French General Andréa states in his book “The Druze Revolt and the Damascus Rebellion” that when France sought to exercise the mandate over Syria, unrest erupted across the country, the most violent of which occurred in Jabal al-Druze, where an entire people rose up to resist us, compelling us to mobilize vast military forces to secure victory.
Andréa added, “In the mountain, Ottoman campaigns and their large columns were broken, and its people refused to submit to the authorities in Constantinople, overcoming them. Even we ourselves suffered numerous setbacks and heavy, costly losses.”
Andréa also added that “the man in this mountain is a natural-born warrior knight, armed with a rifle, facing his enemy and prevailing over him, as he disdains death and despises humiliation. During the battles of the 1925 revolution, he would charge head-on against our forces—equipped with machine guns and armored vehicles—without taking cover behind a barricade or anything to shield himself from our pouring bullets; their man is proud, courageous, and valiant.”
He continued, “Their mountain is the smallest spot in Syria, yet it is a rock that inflicted damages upon us unlike anything we had faced before.”
