Pan-Arab force under the Syrian Yusuf al-'Azma...
... win again on July 23, 1920 at the Battle of Maysalun Pass (9,000 French with tanks, artillery and planes against 3,000 Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Arabs with poor and outdated equipment, Yusuf al-'Azma fell in battle !)...
... but at the latest since the newly founded League of Nations took on the issue, it became clear that the French position there could not be maintained for long.
However, the decisive factor in the fact that the French - strongly urged by the British - let the robbery they thought was certain out of their clutches was the ever-increasing strength of Hitler's Germany!
Italy, the third state that had prolonged the land grab, had already left the front anyway - the dictator there, Mussolini, had entered into a close alliance with Hitler...:
Against a promise of neutrality from the new Turkey (the successor state to the Ottoman Empire that fell in 1918) in an already foreseeable conflict with Germany, the French vacated the province of Hatay on December 7, 1938...
...though not without leaving behind what they felt was a small but ticking treacherous time bomb.
Since, in addition to the Turks, the Syrians also laid claim to Hatay, the French quickly supported the proclamation of an "independent" state, the "Republic of Hatay" - in the hope that the Turks and Syrians would soon turn heads over the little artificial republic.
But at the latest when the first flag of the new republic was hoisted there...
...and the first stamps were issued...
...it dawned on the French that they had miscalculated!
On June 29, 1939, the "Republic of Hatay" was annexed to Turkey after a completely unambiguous referendum monitored by the League of Nations - the next picture shows the invasion of Turkish forces in Antakya..:
The Syrians living there, who had now become "Hatay Republicans" and Turkish citizens overnight, were only left with impotent demonstrations...:
By the way, the Turks kept their promise to behave neutrally in the event of a conflict between France and Great Britain with Hitler's Germany...!
