My total collection of 5 stamps:
Information from Dead Countries:
http://www.dcstamps.com/?p=11Ile Rouad (today Arwad) is an island south of Latakia off the coast of Syria. It was the first point of French occupation on 1 Sept. 1915 by the French Navy cruiser Jeanne d'Arc. (Damascus was later taken on 1 Oct. 1918.) The administrator, General Trabot, had the consent of the inhabitants. Originally Arwad was occupied in order to materially support Maronite Christians who were being oppressed by the Turks, in Lebanon, and as an intelligence center. (There had been massacres of Christians in the Ottoman Empire in May 1915 and then there was a severe famine in Lebanon due to the war.) Occasionally the island was bombarded by the enemy. In 1920 the islet was attached to the Territory of the Alaouites, and is now part of Syria).
STAMPS – Scott Catalogue: Rouad, Ile #1-16
Early in 1916 a civilian post office opened in Arwad with stamps of French offices in Levant overprinted Île Rouad. The first overprint (5 April) was locally hand-stamped and a speculation of the stamp dealer Félix Cohen. The definitive overprints arrived around Nov. 1916. These were replaced in 1919 by the general issues for French-occupied Syria (T.E.O.).
Posted 09/20/2011 9:47 pm
