Battle of Maysalun in the context of "French Mandate of Syria"

Establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan refers to the government that was set up in Transjordan on 11 April 1921, following a brief interregnum period.

Abdullah, the second son of Sharif Hussein (leader of the 1916 Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire), arrived from Hejaz by train in Ma'an in southern Transjordan on 21 November 1920. His stated aim was fighting the French in Syria, after they had defeated the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria during the Battle of Maysalun on 24 July 1920.

The Emirate of Transjordan (Arabic: إمارة شرق الأردن, romanized: Imārat Sharq al-Urdun, lit. 'the emirate east of the Jordan'), officially the Amirate of Trans-Jordan, was a British protectorate established on 11 April 1921, which remained as such until achieving formal independence as the Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946.

After the Ottoman defeat in World War I, the Transjordan region was administered within OETA East; after the British withdrawal in 1919, this region gained de facto recognition as part of the Hashemite-ruled Arab Kingdom of Syria, administering an area broadly comprising the areas of the modern countries of Syria and Jordan. Transjordan became a no man's land following the July 1920 Battle of Maysalun, during which period the British in neighbouring Mandatory Palestine chose to avoid "any definite connection between it and Palestine". Abdullah entered the region in November 1920, moving to Amman on 2 March 1921; later in the month a conference was held with the British during which it was agreed that Abdullah bin Hussein would administer the territory under the auspices of the British Mandate for Palestine with a fully autonomous governing system.

The Franco-Syrian War took place during 1920 between France and the Hashemite rulers of the newly established Arab Kingdom of Syria. During a series of engagements, which climaxed in the Battle of Maysalun, French forces defeated the forces of the Hashemite monarch King Faisal, and his supporters, entering Damascus on July 24, 1920. A new pro-French government was declared in Syria on July 25, headed by 'Alaa al-Din al-Darubi and the region of Syria was eventually divided into several client states under the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. The British government, concerned for their position in the new mandate in Iraq, agreed to declare the fugitive Faisal as the new king of Iraq.

The Interregnum (between rulers) period in Transjordan was a short period during which the region had no established ruler or occupying power that lasted from the end of the Franco-Syrian War on 25 July 1920 until the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan on 11 April 1921.

Transjordan was in the British sphere of influence, but the British did not send an army or administration, and the government of the Hashemite Arab Kingdom of Syria under Prince Faisal had collapsed after being defeated by the French during the Battle of Maysalun in July 1920. British High Commissioner for Palestine Herbert Samuel wrote that the area was "left politically derelict"; the region was extremely poor, sparsely populated, and widely considered ungovernable.

Maysalun (Arabic: ميسلون) is a mountainous region in southwestern Syria located on the eastern slopes of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains about 12 kilometers west of Damascus, in the Rif Dimashq Governorate and has an elevation of about 1090 meters. The area is situated on the ancient route between Damascus and Lebanon and has long been famous for its khans and rest-stops. The closest town in the area is al-Dimas.

Maysalun is enshrined in Syrian history as the last stand of the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria, which was ruled by King Faisal. The kingdom briefly controlled Syria after the Ottomans left and before the French took over control of Syria in the aftermath of the First World War. On 24 July 1920, a group of 2,000 Syrian volunteers gathered at the caravansary of Maysalun. There they faced the French Army, which drew on troops from its colonial territories, meaning Senegalese, Algerian, and Moroccan men made up the force. Yusuf al-'Azma, the Minister of War, died in the fighting. After the French forces defeated the Syrian defenders, they moved on to Damascus, where they began a 26-year occupation of the country. The Battle of Maysalun lingers in Syrian memory more broadly as symbol of, in the words of historian Eugene Rogan, "the betrayal of Britain's wartime promises, the bankruptcy of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson's vision of national self-determination, and the triumph of British and French colonial self-interest over the hopes and aspirations of millions of Arabs."