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Syria Development of the Syrian Military
The Mandate volunteer force formed in 1920 was established
with the threat of Syrian-Arab nationalism in mind. Although the
unit's officers were originally all French, it was, in effect,
the first indigenous modern Syrian army. In 1925 the unit was
designated the Levantine Special Forces (Troupes Spéciales du
Levant). In 1941, the force participated in a futile resistance
to the British and Free French invasion that ousted the Vichy
French from Syria. After the Allied takeover, the army came under
the control of the Free French and was designated the Levantine
Forces (Troupes du Levant).
French Mandate authorities maintained a gendarmerie to police
Syria's vast rural areas. This paramilitary force was used to
combat criminals and political foes of the Mandate government. As
with the Levantine Special Forces, French officers held the top
posts, but as Syrian independence approached, the ranks below
major were gradually filled by Syrian officers who had graduated
from the Military Academy at Homs, which had been established by
the French during the 1930s. In 1938 the Troupes Spéciales
numbered around 10,000 men and 306 officers (of whom 88 were
French, mainly in the higher ranks). A majority of the Syrian
troops were of rural background and minority ethnic origin
(mainly
Alawis,
Druzes, Kurds, and Circassians) (see Glossary).
By the end of 1945, the army numbered about 5,000 and the
gendarmerie some 3,500. In April 1946, the last French officers
left Syria; the Levantine Forces then became the regular armed
forces of the newly independent state and grew rapidly to about
12,000 by the time of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the first of
four Arab-Israeli wars between 1948 and 1986 (not counting the
1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon).
The air force was formed in 1948 on the graduation of the
first class of Syrian pilots from British flight schools. Two
years later, with the procurement of a few naval craft from
France, a small navy was established, using army personnel who
had been sent to French academies for naval training.
French Mandate authorities were thus responsible for the
initial development of Syria's armed forces, but by the mid1940s , for a variety of reasons, Syrians had developed a profound
distrust of the French in particular and Western Europeans in
general. The growth of pan-Arabism throughout much of the Arab
world, including Syria, during the interwar years paralleled the
feelings of anti-Westernism that were growing in the region.
Data as of April 1987
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