LITMIR.BIZ

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      This lack of determination to defend the “Maronite cause” among the Christians of the north was aggravated by the absence of any generally recognized leadership and total disorganization. The Christian troops consisting, as in 1841 and 1845, of small bands organized along parochial lines by village, family groups, or region balked at any sort of coordination of their efforts around some basic strategy. During one of their first assaults they were even reported to have shot at each other. As for the traditional political and military leaders of the community—the Emirs, shaykhs, and muqata'jis, many of whom had already been expelled from the Mountain by their peasants—they remained mostly aloof, secretly hoping for a Druze victory, which in their eyes represented the triumph of the old order of things.⁹ The clergy tried as hard as it could to organize and unify the efforts of their flock. But, the Church was apparently overwhelmed by the disunity and anarchy prevailing in the Christian camp, and soon after the first military reverses it tried as hard as it could to seek peace.¹⁰

      Nor were the Christians in the heat of battle more united. The Maronites of Dayr-al-Qamar, who had been the most vociferous in denouncing the intolerable tyranny of Druze dominance, “found themselves perplexed and utterly at variance with each other on how to act . . . when . . . the storm suddenly gathered round them. . . . Thus, even in the extremity of their distress, the Christians were wavering and divided.”¹¹

      Hence, in 1860 as in 1841 and 1845, it was in great part the divisions of the Maronites and their conflicting interests, their lack of solidarity and concern for an alleged Maronite cause that accounted for their military defeat. This time, though, their military rout was decisive and their presence almost obliterated from the mixed districts. The hope of the Christians of these regions, vainly encouraged by their northern brethren and the clergy, to abolish Druze dominance had totally miscarried, and the project of the Church to establish Christian ascendancy over the whole Mountain had seemingly received a deadly blow. The disunity of the Maronites once more demonstrated the discrepancy between the ambitious plans of the clergy and concrete realities. Expressing this general conclusion, the French consul in Beirut, Bentivoglio, wrote on July 15: “The time to dream of unattainable independence has passed. The Christians have suffered a major setback and have to start over. But it is to be hoped that they will be wiser in the future and that they will not be forced to wage pointless, ruinous wars.”¹²

      Paradoxically, however, it was to their devastating defeat and the consequent general Western outrage aroused by the massacres perpetrated by the Druzes that the Maronites owed their rescue. Once more, Maronite military reverses were turned into qualified political victory by Western, and especially French, intervention.

      

      THE INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

      News of events in Lebanon began to reach Europe in the first days of July 1860, arousing the indignation of the Western public, the press, and official circles. The French government, which acted as the motor for European intervention during the whole crisis, quickly took the initiative. On July 6, the French minister for foreign affairs, Edouard Thouvenel, suggested setting up a European commission that would meet to reexamine and eventually revise the 1842–45 arrangements for Mount Lebanon and adopt measures guaranteeing against the recurrence of hostilities.¹³ This first limited proposal of Thouvenel was, however, quickly overshadowed by a much bolder one following reports of massacres in Damascus, which occurred shortly thereafter, between July 9 and 12.

      The Damascus massacres altered the scale and significance to the whole crisis. Matters were no longer confined to a small portion of the Ottoman Empire, where the trials of two warring factions had formerly warranted the intervention of the European powers and the formulation of a special kind of administration. This time the tranquil and unarmed Christian population of one of the main towns of the Ottoman Empire had been slain without warning. The European reaction, public opinion and official circles alike, was at first indignant. Doubts were raised about the ability of the Ottoman authorities to govern these provinces, and indeed about the viability of the whole Ottoman Empire. The awakening of Muslim fanaticism was loudly denounced and its consequences feared.

      The French minister again took the initiative, proposing the dispatch of a joint European military force to protect the Christian presence, contain the perceived Muslim fever, and restore order. With a deep sense of urgency and a hint of panic, he wrote to the other European courts: “At this time, do we know whether the carnage . . . will extend farther and whether Christian blood may be flowing in Aleppo, Diarbekir, Jerusalem, everywhere, in a word, where populations are confronted by fanaticism, stirred up by what has happened in Damascus and in Lebanon?”¹⁴

      In such an inflamed atmosphere, Thouvenel was able to gain consent for his two proposals, albeit with serious misgivings by some, from the five European powers and the Porte for the establishment of a European Commission entrusted with the task of investigating the causes of the latest events and proposing measures guaranteeing against their recurrence, as well as for the dispatch of a French force to Syria to help the Ottoman authorities restore order and security. A convention for the deployment of a French force for a limited duration of six months was signed in Paris on August 3, and some 6,000 French soldiers left France for Syria.¹⁵ The Porte gave its consent to the convening of the commission on the condition that its deliberations be confined to revisions of the status of the Mountain. At the same time, the Ottoman government dispatched Fuad Pasha, minister for foreign affairs, as special envoy to Syria with full powers to adopt any measure he deemed fit in order to restore order and peace in the hope that such measures would undercut European intervention. He would fulfill this task impeccably.

      The Damascus massacres had an equally critical effect on a more conceptual level. They altered and blurred the general perception of the events of 1860 in Mount Lebanon. The specific causes and origins of the latter became identified with those of Damascus and were solely attributed to an outburst of Muslim fanaticism aiming at eradicating the Christian presence in the region. In other words, the Damascus massacres obscured the specific political and socioeconomic factors of the outbreak of hostilities in Lebanon and vindicated the view attributing them exclusively to the baleful designs of an inflamed Muslim fanaticism. In simple terms, this view translated, in the case of Lebanon, into an Ottoman–Druze conspiracy to slay the innocent Maronites in the Mountain. Many French circles and publicists adopted this interpretation of events, conjecturing about the main intricacies and instigators of this baleful Muslim plot.¹⁶

      These perceptions of the nature of the Syrian—Lebanese events altered accordingly the formulation of a solution for Lebanon. The ill-defined privileges of the Mountain, which some European powers, and especially France, had striven to defend in the early 1840s as a safeguard to the Lebanese or as an acquired right warranted by alleged historical antecedents,¹⁷ were now vindicated by new factors requiring more radical solutions. These alleged privileges were presented by many in Europe, and especially in France, as an essential guarantee against the failures of the Ottoman administration and a necessary protection for the Christians of this region against the perceived fanatical Muslim population. Their confirmation was not only solicited, but claims for their extension formulated, often reaching fantastic dimensions, such as the establishment of a Christian kingdom governed by a European prince.¹⁸ Naturally, the question arose as to why the Christians of Mount Lebanon alone should benefit from these guarantees and privileges, since the same causes and origins were attributed to the Damascus massacres. But for considerations soon to be examined, the solutions devised under the specter of these latter massacres were adopted only for Mount Lebanon. Thus, the Lebanese alone ultimately reaped the fruits of the horror provoked by the Damascene Vespers.

      Yet, it is important when dealing with contemporary perceptions of the Lebanese and Syrian crisis to distinguish among the differing approaches and conclusions drawn in Europe by unofficial circles and by governments. If, very often, officials shared the general public outrage and its dismal views with regard to the ability of the Ottoman government to regenerate the Empire, their official stances were much more reserved and cautious. Edified by their former experience, and cognizant of the complexity of the issue, they realized that no simple solution existed to the Ottoman predicament. The essence of the problem lay in the fact that the fate of the Syrian provinces was closely

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