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recognition for his military prowess, Emir Faisal made Atrash a Pasha , an honorific denoting high military rank. But Atrash clashed with Lawrence and Tayi and was sent home to the Jabal Druze area, what is the Golan today. The Druze are an ethnic group that practice their own form of Islam that dates back to the tenth century. They lived in isolated, mountainous regions of what is now Lebanon and Syria's Golan. They earned a justified reputation as fierce fighters.
    The 1925 revolt started in Druze villages but quickly spread to all parts of the country. It ultimately included at least some fighters from all of Syria's religious and ethnic groups, reflecting a nascent Syrian nationalism. The uprising bears a striking political similarity to the early days of the 2011 Arab Spring when young people rebelled against the established regime and defied their elders. In both cases, the country's economic elite sided with the governing authorities. And the government tried to divide the insurgents while brutally suppressing them with the most modern weapons available.
    The 1925 anticolonial rebellion began when the Druze in one village held a demonstration that led to an exchange of gunfire withFrench authorities. Atrash, leading a group of armed men on horseback, forced the French gendarmes to retreat.
    Atrash soon issued a statement demanding an end of colonial rule and “to liberate the homeland from the foreigner.” 19 At the time, France had only seven thousand troops in Syria, so rebels met little initial resistance. They seized a series of towns and villages by riding into the central square, calling for the end of French rule and recruiting followers on the spot.
    On July 22, Bedouin and Druze rebels attacked a French military camp in Suwayda and wiped it out in a thirty-minute battle. Almost no French troops survived.
    The rebels sought support in the big cities as well. They distributed leaflets in Damascus with the headline, “To Arms Syrians!” It began, “At last the day has come when we can reap the harvest of our struggle for liberty and independence…Let us seek death so that we win life.” 20
    Sultan al-Atrash sought support among all religious and ethnic groups, saying they were all sons of the Arab nation. He sent letters to Christian and Muslim villages, calling for solidarity against the French. The revolt also got support from leftists in France. The Communist Party mailed prorebellion letters to thousands of Syrians and Lebanese using the French postal system.
    While the rebels’ nationalism was pragmatic, it lacked ideological consistency. As historian Michael Provence wrote in The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism , “They focused on expelling the French from Syria and sometimes mixed in popular Islamic religion, anti-Christian agitation and…class warfare against urban landlords and notables.” 21
    The French government claimed the revolt was led by Druze feudal chiefs trying to reinforce reactionary customs. The French, by contrast, were bringing progress through modern infrastructure and French education. They denounced the rebels as backward and anti-Christian.
    In fact, the rebels had support far beyond the Druze community. But the revolt became complicated because many Christians did side with the French and were therefore attacked by the rebels. Some Syrians also saw the revolt as benefiting only Druze because they would have adisproportionate share of power. The ruling authorities played Sunni, Shia, Alawite, and Christian against one another to maintain power. And the fragmented rebels lacked a common plan for the future beyond eliminating French rule.
    Interestingly enough, some of the same cities that strongly backed rebels in 1925 did so again in 2011. Maydan, a southern suburb of Damascus, was a hotbed of rebellion in both uprisings. Hama was a conservative, deeply religious city in 1925 when it backed the rebels and strongly