Two important events transpired in the week following the US Senate’s failure to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations Covenant. First, Faisal ordered France and Britain out of Palestine and Syria, and President Wilson gave France his long-awaited response to the Question of Turkey. Both events would prove pivotal in the First Arab Spring of 1920.

On March 23, 1920, Faisal ordered the France and Britain out of Palestine and Syria. He gave them until April 6 to remove their militaries, allowing only diplomatic relations from that point forward. But, while France was busy in Europe sending its army into Germany in order to obtain its war reparations demanded in the Treaty of Versailles, it patiently awaited President Wilson’s response on the Question of Turkey.

On March 30, 1920, the Wilson administration finally gave the Europeans the statement they had been waiting for. “In regard to the relinquishment by Turkey of her rights to Mesopotamia, Arabia, Palestine, Syria and the islands, this Government suggests that the method resorted to in the case of Austria be adopted, namely, that Turkey should place these provinces in the hands of the great powers, to be disposed of as these powers determine.” Wilson’s statement acknowledged that the US would not be joining the  League of Nations, but stated that the US was “vitally interested in the future peace of the world.”

Wilson’s statement was made to address France’s and Britain’s proposal to expel the Turkish government from “Constantinople,” i.e., Europe. Wilson also addressed Britain’s fear that expelling the Turkish government would spark a jihad and the boundaries of an Armenian state. But, by falling short of recognizing the legitimate national aspirations of the Syrian people, who had recently declared their independence, one must wonder whether Wilson had any involvement in the statement attributed to his administration.

Wilson supported expelling the Turkish government and gave no credence to the idea of a Muslim uprising. He stated that “it cannot be believed that the feelings of the Mohammedan peoples, who not only witnessed the defeat of Turkish power without protest, but even materially assisted in the defeat, will now so resent the expulsion of the Turkish Government as to make a complete reversal of policy on the part of the great powers desirable or necessary.” Wilson went on to state that the southern border of Turkey should end where the Arab peoples begin. But, as to the borders of the Arab nations, he left those to be determined “by the great powers.” What happened to the principle of self-determination he espoused in making the League?

Wilson’s statement came out very strongly in favor of an independent Armenian state. We will have to imagine how differently things would have gone in the Middle East in the succeeding decades had Wilson came out as strongly in favor of the Syrian state recently declared by the Syrian Congress. Is it that the Syrian Congress’s declaration of independence fell on deaf ears in Washington, or was the declaration a catalyst for the Wilson administration’s latent response to the Question of Turkey?

However, it wasn’t Wilson’s last chance to support a Syrian state. By the end of March 1920, France had made no forays into Syria proper (Syria and Lebanon). As the stakes ratcheted up in the course of the spring 1920, Wilson would again be given another  opportunity to support an independent Syrian state.

The First Arab Spring is described in historic detail in The Peddler, a novel by Stephen Louis Moses.