French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon that local leaders had could easily be overruled by French officials. The French did everything in their power to prevent people in the Levant from developing self-sufficient governing bodies. In 1930, France extended their constitution on to Syria. On August 3, 1920, 299 of the "Haut-commissariat de la République française en Syrie et au Liban" linked the cazas of Hasbaya, Rachaya, Maallaka and Baalbeck to what was then known as the Autonomous Territory of Lebanon. Then on 31 August 1920, General Gouraud signed Arrêté 318 delimiting the State of Greater Lebanon, with explanatory notes stating that Lebanon would be treated
Lebanon–Syria relations Damascus, and Fuad Pasha stated that the instigators of the massacres would be punished, European representatives met in 1861 in Damascus to design a government of Mount Lebanon that would protect Christian minority groups. Europeans agreed on a system (“mutasarrifiyyah”) where a Christian Ottoman subject from outside Lebanon would rule over Mount Lebanon. This led to further isolation of the Mount Lebanon region from Greater Syria and wider Ottoman rule. Peace remained until 1914 when the mutasarrifiyyah was disbanded; during that time of peace though, sectarian tensions remained because the mutasarrifiyyah served as a reminder of the religious divisions. These