When is Evacuation Day?
Evacuation Day is a public holiday in the Syrian Arab Republic on April 17th each year.
This is Syria's National Day and commemorates the evacuation of the last French soldier from Syria on this day in 1946.
History of Evacuation Day
Syria had been part of the Ottoman Empire at the start of the 16th century.
During the first world war, the Ottoman Empire entered the conflict on the side of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Defeat for the Ottomans meant that their territories in the middle east were claimed by France and Great Britain.
The now-infamous, but at the time, secret pact of 1916, the Sykes-Picot Agreement split the region between the two European powers, with what is now Syria coming under French control.
After the second world war, Syrian nationalists forced the French out of the country and on April 17th 1946, the last French soldiers left Syria, ending the French mandate and the independence of Syria was proclaimed.
