French-mandated territory carved from the defeated Ottoman Empire, administered 1920-1925 as separate states (Damascus, Aleppo, the Alawite Territory, Jabal Druze) before consolidating into a single Syrian Republic in 1930, still under French oversight.
France recognized Syrian independence in 1941 under wartime pressure; the last French troops withdrew on 17 April 1946, completing full sovereignty.
The classic administrative history of the French Mandate, covering Syria's and Lebanon's separate paths to independence.