death in prospect he worked at his fine play Delrdre of the Sorrows, all but completing it before the end came on March 24 1909. Just before he had collected his curious Poems (1900).
Synge appeared at a peculiar moment in the development of Irish literature, which had begun to address a largely increased public, blended of the two main elements of the population. By descent and culture he was of the Anglo-Irish stock, and he really saw the Irish subject matter in the detached spirit of an artist. It was probably something like this that part of his audience detected in the Playboy, and it caused his work for a while to be rejected in his own country. Time, however, has already proved the depth of Synge's injight into the soul of peasant Ireland. The Playboy is by general consent his masterpiece. In this play, the fantastically rich imagery of his dialogue, which elsewhere has often a somewhat monotonous effect, has full dramatic justification; the play has even, like Hamlet, the supreme mark of vitality, that it conveys the suggestion of a permanent human enigma. There are good critics, however, who assign the highest place among his works to Deirdre.
A collected edition of Synge's works, in four volumes, was published in 1910. In John Millington Synge and the Irish Theatre (1913), M. Maurice Bourgeois has given, in great detail, an account of his life and writings; and there is a critical study of him by P. P. Howe (1912). (W. K. M.)
SYRIA (see 26.305). The greater part of the decade 1911-21 was a period of depression and distress in Syria, which, in common
with the rest of the Ottoman Empire of which it then formed
part, suffered from the interruption of commerce and the war-
time exactions consequent upon the Italo-Turkish, the Balkan
and the World Wars in an almost unbroken succession from 1911
until 1918. Although only for a brief time an actual theatre of
hostilities, Syria, which had escaped with a slight bombardment
of Beirut in Feb. 1912 during which a Turkish gun-boat was
sunk in the harbour by an Italian squadron, was particularly
exposed to military requisitions and exactions.
Even before the entry of Turkey into the World War involved the Levant ports in a fresh blockade (Nov. 1914) the coastal population had begun to migrate inland from fear of enemy landings, and the whole country was disorganized by the pressure of refugees on the one hand and of the military preparations for an invasion of Egypt on the other, while the civil population was much excited by the shameless propaganda conducted by German agents who sought to inflame Moslem prejudice against Christians all over the country. The Minister of Marine, Ahmad Jemal Pasha, who was also in command of the IV. Army and governor-general, conducted the government of the province in such a way as to give rise during a long period to the suspicion that he aimed at imitating Mehemet All in founding for himself a semi-independent viceroy alty; and his autocratic exactions and high-handed measures did much to pave the way for the final revolt against Turkish authority, which caused its collapse when the battles in Palestine in Sept. 1918 had broken the front.
In the subsequent operations Syria was overrun rather than conquered. Damascus fell to the British and Arabs on Oct. i, Tyre was taken by the British on Oct. 4, Beirut was seized by a French squadron on Oct. 5 and occupied on Oct. 7 by British troops, which took Horns on Oct. 16, Tripoli (Tarabulus) on Oct. 1 8, Kama on Oct. 21, while the Arabs took Aleppo on Oct. 25 and the French occupied Alexandretta on Nov. 10.
Immediately after the liberation of Syria Gen. Allenby set up an administration of Occupied Enemy Territory in accordance with "the Laws and Usages of War" laid down by international agreements embodied in the Hague Convention. In order to comply as far as possible with the divergent policies to which the British Government had committed itself he confided those areas which had been liberated chiefly by Arab troops to " O.E. T.A. East," with Arab administrators under a chief administra- tor at Damascus 'Ali Riza Pasha er Rikabi, while the Lebanon, the littoral N. of the Ladder of Tyre, and as far as Bab Yunis N. of Alexandretta, was under Col. P. de Piepape as chief admin- istrator O.E.T.A. North in Beirut with French officers. Later, when Cilicia was occupied in conformity with the Armistice
which came into effect on Nov. i O.E.T.A. in Beirut became
O.E.T.A. West and Cilicia was controlled by a new O.E.T.A.
North under the French Col. Breraond.
From the very first the French had considerable difficulties to face, as Arab Nationalism and the idea of Syrian independence based upon the doctrine of self-determination both greatly influenced the civil population, which was, moreover, puzzled in that French officers were engaged in administering the country on French lines and conducting a French propaganda, when it was notorious that British troops had liberated the country and were still occupying a great part of it, and that the Arab admin- istration in Damascus was anxious to lean on the British alliance and to ignore as far as possible the existence of the Sykes-Picot Agreement which had divided the country into arbitrarily defined spheres of influence regardless of the claims of the Arabs. Colonel de Piepape was, moreover, much hampered by the limited selection of French officers from whom he had to pick his administrators. Furthermore, Syria being a comparatively rich and civilized part of the Ottoman Empire and inhabited almost entirely by non-Turks had been particularly exposed to the exactions of the Turkish army and Government, and her popula- tion had been greatly exhausted by military conscription, political deportations, voluntary flight of refugees and by the ravages of locusts, starvation and disease. Yet Syria was unable to benefit to any great degree from the presence of the British army, as had Palestine; few military roads were made except the remarkable rock-cut carriage-way across the face of the Ladder of Tyre (Ras en Naqura) which was made by Sir Valentine Fane's yth Indian Div. little local labour was employed, and charitable contributions for the help of the civil population of Syria were the less readily forthcoming as it had none of the religious and sentimental glamour attaching to the Holy Land.
With the withdrawal of the British Army of Occupation from O.E.T.A. North and West which began on Nov. 4 1919 and ended on Jan. 19 1920 the difficulties of the French were greatly enhanced, as their own troops were hardly numerous enough to cope with the forces of disorder which began to raise their heads almost immediately. Attempts to enforce French authority were met with armed resistance. Certain of their agents played them false, and both in Cilicia and Syria Gen. Gouraud, who had become High Commissioner in Beirut in Oct. 1919, had to cope at once with Turkish Nationalist plots directed from Angora, panislamic agitation, anti-Armenian traditional hatred and Syrian and Arab Nationalism. Active troubles soon began, the Damascus administration, now controlled by the Emir Faisal, had little real authority over the semi -independent tribes which were plentifully supplied with rifles, either issued to them for war against the Turks, or captured weapons, and it was itself harassed by the conflicting policies of the Syrian extremists who resented the presence of the Arab "Patriarchalists" from the desert, and of the Hejaz Arabs who maintained that Syria was but a province conquered by them in war and lawfully at their disposal. The Emir had, moreover, to keep the peace with his French and British allies in the face of a growing anti-European spirit which was hostile to the French schemes for controlling Syria and indignant at the British attitude towards the Jews, while Syrian Nationalists resented the partition of the country between two foreign Powers and inclined towards anybody even the once hated Turks who offered hopes of driving the Europeans into the sea.
Baalbek was the scene of the first fighting between the French and Arabs at Christmas 1919. In Jan. 1920 the French were attacked near Quneitera and in the Merj lyun. Later in the month their troops were engaged in the Latakia (Ladigiye) district, and while they were able to recover Baalbek before (he end of Jan. their garrison at Alexandretta was attacked in Feb. On March 1 the Jewish colony at Tell Hai, near Metulla, in what was then the French sector of Upper Galilee, was raided by Arabs. On March 8 the Syrian National Congress, sitting in Damascus, under the influence of impatient extremists, proclaimed the Emir Faisal as King of Syria, and placed him in an extremely difficult diplomatic position. In the face of the extremists he
