890D.01/5–2945: Telegram
The Minister to Syria and Lebanon ( Wadsworth ) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 293:54 p.m.]
163. Supplementing my 162 of May 29:63
At 7:30 p.m. Porter64 phoned me from the Orient Palace Hotel Damascus reporting heavy machine gun and rifle fire from direction French barracks between hotel and bazaar.
As we were talking, answering fire came from various nearby places including roof of hotel; then reported [repeated?] machine gun bursts (which I heard over telephone) came from neighboring French Foyer des Soldats; then line was cut.
Ten minutes later BGS65 Ninth Army telephoned me “French are [Page 1115] shelling Damascus; General Pilleau will see General Humblot66 at once; I am off for Damascus; can’t dine with you; good-by”.
At 8 p.m. Satterthwaite phoned from Brit Leg that French airplane had just dropped bombs on and machine-gunned city.
Rptd Paris as 55; sent Dept as 163; paraphrases to Arab cap[ital]s.
- Not printed; it reported that Damascus was “seething” and that the “conflagration” in Syria was spreading, notably in the Jebel Druze where all Frenchmen were prisoners of the Syrian Governor and several hundred Troupes Spéciales had transferred their allegiance to the Governor (890E.01/5–2945).↩
- William J. Porter, Vice Consul and Attaché at Damascus.↩
- Brigadier General Staff (Jasper G. Frere).↩
- Gen. Emile Humblot, Commander of French forces in Syria and Lebanon.↩