France in Cilicia and in Lebanon
Realpolitik can be very profitable in the short term. But for the longer term, let us imagine only today and ask; What if Cilicia were still Francophile Armenian? What could it have offered in possibilities to the prestige of French culture and thus of its political and economic power.
This article was originally published in French by Ici Beyrouth on September 28, 2022. The original can be found here.
By Dr. Amine Jules Iskandar Syriac Maronite Union-Tur Levnon
The fate of Cilicia has long been intertwined with that of Lebanon. Already in the Seleucid era, between 94-88 BC, were the two regions united in a common administration under Antiochus X. In the Middle Ages, Cilicia became an Armenian kingdom allied with the County of Tripoli. In 1920, this mountainous region north of Cyprus was rejoined with Lebanon under a French mandate that the Armenians and the Syriac Maronites – barely recovered from the great genocide with mass killings, deportations and famine – desired and were granted.
The abandonment of Cilicia
French troops, in coordination with British contingents, had intervened in Cilicia from November 1918 onwards. But as early as February 1920, the French-Armenian columns, taking heavy casualties, began to withdraw from several cities, and in their wake the Christian population. In great panic, the Armenians took desperate initiatives, proclaiming the Armenian Republic of Cilician Mesopotamia on August 5, 1920. It was immediately nipped in the bud by the French authorities.
While General Henri Gouraud was preparing the reconquest of Edessa from Beirut, the government in Paris signed the Treaty of Ankara on October 20, 1921. In it, all areas of Cilicia were ceded to Turkey in exchange for the protection of the Christian population and the promise of possible future economic benefits. To put the survivors of a genocide under the protection of their executioner is the height of cruelty. The result was a massive exodus, encouraged by the Armenian Church itself, which had no illusions about what would come next.
The abandonment of Nineveh and Alexandretta
France abandoned the Armenian people of Cilicia in order to have its Ottoman debts settled by the nascent Turkish Republic, in accordance with the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). For the Armenians who, like the Maronites, had been waiting for French protection for decades and had fought in French legions far from home, this was a source of consternation. It is the same cold logic and pragmatic reasoning of state over again that took place in Nineveh (Mosul) in Upper Mesopotamia: the Assyrians-Chaldeans, who had fought loyally on the side of the British, were in turn betrayed by the British and handed over to the Arabs in 1933 to undergo the now common massacres and expulsions. In 1939, the Sandjak of Alexandretta, containing the great city of Antioch, was ceded to Turkey by France. Everything that had miraculously survived the Christian genocide succumbed to Franco-British geopolitics.
The abandonment of the Dardanelles
Nothing could escape the general debacle that hastened the death of the Christian East. The Greek territories were eventually overtaken by the exodus. In early January 1922, French troops evacuated the Armenian cities of Adana and Tarsus in Cilicia, and, from September, they surrendered the Greek territories in Asia Minor in favor of their positions in the Dardanelles. One million three hundred thousand Greeks were uprooted from their ancestral lands. All Christians, Syriac Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Assyrians-Chaldeans, the Maronites of Alexandretta, and Armenians became the direct victims of the Turkish national policy of ethnic cleansing.
The defeat of the Greeks on the Western Front had made French positions in the region precarious. For Prime Minister Aristide Briand, however, the agreement with the Kemalists would allow France to assert itself in Syria and act as a protegee of Lebanon, while at the same time ensuring the favor of the Muslim world.
The resistance of the French administrator
Indignation was expressed even within the French army, which witnessed the actual events on the ground. The author Vahé Tachjian points out, in the archives of the High Commission of Beirut, in particular, the figure of Colonel Brémond, chief administrator of Cilicia; for the Colonel, the Armenians represented France’s “unique fulcrum” in Cilicia. This enlightened military man committed himself to the establishment of a form of Cilician autonomy, which earned him stiff opposition from the French diplomatic milieu, which was seduced by the Kemalists.
Mustafa Kemal gradually evolved in the French opinion from a vulgar rebel to a national hero who embodied progress. Colonel Brémond was called back to Beirut in the fall of 1920 and forced to leave Armenian Cilicia to its terrible fate. France welcomed the promises of change and secular ideas represented in the person of Mustafa Kemal. Indeed, in 1922, the Sultanate was abolished, in 1923 the Republic was proclaimed and in 1924 the Caliphate came to an end. Secularism has always remained an easy lure for Westerners. However, to the many more perceptive observers, this surge, which was incompatible with the local mentality, could not be anything but temporary. It would eventually be repelled in Turkey and the rest of the East as an implantation of a foreign body.
Opposition from French parliamentarians
Following the recall of Colonel Brémond and the surrender of several French contingents, the member of parliament for Calvados, Ernest Flandin, and the senator for Morbihan, Gustave de Lamarzelle, rose up in parliament on December 29, 1921, against the Treaty of Ankara (also known as the Angora Treaty). This treaty meant the absolute surrender of Little Armenia (Cilicia) to the Turks. Flandin evoked the martyrdom of the Armenians during the Great War, the heroic sacrifices of the Armenian legion fighting under the flag of France, and finally the promises of protection by Raymond Poincaré on February 16, 1919. But to no avail.
History repeats itself
In its acrobatic realpolitik, France sometimes loses its discernment. Like in Cilicia, this is now the case in Lebanon. This time it is not Turkey but the Islamic Republic of Iran which propounds hypothetical benefits. Contemporary French diplomacy juggles with interpretations of the terrorist militia Hezbollah that is destroying Lebanon, inventing for it sometimes a political wing that is supposedly acceptable, sometimes a legitimacy gained by a supposedly democratic election.
The failures of history are repeated. Today, however, the relocation of the population is carried out in a much more subtle manner. If in 1922, the High Commissioner publicly released the sum of 50 million francs for the relocation of Armenians, whereas today the process is cunningly delegated to private companies. For example, in Jounié in the summer of 2021, 700 nurses and their entire families were transferred from Lebanon. The young and the bright leave for Western countries that entice them all kinds of benefits, taking advantage of the collapse of an occupied and overwhelmed Lebanon that is undergoing a deliberate process of impoverishment.
Realpolitik can be very profitable in the short term. But for the longer term, let us imagine only today and ask; What if Cilicia were still Francophile Armenian? What could it have offered in possibilities to the prestige of French culture and thus of its political and economic power. Let us also imagine tomorrow, when the majority of the Lebanese will have been transferred to France, Holland, Denmark, Canada, Australia and elsewhere, what will France have lost in political and cultural terms here on this coast of the Levant. There is no doubt that for the great nations it is a slow, desperately, and inescapable suicide if they fail their heart allies.
Dr. Amine Jules Iskandar is an architect and the former president of the Syriac Maronite Union – Tur Levnon. Amine Jules Iskandar has written several articles on the Syriac Maronites, their language, culture, and history. You can follow him @Amineiskandar2
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