740.0011 European War 1939/13608: Telegram
The Consul General at Beirut (Engert) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 2—2 p.m.]
319. General de Gaulle made a speech in Damascus yesterday in which he said the time had come to put an end to the mandate and to negotiate with the Syrians regarding the conditions for their “full and complete sovereignty and independence and to establish the terms of an alliance which both sides most sincerely desire.” He added that in this war the liberties and even existence of all peoples were at stake. France would prevent Syria from being enslaved in cooperation with her brave British allies “who have come here exclusively for strategic reasons. In this connection, I am pleased to refer to the declarations and undertakings of the Government in London by which Great Britain expresses herself completely free from all political aims in Syria and the Lebanon and determined to respect in its entirety the position of France.” Even these unequivocal diplomatic instruments might not stop enemy propaganda or inconsiderate words “but I am counting on the complete union of England and France which existed in the past and simultaneous actions of their armies in the Levant states to contribute toward the reassurance of Syria and the Lebanon in the certainty that they will preserve from the Tigris to the Mediterranean and from Trans-Jordan to Turkey their national liberty and integrity.”
The General concluded by expressing his firm conviction that the powerful British armies and determination, the mobilized resources of America and the losses inflicted on Germany by Russia were all bound to lead to victory.