ABSTRACT
Most of the national movements that arose from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire entered the world of international politics without benefit of public relations. The support of European powers was something to be gotten through contacts with their official emissaries, and confirmed, if possible, in secret agreements. Eugene Jung was born in Bordeaux in 1863. The son of a noted general and parliamentary deputy, he enlisted in 1883, then joined the marine infantry as a junior officer and left for French Indochina in 1885. In France, few thought that the Arabs were capable of self-government. Shukri Ghanim, for his part, persistently questioned the ability of the Arabs to govern themselves without sliding into anarchy and bringing about European intervention. Most of the passages quoted here were excised from the newspaper by the wartime censor. While the French authorities permitted the publication of L'Orient arabe, the censor cut statements deemed prejudicial to the future status of Syria.
