(lotneU aniuEtBltg ffiihrarg atliaea. Weui Jgnck SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND HENRY W. SAGE Lebanon in turmoil, I 3 1924 028 522 179 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028522179 YALE ORIENTAL SERIES RESEARCHES VOLUME VII YALE ORIENTAL SERIES • RESEARCHES • VOLUME VII THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL SYRIA AND THE POWERS IN 1860 BOOK OF THE MARVELS OF THE TIME CONCERNING THE MASSACRES IN. THE ARAB COUNTRY BY ISKANDER IBN YAQ'UB ABKARIUS TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED AND PROVIDED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND CONCLUSION BY J. F. SCHELTEMA, M.A., Ph.D. ... the good land that i Jordan, thai goodly mountain and Lebanon. — Deut. Hi. S5. NEW HAVEN YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON ■ HUMPHREY MILPORD ■ OXFORD UNIVERSITY 1 MDCCCCXX coptright, 1920, bt Yale Universitt Press FOREWORD. The Manuscript of which we offer a translation, is Itnown as Nr 759 of the Landberg Collection,' purchased in 1900 by Mr Morris K. Jesup of New York for presentation to Yale University. The pubhcation of our translation was delayed by difficulties that grew out of the war and even now we have to omit, much to our regret, not only the Arabic text but also all Arabic quotations in our com- mentary and notes, together with such remarks of grammatical, etymological and philological import on the author's vocabulary and peculiarities of style, as in the printing would require Arabic type. He reveals himself as a Christian by the name of Iskander, son of Ya'qub Abkariiis. That name indicates Armenian descent; in fact, we know of Armenian protestants who bore it with distinction. Iskander, a brother of .John Abkarius, praised by the Rev. H. H. .Jessup' as the finest specimen, of a refined Christian gentleman he had known in Syria, who "translated various works into Arabic and prepared an English-Arabic dictionary which is the standard work of that character for both Syria and Egypt," was himself a man of tetters of no mean repute.' Born at Bayrut, he spent in his early Ufe a few years in Europe and, returned to the place of his birth, became there vice-consul of the United States of America. Afterwards he entered the service of the Egyptian Government but came home to die, February, 1886, at the age of fifty-eight. In addi- tion to his attainments as an Arabic scholar, he was well ver.sed in English. While his introduction to his Book of the Marvels of the Time con- cerning the Massacres in the Arab Country points to his residence at ' The history and a description of this important collection from the pen of Professor C. C. Torrey, can be found in The Library Jourmd of February, 1903. * Fifty-three Years in Syria, p. 499. ^ His literary reputation rests chiefly on the following works, particulars about which, as about his life, we owe to Dr. F. J. BLISS: a collection of biographies of the Arab poets with selections from their writings, pubhshed in 1858; a condensed history of the ancient Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula, published in 1867; a biography of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, written in collaboration with Muhammad Makkawy; a biography of Firuz Shah; a collec- tion of poems; three collections of essays; a memorial of his wife, Rujina. (6) b THE LEBANON IN TUKMOIL. Bayrut during the disturbances he describes, he speaks elsewhere of occurrences in Damascus as one who wishes to make it understood that he played his neat Uttle part in them. But, after all, such hints may merely be the result of his unmistakable tendency to enter into the minutest particulars — so minute in many cases that the narrator at second hand seems to assume the air of an eye-witness. His impartiality is above suspicion, at any rate we cannot doubt his earnest endeavor to hold the balance of judgment evenly between Muhammadans and Druzes on the one hand and the many sects* of which Christianity in Syria is compounded, on the other. If he does not always succeed, who will refuse to make some allowance for sectarian prejudice occasionally getting the best of his honest discrim- ination when he casts the account of mutual hatred and brutal ferocity in that sect-ridden country? And who will smile at his imperfectly grasped western ideas, transmitted to him in vague figures of speech, strangely wedded to Arabic terseness and precision by this son of the land which, since the days of mythological heroes and sages, of fabulous master mariners and traders, has been a clearing-house for the com- mercial and intellectual commodities of three continents? We should honor him, on the contrary, for attempting that task in his zeal for public discussion of public affairs, stimulated, no doubt, by local tradition. If especially the translator has a fault to find, it regards rather the technical performance than the matter. Iskander Ibn Ya'qub Abkarius^s handwriting is in places hard to decipher, owing to the Uberties he takes with up-strokes and down-strokes; to the close resemblance that exists between his scrawls meant to denote widely different characters; to his arbitrary and varying methods of connecting letters even where no connection is called for; to his loose use of the few diacritical signs which he seemingly delights in strewing round at haphazard; to his contempt for a right marking of case-endings if he marks them at all. Furthermore we meet often a plural where we might expect a singular and vice versa; adjectives assert a proud but ungrammatical independence of the nouns they * No leas than twenty-nine are officially recognised. Cf A. BERNARD, La Syrie et les Syriens, Annates de G^ographie, January 15, 1919, and RENfi PINON, La Reorganisation de la Turquie d'Asie, Revue des Deux Mondes, August 15, 1913; "La Syrie eat un mus^e de religions et les anthropologistes perdraient leur science h inesurer les cr^es pour sup- puter les croisements d'oii la population actuelle est sortie." FOREWORD. 7 qualify; the employment of verbs in their various forms, followed by prepositions foreign to their regime, continually disagrees with the meanings commonly attached to those forms. It is but natural that our author's style has a thoroughly Syrian flavor, that he is partial to Syrian modes of expression and avails himself of Arabic and, exotic terms in the Syrian sense they have acquired. This, however, cannot make us overlook the fact that his language is scarcely classical; that his sentences are at times too terribly involved to establish with certainty who is who and what is what. Nevertheless he aims at stylistic niceties; he dabbles in rimed prose,' apparently of one opinion with al-Hariry and al-Hama- dhany that there is no better medium for narration and oratory of the highest order; not satisfied with historical achievement, he enters the literary arena as an aspirant to poetic fame in metrical composition too. In jingling measures he strings his flowery phrases together to heighten the effect of high-flown periods, even if that effect should miscarry in an anti-climax — du sublime au ridicuk il n'y a qu'un pas! Yet, notwithstanding this hyper-florid sing-song, several of his descrip- tions are admirably vivid and powerful.'' His narrative is enlivened by touches of sarcasm and irony, varied with observations in a moral- ising strain. The inevitable anecdotes show his open eye for the humorous incidents in the tragic struggle he depicts.^ Besides being involved and consequently obscure in his diction, he has an aggravating habit of dismissing with a single word episodes momentous enough in the light of subsequent events for a more circumstantial treatment. Striving to arrive at the inner truth of the troubles of 1860, after careful examination of their causes and the antagonistic forces at work in the Lebanon that led up to them, his mind is pre-eminently fixed not on the main issue but on accessory detail. This attitude determines while it narrows the historical value of his production. He adds nothing to our knowledge of the condi- tion of his country in its broader aspects at the time of his writing and ^ Called "cooing" by the Arabian literati from a fancied resemblance between its rhythm and the murmuring note of pigeons and doves. * See f. i. his description of the battle of the Druzes and the ambushed Christians, p. 44 ff.; of the slaughter at Ha^bayya, p. 80 ff.; of the pillage at Dayr al-Qamar, p. 143 ff.; of the happenings at Damascus, p. 176 ff. 'See f. i. the story of Colonel Ahmad Bey's discomfiture at the hands of the priest Jabra'il Kassab, p. 68 ff. » THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. before and after, except for the curious light unconsciously thrown on the evil results of foreign meddling. But apart from this, the par- ticulars he furnishes have a significance of their own and are of the more weight the more a repeated perusal confirms our belief in his good faith as he relates his impressions and observations, perhaps his personal experiences; in his sincerity, Jiandicapped though it may be with racial and religious prejudices already referred to. In this connection it deserves mention that many of our author's minutiae are not chronicled in previously published records so far as our acquaintance with the hterature on the subject goes, and that his inferences differ frequently from those given by other native and European writers.^ To sum up, Iskander Ibn Ya'qub Abkarius's Book may be defined as a contribution of great subsidiary importance directly to the history of the Lebanon and the whole of Syria, indirectly to the history of the Christian Churches in the Semitic Orient, not only by reason of what it explicitly states and the thus far unknown details it furnishes, but also on account of what it implies to whoever knows how to read between the lines. He will become convinced of the underlying verity that the calamity which in 1860 befell the Christians of Mount Lebanon and in particular the Maronites, was largely, if not wholly, of their own making. Instigated by European Powers who, to further secret designs, gave a new impetus to the centrifugal forces at work in the Mount, they considered themselves above the law of the land which they, that is to say their clergy, desired to possess as their exclusive domain, exterminating or exiling those who refused to submit to their extravagant pretensions. When the adherents to other creeds, notably the Druzes, became alarmed at the intentions of the Maronites and of the Christians in general,^ and repaid them in their own coin, a tremor of indignation went ^ Cf f. i. The Unveiling of the Trouble of Syria, part of which, treating of the massacre at Damascus, is appended in translation to Professor D. S. MARGOLIOUTH's excellent description of that ancient town, Cairo and Jerusalem. * " but there can be no doubt that it is the alarm which has lately been spread among the Mahometans as to the intentions of the Christians, 1 do not say the native Christians especially, but of the Christians generally, which has been the principal cause of the fanatical zeal latterly displayed, " Letter, dated Therapia, August 8, 1860, from Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, British Ambassador to the Porte, to Lord Russell, British Secretary of )State for Foreign Affairs. FOREWORD. ' 9 through Europe, a thrill of horror and wrath, diligently exploited for the sake of predatory intrigue. The facts, as usually in cases like this, were distorted beyond recognition and it requires a good deal of sifting and comparing to disentangle them from the mass of con- flicting evidence that suppUed contemporary partisans of the con- tending governments with the kind of data they wanted for their concoction of the fable convenue, rather a conspiracy against the truth, which they dignified with the name of history. Leaving the historic for the philosophic standpoint, it is just possible that the bloodshed which "would have been spared had the juris- diction of the Turks been unlimited, "^^ i. e. unencumbered with European intervention, was one of Nature's contrivances to provide against overpopulation by opening oue of her safety-valves, as in the world's course we see her do with machine-like regularity when growing unrest marks a new period of our earth getting crowded, and wars or social upheavals or epidemic diseases step in to kill the human surplus. Anyhow the prolificity of the Syrians^^ coincides with the circumstance of their country having been from the oldest times a battle-ground as well as a market-place for the exchange between East and West of merchandise and religious thought. Other con- gruities, for instance the one that the land which was the cradle of Christianity, should continue age after age to be the scene of the fiercest encounters between Christians and Christians, can perhaps be explained on corresponding lines, but may not detain us here, save to note that the West, bestowing its Greek gifts on the East, conferring boons \vith usury, is always prone to depict the alleged beneficiary's ingratitude and contrariness in the darkest colors. ^^ International rivalry, which pushes political and financial schemes in the name of humanity and civilisation, cannot afford to be just. Uninterrupted by the lessons of the latest great war, it goes on dis- '" An opinion of Lord Dufferin, expressed in a letter, dated January 1, 1861, to Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer. " Especially of the Lebanonians. Three years before the war we find it stated : "To-day, as always, Lebanon is on the verge of overpopulation and her people are pushing westward. In England, and far more in America, the Syrian is a familiar figure." E. HUNTINGTON, Palestine in Transformation. A. BERNARD, op. dt., estimates the number of Syrians outside of Syria, at 500.000. ^ DAVID URQUHART, The Lebanon, 1, 180, remarks: "The perusal of Gibbon leads to the conclusion that the year I860 was not the first in which the freest scope was opened for misrepresentation with respect to the Lebanon." Nor was it the last! 10 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. maying us, under those same threadbare slogans, with grimly signifi- cant acts of encroachment in the Near and Far East as in Europe. With the best will to cherish the hope which thrives o!n looking forward as the rose on sunshine, we must confess that these manifestations of unregenerate cupidity tend rather to promote a gloomy view of the wonders of peace and good-will to be achieved by the Allied Powers and their Associates reaping their harvest of victory. Returning to our manuscript, we have to apologise for not utiUsing some documents which the war kept out of our reach. Yet, such as it is, our work of inquiry in many fields of research, nearly or remotely related to our subject, will haply serve less to throw a stronger hght upon than to put in the proper Hght a special phase of the ever- lasting Eastern Question which geographically may shift its focus, but even by that continual transition evades all attempts at a solution. Whenever it was possible to sift the mass of material on hand with any chance of discerning the motives behind the deeds recorded, the reasons for adopting or rejecting our author's surmises have been stated. Our translation is not a rigidly literal one though we have tried to preserve the distinctive qualities of the Arabic text at the risk of straining English phraseology. This may explain, if not excuse, some irregularities and oddities forced upon us by the original, int. at. the profusion of "ands" which to leave out would, in our opinion, have spoiled a certain artless simplicity in an otherwise, we fear, stylistically too highly adorned tale. With respect to its anno- tation we are under obligations to the officials of the Yale University Library and the Public Library of New York, whose unfailing courtesy materially aided us in our consultation of books, newspapers, maps, official and semi-official publications needed for that purpose. Lastly, what should have come first, we have to express our thanks to Professor C. C. Torrey of Yale University for his kind interest in our effort and much appreciated assistance in carrying it through. CONTENTS. Page INTRODUCTION 13 TRANSLATION OF THE TEXT 45 First Chapter 47 Second Chapter 65 Third Chapter 70 Fourth Chapter 72 Fifth Chapter . . . 76 SixGi Chapter. ... 89 Seventh Chapter 98 Eighth Chapter 126 Ninth Chapter 143 CONCLUSION 159 APPENDIX 195 I. Convention of Peace between the Christians and the Druzes 196 II. Letter from the Greek Bishop of Tyre and Sid on to the People of Rashayya 198 III. Address of an influential MosUm to his co-rehgionists at Damascus 200 IV. Protocol of June 9th, 1861, regarding the appointment of a Christian Governor-General for the Lebanon 202 (U) INTRODTTCTION. Considered from a historical standpoint ISKANDER IBN YA'QIJB ABKARl€S's Book of the Marvels of the Time concerning the Massacres in the Arab Country imparts, within its limits, as already remarked, som,e extremely useful knowledge regarding the position of the Christian Church or, more properly speaking, Christian Churches in the Semitic Orient; especially regarding the activities of the different Christian sects, everlastingly engaged in mutual warfare or combined against Islam in its two great subdivisions with offshoots, which activities touched and continue to touch very nearly the difficult and delicate Eastern Question that always manages to stay with us notwithstanding the ingenious solutions periodically advanced, whose name is Legion and whose effect is Nil. The disturbances of I860 which he describes, explosions of religious hatred in the service of ambitions foreign to the country's weal, were not isolated events but part and parcel of that Eastern Question, in itself only an episode in the long history of the relations between Asia and Europe : a chapter of the record of reciprocity between East and West as yet imperfectly written. There is no lack of works on the subject, but their authors, mostly biased by preconceived notions, prejudice or worse, rather strove to advocate the cause they had espoused than to explain how things really came about, after von Ranke's precept for the historian that he should aim at showing "me es eigenilich dagewesen.'" A narrative like the following, from the hand of an intelligent native, full of detail regarding the actors in the tragedy of Mount Lebanon, the "impregnable Lebanon," that venerable grave of a self-contained ancient^ and political powder-house of our modern world, may there- fore be acceptable as a contribution to the attainment of the desider- atum referred to. And to derive the greatest possible advantage from such a document, we have to pay attention, first of all, to the place of action no less than to the evolution of the Mount's condition from a stormy past and its relation to events that happened elsewhere, which influenced the international situation and reacted on the status and internal administration of the Ottoman Empire. ^ To quote a much disputed observation of J. E. RENAN, Mission de Phhiicie, p. 217. (13) 14 THE LEBANON IN TUfiMOIL. Inspiring horror on account of the sacrifices which attended their worship of the unseen in their high places, the earhest inhabitants of the fastnesses of Mount Lebanon we know of, seem to have been left conscientiously alone by the dwellers on the coast, the traders who profited by the central position of Syria for the extension of their mercantile business to Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. Yet, they are heard from in the historical books of the Bible and in the chronicles of the armed conflict of Graecia Barhariae lento collisa duello. With Mecca as hub of the universe, Syria becomes for aggressive Islam ash-Shdm, the land of the left hand in contradistinction to the Yaman. The crusades make it a focus of interest for western Christianity; poets de primo cartello, like Dante^ and Petrarca,^ popularise its name and with reason. As a French author* observes: No great religious, political or military movement that ever influenced the destiny of the human race, has come to a head without Syria being mixed up in it. And most of the great conquerors the world has seen and suffered, have had something to do with Syria's fortunes.^ As regards the Syrians, Cicero calls them people born for servitude.^ The male Syrian in Martial is the litter-bearer par excellence; the female Syrian is in her younger years the courtesan and when the loss of her youthful charms disqualifies her for that profession, the go-between by inclination and natural disposition; male or female they cater to pleasure-seeking Rome as mimes, jugglers, musicians and dancers. In the comedies of Plautus and Terence they are the clever but rascally slaves exploiting the foibles of their masters. Juvenal and Petronius testify to their insinuating methods, their = II Ctmvito, IV, 5; La Vita Nuova, XXX. ^ Trionfo della Fama, I, 76. * XAVIER RAYMOND, La Syrie et la Question d'Orient, Revue des Deux Mondes, September 15 & October 1, 1860. * "The military history of Syria may be pictured as the procession of nearly all the world's conquerors: Thothmes, Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon, Sennacherib and Nebuchadrezzar; Cambyses and Alexander; Pompey, Caesar, Augustus, Titus and Hadrian; Omar and Saladin; Tamerlane; Napoleon. And now again she is one of the fronts on which two ideals of civilisation and empire oppose their arms, but with issues more momentous for humanity than were ever fought on these same fields between Semite and Greek, Rome and the East, or Frank and Saracen." Sir GEORGE ADAM SMITH, Syria and the Holy Land, p. 7. ^ De Provindis CoTisidaribus Oralio. INTRODUCTION. 15 vileness and depravity. When "the Orontes mingled its waters with those of the Tiber," the delicious fruit from the orchards on its banks together with the famous prunes of Damascus and the Syrian pear, extolled by Vergil,^ appeared on tables manufactured from cedar of the Lebanon, to give higher rehsh to the sumptuous repasts of Roman gourmets, groomed by their Syrian valets, who used to ecent them and oil their carefully arranged locks with Syrian perfumes and Syrian nard.^ Less effeminate and thoroughly practical in the govern- ment of their outlying provinces, the Romans tried to obliterate in Syria, as in Asia Minor, the racial differences which threatened trouble. Religious differences they found there harder to suppress than any other and more in particular Phoenicia, that region abounding in grace and beauty according to one of their historians,-' was the scene, then and later, of disgraceful disturbances occasioned by the clash of new creeds with heathen superstition. Both Christians and Moslemin laid violent hands on what they esteemed idols and shrines of cor- ruption for idolatric homage to false gods, demolishing magnificent temples, breaking glorious images, defacing noble works of art.^"* The godhest men, saints of iconoclastic celebrity, were in the front ranks of the dilapidators.^^ Rapidly overrun by the Arabs, who considered its conquest of higher importance than any yet made,^^ Syria became with Asia Minor a vast battlefield for the Khalifs and the Byzantine Emperors to measure their strength in, the country's conversion to Islam redounding meanwhile to its spiritual and material advantage. ^^ Even after the ^ Georgicd, II, 90. 8 HORACE, Oda II, 7, 7; TIBULLUS, III, 4, 28; 7, 31/2; PROPERTIUS, I, 2, 3. '" ... .acclinis Libano monti Phoenice, regio plena gratiarum et venustatis" AMMI- ANUS MARCELLINUS, Res Gestae, XIV, 8. "•RENAN, op. cit., ConcluBions: "Le christianisme, qui se montra en Gr^ce si peu d6vastateur, fut dans le Liban ^minemment d^moliseur. L'islamisme ne le fut pas moins, surtout pour les sculptures. La race du Liban, soit chr^tienne, soit musulmane, est, si j'ose le dire, iconoclaste, inintelligente de I'art; elle a nul sens de I'image plastique; son premier mouvement est de la briser on de la cacher." " Cf THEODORET, Historia EccUsiastica, V, 21, and C. FLEURY, Histoire Ecclesiaa- tique, IV, 18. '^ M, J. DE GOEJE, M^moire de la Conquite de la Syne, qu6tes from a letter, written, according to a tradition, by the Khalif Abii Bakr to Khalld, commanding him to hasten with 3000 horse to the assistance of "Amr: " par Dieu, un village pris en Syrie m'est plus cher qu'un grand district dans I'lrae." 13 Never independent except during short spells between two invasions, Syria enjoyed her period of greatest prosperity and splendor under 'Umayyad rule with Damascus as the 1() THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. removal of the khalifate from Damascus to Baghdad it remained the pivot of the struggle that shook the Near East at the advent first of the Seljuqs and then of the crusaders intent on chasing the paynim out of the Holy Places. In that convulsive colUsion between two great religions, we find again race-hatred and religious animosity playing havoc with the solidarity of the forces gathered in the hostile camps; the Muhammadan Arabs had brought to Syria the party spirit which divided the Qaysites and the Yamanites, and kept on running as a red thread through all Syrian troubles up to the calam- itous events of 1860 in the Lebanon; the Christians were so hopelessly at odds among themselves that those of the Greek Church joined the caitiff crew of Mahound against the crusaders rather than unite in one effort with those of the Latin Church to fight the conunon enemy. And the Orthodox Greeks continued to be staunch supporters, at any rate obedient subjects of their Moslim rulers until Russia, admitted among the Great Powers, made them realise that as faithful Christians they might renounce that allegiance without prejudice to their inveterate detestation of the Latins. These found France more than willing to act or pose as their natural protector. While Catholic Europe resounded with the cry formulated, a century and a half later, by the barefoot friar UMch Megerle, better known as Abraham a Santa Clara: "Auff, auff ihr Christen! der Turkische Sabel ist vor der Thiir!"'^ and Martin Luther's apos- trophe to the Turks and the Pope in one breath/^ edified the Protes- tants, it occurred to Francis I of the house of Valois, putting personal and state interest above rehgion, to aim a blow at the house of Habsburg and especially at his formidable rival Charles V by entering capital of the khalifate. Syrians became the "transmitters of Greek learning to the East, whence it was brought back by the Arabs to the West." E. G. BROWN, A Jjiterary History of Persia; cf C. BROCKELMANN, Geschickte der arabischm Litteralur, I, 201 ff., and U. VON WILAMOWITZ-MOELLENDORF, OHent und Okzidmt, Internationale Monatschrifl fur Wissenschafl, Kunst und Tecknik, May 1, 1915: "Es ist wiinderbar, wie in dem Syrien, das sich dem Islam ergiebt, die griechische Wissenscliaft sehr vie! atarker tind fruchtbarer gepflegt wird aa in der christlichen Zeit vorher, wie die arabische Medizin eogar Fortschritte uber die griechische macht, die Arithmetik auch, " '^ Cf the good Augustine's Bewegliche Anfrisckung der Christlichen Waffen under den TurcMschen Blui-Egel, etc., Vienna, 1683. '^ Vom Krieg wider den Turcken: " so helffe unser heber Herr Jhesus Christus und komm vora Himmel herab mit dem jiingsten Gericht und schlehe beide Tiireken utid Bapst zu boden sampt alien Tyranncn und Gottlosen." INTRODUCTION. 17 into friendly relations with the Porte. The capitulation of 1535 may be considered the foundation of French claims to a protectorate over the Christians in the Levant. The actual relations between them, more in particular the Maronites, and the French date however from three centuries earlier. When St Louis landed at Limisso in Septem- ber, 1248, he found in the island of Cyprus a Maronite colony notable for its loyalty to the kings of the house of Lusignan. It numbered about 190.000, many of whom took service with him, "armes de foi au dedans et de fer au dehors, "^^ to fight the Saracens as their co- religionists of the Lebanon had done from the beginning of the crusades on, indeed, already on their own account long before in 1099 the first scouting band of Godfrey of Bouillon's army drew near their mountain home. St Louis anticipated Francis I in promising the Maronites his protection, as they deserved from his gratitude, "conune aux Francois eux-memes, et de faire constamment ce qui [serait] necessaire pour [leur] bonheur."^^ In the subsequent correspondence between the kings of France and the lords spiritual and temporal of the Maronites we find lettei^ from and to Henri IV, Louis XIV, '^ Louis XV and Louis-Philippe. Christians of other denominations neither derived much benefit from, nor cared much for the French protectorate; de facto it applied only to the Maronites.'^ The idea that the Christians needed any special protection against the Turks lay at the bottom of all those claims, for political rather than sentimental reasons, and persisted though, considering the times, they were on the whole very well treated in the realm of the Grand Signior while Spain murdered American Indians in droves, not to speak of her cruel persecution of Moors and Jews, and France herself treated her Protestants to a St Barth^lemy. Those amenities between '6 DE LAMARTINE, Voyage en Orient, vol. Ill (vol. VIII of bis Oeuvres Completes, ed. 1863) p. 378. " Letter of May 21, 1250. " Who was the first ofl&cially to assume the title of Protector of the Christians in the Levant. 13 And if we raay beUeve Bishop fubiya, of whom more anon, quoted by URQUHART, op cit., II, 262, the Maronites, too, had their reasons to look askance at French protection: 'Trance is to ua an oppression from which we would be most happy to escape Here and in the other parts of Syria, in Egypt and in Cyprus, from the middle of the last century to the close of the campaign of Napoieon, we reckon that the blood of 40.000 Maronites has been shed by the Turks or the Greeks. This is the debt we owe to French protection." IS THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. Christians and Christians bore certainly no less violent a character in a country like Syria where religion, burdened with religious prejudice, had then as now a powerful hold on the people, the Syrian "being always labelled with the tag of the particular faith which he follows,"^" and, we may add, always eager for a fight to prove that his is the right one. To admit the truth, the Turk, instead of oppressing the useful Christians, endeavored to prevent their exterminating one another at the command of their variously frocked priests. Grouped according to sundry orthodoxies and heterodoxies, they were ready to fly at each other's throats on the 'slightest provocation, a beautiful result of "los progresos que en ella (the province of Syria) ha hecho la religion serafica."^^ Richard Burton's sardonic smile at an equally maudlin comment on Syrian conditions of a later writer,^^ is as much to the point as Burckhardt's observation, made October 6, 1810, regarding the seraphic proceeding's of the Christian sects, that there would have been civil war among them if the iron rod of the Turkish government had not repressed their religious fury.^'^ When foreign interposition in Turkish affairs began to undermine Turkish authority, the civil war came as a matter of course. Its culminating episode before our war of wars is the subject of Iskander Ibn Ya'qub'Abkarius's narrative which shows clearly how the fanatic intolerance peculiar to the Syrian character and fostered by European jealousy, by pohtical ambitions creating an atmosphere of instability and insecurity, prepared the way for the massacres of 1860. The Druzes, on good terms with all religions besides their own and averse to proselytism, also, whatever their descent may be, markedly different in race characteristics from the other inhabitants of the Lebanon, have been known of yore as friends of the Christians, ^^ to whom, regardless of shades and nuances of creed, they extended their welcome and accorded facilities for settlement, for the building of churches and monasteries.^^ Foreign intrigue was necessary to ^^ F. J. BLISS, The Religions of Modern Syria and Palestine. ^^ I. DE CALAHORRA, Chronica de la Provincia de Syria y Tierra Santa de Gerusalen. ' Contiene los Progresos, etc. ^ RENAN, expatiating on "la merveilleuse harraonie de I'id^al ^vang^lique avec le paysage qui lui sert de cadre, " See BURTON'S Unexplored Syria, I, 6. 2' Travels in Syria and the Holy Land. " Cf R. POCOCKE, A Description of the East, II, passim. » Cf C. F. VOLNEY, Voyage en Sgypte et en Syne, II, 79. INTRODUCTION. 19 disturb their relations with the Maronites to the breaking point, says a recent writer. ^« Foreign intrigue, namely, that sought to profit by abetting Maronite pretensions, by stimulating the arrogance of the Maronite clergy who, rather than the Maronite aristocracy, became under consular pressure and instigated by secret agents, the deadly enemies of the Druzes. The attitude of the latter remained con- ciliatory until they were goaded to resistance for the sake of self- preservation and in the light of their past friendhness their offer of peace, which led to the conventions^ signed after European inter- vention had been decided upon, did not deserve the ridicule and con- tempt showered upon it as a hypocritical move to ward off conse- quences. The atftittide of the former can be gauged by an American missionary's statement which, though it refers primarily to a posterior phase of the "religious fury" in the Lebanon, is inserted here for the sake of the proper sequence of these introductory remarks; " the Druzes sought for an amicable settlement of all their difficulties before the rupture, but all their applications and wishes were unavail- ing. Nor am I aware of any plan or wish of the Christians to allow them to remain in their own country for the future. They must retire of their own accord or they must fight. War to them was an inexorable necessity. The idea of an exterminating war came exclusively from the Christian side, however un-Christian it was. It is contrary to the religion of the Druzes to contemplate, much more to attempt the extermination of any religious sect of any distinct race, in as much as such an aim or purpose is opposed, in their view, to the will and pre- destination of God, who has ordained at once the unchanging existence and fixed numbers of all sects and races of men upon the earth. "^* Practically left alone by the Turkish government, under the rule of Princes first of the Ma'n then of the Shihab family,^' some of whom, 2^ R. RISTELHUEBER, Les Maronites, Revue des Deux Mondes, January 1, 1915. " See APPENDIX, I. ** Cf the London Times of November 1, 1S60. '* The ruling house of Ma'n, which originated in North Arabia and claimed descent from 'Ayyub, an adventurous knight-errant of the Banu Raby'a, became extinct in 1697 on the death of Ahmad whose only son Malham had died in 1679. To prevent an inter- tribal war for his succession, Ahmad, prevaihng upon the other chiefs, secured it for his grandson Haydar Shihab, son of Musa Shihab and one of his daughters, during whose minority a Bashir Shihab exercised authority in the Mount, his family moving from 5as- bayya to Dayr al-Qamar. When this Bashir Shihab succumbed in 1708 at Acre to the effects of poison, IJaydar took personal charge of the government and, a few years later, 20 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. as the famous Fakhr ad-Din and Bashlr, were born leaders of men, the Lebanon enjoyed comparative tranquility, anyway freedom from too pronounced self-assertion in mutually contentious Christian com- munities. The Amir Bashir Shihab played a skillful game between the Enghsh, traditional friends of the Druzes to counterbalance French influence on the Maronites, and Buonaparte when, trying to realise Leibniz's modified plan, that ambitious young general marched into Syria to be checked at Acre by Sir Sidney Smith. Bashir was still the commanding spirit of the Mount, coquetting with Mahmud II or Muhammad 'Aly as the wind of Turco-Egyptian relations blew, when Ibrahim Pasha wrested Syria from the Porte for the latter, his father and the Sultan's vassal. Almost ten years elapsed before the great European Powers of the day, only France holding back, could decide on action in behalf of the Sultan and compassed the evacuation of Sjrria by Ibrahim Pasha's troops. Therewith the Amir BashTr's rule ended; a British man-of-war conveyed him in exile to Malta, whence he moved to Constantinople, closing his long and eventful career, in 1850, with a natural death, more fortunate in that respect than his even better known predecessor Fakhr ad-Dln of the Ma'nies who, in 1635, had been executed at Constantinople with two of his sons. Another scion of the Shihab family, Bashir Qasim, put in the banished Amir's place, proved altogether unequal to the task of preserving order among the discordant elements of which the popula- tion of Mount Lebanon was composed and with his deposition the local dynasty ceased to exist.''" Bashir Qasim's lack of tact and general unfitness precipitated a fiasco which, sooner or later, would have faced any one in his situa- tion. For Ibrahim Pasha's iron discipline and inexorable justice the Turks had to substitute laxer methods, forced thereunto by European interference which threatened a repetition of the Greek follies of the Roman period Mommsen speaks of,^^ in an infinitely more injurious defeated at the head of the Qaysites, the disaffected Yanianites in the great battle of 'Ayn Darah, 1711, which consolidated his power. Cf M. VON OPPENHEIM. Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf, 1, 148 ff. ^'' The Shihabies, whose house originated in the Hejaz and who claimed descent from TQiahd Ibn al-Wahd, sank low from their high estate in consequence of the decHne of feudal institutions in Mount Lebanon. Some of them are so impoverished, says Dr BLISS op. cit., that they have become drivers. ^' "Griecliische Dumraheiten," Romische Geschichte, V, 304. INTRODUCTION. 21 form incidental to international ineptitude. The ensuing chaotic state of affairs in the country led to the disturbances of 1840, continued in 1841, 1842 and 1845. The Porte sought to remove their causes by a change in the administration, appointing functionaries of its civil service, strange to the land and frequently transferred, to posi- tions of trust whose tenure the native aristocracy considered part of their unalienable privileges. Bashir Qasim having made himself impossible, direct Turkish rule was introduced in the person of 'Umar Pasha, ^^ who had to contend, in addition to the evil consequences of his predecessor's maladministration, with the animosities resulting from the gradual breaking up of the feudal system which had been a potent factor in the former solidarity of the Mount's interests: class- and race-hatred combined with religious rancor made for disruption. 'Umar Pasha proved to be an excellent governor but the European Powers took exception at^the alleged violation of .Turkish obligations by his appointment and France in particular, asserting herself after the slight she had received by the expulsion of Muhammad'Aly's son and vice-gerent from Syria without her co-operation, demanded for the be;iefit of her clients, the Maronites, that again a member of the Shihab family should be elected. Instead of this the representatives of the five Great Powers, who met in conference at Constantinople, May 27, 1842, resolved to adopt a scheme of divided government for the Lebanon, which had been outlined by Prince Mettemich. The Mount was cut up in two districts respectively confided, with due regard to the rehgious convictions of the majority of the people inhabiting each of them, to the care of a Christian and a Druze qa'ymaqam oi> governor, chosen from among the natives, the Shihabies being excluded. This dual system, altered in 1845 with a view to emendation of its most glaring defects, failed, however, to achieve even a moderate success. Notwithstanding the many regulations and arrangements for its smooth operation in villages with a mixed population of Christians and Druzes, several Christian communities, Dayr al-Qamar for instance, preferred direct Turkish rule to the blessings of such an organisation which, though "provisional," remained in force until the catastrophe of 1860 it helped to bring about. ^ Michael Lettes, a Croat by birth, who commenced hia career as a teacher of Sultan 'Abd'al-Majid and rose to high civil and military dignity; his name is connected with several brilliant exploits in the Balkans, in the Crimea and wherever he held a command. ZZ THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. Dividing Druzes and Maronites ever more, it gave full scope to plotting and counter-plotting, to the ''sinuosities of Christian intrigue" Lord Dufferin and Claneboye attempted to trace'^^ as a member of the International Commission appointed to examine the facts of the massacres and the circumstances which gave rise to them. The Maronites were the worst offenders, followed as good seconds among the other Christian communities, by the Orthodox Greeks^^ who had their full share in raising the wind that was to grow into such a frightful storm. The complaint of the Druzes that ever since the year 1841 the Maronites had "pertinaciously contemplated the uprooting of the Druzes from the Druze Mountain [Mounts Lebanon and Anti- Lebanon] and the establishment of their own independence therein, being puffed up with the idea of their great numbers and wealth, and being also led to pride by the representations of certain interested persons/'^^ was founded on incontrovertible facts. The heads of the Maronites were turned by the protestations of Popes who called them their "faithful servants," their "dearest sons;"^* by speeches in the Chambre des Deputes like that of Cremieux, August 3, 1847,^' which created hopes of assistance when the hour should strike for delivering the blow they had in mind, and— who could know! — might confound the Turks together with the Druzes. Their clergy encouraged them in those wild expectations to the point of making them cry "Our Patriarch is our Sultan!" when the Turkish government interfered as it had a perfect right to do.^* The consular reports of the years preceding 1860 bear witness to the disorganising effects of the organisation introduced under European compulsion. Our author gives some particulars concerning the trouble brewing in both the Southern or Druze and the Northern or Maronite ^^ Letter of November 15, 1860, to Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, British Ambassador to the Porte. ^^ See the episcopal letter from the "humble Sophronius," Orthodox Greek Bishop of Tyre and Sidon, to his "glorious children'' of Rashayya, APPENDIX, II. ^' Druze Accowni of the Late Events in the Lebanon, presented to Queen Victoria with a Petition, dated August 17, 1860, and signed by H&mdan BelUni in the name of the gentry and commonalty of the Druze Nation of Mount Lebanon. 3« RISTELHUEEER, op. cit. " "Les Chretiens du Liban, mais ils sont nos freres depuis des sidcles, non pas seulement nos freres en religion, mais nos frires ^ la guerre, nos freres sur les champs de bataille. Dans toutes les circonstances vous les avez trouv6s; Saint Louis les a trouv^s; Napoleon Jes a trouv4s.'' 3« BLISS, op. cit, V. INTRODUCTION. 23 section of the Lebanon; he tells us of the armed conflicts in and around the Shtif,^^ of the insurrection of the peasants of the district of Kasnian,*" who rose against their nobility, the sheikhs of the Christian house of Khazin, that ground them to powder in the feudal mill. Nor was it in Syria alone that political discontent, overexcited by religious frenzy, led to acts of insensate retaliation. On July 16, 1858, a native mob at Jeddah fell upon the Christians in their midst; among their victims were the French consul and British vice-consul. Vengeance followed swiftly : eleven days later the town was bombarded .by an Anglo-French squadron and on August 4 ten of the ringleaders / were hanged. If anything, this incident increased the fanatic zeal of the Christians, more in particular of the Maronites of Mount ^ Lebanon, who relied upon help from their European friends and had been supplied by them with the necessary funds to carry out their design, in the first place to buy firearms and ammunition/^ the money received to relieve the sufferers from the conflict which may be termed the first civil war, being misused for the promotion of a second. ^^ "The Druzes did not want to fight; the Maronites thought their hour of victory was come. Custom-house returns can prove that upwards of 120.000 stand of arms and 20.000 pistols were imported into the Lebanon between January 1857 and the spring of 1860, while the sinister influence exercised by Bishop Tobia and his associates was so universally recognised that his withdrawal from Beyrout was insisted upon as a necessary preliminary to peace. "*^ The Druzes, numerically far in the minority,** who had moreover sustained severe losses some " The name of this district, whose mountain peaks provide excellent posts of observa- tion sedulously put to account by its turbulent inhabitants, has been derived according to some, from an Arabic root which expresses the idea of overtopping, looking down upon, *** A stronghold of Christianity in the Mount. ^' C. H. CHURCHILL, The Druzes and the Maronites under the Turkish Rule from 1840 to 1860, p. 40. « JESSUP, op. cit, p. 163. *3 Despatch of December 19, 1860, from Lord Dufferin to Lord Russell, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. "Sinister influence" was not too strong an expression as proved by the Maronite prelate's conduct from beginning to end, and his arrogance is well illustrated by his words to an inhabitant of Dayr al-Qamar, quoted in a letter from a certain Hahb Akawy to Sa'yd Bey Janblat {Official Correspondence, Nr 373): "If you, people of Deir el-Kamar do not obey and refuse to go to war, then I will cause the Druzes and Christians together to attack you." *^ The number of Druzes and Maronites has been variously estimated, but all agree that the latter outnumbered the former by about two to one. A Table of the Statistics 24 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. years earlier while resisting first Egyptian then Turkish attempts to coerce them in the matter of conscription/^ needed, indeed, great provocation to show fight. But when attacked, their superiority in military tactics and discipline soon allowed them to abandon the defensive for the offensive, however sure they were that, for the reason just named, they had no help to expect from the regular troops of the Ottoman army, detached for the maintenance of order in Syria. It would be anticipating our author's narrative to tell here how the situation became more and more critical; how, after isolated acts of violence and casual encounters, a Maronite champion, Tanyus Iba Shahin al-Baytar, one of the ringleaders in the rebellion which over- turned the ohgarchic government of the district of Kasruan, began hostilities in dead earnest with a band of three hundred men;^* how by their unity of purpose and better generalship the Druzes turned the tables on their aggressors and, goaded to madness, took revenge in a terrible manner; how, to all appearance, von Moltke's statement of 1841 became true: "Die Tiirkei ist nicht im Stande die Syrer durch eine kraftige Regierung wie der Militar Despotismus Ibrahims war, in gehorsam zu erhalten. . .."" But a short commentary may be allowed: Turkey was sadly handicapped. With regard to the Mar- onites, "filled with ideas of conquest and French protection. "^^ the Porte had to take into account the general international situation; with regard to the Druzes, when these showed a winning hand, the temper of the troops could not be ignored. The regulars of the fifth army-corps immediately concerned, not to speak of the irregulars, were chiefly Syrian recruits, Moslemin who knew the Christians and had old scores to settle with them. But even if they could have been of Mount Lebanon, sent on January 12, 1861, by Mr E. I. Rogers, British vice-consul at Bayrut, to Lord DufFerin, gives 102,105 Maronites and 56.035 Druzes capable of carry- ing arms, besides 40.125 Greek Catholics, 30.375 Orthodox Greeks, 28.935 Moslemin, including the Mutawalies, and 465 Jews. « Cf H. PETERMANN, Reisen im Orient, I, 77 ff. ^^ "Une bande arm^e de Chretiens etait venue la premiere passer de la Caimacamie chr^tienne dans celle des Druzes. Ce fut le debut de cette guerre civile qui a fini par tant de calamit^s." Kote of Fu'ad Pasha joined to the protocol of the twenty-second meeting of the International Commission held at Bayrut, February 27, 1861. *^ Deutschland und Paldsiina, first of five articles written for the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung and pubhshed in book form under the title Zur orientalischen Frage. Cf VON MOLTKE'S Briefe uber Zusldnde und Begebenkeiten in der Tiirkei. *^ Letter of Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, British Ambassador to the Porte, to Consul- GeneralN. Moore at Bayrut, Con-es-pondence relating to the Affairs oj Syria, 1860-1861, p. 65. INTRODUCTION. 25 relied upon the Rumelian crisis had made it necessary to draw largely on the disposable battalions, reducing their strength to such an extent that it did not seem wise to attempt a forcible repression of the Druzes in the flush of their victories: a defeat might have led to a general insurrection very difficult to quell. There existed furthermore open hostility between the highest civil and military dignitaries in the land. Khurshid Pasha at Bayrut, Governor-General of the province of Sayda, and Ahmad Pasha, Governor-General of the province of Syria proper and commander-in-chief of the troops in 'Arabistan/^ were on bad terms, which explains the reluctance shown byTahirPasha,^''militarycommander in the former's territory, to carry out his orders, the officers of lower rank following suit. Khurshid Pasha cannot be held responsible for the delinquency of the soldiery charged to him in our author's version of the "marvels of the time concerning the massacres in the Arab country:" that fault lay with Ahmad Pasha who, despite the extenuating circumstances referred to, which, however, hardly applied to his dereliction of duty in the case of Damascus, paid the extreme penalty after degradation from his high military rank and civil dignity. Nor was Khurshid Pasha the fiendish schemer we are invited to beheve him to be because he did not like the Syrian Christians — for obvious reasons! — and entered into negotiations with the Druzes. His meetings and discussions with the latter, rather of a conciliatory than of an inflammatory character, might have made for peace if, heeding his urgent request, the representatives of the Powers to whom he appealed, had aided him in his efforts to bridle the unchained passions. "When he was arraigned before the tribunal instituted to try the officials accused of negligence and misconduct, the prosecution failed to substantiate the charges preferred against him of premeditated instigation to the horrible crimes committed in his pashalic.^^ Reliable evidence pointed the other way, furnishing proof that, addressing the ** The Arab Country, here used in its Turkish mihtary sense as a collective name for the provinces of the Ottoman Empire inhabited by people of Arabian descent or speech. '" Tahir Pasha had received his military education at Woolwich and was considered one of the most briUiant officers in the Turkish army. ^^ "Quant aux fonctiormaires et officiere Ottomans ils ont, et cela est vrai surtout de Kourchid Pacha, fait appel k tous les moyens qu'ils avaient h leur disposition pour prevenir la guerre civile." Statement of Mr P. von Weckbeeker, Consul-General of Austrfa ab Bayrut, speaking of the result of the judicial inquiry by the tribunal referred to, in the twenty-second meeting of the International Commission, held February 27, 1861. 26 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. European consuls at Bayrut, he had said;^^ "Je n'ai d'influence que sur les Druses et les Musulmans; vous en avez sur les Chretiens; retenez les uns, je retiendrai les autres." The brilliant idea of the consuls to engage Bishop Jubiya as a missionary likely to pour oil on the troubled waters, had simply the effect that both Muhammadans and Druzes became confirmed in their suspicions of a conspiracy formed by the Christians, in particular the Maronite clergy, backed by interested European governments, to despoil them of their land and goods. They were perfectly aware of the real worth of soi-disant disinterested European interference in the cause of humanity, civilisa- tion and so forth. Experience of foreign activity through the regular consular channels and officially disavowed secret agencies, ^^ enabled them to determine the right value of those fine words. So the violence of the Maronites, recoiling upon themselves, led to a popular movement favorable to the Druzes, which assumed more and more a political character, especially in EJamascus^* where the Christians had given great offence by availing themselves of their enfranchisement following upon the Treaty of Paris, to insult the Muhammadans in every *^ As quoted by Mr von M^eckbecker on the occasion referred to in the preceding note. Cf Khurshid Pasha's answer to the Consular Corps at Bayrut when, after the massacre at Damascus, guarantees were asked for the safety of the first mentioned town, especially for its inhabitants of P^iiropean extraction: "....under the Imperial auspices and with the assistance of the Most High, the town need be in no fear or apprehension whatever. Only the Government has specially to request that, in a corresponding spirit on your parts, you will be pleased to enjoin positively, upon your countrymen and your employes and protected persons, that in such critical times they will conform their words and actions to its requirements and abstain from any compromising conduct such as insult to or iU-treatment of persons they may have to complain of, which they have no right whatever to do at any time, and avoid uttering alarming and imfounded reports; and, in fact, that you will cause the 4ocal government to be thankful and able to carry into effect the measures required under existing circumstances." Nr 27 of Further Pa-per.s relating to the Disturbances in Syria, June 1860, Inclosure 2. '* "I am also rather of opinion," writes Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer from Therapia, August 8, 1860, to Consul-General N. Moore at Bayrut, "that the attitude taken by some foreign agents and the overbearing spirit too much manifested by them had no small share in producing the state of feeUng that recently manifested itself in so horrible a manner in one portion of Syria and exists throughout it." °* This conviction is shared by many of the more discriminating authors on the subject, who agree with Mr JOHN BARKER, in his life British Consul-General at Aleppo and Alexandria, that the "massacre of the Christians at Damascus and Mount Lebanon in I860, wag altogether a poUtical outbreak; " See Syria and Egypt under the last Jive SuUans of Turkey, being a narrative of his experiences in office, compiled from his letters and journals, edited by his son E. B. B. BARKER, I, 43. INTRODUCTION. 27 possible way, provoking reprisals. And even then it was only the rabble, getting out of hand, that committed the excesses which our author describes, not without due praise to the firmness in opposing them and the kindness in relieving the distress of the surviving victims, shown by 'Abd' al-Qadir,^^ who was by no means an exception, many of the higher and middle classes of the Muhammadan population taking the same course. This feature of the massacres and their unanimous condemnation by all Moslemin of standing in Syria and throughout the world, ^^ have not received sufficient attention. The Christians, fallen into their own pit, turned again to the foreign consuls, accusing the Druzes in the face of the strongest proofs to the contrary, of having started the trouble, abetted by the Turkish authorities under orders from Constantinople. There is no foundation whatever for the insinuations regarding Turkish motives which our author repeats. But they found a willing ear in Europe where the traditional belief prevailed that the Sultan resorted to periodical heca- tombs to prevent his administration getting out of gear, as an engine- driver oils his locomotive to keep it in running order. Public opinion, wrought upon by letters in newspapers that live by catering to a public taste greedy for sensational stuff, went into hysterics over horrors far beyond the actual happenings and began to clamor for immediate intervention to stop the unspeakable Turk's slaughter of innocent, lamb-like Christians in their ten thousands, once more echoing Abra- ham a Santa Clara's: "Auff, auff ihr Christen und streittet wider den Mahometanischen Irrthum und Tiirkischen Erbfeind : Fort mit dem schhnnnen Buben. . . !" At first the European governments did not respond very promptly, realising that things had occurred in Syria which might reopen the Eastern Question to complicate still further the already intricate international situation. To use an expression '* 'Abd'al-Qadir Ibn Muhy ad-Dln, the famous Algerine chief, defeated by General Lamoricifere in the battle of Sidy Brahim, December 21, 1847. Taken captive, he was sent to France and interned successively at Toulouse, Pau and Amboise. At the proclama- tion of the Secpnd Empire in 1852, Louis Napoleon, just made Napoleon III, gave him back his liberty and he settled in Brussa, to move in 1855, after the earthquake which devastated that city, to Damascus where he lived comfortably on the fs 100.000 a year granted to him by the French Government. After the events of 1860 he came once more to the front in 1871, exhorting his insurgent countrymen to surrender, a piece of advice to which they paid not the slightest attention. He died at Damascus in 1883. " See APPENDIX, III. 28 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. of Gortshakoff, explanatory of his own country's inaction about that time, "c'etait reculer pour mieux sauter." All had their irons in the fire but it required some thought and watching of the European equilibrium to decide how best to apply them. The European equilibrium! It was four years after the Congress of Paris which, as the Powers tried to make themselves believe, had settled the direful Eastern Question after its having been deliberately ignored^ei pour cause! — by the Congi'ess of Vienna. A personal success for Napoleon III, the Congress of Paris and the extraordinary agreement concluded at Ziirich, November 10, 1859, had made changes in the map of Europe which in Britain, Austria and Prussia aroused suspicions regarding French designs that might aim farther than Savoy and Nice. Russia confined herself for the moment to nursing the grievances which originated in her humiliation as a result of the Crimean War. Italy had her struggle for unity, Sardinia, under Cavour's guidance, blazing the path with Tuscany, Modena, Parma, Naples and the Marches of Umbria catching up while Venice, unavoidably delayed, had to stay behind until 1866, Rome until 1870. Italian affairs kept the European Cabinets and diplomatists very busy, superlatively so since Louis Napoleon in addition to a generally aggressive policy, showed no inclination to renounce the benefits expected frttm the protracted occupation of Rome by French troops and Garibaldi's feats with his Marsala Thousand often embarrassed his friends scarcely less' than his enemies. There was, moreover, the Anglo-French campaign in China, an adjustment by force of dift'erences of opinion concerning the apphcation of the Treaty of 1858 which closed the Arrow business, the commanders of the respective contingents to the expedition being no doubt greatly astonished at taking part, side by side, as allies, in one military enterprise decided upon by their govern- ments that indulged in continuous wrangling at home. Considered as an item of political import, apart from their inherent atrocity, the massacres in the Lebanon could hardly be welcome at a moment when the international market was already glutted with lightly inflammable material. It seemed more than awkward indeed that the Eastern Question refused to be relegated to the background while so many other questions asked for a solution. But every one did what he could to make the best of this new factor in the political INTRODUCTION. 29 game without falling foul of the principle that the integrity of Turkey in Europe had to be maintained — as long as the problem of her parti- tion presented unconquerable difficulties by reason of jealousies too easily excited. Lord Palmerston, faithful to the tradition formulated by William Pitt the younger, said on May 25, 1839, to M. de Bourqueney: "The least harmful guarantee of the European equi- librium is the conservation of the Ottoman Empire," though he declared towards the end of his career: "We shall not draw the sword for a corpse a second time."^^ Napoleon wrote from St Cloud, July 29, 1860, to the Count de Persigny, French Ambassador to the Court of St James, in a letter evidently meant for the public at large i^* " Quand Lavalette^^ est parti pour Constantinople, les instructions que je lui ai donnees se bornaient a ceci: Faites tous vos efforts pour maintenir le status quo; Tint^ret de la France est que la Turquie vive le plus longtemps possible." The Padishah though, knew perfectly well what to expect from this solicitude for the integrity of his realm and on the slightest occasion ostentatiously offered assistance to pre- serve it, since he, in the words of von Moltke, "aus jeder Hiilfleistung . schwacher hervor [ging] als er in der Noth gewesen war welche den Beistand veranlaszt hatte."^" But, adroitly weathering every diplomatic tempest, he hoped for sunshine after storm and stress, and meanwhile introduced reforms in the internal administration of his domains, which tended to obviate future pretexts for intervention, making believe that the laws so promulgated owed their existence to interests of state and not to outside interference.^^ "Making believe" is perhaps too harsh a word. Nor seems it quite correct to say with Count Nesselrode that the innovations of "' H. VON TREITSCHKE, Germany, France, Russia and Islam (English translation, 1915). Cf the Count D'AUGEVILLE, La Verity Sur la Question d'Orient el M Thiers, 1841, and of Lord Palmerston's speeches especially those held in the House of Commons on July 11, 1833, and on February 20, 1854. '^ And accordingly extensively published; in the London Times, for instance, first, August 1, 1860, in an English translation, the next day in the French original. ^' Napoleon's newly appointed Ambassador to the Porte. ^^ Op. cit., Militar-politische Lage des osmanischen Reichs. ■^^ Reversing the dissimulation which caused a Padishah of earlier days, Murad III, to disregard the wishes of Pope Gregory XIII, "sapendo [il Signer Turco], . . .benissimo che le leghe si fanno per interessi di stato e non per paroli d'altri," as recorded by Giacomo Sorenzo. See Relazioni degli Amhasciatori Veneti, ed. E. ALBERT, II, 202, 30 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. Mahraud II, ^^ developed by 'Abd'al-Majid,^^ were "shattering the ancient power of the State without setting a new one in its place. "^* After all, both father and son meant well when conferring upon their subjects liberal institutions a Vinstar of those the western rulers were compelled to consent to by the progressive movement of 1848, but for which Turkey was still less ripe than the rest of Europe. Altered for acclimatisation on Turkish soil in the guise of Mahmud's Tanzlmat or reform, which blossomed out in the Hatty Sharif, pro- ^2 Mahraud II, son of ■Abd'al-Hamid I, who died April 7, 1789, was proclaimed Sultan on the 28th of January, 1808, after the violent death of Salim III and the imprisonment of his brother Mustafa. Mahmud's mother was a Creole from Martinique, cousin of Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie who, as the widow of Alexandre de Beauharnais, married General Buonaparte and became Empress of the French to be divorced in 1809. Mile du Lac de Rivery, returning home from school at Nantes, had been captured at sea by Barbary pirates and sold to the Dey of Algiers who made a present of her to his overlord at Constantinople. At first disconsolate, the fair captive was conciled to her fate by means of a piano, hastily ordered from Paris to allay her anger and indignation. Thanks more to her beauty than to her musical talent, she remained for quite a while the Padishah's favorite. Cf BARKER, op. ciL, I, 11. Mahmud II died June 30, 1839, after an eventful reign in which he tried hard "to renovate the Ottoman Empire and to bring it into friendly communion with the Powers of Christendom.'' Letter of August 9, 1832, from Stratford Canning, then on a special mission to the Porte, to Lord Pal- merston. See S. L. POOLE, Life of the Right Ilon'ble Stratford Canning, Viscount de Reddife, I, 513. " 'Abd'al-Majid, Mahmud's eldest son, seventeen years old when he succeeded to Sultanate and Khalifate, was called the "Christian Sultan" becaiise of his inclination to favor his Christian subjects. "One day, his Minister Rashid Pasha asked to be admitted to his presence but was told he must wait until his Majesty had finished the chapter of the Bible he was reading." BARKER, op. cit., I, 13. "He possessed, wrote Canning in later years, a kindly disposition, a sound understanding, a clear sense of duty, proper feel- ings of dignity without pride and a degree of humanity seldom, if ever, exhibited by the best of his ancestors. The full development of these quahties found a check in the want, of vigour which dated from his birth and which his early accession to the throne and consequent indulgence in youthful passions seemed to increase. The bent of his mind incUned him to reform conducted on mild and liberal principles. He had not energy- enough to originate measures of that kind, but he was glad to sanction and promote their operation." POOLE, op. cit., II, 81. This estimate agrees on the whole with that of A. DE LA J0NQUI£RE, Histoire de I'Bmpire Ottoman, p. 526, who calls him "le digne h-^ritier des grandes id^es de son p^re, [qui] avait vaillamment marche en avant." DE LAMARTINE, describing his personal appearance, says: "ses traits sont r^guhers et doux, son front eleve, ses yeux bleus, ses sourcils arqui^s comme dans les races caucasiennes, son nez droit sans roideur, ses Ifivres relevees et entr'ouvertes, son menton, cette base de caract^re dans la figure humaine, ferme et bien attach^; I'ensemble noble, fier, mais adouci par le sentiment d'une supiSriorit^ calme, qui a plus le d^sir d'etre aim6 que d'etre imposant; " Nouveau Voyage en Orient, p. 63. " VON TREITSCHKE, op. cit. INTRODUCTION. 31 claimed at the Gulkhanah on November 3, 1839, three months after 'Abd'al-Majid's accession to the throne, it carried, however, the germ of notable improvements in the assurances it gave to all inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire, without distinction of creed, that they would be protected in life, honor and property; that the taxes would be equitably assessed and levied; that fixed rules would be observed in drafting recruits for the army. The councils or governmental depart- ments of the Ottoman Empire, the civil service and financial adminis- tration, the judiciary and the "offices or functions of the sword" were the principal subjects of further regulations while the Hatty Humayun of February 18, 1856, developed in twenty paragraphs the previous dispositions on an ever more comprehensive basis. ^° If some in Britain associated themselves with Lord Palmerston's view and reasoned that after waging the Crimean War to save Turkey from the grasp of Russia, nothing could be better than to encourage a transformation of the Turkish government which would draw it nearer and nearer to the British bosom, others condemned the Crimean War as a big mistake, inclining to the views of Bright and Cobden, firmly convinced that "it would haVe been far better to have aUowed Russia to go in and win, for the Turk [was] a hopelessly irreclaimable ruffian, who should be improved off the face of the earth as soon as may be."^* They played into the hands of Napoleon who, notwith- standing the sentiments aired in his open letter to the Count de Per- signy, wished to regain by some impressive move the clerical support he had lost by certain aspects of his Italian ventures. And there was also the French protectorate over the Christians, more correctly speaking the Roman Catholic Christians, in the Levant. True, it did not amount to much in reality, ^'^ but it was an excellent point of « Cf E. ENGELHARDT, La Turqide et le Tamimat, and M. A. UBICINI, Lettres sur la Turquie. * "Cf the Member of the British Parliament M, E. GRANT DUFF's lecture on the Eastern Qtiestion, delivered at Inverurie, November 14, 1876. Another fine paraphrase of the opinion of Zebedaeus in FRANCIS BACON's Dialogus de Bella Sacroi "... .bellum contra Turcara justum esse, tam jure naturali, quam jure gentium," was furnished by G. J. D. CAMPBELL, eighth Duke of Argyll, speaking in the City Hall of Glasgow, September 19, 1876: "Well then, my Lord Provost, I begin with this proposition, that the Turkish Government is so bad, so execrably bad, that every rebellion against it on the part of its Christian subjects is presumably just and righteous." " Le mot €tait tr^s pompeux mais la chose ^tait tres petite." XAVIER RAYMOND, op. cit. 32 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. departure for demands that might lead to acts pregnant with glory and aggrandizement, apt to foil the Russians who tightened their hold on the Near East by their protectorate over the Orthodox Greeks ;^^ the Austrians who claimed a protectorate over the Roman Cathohes of Turkey in Europe ;^^ the ItaUans who, refusing to acknowledge the Pope's temporal power, clung with the more tenacity to their rights as champions of the temporal interests of the Mother Church domiciled in their midst; finally the Enghsh who were accused of using the Protestant missionaries as a lever for the furtherance of their sinister designs.^" In Syria not only the Protestant missionaries and their converts. The Druzes too: an additional reason for the French to exploit Maronite allegiance" to its utmost capacity. So the Lebanon became for England and France what Sicily had been for ** Assumed on the strengtli of the Treaty of Kutshuk Kaynarjy, July 10, 1774, which gave substance to claims of much older date. ^^ By virtue of which alleged protectorate the Emperor Francis Joseph had, e. g., sent the Prince von Leiningen to Constantinople on a mission in the interest of the Roman Cathohc Albanians. ^" Speaking of the disturbances of 1840 and the next two years in Mount Lebanon, M. David, taking perfidious Albion to task in the Chambre des D^put^s, asked, January 30, 1843, answering himself: "Oil done ^tait la cause de cette guerre civile, si contraire a la stjretfi commune des deux populations? On a soupgonne I'Angleterre d'avoir favoris^ Ics missionnaires soi-disant am^ricains, dans un int^ret purement politique," The English view had already found official expression in a despatch to Lord Palmerston from the Viscount Ponsonby, British Ambassador at Constantinople, who wrote under the date of June 8, 1841, "that the French agents [in Syria were] numerous and extremely active; that the object of the French [seemed] to be to aid in placing Syria in a situation which [should] make good the French declared opinion, that the Porte never would be able to govern Syria; that the Pashas and other Ottoman authorities were acting in many things with immeasurable folly and great corruption." Five weeks later Viscount Ponsonby had a letter communicated to him, sent by Baron von Miinster, Austrian Internuncio at Constantinople, to Prince Metternich, which was grist to his mill since it confirmed his statements. Forwarded to London, it appeared as Nr 14 in the Correspondence with Her Majesty's Embassy at Constantinople respecting the Affairs of Syria, p. 31. Speaking of Syria, Baron von Miinster said: "Cet 6tat de choses devient plus grave par les menses des agens fran^'ais deja mentionn^s ci-dessus. II parait qu'ils emploient tous leurs moyens pour paralyser I'influence anglaise. Leurs missionaires sont rapproch(^s des Maronites et orient avec ceux-ci contre les Protestans." '^ Seasoned of old with a dash of theatrical display whenever there was an opportunity. In the Maronite churches, for instance, "a place of honour was reserved for the French consul, who was wont to hold his naked sword over the book of the Gospel, in token of his Sovereign's protection." W. MILLER, The Ottoman Empire, 1801-1913, p. 152. A certain "Habib Risk Allan Effendy" relates in his narrative of a voyage through Syria to the Lebanon and also to England and France, that in troublous times the Maronite monasteries hoisted the French flag. Dutch translation, p. 233. INTRODUCTION. 33 Carthage and Rome, and, to elaborate this comparison of Urquhart's,'^ successively for the Byzantines and the Arabs, the Arabs and the Nor- mans, the houses of Hohenstaufen and Anjou, of Bourbon and Savoy. When the French Government broached the idea of sending an expeditionary force to Syria to assist the Porte in restoring order which, the Porte declared, was not necessary at all since it intended to despatch for the purpose, as it did, a capable Commissioner with plenary power and a sufficient number of troops, the other govern- ments showed plainly their deep-seated mistrust. The story of the conferences of their representatives at Paris with M. Thouvenel, then French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and with one another, makes edifying reading. So makes the commentary of the newspapers with their well-informed correspondents in la nlle lumiere, who furnished their daily bits of information, derived from the ''most reliable" sources, immediately followed by dementis; their statements of unimpeach- able facts, founded on nothing but rumor; their officially and semi- officially inspired canards. One day France was to go it alone what- ever the rest of Europe might say or do; the next day France did not think of such a thing, in fact never had contemplated an expedition. Then again France felt it her sacred duty to avenge the insult to her flag, the burning of her consulates, the pillage of the monasteries under her protection, asseverating withal her intensely pacific inten- tions, which elicited from the London Times an answer in a strain quite familiar to the constant reader of that organ in the years pre- ceding the present war: barring the substitution of Germany for "la grande nation" some phrases and tirades in its articles of 1859 and 1860 are not only in one key and tune but curiously consonant in wording with its rumblings before the storm that broke in 1914.^^ Russia, terribly sore at her recent deprivation of the privileged posi- tion she had acquired in 1833 by the Treaty of Unkyar Skelessy, tried hard to recover lost ground and manoeuvred to lead the pour- "Op. cii.,I, 112. '* "Let France disarm and the effect would be immediately felt in the pacific tendencies of every capital in Europe; but so long as she continues her present state of preparation she imposes on her neighbours the absolute necessity of maintaining a corresponding force; " Times of August 2, 1860. This sample in proof of the proposition that the same feelings generally seek and find expression in the same words or that leader-writers — and not only those who move in the atmosphere of Blackf riars !^-^>f ten seek and find inspiration in the work of their predecessors, could easily be multiplied — almost ad infinitum. 34 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. parlers into the channel of an amelioration of the condition of the Christians in every part of the Ottoman Empire. Austria wanted to send troops as well as France. ^^ The Powers intent, as usual, on making the "cause of humanity" serve designs of an entirely different character," could not agree. There were suspensions of the nego- tiations, ruptures, fears of a general conflagration. The telegraphic report of the crowning massacre at Damascus reminded the wrangling diplomatists of the urgency of the business they were supposed to attend to. It impressed the British Cabinet to the point of assenting to a French expedition on terms still to be arranged. Not with perfect good grace. In his despatch of July 23, 1860, to Earl Cowley, British Ambassador to the Imperial Court at Paris, Lord John Russell said: "It appears to her Majesty's Govern- ment that, although the exceptional circumstances justify this expedi- tion, yet, if the news of the next ten days or a fortnight should justify the hope that the massacres are stopped and will not be renewed, the very hazardous attempt of endeavouring to tranquihse the country by foreign troops should not be resorted to. In that case the French troops should not embark or should return at once. It appears also to Her Majesty's Government that a final term should be inserted in the Convention for the evacuation of Syria by foreign troops." On August 3, a notice was posted up at the Paris Bourse, where specula- tion about the uncertain issue of the negotiations had been rife, announcing the agreement of the Powers on the conditions of European intervention in Syria. If Lord Palmerston, guiding the destinies of '* The marching orders issued to a battalion of Tyrolese Chasseurs destined for Aleppo were, however, countermanded and it stayed at home on receipt in Vienna of the formal assurance from the Porte that Fu'ad Pasha, the Turkish Commissioner in Syria, had guaranteed to pacify the country without foreign aid, Reuter telegram of August 10, 1860. It is not at all unlikely that friendly persuasion from another quarter emphasized the drift of the Turkish assurance. ^^ Not only the Great Powers but also such lesser ones, considered too insignificant to be admitted to their deliberations, as had an axe to grind, Sardinia for instance, then steering towards union of the Italian States under the auspices of il re galaniuomo with Count Cavour at the helm. A very characteristic message &, propos of the Syrian affair, sent by the latter, August 3, 1860, to the Marquis Tapparelh d'Azegho, Envoy of his Majesty Victor Emmanuel II to the Court of St. James, complains of Sardinia not having been invited to the discussions regarding the despatch of a French expedition and ascribes that slight to "Ics eflorta constants de FAutriche pour nous exclure d'accords qui devraient 6tre k Tabri de toute jalousie politique, et auxquels effectivement I'esprit conciliant des autres Puissances a voulu imprimer le caract^re d'une g-Sni^reuse manifestation de la Chr^tient^." Correspondence relating to the Affairs of Syria, 1860-61, Nr 68. INTRODUCTION. 35 Britain, had at last consented to a French expedition, it was, as Lord Russell's despatch proves, but unwillingly, "fearing lest there would be much trouble in getting the French out again. "^^ Collective pressure was brought to bear on Turkey to make her submit. The Convention, signed August 3, provided for a body of European troops, whose number might be raised to 12.000, to be sent to Syria for the purpose of assisting the Porte in the re-establishment of peace and order. France was to furnish at once half of the armament agreed upon, a further understanding being necessary to increase its strength. The other Powers, together with France, proposed to maintain on the coast of Syria sufficient naval forces to contribute towards the success of the undertaking, Prussia, however, excusing herself because the distribution of her ships of war at that time did not permit her to co-operate in that manner. The High Contracting Parties fixed the duration of the occupation at six months, trusting that no longer period would be required. Saving Britain's face, the Titnes of August 10 cafied it "a gratifying sign of the accord which prevail [ed] among all civilised powers that, although the state of Europe [was at that moment] far from reassuring and the strength of France [was] so displayed as to be a menace for its neighbours, the European nations [were] yet capable of uniting in a great cause." Another sign of the touching accord over which Jupiter Tonans of Printing House Square went in raptures, was the necessity of disclaiming all interested motives in a protocol which supplemented for that express purpose the protocol of the convention proper. Still another sign was the anxiety with which the French transports were watched by agents of France's co-signatories, appre- hensive that more troops should embark than stipulated." The pre- posterous plan of saddling Turkey with the expenses of the expedi- tion, undertaken against her will and from which no good to her could accrue, was abandoned because of the bad state of the Turkish finances^ * " E. ASHLEY, The lAfe of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, II, 181. '' The Times correspondent at Paris, too, was getting uneasy and wrote under the date of August 11: "Letters from Toulon and Marseilles give various particulars con- cerning the departure of the Syrian expedition which, if correct, would make it appear that considerably more than 6000 men will be sent." ^B "A final article [of the draft of the Convention] saddles the Porte with the expenses of the expedition, but in the present state of the Turkish finances M. Thouvenel was uncertain whether or no he would have it inserted." Letter of July 19, 1860, from Earl C3owIey to Lord Russell. 36 THE LEBANON IN TUEMOIL. or rather because French hints to that effect had been coldly received by the other Powers. General Beaufort d'Hautpoul, '^ put in command of the expeditionary corps, ^'^ was instructed to act in conjunction with the international fleet off the coast of Syria, " a arreter, par des mesures promptes et energiques, I'effusion de sang et a seconder la repression des attentats commis sur les Chretiens, et qui ne sauraient rester impunis. L'article III du Protocole stipule qu'a cet effet il devra a son arrivee en Syrie entrer en communication avec le Commissaire de la Porte. Cette clause etait commend^e par la situation m^me des choses; I'accord des Puissances devait se retrouver dans la par- ticipation de leurs Agents appeles a contribuer an r^sultat qu'elles " General Beaufort d'Hautpoiil was well acquainted with Syria where he had been attached to the staff of Ibrahim Pasha. His first aide-de-camp was the Major of Cavalry Boyer, who had served on the staff of Marshal Saint-Amauld. ^^ The composition of the French expeditionary corps as recorded on the rocks near the mouth of the Dog River, flanked by hieroglyphics of Egyptian and cuneiform inscriptions of Assyrian kings, memorials of Roman emperors and Seljuq sultans, was as follows: " General de Beaufort d'HautpouI, Commandant en Chef; Colonel Osmont, Chef d'Etat-Major General; G^n^ral Ducrot, commandant I'lnfanterie; 5me de Ligne; 2me Genie; ler Hussards; 13me de Ligne; ler d'Artillerie; ler Chasseurs d'Afrique; 16me Bat. Chasseurs; lOme d'ArtiUerie; 3me Chasseurs d'Afrique; ler Zouaves; Services Administratifs ; 2me Spahis." An American missionary tells in con- nection with this memento a story which is too good not to repeat: "A young Enghsh- man named Lee visited the famous Dog River, nine miles from Beirut, for the purpose of studying the inscriptions on the ancient rock-hewn tablets of Sesostris, Esaihaddon and others, of which there were nine. On reading his "Murray's Guide" he was surprised to find that the face of one of the ancient tablets had been smoothed down by a chisel and a French inscription cut upon it, commemorating the French mihtary expedition to Syria in 1860-61 with the name of Napoleon III and the officers of the army. Supposing it to have been the work of some unauthorised vandal, he took a stone and defaced the emperor's name from the inscription. On his return to Beirut he was summoned to the British consulate to answer a charge of the French consul that he had destroyed French property. He then wrote an apologetic answer to the French consul and also expressed his surprise that the French officials who had sent Renan to explore the Syrian antiquities, should have authorised the destruction of one of its most ancient monuments. The French consul returned his letter as unsatisfactory and there the incident closed." JESSUP, o-p. cit., p. 236. This act of vandalism was after all quite in keeping with the destruction of ancient monuments of architecture and art for which holy ecclesiastics were canonised; with the devastation that marked the path of successful crusaders: "Amends k s'entourer de gigantesques murailles de pierre, les temphers, les hospitallers, I'ordre teutonique, la puissante f6odalit6 de Syrie devorerent tons les monuments antiques autour d'eux et comme ils bS.tissaient bien, comme la plupart des pierres avant d'etre employiSes 6taient retaillees, les traces primitives furent deplorablement obUt^rfies, RENAN, op. cit. Con- clusions. According to information just received, a ''modest" new inscription ha.s been added to the old ones above referred to, which memorates Sir Edmund Allenby's victorious •campaign of 1917-18 in wresting Syria with Palestine from the Turks. INTRODUCTION. 37 ont resolu de poursuivre. L'envoye du Sultan et M. le General de Beaufort auront done a r^unir leurs efforts communs en combinant Taction de nos troupes avec les pleins pouvoirs dont le Conunissaire Ottoman a et6 muni et qui lui donnent le droit de rendre et de faire ex^cuter les decisions exig^es par les circonstances. M. le General de Beaufort toutefois conserve une entiere liberty d'appreciation pour tout ce qui concerne I'honneur de notre drapeau et la surete de notre corps expeditionnaire. A cet egard il demeure libre en s'expliquant cependant avec le Representant du Gouvernement Turc, d'adopter les mesures et d'occuper les positions qu'il jugera utile de prendre."^' Meanwhile Sultan 'Abd'al-Majid had despatched Fu'ad Pasha^^ to Syria with instructions embodied in a firman which our author gives in extenso. Both master and servant were in dead earnest. The tidings of the massacre at Damascus, which reached Fu'ad Pasha when he arrived in Cyprus on his way from Constantinople to Bayrut, made him "fume with rage." He possessed a strong hand and a clever, clear head and might be relied upon to do his work much more thoroughly than commissioners who had preceded him, charged with the performance of similar tasks, Shakib Effendy, for instance, another Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent in 1845 after the sack of the French Capuchin monastery at Abayh and the murder of its Superior, Father Charles de Lorette, to punish that crime on the spot and prevent further breaches of the peace. Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer said nothing too much when calling the new Turkish Commissioner ^^ Letter, dated August 4, 1860, from M. Thouvenel, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Admiral Hamelin, French Minister of War ad interim. ^ Fu'ad Pasha, son of the distinguished poet Kech^yi Zadeh and himself poetically inclined in his leisure hours, was born in 1815 and educated for the medical profession. Beginning his career as a surgeon in the army, he soon entered the Civil Service as an official of the department of Foreign Affairs, was appointed secretary of the Turkish Embassy in London, then sent as a special envoy on missions to St. Petersburg and Egypt, rising rapidly to high rank. In 1851 he was Minister of Foreign Affairs, a place which he held five timas besides his occupying twice the still more exalted position of Grand Vizir and once that of Minister of War. A bold mihtary commander as he proved himself to be when in charge of the operations on the Greek frontier during the Crimean War, his greatest victories were how*er gained in the field of diplomacy. Pro-Enghsh in his policy, he helped to humiliate Russia as Turkish delegate to the Congress of Paris, which may have had something to do with the City of London conferring its freedom on him when, accom- panying Sultan 'Abd'al-Aziz on a tour through Egypt and Europe, he visited England again. Liberal in his views, he worked together with Muhammad 'Aly Amin Pasha for the rebirth of Turkey on the lines laid down in 'Abd'al-Majid's Hatty Sharif and Hatty Humayun to perfect Mahmud's incipient Tan?imat. Fu'ad Pasha died at Nice in 1869. 38 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. "perhaps the best man that could be found for the duty entrusted to him;"83 Captain J. A. Paynter, Commander of Her Majesty's Exmouth, rightly laid stress on his "European reputation for abiUty and honesty of purpose."^* Fu'ad Pasha arrived in Bayrtit on the 17th of July and lost no time in taking the necessary measures to execute the Sultan's commands. As soon as he had put the adminis- tration of the pashalic of Sayda in shape, he proceeded to Damascus, which place he entered on the 4th of August, preceded, already on the 13th of July, by 3000 men of the regular army under Muhammar Pasha who relieved Ahmad Pasha from his civil and miUtary functions pending an inquiry into his conduct. Determined to do his duty with strict impartiahty, keeping the three objects of his mission in view— repression, reparation and reorganisation — Fu'ad Pasha showed that the Porte had no desire to shirk its responsibility, and the way in which he carried out the first number on his programme, while it gained him the nickname of "father of the cord," made him at once master of the situation. ^^ But the Maronites wanted more, much more than impartial treat- ment and justice. They wanted to secure by the tangible presence of the French troops what they had failed to gain by the former underhand consular assistance, namely, the hegemony, nay, the abso- lute possession of Mount Lebanon, and revenge first of all, a terrible revenge on their enemies. This last holds good for the Christians in general, who spared no pains to put the non-Christians in the most hateful light, took even advantage of the sentiment created in their behalf throughout Europe, to raise a cry against the Damascene Jews, though no doubt existed that the Jewish community of Damascus was guiltless of any participation in the outbreak."*^ It can be imagined '^ Letter of July 17, 1860, to Lord Russelt. *' Letter of July 19, 1860, to Vice-Admiral W. F. Martin. "^ An official telegram from Damascus, dated August 20 and published in the London Times of September 3, 1860, which enumerates the culprits shot and hanged for a begin- ning, adds: "The army of the Sultan acts with the most rigorous discipline and in perfect loyalty. The arm of justice is absolutely triumphant." ^ *'* Cf the communication from Sir Moses Montefiore to Lord Russell, dated October 16, 1860, and accompanied by the translation of a letter he had received from the heads of the Jemsh community of Damascus, dated 7th Tishri, 5621 (September, I860), in which they complained of the Christians plotting and preferring false accusations against them with a view to having them condemned to death by the tribunal instituted to try those who had risen in rebellion. INTRODUCTION. 39 how they exaggerated the actual misdeeds of Druzes and Moslemin, forgetting that there were two sides to the story as Lord Dufferin wrote to Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer/' to continue: "In proportion as the real truth unfolded itself this conjecture [that it might be necessary to modify his opinions] became a certainty and I am now in a position to state, without fear of contradiction, that however criminal may have been the excesses into which the Druzes were subsequently betrayed, the original provocation came from the Christians, and that they are themselves, in a great measure, responsible for the torrents of blood which have been shed." We have already spoken of our author's lack of appreciation of the difficulties which obstructed the path of Khurshid Pasha. His bias makes him draw a picture of Sa'yd Bey Janblat,^^ which also bears very Uttle resemblance to the original and reminds one of a certain biography by Capefigue, greatly dishked by Metternich, who refused to recognise himself in it; adding: "C'est au reste ainsi que s'6crit I'histoire et qu'elle ne devralt pas s'^crire."*" Guilty as he was in some respects, the energetic Druze leader could prove at his trial, though it was not conducted, in a " From Bayriit, February 24, 1861. ^^ The Janblat family belonged with the Yazbak or 'Amad and Nakad families to the most powerful of the Druze nobility. It is said to have been of Turkish origin, OPPEN- HEIM, op, cit., I, 115, and was one of the most wealthy and influential in the whole country; a Janblaty was Pasha of Aleppo about the beginning of the seventeenth century. BURTON, op. cit., derives the name from jan-pulad, life of steel. Sa'yd Bey Janblat, the purse, as Kha^tar al-'Amad was called the sword and 3usayn TalhQq the tongue of the Druzes, had personal reasons to dislike the Maronites and deserves the more praise for using his influence to curb, whenever practicable, the passions of his people excited by their arrogance and insolence. He was the son of the Sheikh Bashir Janblat who, having amassed wealth in the Buqa'a, moved to the Shuf and settled at Mukhtara where he built the palace which became the family-seat. Sheikh Bashir Janblat, always at loggerheads with the 'Amir Bashir Shihab during the disturbances which enlivened the decade before the Egyptian occupation, was at last made a prisoner by irregular Turkish troops, not without Maronite assistance. Brought to Acre, "Abdullah Pasha had him decapitated, May, 1825, at the orders of Muhammad 'Aly. "His three sons, then mere children, remained in exile during the remainder of the Amir Bashir's administration, but returned to find their ancestral home at Muchtara in ruins, on the restoration of the Sultan's government in 1840. The eldest, Naaman Bey, retired into strictly private life shortly after the civil war of 1841. The youngest, Ismail, was sent for his education to England, but, after only a year's absence, returned with his mind completely disordered and, lingering a few years in hopeless lunacy, died. The name, fortune and prestige of the Jumblatts had now to be sustained by Said Bey alone." CHURCHILL, op. cit., p. 88. ^^ Aiis Mettemich's nachgelassenen Papieren, published by his son, Prince RICHARD METTERNICH-WINNBURG. 40 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. proper manner, as he averred, and several of his answers were not recorded, that he saved many a Christian's hfe and might have done more if he had not been handicapped by the opposition of the Yazbakies, his rivals.^" In this connection it gives pleasure to note that our author does not repeat the gruesome tales current about Sitt Na'yfah, Sa'yd Bey Janblat's sister who, far from being the female ghoul, gloating in her refined cruelty over the agony of the Christians slaughtered in the sarai at Hasbayya and feasting her eyes on their mangled corpses, as Colonel Churchill relates in his sensational book,^^ "distinguished herself by sheltering many Christians in her house during the massacre, whereby their lives were saved, "^^ and behaved altogether with the greatest courage, acting in their behalf with unremitting zeal.^^ Nevertheless numerous Christians demanded her arrest "as they [did] her execution on the plea that she was the chief instigator of the massacre of Hasbayya."^* With regard to the allegation that the Druzes maltreated and butchered women and children, we find it expressly stated that those killed of the latter were boys who might grow into men inspired with the same arrogance and rancorous hatred as their fathers. This does not exculpate but explains: a conqueror's hands are seldom wholly clean, which grievous truth we see verified even when claimants to the highest degree of culture are disseminating their superior civilisation at the point of the bayonet. Yet, to return to the indictment of the Druzes as despoilers and worse, of women, °" Cf the memorandum of a statement which he made on liis deathbed, signed by the vice-consul E. I. ROGERS and forwarded as Inclosure Nr 4 in a letter, dated May 10, from Lord DulTeria to Lord Russell. '^ Already mentioned: The Druzes and the Maroniles under the Turkish Rule from 1840 to 1860, p. 173. '^ Letter, dated Bayrtit, December 2, 1860, from Major A. J. Fraser to Lord Russell. *^ From the abundant evidence to that effect we permit ourselves one other quotation: "The sister of the great Druze chief, before the massacre began, advised the Christians not to go to the serai. She most probably knew what awaited them and offered to shelter any who came into her house. Unfortunately the greater number mistrusted her, but 400 creatures crowded into her house and when the murderers, panting for more blood, demanded of her to give up the dogs of Christians, she said: "Enter if you dare and take them!" Even in such a moment the Druzes would not have dared to violate the sanctity of the harem of one of their great Princes and with uttered curses retired. The poor creatures she carefully escorted herseK to Mokhtarah whence they were dispatched to Sidon and brought off by our men-of-war and landed at Bayrut." Statement of Mr Cyril Graham, inclosed in a letter, dated August 5, 1860, from Lord Dufferin to Lord Russell. ^* See the letter mentioned in Note 92. INTRODUCTION. 41 the character of the proofs adduced excites so much suspicion, espe- cially since we have to do with a people lauded by all who know them for their respectful attitude towards the sex both in peace and war,^^ that we hardly can blame those who scent here another trumped-up charge to shift the responsibility for one of the most abominable features of the atrocities committed, from where it belongs to the general account of the common foe.*"^ "Under the circumstances," says Lord Dufferin in another letter^^ from Bayrut to Lord Russell, referring to the inflammatory terms in which Bishop Tubiya wrote to the people of Dayr al-Qamar and openly talked of the expulsion of the Druzes, "it is idle to speak of the Christians as if they were saintly martyrs. They are as savage and bloodthirsty in their traditional warfare as any of their pagan neighbours. Nay, their clans often carry on internecine blood-feuds with one another in which they do not even spare the womankind. . 'An instance of such strife occurred but two years ago, in the case of the Hayin sheikhs and similar occurrences are frequent in their history. In this respect, at least, the Druzes are the more humane; they never war on one another and women are sacred in their eyes." Even a French missionary^^ testifies to foreign interference your le hon motij being the spark which set fire to that excessively combustible material and caused it to explode, at first the wrong way — ^considered from the standpoint of the Maronites. Afterwards they gained their end to a certain extent, as we shall see later on. Foreign agents, openly or clandestinely supported by the Powers, kept on meddling,''^ under- *' See for instance a memorandum by Mr. Robson, Irish Presbyterian missionary at , Damascus, forwarded by Lord Dufferin to Lord Russell, September 23, 1860. 96 "Voici maintenant les correspondances anglaises qui accusent Ics Grecs orthodoxes et meme les Arm^niens catholiques d'avoir jou6 un role tres actif dans les scenes de devas- tation dont les Maronites ont 6t€ les victimes. On va jusqu'^ dire que les Grecs seraient les auteurs ded crimes abominables qui ont et^ commis sur les femmes, les Druses, dans toute 4'histoire de leurs guerres, ne s'^tant jamais ^cart^s du respect que leurs principes leur enseignent, meme k I'egard des femmes de leurs ennemis vaincus. Les Grecs auraient profit^ de I'occasion pour chercher une revanche de I'affaire des lieux saints et de la guerre de la Crimee." XAVIER RAYMOND, op., cii. " Dated December 19, 1860 ^* JULES FERRETTE, La Guerre du Liban et V&tai de la Syrie, Reime des Deux Morides, "August 15, 1860: "Pour troubler la paix, il fallait la malice et la ruse de tiers intiSress^s k la ruine commune, . . . . " '^ A fine instance of this evil is furnished by Inclosure Nr 3 in a letter, dated July 19, 1860, from Consul-General Moore to Lord Russell. This document is nothing more nor 4^ THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. mining the authority of the legitimate government which, every time the Syrian proverb that too much tying loosens, came true in its affairs, aggravating its predicament, had to answer insolently polite requests for information why it could not keep its house in order. Events meanwhile following events, Iskander Ibn Ya'qub Abkarius's chronicle, illustrative of the manner in which European bickerings reacted on religious animosities in the Lebanon and affected the political and economic conditions of the whole of Syria, elucidates within its limits: How — to borrow David Urquhart's words^"" — the five Powers, who signed the Treaty of July, 1841, by dividing the Mountain into two governments of Druzes and Maronites, and imposing ruinous duties upon exportation, brought upon it in the course of ten years, four civil wars; How the four Powers commenced their work on the pretext of exclud- ing French influence, and the five Powers completed it by causing the country to be occupied by French troops. less than a report by a traveller without any official standing, who, having been sent by the consular corps at Bayrut on a mission to the Druze chiefs in the Lebanon, neither he nor his principals worrying about the consent of the proper authorities, ordered those chiefs to assemble in council and seemed rather astonished at their reluctance to appear and wait on his good pleasure. "" Op. dt., Preface. TRANSLATION OF THE TEXT [A photograph opposite the title-page represents as the "author of the book " a slim, kindly looking, middle-aged gentleman in tarbush and European dress, decorated with the badges of four orders of knighthood.] BOOK OF THE MARVELS OF THE TIME CONCERNING THE MASSACRES IN THE ARAB COUNTRY. (P. 2) In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate ! Praise to Him who has no equal in dignity and perfection, in greatness and majesty, and passes judgment upon the conduct of our lives at their appointed term; who changes the seasons and alters circumstances! But Himself He does not change in the space of all time from genera- tion to generation. We thank Him for the gifts and favors He bestows upon us. And we pray Him for His assistance in everything we say and do. Proceeding: The one in need' [of the grace of God], who hopes for the mercy of his very holy Lord, Iskander, the son of Ya'qub Abkarius, begs to say that, when the affliction came to pass which befell the Christians from the nation of the Druzes in Mount Leb- anon,^ its report spread in all districts and countries, and the people spoke of it in every place until in length of time it turned their tears to anger. (P. 3) I have opened this book with an exposition of what I have ascertained [to be true] of it and have added a narrative of the events at Damascus and what happened there in the matter of devas- tation. And I have taken great pains, putting my soul into this business, and I have been very careful in the selection of my material, endeavoring to sift it carefully. And I offer what I have been able to verify by means of inquiry and investigation in order that whoever comes after me, may learn the truth about these troubles and dis- turbances; and that he may know the design and intention of the evil purposed with them. Therefore, supported by the power of Him who be supremely exalted, I have produced a book, completing [that which I] intended in the best manner [I conld]. And this I did in the city of Bayrut, the protected, of the province of Syria. And when it was all finished and it seemed good, I called it Marvels of the ^ An epithet inspired, like the Ciiristian author's initial formula, by his Muhammadan environment if not antecedents; cf Quran, XXXV, 16. In the following pages many such expressions will be found, redolent of Islamic convictions and modes of thought, which often form a curious mixture with an acquired Christian phraseology as a vehicle for imperfectly assimilated Christian ideas, ^ The "white" or "whitish," a name said to be derived from the brightness of the lime- stone walls that hne the mountain range and give it a distinctive, radiant appearance. (45) 46 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. Time cmicerning the Massacres in the Arab Country,^ and I dividedit into nine chapters, inserting into them what they contain of causes and effects. (P. 4) First Chapter. Statement regarding Mount Lebanon and the acts of injustice and iniquity there committed. Second Chapter. Narrative of the troubles and disturbances which occurred in al-Matn and as-Sahil. Third Chapter. Narrative of the treachery and deceit suffered by the people of ad- Dubblyah and Mu'allaqat ad-Damur. Fourth Chapter. Narrative of the heart-rending trials that befell the people of the district of Jazzln and of at-Tuffah and al-Kharnub. (P. 5) Fifth Chapter. Concerning the carnage at Ha^bayya, which was followed by the massacre of Rashayya. Sixth Chapter. Concerning the siege of Zahlah, which forced its inhabitant? to emigrate. Seventh Chapter. Concerning the massacre at Dayr al-Qamar, which was pitiless and did not [seem to] cease. Eighth Chapter. Concerning the carnage at Damascus and the part played in it by the 'Amir 'Abd'al-Qadir, the Algerian, who, prompted by exceeding ^ The last two words of the title here repeated and half erased and rewritten in the Arabic text, bear the guilty look of a pun on the geographical term 'Arabistan, viz., "Arab Country" or "Land of the Arabs," used to designate both the Persian province of Khuzistan and the provinces of the Ottoman Empire where Arabs and their descendants or Arabic speaking peoples form the bulk of the population; cf Note 49 to the Introduc- tion. As finally written, they may be read by the lover of such plays on words, "Arabs of the Garden (of Syria)." BOOK OF THE MAftVELS. 47 kindness and solicitude, did the right thing with regard to the Christians. (P. 6) Ninth Chapter. Coneerning the advent of the companion of Empire and high con- sideration and dignity, Fu'ad Pasha, and his honoring [visit to] Bayrut on the part of his Majesty the Sultan 'Abd'al-Majld Khan for the purpose of restoring order in the affairs of Mount Lebanon. / say: These [headings of the different] chapters are the substance of the contents of this book. But I have mentioned in them [still] more important events as appended to every subdivision. FIRST CHAPTER Statement about Mount Lebanon and the acts of injustice and iniquity there committed. We, before we enter upon the narrative of the disturbances and of the occurrence (P. 7) of horrible and abominable actions, deem it proper to consider the aspect of the affairs of the Mount and to [state to] which confessions and nations* its inhabitants belong in order that more satisfaction and greater advantage be [derived from this book]. We say [therefore] that Mount Lebanon [is one] of the most famous mountains that exist and that its inhabitants have their origin in the most remote ages, preceding the epochs and times of the peoples who clung to vain beliefs. And now they [the peoples of the Lebanon, divided according to their creeds, are principally] Christians and Druzes, and among these [live] a few Moslemin and Mutawalies.^ * I. e. religious communities, to the patriarchs or other recognised heads of which well- disposed Ottoman rulers have granted, by successive firmans, certain rights and privileges that actually give them the status of separate nations, differences of creed dividing the people like or even more strongly than differences of nationality. Only the Maronites among the Christian denominations are without such a firman. But, to quote Dr F. J. BLISS, op. cit., p. 23, "the fact that ever since 1516 they have enjoyed all the privileges of a "nation" recognised by the sultans, is considered to be sufficient. Precedent takes the place of formal authorisation." * The Mutawahes are Shi'ites who, in the Lebanon, greatly exceed the Sunnites in number. To the North they extend as far as Horn? (Pliny's Heraesa of ancient renown), to the South as far as the Bahr Tabariya (Sea of Gahlee). Counting some 120.000, they are said to 48 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. As regards the Christians in the aforesaid Mount Lebanon, their number reaches about ninety thousand males and most of them are of the Maronite persuasion.^ Among them, however, are also who belong to the Orthodox Greek Church and to the Greek Catholic [United Greek] Church.^ As regards the Druzes, their number reaches, roughly speaking, fifteen (P. 8) thousand^ and more.^ They deny the resurrection [of the body] and believe in the transmigration of the soul. They consider everything permitted if [only] it is done in secret. They assert the divinity of Adam whom they call Shatnil,"' and they say that his soul has migrated from one to another from generation to generation until it entered the Imam 'Aly Ibn Abu Talib, the Eminent, and then^^ [one of] the issue of .his daughter'^ be the descendants of Persian settlers in the time of 'Umayyad rule, have an ugly reputa- tion and show themselves very suspicious of strangers. Their religious chief resides at Jaba'ah near Jazzin. Their leading family is that of the ^arfush. * According to a Table oj Ike StatisHcs of Mount Lebanon, already mentioned, the number of Christians capable of carrying arms was 190.055 of whom 102.105 were Maronites. As regards those Maronites, "ils r^sid^rent longterops dans le Nord du Liban (Batroun et Djebail) sans depasser le Nahr Ibrahim. lis se sont graduelleraent avanc6s dans la direc- tion du Sud et de I'Est, pousscs par les Ansariah et poussant eux-m^mes les Druses; ils ont ainsi occup^ les districts de Kesrouan, Meten, Djezzin. Leur prise de possession du httoral ph^nicien et de la Bekaa se continue encore k I'heure aetuelle." A. BERNARD, op. dt. ' The members of the Orthodox Greek and the Greek Cathohc or United Greek Churches, are, after the Maronites, numerically the strongest among the Christians of the Lebanon., The number of Protestants, Roman Catholics, Syrian Cathohcs (United Syrians) and United Armenians is very small in that region, not to mention the Gregorian' Armenians, Jacobites, Orthodox Nestorians and United Nestorians or Chaldaeans. ^ Males understood. ' Rather more: the table again referred to in Note 6^ gives 56,035, a number which has considerably shrunk in consequence of the Druze exodus to Hauran that followed the events of 1860 and European intervention. ^'^ Cf H. GUYS, Theogonie des Druses: '"Adam, I'EIu [to be distinguished from the two other Adams, the rebellious or partial and the forgetful or material one] a eu, d'ailleurs, plusieurs apparitions avant qu'il ^ut re^u le nom de Schatrdl et on le fait nattre dans une ville de I'lnde. Puis il est envoyfi pour 6tre ador6 par les anges." "After several other migrations; see HILVESTR.E DE SACY, Exposi de la Religion des Druzes, 1838, still the standard work on its subject, to which and La Nation Druse by H. GUYS, 1864, we refer for clearer notions than those possessed by our author anent the Syrian unitarians, who claimed that the secret of their religion was better guarded from the uninitiated than the track of a black ant perambulating a piece of black marble on a black night. P. WOLFF, Die Drusen und ihre Vorlaufer, 1845; F. TOURNPiBIZE, Les Druzes, in the Etudes des Pkres de la Compagnie de Jisus, October 5, 1897; and C. F. SEYBOLD, Die Drvserischrift Kitab al-Noqat wal-Dawd'ir, 1902, may also be consulted. '^ Viz. the Prophet's daughter, who was 'Aly's wife. BOOK OF THE MARVELS. 49 Fatimah, who was one of the Fatimide KhaUfs/^ called al-Man§ur/* and after his investment [with the Khalifate], received the surname of al-Hakim-bi-'amri'Uah.'^ Thereupon he surnamed himself al- Hakim-bi-'amri-hi/^ reposing confidence in his being He.'^ And the first to beheve in him [as such] was his wazir Hamzah Ibn 'Aly al-Majusy, and then the Sheikh Ma'n Ibn Safiyyah and the Sheikh Husayn ad-Darazy. And the latter is he from whom (P 9) of yore this community originated^* because he was strenuous in its faith and in the furtherance of its success, always ready to urge people to the worship of al-Hakim above all [other] behefs and reUgions. And the first place where he made his appearance'^ was the Wady Taym-Allah Ibn Thalabah^f" in Mount Lebanon. And part of the people of the aforesaid Wady at-Taym and Iqlim al-Ballan put their trust in him. Thereupon these dissenting opinions spread to the Jabal ash-Shuf^' and the Jabal ash-Sheikh^^ ^j^^ ^j^g Jabal al-A'la^^ and the countries of Safad and Hauran^^ where, however, they [who " 5akim, son of Aziz-billah Abu Man§ur Nazar and a Christian woman, sixth of the Fatimide Kiahfs and third of the Fatimide rulers of Egypt. " The Victorious because assisted by God. ^^ The one who exercises authority by the decree of God, " The one who exercises authority by his own decree, " I. e. God incarnate. '^ Deriving its name from his cognomen ad-Darazy. Of Persian extraction, he was called Muhammad Ibn IsmS'Il, not !^usayn as our author has it, and in the books of the Druzes he bears the Turkish praenomen Nashtagin. Cf B. CARRA DE VAUX, Encyclopaedia of Islam, v. Darazi. '"In 1017. Cf F. A. MULLER, Der Islam im Morgen- und Abendland, I, 632. But F. 'W'USTENFELD, Geschichte der Fatimidenchalifen, puts the date some three years later, in the last year of Hakim's life. ^° Still revered as the cradle of the Druze rehgion. '' With Ba'aqlin, a focal point of Druze religious life, still a centre of Druze activity in the Lebanon. 2= Mount Hermon. " The High Mountain. 2* The Arabic form of Auranitis and therefore Hauran, not the Hauran as we commonly find. King James's translators of the Bible, too, EZEKIEL, XL VII, 16 & 18, have the word without the definite article. Probably of inconsiderable extent in bibUcal times when it corresponded with Baahan, the famous King Og's territory, Hauran was enlarged under the Greeks and the Romans. Still farther increased since those days it "now includes not only Auranitis but Ituraea also, or Ittur, of which Djedour is perhaps a corruption, together with the greater part of Basan or Batanaea and Trachonitis From Strabo and Ptolemy we learn that Trachonitis comprehended all the uneven country extending along the eastern side of the plain of Haouran from near Damascus to Boszra The two Trachones into which Trachonitis was divided, agree with the two natural divisions 50 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. had adopted them] concealed their real rehgion and made an outward show of professing Islam. And they provided themselves with secret sanctuaries for those to pray in who knew the mysteries of their rehgion. These were called the uqqal" in distinction from those who knew but the name [externals] of [their] creed, and they (P. 10) [were called] the juhhal.^^ And with regard to the [religious] services of the Moslemin, they used only to recite the burdah before the raising of the dead [on his bier when about to be] carried [to his grave], the [poem] namely, composed by the Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Sa'yd ad- Dila§y^' in praise of the Prophet, the opening lines of which run: Is it from a recollection of associates of the possessor of salvation o that thou minglest the tears which flow from the eye with blood? Or does the wind blow right in the face, obstructing [advance], o and lightning flash in the darkness of wrath? [and so on] until he says in refinement of praise : And how could necessity call to the world him o without whom the world would not have come forth from naught? Muhanunad, the lord of the two universes [all that exists], of the two kinds of creatures [men and spirits] a and the two classes [of mankind], Arabs and aliens. of the Ledja and Djebel Haouran Boszra, the principal town in the Haouran, [is] remarkable for the antiquity of its castle and the ancient ruins and inscriptions to be found there." BURCKHARDT, op. cit. Cf SIR GEORGE ADAM SMITH, op. cit., pp. 30/2: "The northern levels of Hauran are from 2000 to 3000 feet above the sea, but on the south the plateau shelves off by broad degrees of about 1600 and 1300 feet to its limit in the deep valley of the Yarmuk , the plateau bears abundant wheat in repute all round the Levant Before the war the annual yield of grain was said to be 320.000 tons." The definite settlement of IJauran by the Druzes began after the battle of 'Ayn Darah in 1711. The changes in the administration of Mount Lebanon after the massacres of 1860, again caused many of them to seek safety from the Maronites in the Jabal Duruz. ^' The initiated, lit. the knowing or intelligent, "durchgeistigt" as OPPENHEIM expresses it, to add, op. cit., 1, 137, Note 1, "Diese Bezeichnung fur die eigentliehen Trager der drusischen Religion ist in Verbindung damit, dass der erste Minister Gottes Maulai "Akl, 'Monseigneur I'Esprit,' als Verkorperung des Geistes gedacht wird, ein Beweis fiir die hohe Verehrung welche die Drusen dem Geist und dem Wissen entgegenbringen, worauf sie besonders stolz sind." Women can become initiated as well as men and the most meritorious, who attain a degree of perfection rarely met with, are called ajdwid. '* The uninitiated, lit. the ignorant, uneducated. ^'Sharaf ad-Din Muhammad Ibn Sa'yd Ibn Hammad Ibn Muhsin, born March 7, 1213, in Abusir or in Dila?, whence the cognomen al-Bugiry or ad-Dilagy. His celebrated poem of the mantle received that name because it was said to have been composed after his cure of a paralytic stroke by the miraculous properties of the Prophet's mantle thrown over his shoulders. Cf RENE BASSET, Encyclopaedia of Islam, v. Burda. BOOK OF THE MARVELS. 51 And they made also a show of fasting, a blind to the eyes of the people, but in secret [they took food for] they did neither fast nor pray because al-Hakim bi-'amri-hi had turned them aside from fasting and praying and from the pilgrimage [to Mecca] and almsgiving. And from the earliest times there were dis- sensions between them (P. 11) because some of them claimed kinship with the Qaysites and some with the Yamanites.^^ And [in consequence of that ancient feud] many wars occurred among them, breaking out time after time until the encounter took place of 'Ayn Darah in the year eleven hundred and twenty-three of the Fhght,^^ when the Qaysite faction gained a victory over the Yamanite party and killed seven men of the Banu 'Alam ad-Dln at-Tanukhy.^" So the Yam- anite bands were reduced and lostheart and left the country in their vexa- tion. And the commander of the Qaysite forces was the 'Amir Haydar ash-Shihaby, governor of the country, who bestowed the 'amirate upon the Banu Abu'1-Lama' and the title of sheikh upon the Banu Nakad^' and the Banu Talhuq^'^ in recognition of [their zeal in] the war. Nevertheless the power of the sheikhs of the Banu Janblat and the Banu al-'A-mad became very great and in course of time discord arose between (P. 12) these 'Amadite and Janblatite chiefs. And the Lama'ite 'amirs joined the Banu Janblat while the other chiefs, except those of the Banu Nakad, [joined] the Banu 'Amad. And thence the clans of the country branched off into Janblatites and Yazbakites, ** The old party-spirit which the Arabs carried with them wherever they went: into the Lebanon and Palestine, in fact, the whole of Syria, as into Iraq and Africa and Spain and Sicily. BURCKHARDT, writing March 19, 1812, confirms VOLNEY'S information, Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, 'pendant Us annees 1?8S, 1784 & 1785, 1, 413/4, that the Qaysites fought under red, the Yamanites under white banners. 28 A. D. 1711. This battle of 'Ayn Darah established the youthful Haydar Shihab as successor of the 'Amir Ahmad Ma'n in the goverimient of the Lebanon and delivered a blow to the Syrian Yamanites from which they never recovered. A later battle of 'Ayn Darah belongs to the events which form the subject of this narrative. ^'^ The Tanukhies belonged to one of the most important famihes that moved to Syria from South Arabia and were among the first in the Lebanon to embrace the doctrine of ad-Darazy of which they became strong supporters. '^ An influential family among the Druzes which seems to have been of Maghrebine origin. Now extinct in Syria it is said still to exist in Morocco under the name of Alkad. Of OPPENHEIM, op. cit., p. 115. ^ Another influential Druze family which followed the fortunes of the Shihabies; it was predominant in the Upper Gharb. Cf C. H. CHURCHILL, Mount Lebanon, I, 159. 52 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. the latter of whom claimed descent from Yazbak, ancestor of the 'Amadite chiefs. And the Christians took part in this new grouping of parties into which they brought with them their bloody actions and retaliations [their thirst for blood and blood-revenge], accompany- ing them [their alhes under the new dispensation] in their wars and on their raids. But the Druzes, whenever strong hostility arose among them, quelled any outbreak of such discord between them and [those of] a foreign creed so that for the moment they renounced tendencies of the kind and settled their differences as if they were one body. But when unoccupied [in the general cause and free to do as they pleased] they returned to their factional gangs (P. 13) in the usual way. And since we have begun our discourse by making mention of public functions and governors, it may be permitted to us that we acquit ourselves of this [task] in full. So we say that of yore the governors of this country were [chosen] from the Ma'nite 'amirs, and. the last of them was the 'Amir Ahmad, who died in the year eleven hundred and nine of the Flight. ^^ And when at that time the [male] offspring of the Ma"n family had ceased to exist, his kinsman, the 'Amir Bashjr^'' of the Shihab family was after him entrusted with the government, [and he was] the first [governor] who resided in Hasbayya under the jurisdiction of Damascus, at that time [the capital of] a province the territory of which extended from the city of Safad, near Nabulus,^^ to Zawyat al-Jubbah near Tarabulus.^^ And he [the Amir Bashir Shihab] resided there for nine years whereupon he died in the city of Safad.^'' And in his place his cousin, tlie 'Amir Haydar, [one] of the 'amirs (P. 14) of Hasbayya and governor of that town, was entrusted with the government. And he is the ancestor of all the Shihabite 'amirs found in the Mount at the present day. And after him the highest authority was in turn [entrusted to his successors] according to the will of God [the God] of [all] time. And all of them- submitted obediently to the commands of the wazirs of the Ottoman " Which ran from July 20, 1697, to July 10, 169S, of the Christian Era. " As we have already stated, the 'Anair Bashir Shihab governed not in his own right, but for Haydar Shihab, Ahmad Ma'n's grandson and successor, then stilt a minor. ^^ Schechem. =* Tripoli. ^' Or in Acre from poison, administered to him in the year 170S, not without the knowl- edge, it seems, of the young 'Ajnir Haydar, who did not relish his kinsman barring the way to his place at the head of affairs. BOOK OF THE MAKVELS. 53 Empire, being raised to the government of Sayda on the part of the Illnstrious Empire. And it was the wazir who appointed [of them] whom he chose and who dismissed whom he chose. And they [the governors] appointed and dismissed whom they chose of the sheikhs and "amirs. And among the 'amirs that used to rule the Druze districts, were those of the Banu Raslan^^ in the Near Gharb, and of the Banu Abti'l-Lama' in the Matn; and among the sheikhs those of the Banu 'Abd'al-Malik in the Jurd, and of the Banu al-'Amad in the 'Arqub, and of the Banu Nakad in the Munasif and the Shahar, and of the Banu Talhuq in the Upper Gharb, and of the Banu Janblat (P. 15) in the Shuf which is called the Shuf of the Banu Ma'n. And it [the Shiif] is divided into the Shuf al-Haythy with Mukhtara^^ for its capital and the Shuf as-Suwijany with Ba'aqlTn^° for its principal town. And their government was also submitted to in the western part of the Buqa'a^' and the Jabal ar-Rihan/^ and the district of al-Kharnub and the district of at-Tuffah, and the district of Jazzin.''^ And they enjoyed precedence in rank over all the other chiefs. And the principal town in these (several) districts was Dayr al-Qamar/^ »8 This family, which BURCKHARDT, writing March 19, 1812, op. cit., gives a place among the descendants of the Prophet, claims for its ancestor the 'Amir 'Aun, son of the dethroned King Mundir of Hira, and relationship with the Abbadides of Sevilla, while it also intermarried with the Abbasides. The Rasianies suffered severely during the crusades and were almost supplanted by the Tanukhies, a closely related family, but regained in course of time a good deal of their influence. Cf OPPENHEIM, op. cit., passim. 3* The Casale Mactara of the crusaders. As the place elected by the Janblaties for their residence in the Shuf, its name, "the chosen abode," is very appropriate. We have already spoken of the vicissitudes of the family-seat of that ancient house. Restored after its destruction by the 'Amir Bashir Shihab, it was long inhabited, after the events of I860, by Sitt Na'yfah, Sa'yd Bey Janblat's sister. The present head of the Janblaties, Nasib Bey, aeems, however, to prefer hving in Bayrut. *" Once a favorite place of settlement for the North Arabian Banu Raby'a, it owes its foundation to the Ma'a family and became noted as a centre of Druze activity. Cf Note 21. *^ The cleft between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, watered by the Nahr al-Litany and called the Buqa'a or "upland plain," is the ancient Coelesyria in its most restricted sense. Though less well eultivated than in Greek and Roman times, the principal famihes of the Lebanon bad farms there which yielded to some of them considerable incomes. *=Also called Jabal az-Zawiyah or Jabal al-'Arba'in, mountain of the forty (martyrs). *^ Known for the silk and wine it produces; its capital of the same name is the Casale de Gezin of the crusaders. ^* The Monastery of the Moon, a name which, according to BURCKHARDT, writing March 18, 1812, was originally given to a convent in that locality, dedicated to the Virgin "who is generally represented in Syria with the moon beneath her feet." Dayr at-Qamar, a centre of the silk industry, was noted for the rich gowns of gold and silver brocade there 54 THE LEBANON IN TURMOIL. And this was the place to which befell the woeful things [things that make the eyes hot, cause them to shed tears] which we are going to relate. From olden times it was the residence of the Shihabite govern- ors until the turn arrived of the 'Amir Bashir the Second/^ who left it, preferring to live at Bayt ad-Din," where he built a magnificent sarai.''^ woven and worn by the ladies of the gentry. As a peculiarity of this town, whose popu- lation is ahnost wholly Christian, OPPENHEIM informs us, op. cit., I, 31, that it possesses a small mosque with a fine minaret, "wohl die einzige Moschee im Lebanon; sie durfte von den Ma'n errichtet sein." *^ More correctly speaking the First since Bashir Shihab, reckoned to be the first in this narrative, was officially only the locum tenens for his minor kinsman Haydar. *' The more correct spelling of this name seems to be Bataddin or Bteddin and its derivation to have nothing to do with that implied in the form which our author favors. BURCKHARDT writes under the date of March 18, 1812: " Beteddin which, in Syriac, means the two teats, and has received its name from the similarity of two neighbouring hills, upon one of which the village is built. Ahnost all the villages in this neighbourhood have Syriac names." DE LAMARTINE, writing October 3, 1832, speaks of "le chateau de Dptldin, pyramide au sommet de son mamelon," repeating the word later on. *'' Rather than call a sarai a seraglio or a castle or a palace or a fortified seat of authority, or strain our ingenuity to invent a term which might combine a few, if not all, of the original word's meanings, we take the Uberty to follow the example of linguistically (and in every respect) much more competent travellers in those parts, even the most illustrious of whom leave it untranslated. The 'Amir Bashir's sarai appears to have been a, marvel of art. As Fakhr ad-Din, his predecessor of the Ma'n family, who had been in Italy, had tried to imitate in his town- and country-houses the palaces and villas of the Medici and of his host, the Grand Duke Ferdinando of Tuscany, he created in the Muna§if a sort of Versailles in miniature, where he kept court in great state. DE LAMARTINE, who visited him in 1832, WTites of it, op. cit., " le palais moresque de I'Emir s'^tendait majeatueusement sur tout le plateau de Dpti5din, avec ses tours carries, perc