Content note: Heroizing biography of the French High Commissioner printed in a Damascus daily three months after the French conquest of the city. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Guest of Damascus: General Gouraud (Al-Muqtabas front page, 25 October 1920)
Front page of the Damascus daily Al-Muqtabas, three months after the French army took the city, carrying a column-length biography headed 'Guest of Damascus: General Gouraud'. It opens by stating that it adds no word of praise, then calls him 'hero' and 'great hero of France' and says the fatherland stands 'above everything' for the Frenchman: virtue words attached to the High Commissioner, with no named byline and no counter-view on the page.
- Date
- October 25, 1920
- Period
- Interwar
- Made by
- Al-Muqtabas (daily newspaper), Damascus; proprietor named in masthead as Muhammad Kurd Ali
- Country
- Mandatory Syria
- Medium
- Newspaper pages
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- French Mandate Syria
- Leader
- Henri Gouraud
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Techniques
- Glittering generalities
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Internet Archive (Al-Muqtabas 1920 daily issues), retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published in Damascus 1920, before 1931; no rights statement on host page)
Al-Muqtabas, Damascus, 25 October 1920, page 1; scan hosted on the Internet Archive, item AlMuqtabas1920SyriaArabic
Text on the object
دمشق الاثنين ١٢ صفر ١٣٣٩ و ٢٥ تشرين الاول سنة ١٩٢٠ — السنة الثانية عشرة — العدد ٢٩٨٩ المقتبس (Al-Moktabas) جريدة يومية سياسية اقتصادية اجتماعية ضيف دمشق الجنرال غورو ننشر هنا خلاصة ترجمة الجنرال غورو بطل شمبانيا بالأمس ومندوب الحكومة الافرنسية في سوريا وكيليكيا وضيف دمشق اليوم مقتصرين على ذكر ما تقلب على حياة الجنرال من مختلف الصفحات من غير أن ندخلها كلمة مدح أو إطراء إذ أن أعمال الرجال هي معيار عظمتهم وميزان قيمتهم الحقيقية [...] وبالجملة فتاريخ حياة هذا البطل مملوء بالوقائع والحوادث الجسام [...] لا يحيى الا من كثر فيه أمثال هذا القائد من الذين يستهينون بالموت ويفادون بكل شيء لأجل وطنهم والوطن في نظر الافرنسي فوق كل شيء وإن دمشق اليوم تحيي في شخص الجنرال غورو بطل فرنسا العظيم ومندوب الحكومة الافرنسية في [سوريا ...] [illegible]
Damascus, Monday 12 Safar 1339 and 25 October (Tishrin al-Awwal) 1920 — twelfth year — No. 2989 Al-Muqtabas (Al-Moktabas), a daily political, economic and social newspaper Guest of Damascus General Gouraud We publish here a summary of the biography of General Gouraud, yesterday's hero of Champagne and delegate of the French government in Syria and Cilicia, and today's guest of Damascus, confining ourselves to mentioning what the General's life has gone through, from its various pages, without introducing into them a word of praise or flattery, since the deeds of men are the measure of their greatness and the true scale of their worth. [...] In sum, the history of this hero's life is full of great battles and events [...] a nation lives only where there are many like this commander, who make light of death and sacrifice everything for their country, and the country, in the Frenchman's eyes, is above everything. And Damascus today greets in the person of General Gouraud the great hero of France and delegate of the French government in [Syria ...] [illegible]
Masthead, headline, standfirst and closing paragraphs read from a 200 dpi render of the first page; the middle of the biography and the last lines of the final paragraph are not transcribed ([...]). Low-quality scan: uncertain words are elided, nothing is supplied from memory. Translation is machine-made by Claude, not checked by a fluent reader.
