Coll 6/81 'Syria: Status of Alexandretta and Antioch.' [‎22r] (44/576)

THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
EASTERN (Syria).
P7V.
c n o i j
August 17, 1938.
.. CONFIDENTIAL.
O u o A
1938
Section 1.
[E 4830/47/89]
Copy No.
Consul Doris to Viscount Halifax.—(Received August 17.)
My Lord, Aleppo, August 8. 1938.
WITH reference to my despatch No ._27 o f the 21st June, 1938, on the subject
of the political situation at Aleppo, I have the honour to report that on Thursday
last, the 4th August, the Syrian Prime Minister, Jamil Mardam, paid a visit
to Aleppo accompanied by Saadullah Bey-el-Jabri and Dr. Abdurrahman Kayali,
the two members of his Cabinet who are natives of Aleppo.
2. Several motives can be surmised to account for this move on the part ol
the Prime Minister : in the first place, the recent return to Syria of Dr. Abdurrah
man Shahbandar, the real leader of the opposition to the Nationalist bloc, and its
possible consequences must be causing him anxiety, the more so as he is on the
point of leaving on one of his periodical trips to Paris; in the second place, it
must have become necessary to demonstrate to Syria in general and to Aleppo in
particular, the unbroken unity of the Nationalist bloc after its iccent congiess at
Koudsaya,’ where it was at one stage seriously imperilled by the resignation,
subsequently withdrawn, of the two Aleppo members of the Ministry, and m
the third place, it must have been felt that the time had come for some mo\e to
instil fresh vigour into the Aleppo Nationalists, shaken by the successes ot
Turkey in the Sanjak of Alexandretta and the schism so narrowly averted on the
recent resignation of the popular Aleppo leader, Hassan Fuad Ibrahim Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. .
3. In order to ensure that the due measure of popular enthusiasm should not
be lacking on the occasion of the Prime Minister s visit, the Finance Depaitment
of Aleppo was authorised to distribute £12,000 Syrian (about £1,300 sterling)
through the heads of the various quarters of the city to their henchmen, who were
called°out to line the streets by which the Ministers entered Aleppo; and subse
quently a procession was formed which paraded in front of the Hotel Baron, on
the balcony of which the Ministers were seated, from 7 p.m. onwards. In this
procession the steelshirts of Aleppo refused to take part. At 8-30 p.m. the
Prime Minister made a speech at a local cinema to a concourse of some 3,000
people, in the course of which he declared that Iraq, by rebellion against Great
Britain had gained her independence contrary to the intentions of the British,
that the Arabs of Palestine, by rebellion, would similarly gain their independence
whether Great Britain wished to grant it or not, and that Syria, which had made
a treaty of friendship with France, would likewise gain her independence through
rebellion if France failed to ratify or respect the treaty; that as regards
Alexandretta, Syria would never accept the Franco-Turkish settlement to which
she had not been a party; and that while he was away in Europe defending the
interests of Syria he relied on the people to rally unitedly to the suppoit of the
Nationalist Government and to have no truck with the so-called opposition, which
was composed of enemies and traitors to the cause of Syrian independence.
4. Jamil Mardam’s speech was followed by one from Saadullah-el-Jabri,
who uttered a violent diatribe against the Opposition which was, he said, trying
to rob the Nationalists of the fruit of their long struggle for independence;
against the Lebanon, which he characterised as a parasite battening on the life
blood of Syria; and against the imperialists, who wished to keep the noble Syrian
nation in permanent bondage. He was followed by Dr. Abdurrahman Kayali,
who, in more moderate terms, congratulated the Christian minorities on their
co-operation with the Nationalist Government which would, he said, do its utmost
to protect them from every aggression. He also concluded with an attack on the
opposition, enemies of the Franco-Syrian treaty whom the Government would
certainly root out.
[380 r—1]