8 - Holding On to Empire

Summary

In this final chapter, the related questions of the true French state and the role that empire played in conceding this legitimacy come full circle. At the head of the French Provisional Government, de Gaulle was rapidly renegotiating imperial relationships. Empire, much as it was in 1940, was a symbol of global power, sovereignty and legitimacy. In this context, the French aerial and ground bombardment of Damascus (29–30 May) was a reminder of the quotidian existence of imperial violence. It was undertaken to quell rising nationalist unrest and assert French demands for the conclusion of a preferential treaty prior to conceding independence.

However, nationalist forces in Syria and Lebanon consolidated international support for their independence demands. The San Francisco Conference was the perfect venue for condemning French barbarity. The language of the Atlantic Charter, as well as American and Soviet anti-imperial rhetoric, grounded the legitimacy and the moral basis of nationalist demands. Britain, in its role as proxy protector to the Levant states, had to act to preserve its own credibility as Middle East peacekeeper, or peace enforcer. This chapter closes under the shadow of impending Franco-British evacuations from Syria and Lebanon and the longer spectre of imperial withdrawals.