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The Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre (also known as the Convention of Acre) concluded the Syria-Lebanon Campaign of World War II. The Armistice, signed on 14 July 1941, [1] was between Allied forces in the Middle East under the command of British General Henry Maitland Wilson, and Vichy France forces in Syria and Lebanon, under the command of General Henri Dentz, Commander in Chief of the Army of the Levant (Armée du Levant) and as High Commissioner of the Levant.
Having lost control of the Northern Desert and the Euphrates Province and being threatened with the imminent loss of Beirut, General Dentz decided to ask for an armistice. On the evening of 11 July, British Lieutenant-General Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East Command, received a wireless message from Dentz proposing the suspension of hostilities six hours later, at midnight. General Dentz declared himself ready to engage in talks on the basis of a memorandum presented to him that morning by the United States Consul at Beirut on behalf of the British Government. But Dentz made the reservation that he was empowered by the French Government to treat only with the British representatives to the exclusion of those of the Free French. [2]
The proposals presented by General Dentz were considered at once by the Middle East War Council. The council took into account the opinion of the American Consul at Beirut that Dentz was entirely insincere and might be playing for time in the hope of a last minute rescue by the Germans. Accordingly, his conditions were rejected by the British and he was called on to send his plenipotentiaries to the British outpost on the Beirut—Haifa Road at or before 0900 hours on 12 July. Failure to do this would lead to the resumption of hostilities at that hour. [2]
On 12 July, the Vichy second in command, Lieutenant-General Joseph-Antoine-Sylvain-Raoul de Verdillac attended the talks. He went all the way from Syria to Acre in the British Mandate of Palestine and was escorted by a convoy of Australian high commanding officers. General de Verdillac represented the Army of the Levant for the Armistice talks instead of his superior commander, General Dentz. The 21 July 1941 issue of Time magazine indicates that Dentz sent de Verdillac to the talks because de Verdillac was more pro-British and less anti-De Gaulle than Dentz.
At 2200 hours on 12 July, the Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre was initialled. The Allied forces were represented by General Wilson, by Air Commodore L. O. Brown, Royal Air Force, by Captain J. A. V. Morse, Royal Navy, and by Free French General Georges Catroux. The Vichy French were represented by de Verdillac. [2]
The Armistice talks, the first between Great Britain and France since Napoleon's time, were held in the officers mess of "Sidney Smith Barracks", on the outskirts of the city of Acre. On this site was later founded Bustan HaGalil, an Israeli agricultural settlement. Despite the generosity of the British terms, representatives of Vichy made a brief show of refusing them, then dumped the whole mess into General Dentz's lap. On Bastille Day 14 July General Dentz, Vichy's High Commissioner to the Levant States, signed Syria and Lebanon away to the conquering British and to the Free French Forces. When General De Verdillac uncapped his pen to add his signature, all the lights in the room fused out, and so a dispatch rider's motorcycle was brought into the room to light the place with its head lamp.
The State of Greater Lebanon, informally known as French Lebanon, was a state declared on 1 September 1920, which became the Lebanese Republic in May 1926, and is the predecessor of modern Lebanon.
The Anglo-Iraqi War was a British-led Allied military campaign during the Second World War against the Kingdom of Iraq under Rashid Gaylani, who had seized power in the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état with assistance from Germany and Italy. The campaign resulted in the downfall of Gaylani's government, the re-occupation of Iraq by the British, and the return to power of the Regent of Iraq, Prince 'Abd al-Ilah, a British ally.
The Syria–Lebanon campaign, also known as Operation Exporter, was the invasion of Syria and Lebanon in June and July 1941 by British Empire forces, during the Second World War.
Georges Albert Julien Catroux was a French Army general and diplomat who served in both World War I and World War II, and served as Grand Chancellor of the Légion d'honneur from 1954 to 1969.
Lebanese Independence Day is the national day of Lebanon, celebrated on 22 November in commemoration of the end of the French Control over Lebanon in 1943, after 23 years of Mandate rule.
Henri Fernand Dentz was a general in the French Army who served with the Vichy French Army after France surrendered during the Second World War. He was tried as a collaborator after the war.
The 1st Free French Division was one of the principal units of the Free French Forces (FFL) during World War II, renowned for having fought the Battle of Bir Hakeim.
The Battle of Damascus was the final action of the Allied advance on Damascus in Syria during the Syria–Lebanon campaign in World War II.
The Battle of Damour was the final major operation of the Australian forces during the Syria-Lebanon Campaign of World War II.
The Battle of Beirut marked the end of hostilities in the Syria–Lebanon campaign of World War II.
The French State, popularly known as Vichy France, as led by Marshal Philippe Pétain after the Fall of France in 1940 before Nazi Germany, was quickly recognized by the Allies, as well as by the Soviet Union, until 30 June 1941 and Operation Barbarossa. However, France broke with the United Kingdom after the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. Canada maintained diplomatic relations until the occupation of Southern France by Germany and Italy in November 1942.
The Battle of Deir ez-Zor was part of the Allied invasion of Syria during the Syria-Lebanon campaign in World War II.
The Czechoslovak 11th Infantry Battalion – East was a Czechoslovak infantry battalion in the Second World War. It served under the British Middle East Command in the Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre.
The Vichy French Air Force, usually referred to as the Air Force of Vichy or Armistice Air Force for clarity, was the aerial branch of the Armistice Army of Vichy France established in the aftermath of the Fall of France in June 1940. The Vichy French Air Force existed between December 1940 and December 1942 and largely served to defend Vichy French territories abroad.
The Army of the Levant identifies the armed forces of France and then Vichy France which occupied, and were in part recruited from, the French Mandated territories in the Levant during the interwar period and early World War II. The locally recruited Syrian and Lebanese units of this force were designated as the Special Troops of the Levant.
The Syria-Cilicia Medal was a French decoration awarded to military personnel engaged in the hostilities that erupted in the Middle East in the immediate aftermath of World War I.
The 6th Foreign Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the Foreign Legion in the French Army from 1939 to 1941 and again from 1949 to 1955.
Events in the year 1941 in the British Mandate of Palestine.
The Levant Crisis, also known as the Damascus Crisis, the Syrian Crisis, or the Levant Confrontation, was a military confrontation that took place between British and French forces in Syria in May 1945 soon after the end of World War II in Europe. French troops had tried to quell nationalist protests in Syria at the continued occupation of the Levant by France. With heavy Syrian casualties, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill opposed French action and sent British forces into Syria from Transjordan with orders to fire on the French if necessary.
The Armistice Army or Vichy French Army was the armed forces of Vichy France permitted under the terms of the Armistice of 22 June 1940. It was officially disbanded in 1942 after the German invasion of the "Free Zone" which was directly ruled by the Vichy regime.
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