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Concept
Army of the Levant
Summary
The Army of the Levant (Armée du Levant) identifies the armed forces of France and then Vichy France which occupied, and were in part recruited from, the French Mandated territories in the Levant during the interwar period and early World War II. The locally recruited Syrian and Lebanese units of this force were designated as the Special Troops of the Levant (Troupes Spéciales du Levant).
In September 1919, Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau entered an agreement to replace the British troops occupying Cilicia with French soldiers.
A year later, in 1920, the League of Nations gave the French a mandate over Syria and Lebanon, forming the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. That year, from April 19 to April 26, the San Remo conference was held in Sanremo, Italy. After this conference was concluded, the short-lived monarchy of King Faisal was defeated at the Battle of Maysalun by French troops under the command of General Mariano Goybet, during the Franco-Syrian War. The French army under General Henri Gouraud consequently occupied Syria.
The first elements of this new army came from the former 156th Infantry Division of the Allied Army of the Orient, under General Julien Dufieux. This division from Cilicia included a metropolitan regiment (the 412th Infantry Regiment), two colonial regiments (the 17th Senegalese Tirailleurs and the 18th Algerian Tirailleurs), and a French Armenian Legion regiment. This division became the first of four divisions in the Levant.
A complementary force called the Syrian Legion was raised by the French authorities shortly after the establishment of the mandate. This comprised both cavalry and infantry units and was drawn mainly from minority groups within Syria itself.
Following the Druze revolt of 1925–1927, the Syrian Legion was reorganised into the "Special Troops of the Levant" (Troupes spéciales du Levant) augmented by North African infantry (tirailleurs) and cavalry (spahis), French Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère), and Troupes de marine infantry and artillery units (both French and Senegalese).
Official source
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