Word: bechara
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Dates: during 1943-1943
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Lebanese President Bechara El Khoury and Premier Riad Solh were still detained by the French. All titles and portfolios of the rump administration were held by Habib Abou Chala, shrewd, cautious Beirut lawyer, who had been Solh's Vice Premier, and fiercely mustachioed Emir Mejid Arslan, Defense Minister. Indolent, fun-loving Arslan is the reigning prince of the battlewise mountaineer Druses, who gave French forces a mauling in 1927, asked nothing better than another chance to fight the hated Faranji...
French Putsch. In the Lebanese capital, Beirut, which lies between the bay where St. George slew his dragon and the hills where Solomon got his tall cedars, French officers and helmeted Senegalese soldiers summarily arrested Lebanon's President Bechara El Khoury, Premier Riad Solh and his cabinet ministers. By the day's end, Parliament had been dissolved, a puppet regime led by Francophile ex-President Emile Eddé had been installed, newspapers banned, martial law and curfew imposed, troops posted in squares. Having ordered these measures, French Delegate General Jean Helleu leaned back, ready for the worst...