Many histories of the post-WW1 period in the Levant have presented the imposition of borders as a moment of rupture in which the inhabitants of the region were suddenly forced to reconfigure their politics and their movements. This paper builds on recent scholarship that argues that this early post-war period is sometimes better understood through the lens of Ottoman continuities than through the lens of new nationalisms (Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Iraqi, Turkish). It will show that the Franklin-Bouillon line between Republican Turkey and French Mandate Syria meant little or nothing to some Arab Ottoman officers, who had been disbanded from the Ottoman army in 1918. Focusing on the experiences of Fawzi al-Qawuqji (but also drawing on other examples) the paper will examine how al-Qawuqji was accustomed to moving across the region mainly through his participation in the Ottoman military system: going from home in Tripoli to school in Damascus and then to the military academy in Istanbul; being posted to Mosul to encourage reluctant tribes to pay their taxes; being mobilized in war to defend Gaza against British advances. It will show how old links between Ottoman cities and towns, not new lines on colonial maps, marked his geographical and political worldview in this early post-war period. He (and others like him) continued to look north to Istanbul for guidance and relied on old Ottoman army networks and friendships for help in their political and military actions against colonial occupation. Some ex-Ottoman Arab officers fought with the Kemalists against foreign occupiers of Anatolia (1920-1923), others--like Fawzi al-Qawuqji--tried to procure support from Anatolia for the Arab Revolt against the French in Hama and al-Ghouta (1925-1927), traveling from Aleppo to Ayntab or Hama to Istanbul in much the same way that he had during WW1 and before. In addition to soldier's memoirs, the paper will draw on letters, diaries, and reports from private collections and the Center for Historical Documents in Damascus.