Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe by Glass Charles

Author:Glass, Charles [Glass, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 2016-03-21T22:00:00+00:00

As the nationalists regretted the assault on Maalula in 1925, their descendants condemned the jihadist assault on the same Christian town in 2013. Yet the effect of both was the same: to drive Christians out of a country where they have lived since the time of Christ or to force them into the arms of the regime, French then and Baathist now.

By early October, the rebels had the initiative, forcing the French to confront them at times and places of their choosing. Their next target was Damascus, which they entered on October 18. Typical of the disorganization within rebel ranks, the local commander, Hassan al-Kharrat, invaded the city before Fawzi al-Qawuqji’s mutineers and Sultan al-Atrash’s Druze-bedouin cavalry arrived. Entering the Shaghur quarter, Kharrat shouted, “Rise up, your brothers the Druze are here!” Most Damascenes, like their descendants in this century, did not rise up.

As his forces lost control of Damascus, High Commissioner Sarrail declared martial law and commanded the summary execution of Syrians found with weapons. French tanks raced through the souqs, wrote the Times, “at terrifying speed, firing to the right and left without ceasing.” At noon on the eighteenth, as Sarrail departed for Beirut, he ordered warplanes and heavy caliber cannon to bombard the city day and night.

The Manchester Guardian correspondent interviewed a traveler from Damascus who “describes days and nights of unforgettable terror.” The shelling destroyed the famous Souq Hamadiyeh bazaar, the biblical “Street Called Straight,” the magnificent Azem Palace and the districts of Shaghur and Meidan. French troops executed insurgents and those who protected them. The Times reported that French troops, having murdered two dozen young men in villages southeast of Damascus, brought their corpses to Marjeh Square near the city center. The paper’s correspondent wrote:

Instead of merely exposing the bodies for a space on the spot as an example to other malefactors, in accordance with Eastern custom, and then handing them over to their relatives for decent burial, the French authorities brought them to Damascus. There they attached them to camels and paraded them through the streets. The ghastly spectacle presented by the swaying corpses naturally infuriated the excitable Damascenes, as indeed the news of the official adoption of such deterrents will inevitably arouse the natural indignation of many Frenchmen.

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