Editing Aleppo (section)

===French mandate===
{{See also|State of Aleppo}}
[[File:General Gouraud marching in Aleppo.jpg|thumb|left|General [[Henri Gouraud (French Army officer)|Gouraud]] crossing through al-Khandaq street on 13 September 1920]]
The [[State of Aleppo]] was declared by French General [[Henri Gouraud (French Army officer)|Henri Gouraud]] in September 1920 as part of a French plan to make Syria easier to administer by dividing it into several smaller states. France became more concerned about the idea of a united Syria after the [[Battle of Maysaloun]].

By separating Aleppo from Damascus, Gouraud wanted to capitalize on a traditional state of competition between the two cities and turn it into political division. The people in Aleppo were unhappy with the fact that Damascus was chosen as capital for the new nation of Syria. Gouraud sensed this sentiment and tried to address it by making Aleppo the capital of a large and wealthier state with which it would have been hard for Damascus to compete. The State of Aleppo as drawn by France contained most of the fertile area of Syria: the fertile countryside of Aleppo in addition to the entire fertile basin of river [[Euphrates]]. The state also had access to sea via the autonomous [[Sanjak of Alexandretta]]. On the other hand, Damascus, which is basically an oasis on the fringes of the [[Syrian Desert]], had neither enough fertile land nor access to sea. Basically, Gouraud wanted to satisfy Aleppo by giving it control over most of the agricultural and mineral wealth of Syria so that it would never want to unite with Damascus again.<ref name="M. Andrew 1981">M. Andrew & Sydney Kanya-Forstner (1981) The climax of French imperial expansion, 1914–1924</ref><ref name="Fieldhouse, David Kenneth 2006">Fieldhouse, David Kenneth (2006) Western imperialism in the Middle East 1914–1958</ref> Damascus's relative economic weakness was further exacerbated by the economic success of Beirut during the 1920s, a territory part of the larger French Mandate at the time.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schayegh |first=Cyrus |title=The Middle East and the making of the modern world |date=2017 |publisher=Harvard university press |isbn=978-0-674-08833-7 |location=Cambridge (Mass.)}}</ref>

[[File:Aleppo Grand Seray.jpg|thumb|[[Grand Serail of Aleppo|Grand Serail d'Alep]], originally planned to become the seat of the government of the short-lived [[State of Aleppo]]]]
The limited economic resources of the Syrian states made the option of completely independent states undesirable for France, because it threatened an opposite result: the states collapsing and being forced back into unity. This was why France proposed the idea of a Syrian federation that was realized in 1923. Initially, Gouraud envisioned the federation as encompassing all the states, even Lebanon. In the end however, only three states participated: Aleppo, [[State of Damascus|Damascus]], and the [[Alawite State]]. The capital of the federation was Aleppo at first, but it was relocated to Damascus. The president of the federation was [[Subhi Barakat]], an [[Antioch]]-born politician from Aleppo.
[[File:Quweik flood Aleppo.jpg|The Queiq River flood of 6 February 1922|200px|thumb]]

The federation ended in December 1924, when France merged Aleppo and Damascus into a single Syrian State and separated the Alawite State again. This action came after the federation decided to merge the three federated states into one and to take steps encouraging Syria's financial independence, steps which France viewed as too much.<ref name="M. Andrew 1981"/><ref name="Fieldhouse, David Kenneth 2006"/>
[[File:Aleppo Old Photo of Psot Office (1920s).jpg|thumb|200px|The central post office, 1920]]
[[File:Old trams in Aleppo.JPG|Tram line, put into operation in 1929|thumb|200px]]

When the [[Great Syrian Revolt|Syrian Revolt]] erupted in southern Syria in 1925, the French held in Aleppo State new elections that were supposed to lead to the breaking of the union with Damascus and restore the independence of Aleppo State. The French were driven to believe by pro-French Aleppine politicians that the people in Aleppo were supportive of such a scheme. After the new council was elected, however, it surprisingly voted to keep the union with Damascus. [[Syrian National Block|Syrian nationalists]] had waged a massive anti-secession public campaign that vigorously mobilized the people against the secession plan, thus leaving the pro-French politicians no choice but to support the union. The result was a big embarrassment for France, which wanted the secession of Aleppo to be a punitive measure against Damascus, which had participated in the Syrian Revolt, however, the result was respected. This was the last time that independence was proposed for Aleppo.<ref>LaMaziere, Pierre (1926) Partant pour la Syrie</ref>

Bad economic situation of the city after the separation of the northern countryside was exacerbated further in 1939 when [[Sanjak of Alexandretta|Alexandretta]] was annexed to Turkey as [[Hatay State]],<ref name="atak">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cO50m62MA8AC&pg=PT55 |title=Ataturk |author=Andrew Mango |page=55 |year=2011 |publisher=John Murray Press |isbn=9781848546189 |access-date=19 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010052810/https://books.google.com/books?id=cO50m62MA8AC&pg=PT55 |archive-date=10 October 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="atak3">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=smkXH4UwJOsC&pg=PA64 |title=Negotiating for the Past: Archaeology, Nationalism, and Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1919–1941 |author=James F. Goode |page=64 |year=2009 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-0-292-77901-3 |access-date=19 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010053301/https://books.google.com/books?id=smkXH4UwJOsC&pg=PA64 |archive-date=10 October 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="atak4">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3dnGAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA58 |title=Turkish Foreign Policy: Islam, Nationalism, and Globalization |author=Hasan Kösebalaban |page=58 |year=2011 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-11869-0 |access-date=19 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010053324/https://books.google.com/books?id=3dnGAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA58 |archive-date=10 October 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> thus depriving Aleppo of its main port of [[Iskenderun]] and leaving it in total isolation within Syria.<ref name="doi_10.1093/ia/iix118">{{cite journal |author=[[I. William Zartman]] |url=https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/93/4/937/3897516?searchresult=1 |title=States, boundaries and sovereignty in the Middle East: unsteady but unchanging |journal=International Affairs |volume=93 |issue=4 |date=July 1, 2017 |pages=937–948 |doi=10.1093/ia/iix118 |issn=0020-5850 |access-date=May 17, 2021 |oclc=1005506048 |publisher=Oxford University Press |archive-date=7 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220707170653/https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/93/4/937/3897516?searchresult=1 |url-status=live }}</ref>