Lebanese Crises of the 1840s
LEBANESE CRISES OF THE 1840S
druze versus christian sectarian violence.
The London Treaty of 1840 ended the Egyptian occupation of Mount Lebanon (1831–1840). Soon afterwards the Ottomans dismissed the local governor, Bashir II, whose collusion with the Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali had discredited him with the local population. The years of Egyptian manipulation of sectarian politics produced a backlash under the Ottomans in the Druze versus Christian conflicts at Dayr al-Qamar in 1841. Bashir III, the last Chehab amir, was replaced in 1842 by a direct governor, Umar Pasha al-Nimsawi (the Austrian). Continued civil strife and European pressure led the Ottomans to establish a system of two subgovernorates in Mount Lebanon (qa'im maqamiyatayn) divided on religious lines. Despite further sectarian clashes in 1845 at Mukhtara, Jazzin, and Dayr al-Qamar, the tottering new system survived until 1860 when the mutasarrif system finally ended Mount Lebanon's autonomy.
Bibliography
Khalaf, Samir. Persistence and Change in Nineteenth Century Lebanon: A Sociological Essay. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1979.
tayeb el-hibri