Word: syrian
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...confusion of amity and murder (see below). From Egypt the British staged an attack on Axis forces in Libya which had a look of desperate deadliness (see p. 31). But these were both defensive offensives. They were both blows struck in haste to ward off blows. The Syrian campaign was being fought because of a rumble of enmity to the north; the North African attack was made because of a roar of preparations to the west...
These spurious itinerants, helped by airborne troops from Rhodes, took over from the French the Syrian airfields. They also enlarged the landing stage at Latakia. Syria's northernmost port...
...German counter to the invasion did not come at once. Last week the Nazis confined their outward Middle Eastern activity to bombing Alexandria twice, killing 500, making 50,000 flee the city on trucks, bicycles, goat carts. The Axis even went so far as to announce that the Syrian campaign was entirely a fight between the former Allies. It was that, but plenty more besides...
General Wilson is said to be using three to four divisions at present in the Syrian campaign, plus an unknown number of native troops, perhaps 400 planes. Part of his forces are De Gaullist Free French under General Georges Catroux, who opened hostilities by proclaiming independence for Syria and Lebanon and then sent his men into Djebel Druse, home of the rough & tough Druses, who hate the Vichy French and are expected to join the Allies...
While the top French officers in Syria were reported pro-Vichy, the younger officers and lower ranks were believed pro-Free France. Just prior to the British jump-off, General Henri Dentz, the Syrian High Commissioner, was yelping to Vichy for loyal aviators and anti-aircraft crews: "Germans, if necessary." General Dentz has been wrathful about the British ever since he had to turn over Paris to the Germans last June...