Henri Gouraud, born November 17, 1867 in Paris and died September 16, 1946 in the same city, is a French soldier.

General of the army, he participated in the colonization of French Sudan (present-day Mali), Mauritania, Chad and the Moroccan protectorate, then, during the Great War, in Argonne, the Dardanelles and Champagne.

High Commissioner of the French Republic to the Levant from 1919 to 19223 and military governor of Paris from 1923 to 1937, he was an active colonizer who followed in the wake of Gallieni and Lyautey. He is better known for his functions as High Commissioner of France to the Levant and Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Levant, in Syria and Lebanon, than for his twenty years spent in Africa.
Biography
Training

Born in the 7th arrondissement of Paris4,5, Henri Joseph Eugène Gouraud studied at Stanislas College where he received an education marked by faith. He quickly found a colonial vocation.

He passed the entrance exam to Saint-Cyr in 1888, with the promotion of “Grand Triomphe”. When he leaves school, Gouraud hopes to go overseas; but his father opposed it and Henri Gouraud was first assigned to the 21st battalion of foot hunters in Montbéliard.
In Africa
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Supported in his project by his mother, Henri Gouraud left for Sudan in 1894. He proves to be an effective but above all lucky war leader. In 1898, under the orders of General Trentinian, he managed, with difficulty, to get his hands on Samory Touré, a Mandingo chief and slave trafficker who had opposed the French for more than a decade. He had managed to conquer an empire south of the Niger River and had numerous armed forces. The arrest of September 1898 made Henri Gouraud a celebrity at the very moment when France had to cleanse the affront of Fashoda. The young captain is then invited to all-colonial Paris where he meets people involved or interested in the colonization of Africa, Auguste d'Arenberg and Eugène Étienne, future founders of the "colonial party". Thanks to the active support of the colonial party and its leader Eugène Étienne, Henri Gouraud had a successful career, traveling across Africa for another fifteen years (Niger, Chad, Mauritania).
Henri Gouraud, colonel commanding the 1st colonial marching infantry regiment, embarked for Morocco from Marseille on April 28, 1911.

In 1907, he was promoted to colonel and commissioner of the General Government in Mauritania, and led, on his initiative, a major campaign against warriors who launched raids. Through its Mauritania campaign, it at least partially ensures the security of transport between Morocco and Mauritania. He thus participated in the great French colonial project of establishing a vast French empire in West Africa.
Lyautey's right arm in Morocco
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After following courses at the Center for Advanced Military Studies, Colonel Gouraud left for Morocco in 1911. In Casablanca, on May 13, 1912, Henri Gouraud welcomed Hubert Lyautey, coordinator of French colonization in Morocco, who took him into his service. Both participated in the defense of Fez against the tribes who besieged the city. At this time, the authority of Sultan Moulay Hafid was weakened by various separatist revolts which challenged both his power and the growing presence of France in the country. On May 28 and 29, 1912, Gouraud was entrusted by Lyautey with five battalions, two squadrons and an artillery battery to neutralize the tribes surrounding the city6. This operation is a success. Lyautey exploited the Sultan's weak situation to obtain both the signing of the Treaty of Fez, which formalized the French protectorate over Morocco, and then his abdication in favor of his half-brother, deemed more easily controllable6.

He led victorious battles which earned him the stars of brigadier general. He was appointed in 1914 to command the troops in Western Morocco. At the beginning of May 1914, Lyautey decided to neutralize the pocket of resistance of the tribes of Taza7 and placed Gouraud at the head of a body of three columns which must cross the territory of Tsouls to reach the rebels of Taza. The fighting was difficult, but Gouraud finally joined General Baumgarten's column at Bab-el-Hamama on May 17, completing the pacification of Morocco7.
World War I

In 1914, war broke out in France and he was at the head of the 4th Moroccan brigade sent as reinforcements to the French front. He was appointed major general and received command of the 10th Infantry Division on September 15. In 1915, General Gouraud was appointed to command the Colonial Army Corps. He notably led battles in the Argonne forest, and was wounded by a bullet there on January 7, 1915, while going to a front position, where French soldiers had just repulsed a German attack, but were still under machine gun fire8. A few months later, he was appointed to command the French Expeditionary Force in the Dardanelles.
Officers and non-commissioned officers must oppose by force any withdrawal movement.
Related article: Battle of the Dardanelles.
In the Dardanelles.

At the end of June, he was seriously injured by a shell. On the hospital ship which brought him back to France, gangrene broke out; his right arm had to be amputated. Poincaré decorated him with the military medal on his hospital bed.
In 1920 in Lebanon with the Grand Mufti of Beyrout, Cheik Moustafa Naja, and the Maronite Patriarch Elias Pierre Hoayek.

Gouraud recovered quickly. At the end of 1915, he was appointed to command the Fourth Army in Champagne. In 1916, his brother Pierre Gouraud died on the field of honor.

On December 11, 1916, Aristide Briand, President of the Council, proposed by telegram to Hubert Lyautey the portfolio of Minister of War. The question arises of finding a replacement at the General Residence capable of maintaining order in Morocco. Gouraud is proposed by Briand, which Lyautey accepts by telegram9. He writes:

    “Gouraud is fully capable of handling the situation and I will hand over command to him with complete confidence. However, there would be a major interest in mitigating the unknown of the situation and ensuring the transition, for the designation of my successor to be provisional, at least initially so that I remain in the eyes of the Sultan and the population, the guarantor of the policy followed until now"9.

Gouraud was still on the front at this time and refused to leave the theater of operations. It was Briand who managed to persuade him, through an interview, of the need to take the post of general resident. He returned to Morocco for a few months (from December 1916 to March 1917) to replace Lyautey. Contrary to what Lyautey had wished, Gouraud's appointment is final, which undermines Lyautey's strategy aimed at making the French presence in Morocco acceptable and not very burdensome9.

Gouraud finally returned in June 1917 to command the Fourth Army. Until November 11, 1918, the date of the armistice, he launched his men into fierce battles such as the Battle of the Champagne Mountains in 1917 and the victorious counter-offensive of July 15, 1918. His mother died a few days later.

He was chosen from among the victorious soldiers to make a triumphant entry into Strasbourg in November 1918. The following month, in December, General Pétain awarded him the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. On December 5, he decorated Emir Faisal as grand officer of the Legion of Honor for the support that the Hashemites and their allies gave to the Entente on the Eastern Front10.
In the Middle East
Related article: French mandate on Syria and Lebanon.
French mandate in Syria and Lebanon

General Gouraud is sent by Georges Clemenceau as high commissioner of France to the Levant and commander-in-chief of the army of the Levant. He arrived in Beirut in November 1919, when France obtained the evacuation of British troops from the blue zone of the Sykes-Picot agreements (Western Zone), which had occupied the Middle East since the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the fall of 191811. The replacement of the British by French soldiers followed France's acceptance of the British mandate over Palestine (while the Sykes-Picot agreements had provided for Palestine as an international zone); this replacement also follows the compromise negotiated by Clemenceau and Lloyd concerning the thorny question of oil in the Mosul region11.

However, H. Gouraud's mission is not entirely clear: between 1918 and 1920, France hesitated between its traditional "great Arab policy", which would have as its object the establishment of a great autonomous Syria under French influence with Emir Faisal at its head, and its "small Arab policy", centered on relations with the Maronites, historically very Francophile12. From this second perspective, favored by Henri Gouraud, the Middle East was to be made up of a mosaic of small States divided according to confessional criteria, which implied encouraging religious particularism (Lebanon, State of the Alawites, State of the Druze, etc.). Robert de Caix de Saint-Aymour summarizes this project as follows, emphasizing the policy of fragmentation: “Thus organized, Syria should for a certain number of years at least be like a stained glass window with French lead”13.
Official version of Gouraud's speech upon his arrival in Beirut. Courneuve Archives (Gouraud Fund, 399 PAAP/151).
Continuation and end of the speech.

On November 21, 1919, during his landing in Beirut, Gouraud gave a speech highlighting the historical links uniting France and Syria, through reference to the Crusades and then the Capitulations, but also underlined that the French were the “sons of the Revolution” and intended to guarantee equal treatment between the different religions14.

A month after his arrival, he received a message from representatives of the Alawite community outlining a rapprochement with the French authorities. 76 notables from the Alawite mountain sent a telegram requesting from the general the formation of an “autonomous Alawite union under French protection”15. However, this element should not give the impression that the Alawites would be insensitive to Faisal's unitary vision of Arab nationalism, because in the summer of 1919 an open revolt against the French authorities began in the Alawite mountains, led by Sheikh Salih el-Ali al-Alawi15, which did not end until 1921, when Gouraud decreed a general amnesty for the rebels.
Crushing of the Arab Kingdom of Damascus

On March 31, 1920, in accordance with the San Remo agreements, granting France a League of Nations mandate over Syria, Gouraud signed a decree establishing a Bank of Syria, and a currency, the “Syrian pound”. Acceptance of this currency is obligatory in the “blue zone” (West Zone)16. The decree is made up of nine articles, the sixth of which provides for a maximum penalty of six months' imprisonment and a fine of 1,000 Syrian pounds in the event of maneuver having "the aim or effect of depreciating or attempting to depreciate the value" of this currency16.

On September 1, General Gouraud proclaimed the creation of the State of Greater Lebanon, annexing Mount Lebanon and the coastal towns in accordance with the wishes expressed by the Maronites. At the end of 1920, after the battle of Khan Meyssaloun, which put an end to the Arab kingdom of Damascus dreamed of by Faisal, the situation actually deteriorated, with the struggle of Arab nationalists led by Emir Abdallah, son of Sharif Hussein and brother of Emir Faisal. But the Hashemites do not completely represent all Arabs in Syria. Other internal oppositions – such as that between the cities of Damascus and Aleppo – must be taken into account in the establishment of the mandate.

Alain Tami relates an apocryphal anecdote according to which, in July 1920, the first symbolic gesture of Henri Gouraud, as High Commissioner of the Republic in Syria, was, when he entered Damascus, to visit the tomb of Saladin (alā al-dīn al-Ayyūbī) before which he declared: “Wake up, Saladin, we are back. My presence here consecrates the victory of the cross over the crescent. »17. This sentence was reported in 1926 by Pierre La Mazière18.
Assassination attempt
Main article: Adham Khanjar.

On June 23, 1921, Gouraud fell into an ambush on the road between Damascus and Kuneitra19 organized in particular by a Lebanese favorable to an Arab kingdom under Hashemite aegis, Adham Khanjar. Gouraud's translator was killed by a bullet in the head, but the general escaped unscathed, as did Georges Catroux and Hakki Bey Al-Azm, the governor of Damascus, who accompanied him. Three bullets pierced his empty sleeve (Gouraud has been one-armed since the Battle of the Dardannelles)19. The attackers were put to flight by General Mariano Goybet and Consul General Carlier, deputy secretary general of the French high commission in Syria and Lebanon, themselves attacked and who followed in a second car.

Catroux opened an investigation, which quickly identified a Syrian leader, Ahmed Muraywid20, close to the Emir of Transjordan Abdallah. Ahmed Muraywid is said to have announced Gouraud's death before fleeing to Transjordan (then under British mandate) when the rumor of the failure of the attack had spread. The investigation ended up going back to Abdallah and Ibrahim Hanano, Syrian nationalist founder of the national bloc hostile to the French presence, who had taken refuge in the English mandate zone. Gouraud turned to the side of the British to punish the guilty, but only obtained vague promises from them. Relations between the English and the French in the East then deteriorated further, while the French high commission now viewed the entire Hashemite family, including Faisal, with great suspicion.

However, in 1922 he set up a Syrian Federation, at the head of which he placed Soubhi bey Barakat. Coming from a large family of notables from Antioch, this former military official close to Faisal was the enemy of the French at the time of the capture of Damascus. Pardoned by Gouraud, he was elected president of the Federation in 1923.

Beyond these political adventures, the Syrian years of Henri Gouraud contributed to the economic development of the interior of Syria: tourism, in particular archaeological tourism and trade were thought of as development tools by the Lenail commission which came in 1922 to study the potential of the country21. Gouraud wishes to rely on the economic development of the country to prevent the tensions he senses coming, in particular with the Druze. Once Paris refused to finance the mandatory policy proposed by the high commission, Gouraud, believing that he was not being given the necessary means, resigned and returned to France.
Action in favor of French archeology in the Middle East

Upon his arrival in Beirut, he showed great interest in French archaeological action in the East and supported the project to create a Syrian Antiquities Service, attached to the mandatory administration. For him, continuing the work of rediscovery of antiquities is part of a historical perspective of French action abroad. He declares in the preface to the work Archaeological work in Syria from 1920 to 1922:

    "It is a French tradition which is maintained; when the presence on the Euphrates of the French colony allows Mr. Cumont to note these admirable paintings of Salihiyé, when the French Institute of Archeology and Muslim Arts is created in Damascus, we are only following the example of the French soldiers of the 1860 expedition to whom Renan paid homage and that of General Bonaparte in Cairo"22.

Gouraud charged Joseph Chamonard with organizing the Syrian Antiquities Service at the beginning of 1920, which would be supported in its task by the "Permanent Archaeological Mission" in 1921. He submitted to the Advisory Commission for Excavations in Western Asia (attached to the Ministry of Education) a series of texts and decrees in order to modernize and rationalize the legal framework for archaeological activity23, replacing the old Ottoman legislation, which had fallen into disuse due to the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire.
General Gouraud with the 4th French Army in Strasbourg on 11/22/1918.
Return to Paris

He returned to Paris permanently in 1923. Appointed member of the Superior War Council, he became a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres of Paris. During a trip in 1923 to the United States, he learned of his appointment to the post of military governor of Paris, a position which now placed him in eminently representative and diplomatic functions. The President of the United States having died, he represented the Government of the Republic at his funeral as ambassador extraordinary. After inaugurating the crypt and the commemorative plaques of the Monument to the Fallen of the Armies of Champagne in Navarin in September 1925, he was concerned with supporting the action of the Association du Souvenir aux Morts des Armées de Champagne. As soon as the association was created, he requested and obtained approval from the Ministry of War for the Foundation of the Monument to the Fallen of the Armies of Champagne and Ossuary of Navarin and its recognition as an association of public utility (May 1933). In June 1933, he granted his patronage to the exhibition Visions féériques d'Orient by the orientalist architect Alexandre Raymond. Always ready to preside over a ceremony, the incarnation of the veteran due to his empty right sleeve, the people of Paris show him true veneration. He then made numerous trips: Poland in 1925, India and the United States in 1929, Turkey in 1930, French West Africa in 1933.
End of life
His grave on the Navarin farm.
Monument to Henri Gouraud, square d'Ajaccio (Paris).

In 1937, at the age of 70, he left the military government of Paris. He left Paris for Royat and returned in May 1945. He died there (in the district where he was born4) on September 16, 1946, a few months after the end of the French mandate in Syria.

The government paid him a final tribute with a national funeral on September 26, 1946 in front of the Navarin monument. In accordance with his last wishes, General Gouraud is buried in the crypt of the Monument-Ossuary of the Navarin farm between the villages of Souain-Perthes-les-Hurlus and Sommepy-Tahure, "among the soldiers he loved so much", his cap and his watch are stored at Fort de la Pompelle, key to the defense of Reims.
Honors
French decorations

    Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor (decree of December 28, 1918)
        Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor (decree of August 10, 1914)
        Commander of the Legion of Honor Commander of the Legion of Honor (decree of July 11, 1909)
        Officer of the Legion of Honor Officer of the Legion of Honor (decree of May 31, 1904)
        Knight of the Legion of Honor Knight of the Legion of Honor (decree of October 18, 1898)
    Military medal Military medal (July 10, 1915)
    War Cross 1914-1918 War Cross 1914-1918 (4 palms)
    Public Education Officer Public Education Officer
        Knight of public education (1905)
    Colonial medal Colonial medal (Senegal and Sudan, Morocco, Mauritania and Adrar clip)
    Inter-Allied Victory Medal Inter-Allied Medal 1914-1918
    Commemorative Medal of Morocco;
    Commemorative medal of the Great War Commemorative medal of the war 1914-1918

Foreign decorations

    Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Flag of the Kingdom of Italy Kingdom of Italy)
    Commander of the Order of Nichan el Anouar (Flag of France France / Flag of Djibouti Djibouti)
    Commander of the Order of the Black Star (May 17, 1900) (Flag of France France / Flag of Benin Benin)
    Commander of Nichan Iftikhar (Flag of France France / Flag of Tunisia Tunisia)
    Army Distinguished Service Medal (United States Flag)
    Silver Cross of the Oedre de la Virtuti Militari (1921)24 (Flag of Poland Poland)
    Order of the White Lion (Flag of Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia)
    Imperial and Military Order of St. George (Flag of the Russian Empire Russian Empire)

Tributes

    Paris has a Place du Général-Gouraud in the 7th arrondissement.
    At the Salon des Artistes français in 1927, the sculptor Émile Guillaume exhibited a bronze bust of General Gouraud, military governor of Paris (n° 3224)25. It is a stone copy of this bust which is located in Paris, square d'Ajaccio. Built at the request of the general's family, it was inaugurated on April 19, 1989 by Mr. Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris26.
    Lyon has a rue Général-Gouraud in the 8th arrondissement.
    Neuilly-sur-Seine gave the old Place du Château the name of Place du Général-Gouraud by a deliberation of the municipal council of November 28, 1946.
    Strasbourg has a rue Général-Gouraud near the Parc des Contades.
    Toulon has an Avenue Général Gouraud
    In the 1930s, while the general was still alive, the Corniche du Collège Stanislas took his name for