When the young Republic of Turkey claimed the Sanjak of Alexandretta in 1936, France resisted, insisting that the province was part of the French mandate for Syria. The contest over territory pitted Turkey and her irredentist claims against both the French colonial regime and the government of Syria that was engaging in its own efforts to construct a political community that conformed to European notions of nationalism. The League of Nations was called in to broker an agreement between the contending parties that would be consistent with the spirit of the ideology of self-determination. But se ... More

When the young Republic of Turkey claimed the Sanjak of Alexandretta in 1936, France resisted, insisting that the province was part of the French mandate for Syria. The contest over territory pitted Turkey and her irredentist claims against both the French colonial regime and the government of Syria that was engaging in its own efforts to construct a political community that conformed to European notions of nationalism. The League of Nations was called in to broker an agreement between the contending parties that would be consistent with the spirit of the ideology of self-determination. But self-determination was predicated on the existence of a dominant collective self, and efforts to implement the League’s solution led to violence as Turkish and Syrian activists struggled against each other to demonstrate the predominance of their own group. In the end, however, self-determination gave way to the needs of outside powers as Europe’s crisis of democracy deepened during the late 1930s. The struggle over the Sanjak reverberated far beyond the chambers of the League of Nations, encouraging the irredentist and revisionist movements that threatened the stability of post World War I Europe, forcing France to reconsider her commitments in the eastern Mediterranean, and introducing new kinds of identity politics into the Middle East.