Beirut 1920: The Secret Map That Created Greater Lebanon

In 1920, French General Henri Gouraud stood on a hill near Beirut and proclaimed the birth of Greater Lebanon. But the borders he announced weren't drawn on the spot — they were the result of a secret map drawn months earlier by a Maronite priest and a French intelligence officer. This episode follows the hidden negotiations, the competing visions of Lebanon, and the decision that merged Mount Lebanon with the Bekaa Valley, Tripoli, Sidon, Tyre, and Beirut itself. We meet Patriarch Elias al-Huwayyik, who argued Lebanon needed its ancient coastal and agricultural lands to survive, and Salim Ali Salam, a Sunni leader who warned the new state would fracture along sectarian lines. We explore why the French ignored the 1919 King-Crane Commission, how the Sykes-Picot Agreement's shadow loomed over the conference room, and why the borders drawn that day still fuel conflict a century later. This is the story of how a country was born on paper before it existed on the ground.

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