Allies Invade Levant: Securing the Middle East Front

British, Australian, Indian, and Free French forces crossed the border into Vichy French-held Syria and Lebanon on June 8, 1941, in Operation Exporter. The invasion was ordered to prevent Nazi Germany from using the Levant as a staging ground for attacks on the Suez Canal and British-controlled Iraq. Vichy French forces, numbering roughly 45,000, fought back with unexpected ferocity. What the Allies had expected to be a brief campaign lasted five weeks and cost over 4,600 Allied casualties. The political context was tangled. France had fallen to Germany in June 1940, and the Vichy government controlled France’s overseas colonies under a collaborationist arrangement with Berlin. Syria and Lebanon, administered by France under a League of Nations mandate since 1920, remained loyal to Vichy. In May 1941, German aircraft used Syrian airfields to supply an anti-British coup in Iraq, and Vichy High Commissioner Henri Dentz permitted German and Italian planes to refuel at Syrian bases. Britain could not tolerate an Axis presence on the eastern Mediterranean flank. The fighting was bitter and politically uncomfortable. Free French forces under General Paul Legentilhomme fought Vichy French troops in engagements where both sides spoke the same language, wore similar uniforms, and had served together before the fall of France. Australian troops suffered heavy casualties at the Litani River crossing and in the drive toward Beirut. The Royal Navy clashed with Vichy destroyers off the coast, sinking two. Damascus fell on June 21 after fierce resistance. Beirut was surrounded by July 9. The Vichy garrison requested an armistice on July 12, ending the campaign. Under the armistice terms, Vichy soldiers were given the choice of joining the Free French or repatriation to France. The vast majority chose repatriation, a humiliation for Charles de Gaulle. Syria and Lebanon were placed under Free French administration, with British promises of eventual independence that De Gaulle resented and resisted. Lebanon declared independence in 1943; Syria followed in 1946. Both dates marked the beginning of the end of French influence in the Middle East.