Britain and the pacification of the Lebanon 1841-1845

Abstract

With the expulsion of the Egyptians from Syria in 1840, and the signing of the Straits Convention in July 1841, there comes a period of relative quiescence in the Eastern Question. The restored province provided a constitutional problem which took five years to solve. Prior to the Ibrahimian occupation, Lebanon had been governed by a local family and was virtually independent of the Porte, but the Shehab prince, the Amir Bashir, had traitorously supported the rule of the Egyptians. After the Egyptians had been driven out, Turkey resolved to improve her hold on the Syrian pashaliks and in particular, on the autonomous province of Lebanon. The Amir Bashir was deposed. By nature of the promises made to the sects of Lebanon during the 1840 fighting, that their loyalty to the sultan would be rewarded by an improved administration and the recognition of their traditional liberties, the Turks committed themselves to a greater extent than they would have wished, but since the powers who ejected Muhammad Ali had allowed their military commanders to be the bearers of the Turkish promises, they took it on themselves to see these promises honoured, and Turkey found it difficult to evade her obligations. The promises included the right of the Lebanon to select its own prince, and to have its own administration. England assumed a pre-eminent influence in local affairs by virtue of her leading part in the military operations of 1840, and Palmerston was not inclined to surrender it to France, who by nature of her centuries-old religious link with the biggest sect in the Lebanon - the Maronites - had customarily wielded the greatest, and indeed the only, European influence in Syria. France, readmitted to the concert of powers, set about the recovery of the influence she had forfeited by a too exclusive advocacy of Muhammad Ali. Palmerston reorganised his consular service, appointed a 'purely political' consul-general, and might even have set up a counterbalance to the Franco-Maronite liaison by establishing relations with the most warlike of the sects, the Druses. But in August 1841 the Whigs fell from office. Russia acted with Britain in an effort to preserve the Anglo-French rift, Metternich tried to balance, and Aberdeen attempted to bring the western powers together again in a second entente. But in Syria, as in their Mediterranean and colonial policies, Britain and France were on divergent courses. Canning, who replaced Ponsonby at the Porte, was largely responsible for the successful implementation of the promises Turkey made to the Lebanon, and the consular corps in Lebanon supervised their operation. The restoration of the Shehab family in the person of a septuagenarian nephew of Amir Bashir was not a success and in 1842 he too was deposed by the Turks. The European representatives fought for the legitimist principle but the Shehabs had no competent scion to offer. The Turks tried to take this opportunity to establish direct rule, but again Europe intervened. The separatism of the sects, and in particular of the Druses, rendered a unified administration impossible, and two civil wars proved the point. Europe was obliged to forsake schemes of a united Lebanon under a Christian prince and to set up separate Maronite and Druse administrations in 1843, and the system endured until the twentieth century. Austria and France had been party to the efforts to secure a single regime for the Lebanon but when this proved impracticable they would not coerce the Turks to establish a dual system which would reduce Catholic influence. They accused Britain of complicity in the civil wars, and hindered Canning's efforts to effect the dual system of administration. After two more years of wearying negotiation he brought the system into working order, largely with Russian assistance. French archives on Syria are closed, but the P.R.O. material is very full and there are copious Blue Books; the Aberdeen papers, contemporary memoirs and private papers throw light on a period which history has labelled, paradoxically, as the entente cordiale.