Video of French military horse-buying mission to Syria in the 1930s-40s

Someone recently posted on social media one the nicest historical videos of desert Arabian horses I have ever seen on the internet. The video feature, among other scenes, a French horse-buying mission to Syria in the 1930s-40s:

My attempts to locate the location of the filming yielded the following: The section of the video with the water wheel looks like it was filmed on the Orontes river near the city of Hama in Central Syria. The cows with the olive grove background are typical of the costal mountain of Western Syria. The soil in the section with the Bedouin and the pretty grey mare looks like it could be the steppe area between Homs and Palmyra, while the brick houses in the section with the stallions are typical of the alluvial Euphrates valley towards Raqqa and Der el Zor.

من اروع المقاطع المصورة عن خيل البدو في سوريا

لربما تم تصوير مقطع نواعير الماء على ضفاف نهر العاصي بالقرب من مدينة حماة في وسط سوريا. أما الأبقار في بساتين الزيتون فلعل جرى تصويرها في المنطقة الجبلية الساحلية غرب سوريا. أما الأرض الصخرية في المقطع الذي يظهر فيه البدوي صاحب الفرس الزرقاء فهي تشبه أرض البادية بين حمص وتدمر، بينما بيوت الطوب في المقطع الذي يظهر فيه الفحول هي نموذجية لمنطقة وادي الفرات نحو الرقة ودير الزور

3 Replies to “Video of French military horse-buying mission to Syria in the 1930s-40s”

  1. On a post in Arabic of this same video, someone transferred several video links. According to him, this is not a buying mission, but a health mission, with a massive vaccination of sheep in 1936 in the same region.

    It’s worth taking a look.

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