218 • 13 THE ROOTS OF ARAB BITTERNESS
League of Nations. He suffered a paralytic stroke before he could read the
commissioners' report, which was not even published for several years.
Allied Arrangements: San Remo and Sèvres
Contrary to Arab hopes, Britain and France agreed to settle their differ¬
ences. France gave up its claims to Mosul and Palestine in exchange for a
free hand in the rest of Syria. As a sop to Wilson's idealism, the Allies set up
a mandate system, under which Asian and African lands taken from Turkey
and Germany were put in a tutelary relationship to a Great Power (called
the mandatory), which would teach the people how to govern themselves.
Each mandatory power had to report periodically to a League of Nations
body called the Permanent Mandates Commission, to prevent any ex¬
ploitation. Meeting in San Remo in 1920, British and French representa¬
tives agreed to divide the Middle Eastern mandates: Syria (and Lebanon) to
France, and Iraq and Palestine (including what is now Jordan) to Britain.
The Hijaz would be independent. The Ottoman government had to accept
these arrangements when it signed the Treaty of Sèvres in August 1920. By
then the French army had already marched eastward from Beirut, crushed
the Arabs, and driven Faysal's provisional government out of Damascus.
The Arab dream had been shattered.
The Result: Four Mandates and an Emirate
What happened then to the Arabs of the Fertile Crescent? The French had
absolutely no sympathy for Arab nationalism and ruled their Syrian man¬
date as if it were a colony. Hoping to weaken the nationalists, the French
split Syria into smaller units, including what would eventually become
Lebanon, plus Alexandretta (which would be given to Turkey in 1939),
states for the Alawis in the north and the Druze in the south, and even
Aleppo and Damascus as city-states. Lebanon's separation from Syria lasted
because it had a Christian majority (as of 1921) that was determined to
keep its dominant position. The other divisions of Syria soon ended, but
the Syrians rebelled often against French rule, which in the 1920s and 1930s
seemed likely to last (see Map 13.2).
The British were inconsistent backers of Arab nationalism, working
with the Hashimite family. Husayn still ruled in the Hijaz, but the prestige
he had gained from the Arab Revolt made him a troublesome ally for the
British. He refused to sign the Versailles and Sèvres treaties, proclaimed
himself "king of the Arabs," and later claimed to be the caliph of Islam.
