Alawite State

The region is coastal and mountainous, home to a predominantly-rural, heterogeneous population. During the French Mandate period, the society was divided by religion and geography; the landowning families and 80 percent of the population of the port city of Latakia were Sunni Muslim. More than 90 percent of the province's population was rural, and 82 percent were Alawites. The Alawite State bordered Greater Lebanon on the south; the northern border was with the Sanjak of Alexandretta, where Alawites made up a large portion of the population. To the west was the Eastern Mediterranean. The eastern border with Syria ran roughly along the An-Nusayriyah Mountains and the Orontes River from north to south. The modern Latakia and Tartus Governorates roughly encompass the Alawite State. Both have majority Alawite populations; parts of modern-day Al-Suqaylabiyah, Masyaf, Talkalakh and Jisr ash-Shugur Districts also belonged to the state. ==History==

1918–1920 The defeat and collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, with the Armistice of Mudros signed on 30 October 1918, brought on a scramble for control of the disintegrating empire's provinces. As of 1918, France occupied Lebanon and Syria, which was under the leadership of the Emir Faisal I. The Arab Kingdom of Syria was initially supported by the British, despite French protests. On 2 September 1920 a "Territory of the Alawis" was created in the coastal and mountain country, comprising Alawi villages; the French justified this separation by citing the "backwardness" of the mountain-dwellers, religiously distinct from the surrounding Sunni population. The division intended to protect the Alawi people from more-powerful majorities. • Colonel Marie Joseph Émile Niéger (1874-1951), 2 September 1920 – 1921 • Gaston Henri Gustave Billotte (1875-1940), 1921 – 1922 • Léon Henri Charles Cayla (1881-1965), 1922 – 1925 • Ernest Marie Hubert Schoeffler (1877-1952), 1925 – 5 December 1936 After the relative independence of Faisal I's rule, French colonialism was unwelcome. 1925–27: Great Syrian Revolt On 1 January 1925, the State of Syria was born from a French merger of the States of Damascus and Aleppo. Lebanon and the Alawi State were not included. Perhaps inspired by the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1921), the Great Syrian Revolt began in the countryside of Jabal al-Druze. Led by Sultan al-Atrash as a Druze uprising, Lasting from July 1925 to June 1927, it was an anti-French, anti-imperialist response to five years of French rule; There was a great deal of Alawite separatist sentiment in the region, but their political views could not be coordinated into a unified voice. This was attributed to the peasant status of most Alawites, "exploited by a predominantly Sunni landowning class resident in Latakia and Hama". There was also a great deal of factionalism amongst the Alawite tribes, and the Alawite State was incorporated into Syria with little organised resistance. ==Aftermath==

1936–1946 By 1939 the Nationalist Bloc party fell out of favour with the Syrian people because of its failure to increase the autonomy of the Syrian government from French influence. Prime Minister Jamil Mardam resigned at the end of 1938; King Abdullah II of Jordan called it the "worst-case" scenario in the conflict, fearing a domino effect: fragmentation of the country along sectarian lines, with region-wide consequences. The December 2024 Syrian rebel offensives and the subsequent fall of the Assad regime sparked renewed speculation by some analysts about a potential revival of an Alawite state with Russian backing. For a brief period following the rebel takeover of Damascus, Latakia Governorate and Tartous Governorate (the historical territory of the Alawite State), were the only parts of Syria not under rebel control. Some Alawite villages there formed self-defense committees and set up checkpoints, but no expected Assadist national redoubt in the region came to fruition, probably because of the mixed attitudes of the Alawite population towards the HTS-led rebels. More importantly, the insurgency in Western Syria led by Alawite remnants of the Assad regime that killed 14 officers later that month can pose many challenges to the new government; which would subsequently led to the mass killings of the Alwaites as part of the crackdown on the remnants of the former regime. ==Population==

File:Stamp Alaouites 1926 10pi air.jpg|alt=Brown postage stamp with red airplane|A double overprint: "Alaouites" over an aeroplane (indicating airmail) on 10-piastre Syrian stamp ==See also==