The mandate system was supposed to differ from colonialism, with the governing country intended to act as a trustee until the inhabitants were considered eligible for self-government.

[4] In the early 1920s, British and French control of these territories became formalized by the League of Nations' mandate system.

Faisal established the first new postwar Arab government in Damascus in October 1918,[9] and named Ali Rikabi a military governor.

The new Arab administration formed local governments in the major Syrian cities, and the pan-Arab flag was raised all over Syria.

However, in accordance with the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement between Britain and France,[10] General Allenby assigned to the Arab administration only the interior regions of Syria (the eastern zone).

On 26 November 1919, British forces withdrew from Damascus to avoid confrontation with the French, leaving the Arab government to face France.

[12] Faisal had travelled several times to Europe since November 1918, trying to convince France and Britain to change their positions, but without success.

At the Paris Peace Conference, Faisal found himself in an even weaker position when the European powers decided to renege on the promises made to the Arabs.

Throughout the early period of colonial administration, collaboration persisted between British and French authorities in the region, in fulfillment of economic interests of both parties in the region, such as in the establishment of a customs-free zone for goods produced within the British and French controlled territories[13].

[citation needed] However, the minority included dynamic Arab nationalist figures such as Jamil Mardam Bey, Shukri al-Kuwatli, Ahmad al-Qadri, Ibrahim Hanano, and Riyad as-Solh.

In June 1919, the American King–Crane Commission arrived in Syria to inquire into local public opinion about the future of the country.

Their conclusions confirmed the opposition of Syrians to the mandate in their country as well as to the Balfour Declaration, and their demand for a unified Greater Syria encompassing Palestine.

[15] Unrest erupted in Syria when Faisal accepted a compromise with French Prime Minister Clemenceau.

Lebanese nationalists used the crisis against Faisal's government to convene a council of Christian figures in Baabda that proclaimed the independence of Lebanon on 22 March 1920.

[5] Arriving in Lebanon, the French were received as liberators by the Christian community, but in the rest of Syria, they faced strong resistance.

[citation needed] It took France three years from 1920 to 1923 to gain full control over Syria and to quell all the insurgencies that broke out, notably in the Alawite territories, Mount Druze and Aleppo.

The French hoped to fragment the various groups in the region, to mitigate support for the Syrian nationalist movement seeking to end colonial rule.

[23] On 3 August 1920, Arrêté 299 of the Haut-commissariat de la République française en Syrie et au Liban linked the cazas of Hasbaya, Rachaya, Maallaka and Baalbeck to what was then known as the Autonomous Territory of Lebanon.

[26] On 1 September 1920, General Gouraud publicly proclaimed the creation of the State of Greater Lebanon (French: État du Grand Liban, Arabic: دولة لبنان الكبير) at a ceremony in Beirut.

The State of Aleppo (1920–1925, French: État d'Alep, Arabic: دولة حلب) included a majority of Sunni Muslims.

The capital was the northern city of Aleppo, which had large Christian and Jewish communities in addition to the Sunni Muslims.

The primarily Sunni population of the states of Aleppo and Damascus were strongly opposed to the division of Syria.

Under its new statute, the sanjak became 'distinct but not separated' from the French Mandate of Syria on the diplomatic level, linked to both France and Turkey for defence matters.

[40] The allocation of seats in the sanjak assembly was based on the 1938 census held by the French authorities under international supervision.

Its partisans wanted the French troops to stay in the province in the event of a Syrian independence, as they feared the nationalist Damascus government would replace minority officials by Muslim Arabs from the capital.

For the same reasons as their Assyrian, Kurdish and Bedouin counterparts in Al-Jazira province in 1936–1937, several Circassian leaders wanted a special autonomy status for their region in 1938, as they feared the prospect of living in an independent Syrian republic under a nationalist Arab government hostile towards the minorities.

[47] Already in 1921, the French wanted to develop the agricultural sector and over a feasibility study of the Union Economique de Syrie the North-East Syrian and the Alawite State were deemed profitable for the cotton cultivation.

The population of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon were strongly in favor of the customs-free zone and successfully protested against a possible abolition in 1927.