The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-05-02
HOW SYR|O-FRENCH
 IMPASSE HAS COME
 IN THE NEAR EAST
Emir FeisaPs Proclamation at Damascus Yet Lead to Peaceful Way Out of
 Deadlock
By CLAIR PRICE

By CLAIR PRICE
 London, April 15.-(Special.)- )-The k coronation of the Emir Feisal as king Of Syria has precipitated a situation In Syra which will probably postpone the formulation of the Syrian terms Of the Turkish peace treaty indefinitely. Certainly precipitate action on the part of Great Britain and France would provoke a long and ugly conflict In the Near East, whereas policy or walking delicately may yet reconcile Syrian elements which, on the surface, appear to be irreconcilable.
 The present impasse in Syria VIII De best understood by brief recital of its somewhat tangled growth. Syria roughil speaking, Is an Arab country. but grafted on it's original Arab stock are racial branches which have sprung from the many conquests to which the Syrian coast has fallen victim. Under Turkish rule before the war, It's main consciousness was, as is frequently the case in the Orient. religious rather than a nationalist consciousness.
 It's population consisted of about 2.500,000 Mohammedan Arabs and 500,- afraid of their Mohammedan overlords. Its Christian elements were settled largely in the Lebanon district back of Beirut, and since the massacres of the Christians in Damascus in 1880, 
 France had secured a gree of authority for the Lebanon, the tradition of which | until recently made the Lebanon the Ulster of Syria.
 q, As long as a century ago Syria had 4 been the secene of so-called Arab se- cessionist movement whose programme was the independence of Arab lands then under the rule of the Turkish Sultan. Although this was religious foa >Jao ociv hu bn revolt it indicated on the part of the Mohammedan Syrians against their Caliph, the Turkish Sultan-the Chris tian Syrians held aloof from 1t. Mas- sacre at the hands of Mohammedans had too often taught the Christians that safety lay for them in the pro- tection of France.
 During the war, before the British army in Egypt began its advance from the Suez canal toward Palestine, these Arab secessionists formed . secret committee, which they called the Da- mascus committee, and formulated pro- posals by which they offered to CO., operate with the British in raising a revolt throughout Syria against the Turkish armies under Djemel Pasha. These proposals they communited with the sheriff of Mecca by confidential courier, the sheriff of Mecca (who is now King Hussein of the Hejaz) to forward them to the British resident at Jeddah. These proposals stipulated to the British that the desire of the Syrians was the establishment of an independent Syria extending from the Tarus Range on the north to the Sinai Desert on the south.
 Knowing that the region was one in which the French claims would have to be considered eventually, the Brit ish foreign office communicated with the French at once and M Georges Picot, formerly French consul at Bei- rut, along with the late Sir Hark Sykes undertook to formulate an An o-French understanding respecting Syria. The results of their labors- the Sykes-Picot secret treaty-stipu- lated a French direct administration in Cilicia and in the Lebanon. an inter- national regime in Palestine, and a division of the independent" Syrian state in the hinterland into British and French zones. Presumably this treaty was kept secret for military reasons, but when the Russian soviet govern nent first published 1t, the comment on it was acrid and world wide.
 The contents of this treaty were se- cretly communicated to the Damascus committee who agreed to the exclu- sion of Cilicia from an independent Syria, but refused to agree to French zone on the coast. The committee, how offered to cooperate with the French and British in raising a revolt in the Turkish war, but retained full liberty of action with respect to that portion of the coast which had been designated to France. About this time the existence of the Damascus 5 committee became known to the Turks; they raided the locked French con- suiate in Beirut. opened M. Picot's safe. discovered list of the Syrian nation- alists, and hanged all those whom the end of the proposed revolt in Syria.
 The British adavnce into Syria, how ever, came along in due time. It was aided by very small French detach- ment, and by the very substantial armies of King Hussein of the Hejaz, one of whose sons, the Emir Feisal, was commander of the northern army of the Hetaz King Hussein, who was not unmindful of the possibilities of a farflung Arabic renaissance, involving the restoration of the Mohammedan caliphate to the Koreish tribe the tribe of the prophet, at Maoca, had in mind a Syria under the rule of his son, the Emir Feisal. and an Irak (Mesopo- tamia) under tho rule of another son, the Emir Seid.
 1Ho DTitlSH duVdnCc Hdu no sooner conquered Damascus than the Emir F'eisal made an entry into the city in the traditional Arab style. and in ac cordance with the Sykes-Picot treaty. Damascus was handed over to him and his northern Hejaz army. And here the Hejaz aspect of the liberation of Syria ends. From that time on, Feisal has been looked upon as the uncrowned king of Syria by all of Syria's Mos lemS.
 Damascus and Beirut had no sooner < fallen than . telephone message from ] Damascus to Beirut ordered the hoist ing of the Arab flag in Beirut, in ac-
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