Antioch as modern capital of Syria
 

Or at least one of the top cities. Later PODs are a plus.

The French seize Syria as mandate territory after a shorter, less destructive WWI, and it includes Antakia. Flush with money and victory, the classical lycee-educated colonial administrators decide to give the country a new 'off-the-drawing-board' capital. The location chosen is, of course, ancient Antioch-on-the-Orontes. French architects and engineers descend on the site, developing railway links to Latakia, Aleppo and Damascus, the Baghdad railway in British Iraq and the upper Euphrates (maybe Raqqah - is it navigable from there?). A good deal of the highways and pipelines will also be left over from the military deployment in the first years guarding against potential retaliation from Turkey (you know that OTL Antioch is in Turkey, right?). By the time decolonisation happens, Syrtia's road and railway net and government infrastructure is centered on Antioch and the new, secularist and centralist Syrian government decides to leave it like that rather than choose between the traditional centres of Aleppo and Damascus, both coming with baggage of tribal loyalties they want no part of.

Works? (I probably overlooked some huge obstacle Leo or Abdul know about, but from the map it seems to be possible, if inconvenient. Sort of like the old French railway plan, where a journey from Reims to Amiens would take you via Paris, becoming almost twice as long in the process.)

Ive always considered writing something where the Assyrian population is given Hatay (which includes Antioch) after the First World War, and placed under French administration. This would have made a Christian state right in the middle of Muslim lands (a good quarter century before Israel). I wonder what this would do to the region in the long run.

An Assyrian Christian state in Hatay? Interesting...

The Assyrians are scattered all over the Middle East and they've lived in thier particular areas for thousands of years; how many of them would actually want to live in Hatay? And what about the people already living there? If a significant fraction of the Assyrian population came, the locals would probably be swamped demographically, but would they like a horde of foreigners (especially those a different religion) coming to live there?

How territorially large would this state be?

Turkey would not be pleased with this new state, especially if there are large numbers of Turks who live in the area. Syria might be PO'd as well. Unless the Assyrian state can ally with Israel (assuming it comes around in TTL), they might not survive decolonization.

Hatay was densely populated, with a Turkish Majority and a large Arab minority. The entire Assyrian population of the Mid East was less than 100,000, so I don't see how a state like that could survive. You would have to remove all the Muslims and round up all the Assyrians, deport them from their homelands, and dump them in a foreign land, where most of them would probably die due to the climate differences.

The main problem is that Antioch is just an itty-bitty little town, and there would be no point to building a whole new capital and all the infrastructe necessary to serve it when you have several Ottoman proivincial capitals, namely Aleppo and Damascus, which are already equipped with everything you need.

The POD would probably need to be very early, like no Islam.

Agreed, it would be a pretty ambitious and more than slightly stupid plan (why does that say 'French Government' to me?), but artificial capitals had a brief vogue at the time. Maybe the very fact that Damascus *and* Aleppo were part of the new territory?

Why did they plumb for Damascus? Any particular reason?

Damascus was the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate. That might have something to do with it. It is also one of my favorite cities in the world. My friend John from Texas is moving there with his wife this weekend and I'm green with envy.

If the French want to build a Middle East Christian state (outside of Lebanon), they might do worse than the Khabur River Triangle, around Haseka, where several tribes of Assyrians settled after they were persecuted following WWI. It's also close to Tur Abdin and the rest of northern Syria, which the Turks took back from the French after WWI, but might have ended up as part of modern Syria otherwise, IIRC.

If the French wanted to assure a continued Xtian presence in ME, the most reasonable solution would have been to relocate to Lebanon the Assyrian minorities. A kind of low-grade etnical cleansing, which would have left Lebanon mostly Xtian, with the Druse and the other Islamic sects as minorities, and would not have required a major population swap. I am also convinced that over the decades the attraction of America and the difference in birthrates would have balanced the situation once again. OTOH, the idea of another garrison state created on a map would really fill me with worry.

Going to another, happier subject: I share your appreciation of Damascus, Leo (even if the last time I was there was 1992). Remaining in the area, there are two other beautiful spots: Palmyra, and the Creck du Chevaliers. I was never impressed by Antioch (which is a bit of a dump)

Ah? But wasn’t it a major city during the crusades? Didn’t it only get to be an 'itty-bitty little town' only sometime after words?


(Sorry if this ones past its expiration date, guys. I was just thinking about it… )

…Lets see how old of a thread I can get away with bumping…
 

^How about an earlier era, guys?

Is this one too old?