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 As early as about 1800 BC
King Shamshi-Adad I of Assyria is thought to have established his capital,
Shubat Enlil, at present-day Tell Leilan in the extreme northeast of
Syria. The kingdom was later conquered by Hammurabi of Babylonia, and the
region was long afterward influenced principally by Egypt and Babylon.
Parts of the region were conquered successively by the Egyptians and the
Hittites, and, in the 8th century BC, by Assyria. In the 6th century BC
the region passed first to the Chaldeans and then to the Persians (538
BC). Alexander the Great made it a part of his empire in 333 and 332 BC,
and at the close of the 4th century BC it was appropriated by Seleucus I,
one of Alexander's generals, who founded Antioch as the capital. During
the 3rd century BC the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids contended for
the possession of lower Syria and Palestine. Both areas, and much of
western Asia, passed to the Seleucids, whose realm became known as the
kingdom of Syria. In 64 BC Syria was made a Roman province.
After the far-flung Roman dominions were
divided into two parts in AD 395, the Western Roman Empire with its
capital at Rome and the Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire with its capital at
Constantinople, Syria remained a Byzantine province for approximately 240
years. It was conquered in 636 by the Arabs and was quickly absorbed into
their rapidly expanding Islamic Empire. In 661 Damascus became the seat of
the powerful Umayyad caliphs. At that time it was one of the most
important and splendid cities of the Muslim world. Later it was supplanted
by Baghdad in present-day Iraq. In 1099 the Crusaders incorporated part of
the region into the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem and part into the
principality of Antioch. In a subsequent campaign (1174-1187), Saladin,
sultan of Egypt, took Syria and overthrew the kingdom of Jerusalem. The
many wars centering on Syria impoverished the land and its people; its
ruin was completed by a Mongol invasion in 1260. 
Turkish Rule
The Ottoman Turks incorporated the region into
their empire in 1516, and it remained in their possession for the next
four centuries. The commercial importance of the territory as the site of
overland routes to eastern Asia was greatly reduced with the opening of
the Suez Canal in 1869. Strong nationalist movements had taken hold in
many parts of the Ottoman Empire during the early years of the 20th
century. When World War I (1914-1918) broke out and Turkey took the side
of the Central Powers, the Allies, in order to enlist support against
Turkey, held out to the Arabs the hope of postwar independence. In January
1916, by the terms of letters between the British government and Husein
ibn Ali, grand sharif of Mecca, the latter promised Arab participation in
the war on the Allied side in return for a British guarantee of
independence for all Arab lands south of a line roughly corresponding to
the northern frontiers of present-day Syria and Iraq. In May of the same
year, however, Great Britain and France secretly concluded a separate
accord, known as the Sykes-Picot agreement, by which most of the Arab
lands under Turkish rule were to be divided into British and French
spheres of influence. The areas now comprising Syria and Lebanon were
assigned to France; and those comprising Israel and Jordan were assigned
to Great Britain.
The French Mandate
The Arabs, in alliance with the British and
French, fought the Turks for the rest of the war and participated in the capture of Damascus in 1918. In
1919 British forces withdrew from the area assigned to France, leaving
French troops in control. The following year France, with the
understanding that Syria and Lebanon were to become independent within a
reasonably short time, was granted a mandate over them by the League of
Nations.
Anti-Turkish sentiment in Syria soon developed into
anti-French sentiment and more determined nationalism. The French quelled
one armed rebellion in 1920 and a second and better organized uprising
from 1925 to 1927. In 1938, soon after French and Syrian leaders had
reached agreement on a treaty providing for substantial Syrian
independence, the French government refused to ratify the treaty, partly
because France regarded control of the area as vital to its military
position. The following year France ceded to Turkey the former Turkish
administrative district (sanjak) of Alexandretta, in which the ancient
Syrian capital of Antioch is located.
These events raised Syrian
hostility toward France to a high pitch. Many prominent political figures
in Syria declared their loyalty to France and the Allies, nevertheless,
when World War II broke out in 1939. After the surrender of France to
Germany in 1940, Syria came under the control of the Vichy government.
British and Free French forces, however, invaded and subdued Syria in
1941. Later in the same year, the Free French government formally
recognized the independence of Syria but continued to occupy the country.
With the elections in 1943, a new government was formed under the
presidency of the Syrian nationalist Shukri al-Kuwatli, one of the leaders
of the 1925 to 1927 uprising against the French. After the end of World
War II in 1945, France persisted in trying to exercise influence over
Syria. Resultant anti-French uprisings subsided only after the British
military intervention on the side of the French and the withdrawal of all
French troops and administrative personnel. In 1946 the British troops
left Syria. Syria became a charter member of the United Nations (UN) in
1945.
The Republic
The postwar period was marked by serious
political instability. In 1944 a "Greater Syria" movement had been
initiated to found a Syrian Arab state that would include Lebanon, Syria,
and present-day Jordan and Israel. Many Syrian opponents of the movement
feared the absorption of Syria into a larger Arab state and the consequent
loss of Syrian national identity. The movement nevertheless gave impetus
to Syrian adherence to the Arab League, which was formed primarily to
prevent the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Syrian forces
participated in the 1948 war between Arab forces and the newly established
state of Israel. An armistice was concluded in July of the same year. On
March 30, 1949, a military junta led by General Husni al-Zaim, a member of
the Kurdish minority, seized power. Essentially a dictatorship and highly
unpopular, the new regime was overthrown in August by another military
junta, and Zaim was executed. General elections were held in November for
a constituent assembly. A third coup d'état, led by Colonel Adib
al-Shishakli, a former chief of police and head of security, occurred in
December. The constituent assembly promulgated a new constitution in
September 1950 and, assuming responsibility as the chamber of deputies,
elected the provisional chief of state Hashim al-Atasi, an elderly and
respected politician, to the presidency. 
Syrian and Israeli frontier forces clashed on
numerous occasions in the spring of 1951. The hostilities, which stemmed
from Syrian opposition to an Israeli drainage project in the demilitarized
zone between the two countries, ceased on May 15, after intercession by
the United Nations Security Council. Successive governmental crises during
1951 culminated, on November 29, in another coup d'état engineered by
Shishakli. President Atasi resigned shortly thereafter; and Shishakli and
his associates formed a government. Shishakli promulgated a new
constitution in 1953. He severely restricted civil liberties and ruled the
country as a military dictator until March 1954, when he was ousted by
another military group. Shishakli's successors reinstated Atasi as
president, reconvened the 1949 chamber of deputies, and restored the
constitution of 1950.
After 1954 Syria appeared increasingly
anti-Western and pro-Soviet. The government protested vigorously in 1955
against the creation of the Baghdad Pact,  a defensive alliance formed in that year by
Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Great Britain.
In July 1956 the
Syrian chamber of deputies formally established a committee to negotiate
the terms of a possible federation with Egypt. The attacks on Egypt in
October and November 1956 by Israel, Great Britain, and France intensified
the growing Syrian resentment toward the West. Syria denounced the
Eisenhower Doctrine, promulgated in January 1957 to combat potential
Communist aggression in the Middle East. In September, Syria accused
Turkey of massing troops on the Syrian-Turkish border with the intent of
executing a U.S.-backed attack on Syria. The USSR supported the Syrian
charge, and the matter was brought before the UN General Assembly in
October. The Syrian complaint was withdrawn, however, by consent of all
the parties concerned, before any UN action was taken. Throughout 1957
Syria accepted increasing aid from the USSR. In October, the USSR agreed
to provide aid to Syria, over a period of 12 years, for the construction
of many large-scale development projects.
Union with
Egypt
On February 21, 1958, a plebiscite held in
Syria and Egypt gave nearly unanimous approval to the federation of the
two countries as the United Arab Republic (UAR), with Gamal Abdel Nasser
of Egypt as president. The following month Nasser dissolved all Syrian
political parties, including the Communist party, and dismissed pro-Soviet
army officers.
Under a system of land reform introduced in September,
individual holdings were limited to 80 hectares (200 acres) of irrigated
and 300 hectares (750 acres) of unirrigated land. Separate ministries for
Syria and Egypt were abolished on October 7 in favor of central ministries
in Cairo. The first distributions of confiscated land occurred in Syria on
February 23, 1959. Elections for local councils, held on July 8, resulted
in a setback for socialists in Syria. On March 18, 1960, Nasser appointed
several Syrians to his cabinet in a move to strengthen his hold on the
country. The National Union, the single legal party of the UAR, held its
first congress in Cairo during July. A further step toward unification,
taken on August 16, 1961, was the establishment of a single UAR cabinet.
Meanwhile, a vigorous policy of nationalization, including steamship lines
and banking and insurance firms, intensified conservative opposition to
the UAR. Army units seized Damascus on September 28 and the following day
proclaimed the renewed independence of Syria. Nasser decided not to resist the new regime.
"Syria," (c ) 1993-1995 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved. ( c ) 1995 FUNK & WAGNALLS Corporation. All rights
reserved.
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