With the Turks in Palestine

CHAPTER VIII

THE LEBANON

Dur­ing the lo­cust in­va­sion my broth­er sent me on an in­spec­tion tour to in­ves­ti­gate the rav­ages of the in­sect in Syr­ia. With an of­fi­cial _boy­ouroul­ton_ (pass­port) in my pock­et, I was able to trav­el all over the coun­try with­out be­ing in­ter­fered with by the mil­itary au­thor­ities. I had an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty to see what was go­ing on ev­ery­where. The lo­custs had de­stroyed ev­ery­thing from as far south as the Egyp­tian desert to the Lebanon Moun­tains on the north; but the lo­cust was not the on­ly, nor the worst, plague that the peo­ple had to com­plain of. The plun­der­ing un­der the name of “mil­itary req­ui­si­tions,” the despot­ic rule of the army of­fi­cers, and the gen­er­al in­se­cu­ri­ty were even more des­olat­ing.

As I pro­ceed­ed on my jour­ney north­ward, I hoped to find con­so­la­tion and brighter prospects in the in­de­pen­dent province of the Lebanon. Few Amer­icans know just what the Lebanon is. From the re­peat­ed al­lu­sions in the Bible most peo­ple imag­ine it to be noth­ing but a moun­tain. The truth is that a beau­ti­ful province of about four thou­sand square miles bears that name. The pop­ula­tion of the Lebanon con­sists of a Chris­tian sect called Ma­ronites and the Drus­es, the lat­ter a peo­ple with a se­cret re­li­gion the es­oter­ic teach­ings of which are known on­ly to the ini­ti­at­ed, and nev­er di­vulged to out­siders. Both these peo­ples are stur­dy, hand­some folk. Through the machi­na­tions of the Turks, whose pol­icy is al­ways to “di­vide and rule,” the Ma­ronites were con­tin­ual­ly fight­ing against the Drus­es. In 1860 Turk­ish troops joined with the Drus­es and fell up­on the Ma­ronites with whole­sale mas­sacres that spread as far south as Dam­as­cus, where ten thou­sand Chris­tians were killed in two days.

[IL­LUS­TRA­TION: THE CHRIS­TIAN TOWN OF ZAHLEH IN THE LEBANON]

The Eu­ro­pean pow­ers were moved at last. Fifty war­ships were sent to Beirut, and ten thou­sand French troops were land­ed in the Lebanon, to cre­ate or­der. Un­der the pres­sure of the Eu­ro­pean pow­ers the Sub­lime Porte was forced to grant an au­ton­omy for the province of the Lebanon. The French, En­glish, Ger­man, Rus­sian, Aus­tri­an, and, a year lat­er, the Ital­ian, Gov­ern­ments were sign­ing the guar­an­ty of this au­ton­omy.

Since then the Lebanon has had peace. The Gov­er­nor of the province must al­ways be a Chris­tian, but the Gen­er­al Coun­cil of the Lebanon in­cludes rep­re­sen­ta­tives of all the dif­fer­ent races and re­li­gions of the pop­ula­tion. A won­der­ful de­vel­op­ment be­gan with the lib­er­ation from Turk­ish op­pres­sion. Macadamized roads were built all over the province, agri­cul­ture was im­proved, and there was com­plete safe­ty for life and prop­er­ty. There is a proverb now in Pales­tine and Syr­ia which says, “In the Lebanon a vir­gin may trav­el alone at mid­night and be safe, and a purse of gold dropped in the road at mid­day will nev­er be stolen.” And the proverb told the lit­er­al truth.

When one crossed the bound­ary from Turk­ish Pales­tine in­to the Lebanon province, what a change met his eyes!--peace­ful and pros­per­ous vil­lages, schools filled with chil­dren, im­mense plan­ta­tions of mul­ber­ry trees and olives, the slopes of the moun­tains ter­raced with beau­ti­ful vine­yards, a hand­some and stur­dy pop­ula­tion, po­lice on ev­ery road to help the stranger, and young girls and wom­en with hap­py laugh and chat­ter work­ing in the fields. With a pop­ula­tion of about six hun­dred thou­sand this province ex­port­ed an­nu­al­ly two mil­lion dol­lars' worth of raw silk, silk­worm-​rais­ing be­ing a spe­cial­ty of the Lebanon.

When au­ton­omy was grant­ed the Lebanon, French in­flu­ence be­came pre­dom­inant among the Ma­ronites and oth­er Chris­tians of the province. French is spo­ken by al­most all of them, and love for France is a deep-​root­ed sen­ti­ment of the peo­ple. On the oth­er hand, the Drus­es feel the En­glish in­flu­ence. For the last six­ty years Eng­land has been the friend of the Drus­es, and they have not for­got­ten it.

It may be worth while to tell in a few words the sto­ry of one man who ac­com­plished won­ders in spread­ing the in­flu­ence of his coun­try. Sir Richard Wood was born in Lon­don, a son of Catholic par­ents. From his ear­ly boy­hood he as­pired to en­ter the diplo­mat­ic ser­vice. The East at­tract­ed him strong­ly, and in or­der to learn Ara­bic he went with an­oth­er young En­glish­man to live in the Lebanon. In Beirut they sought the hos­pi­tal­ity of the Ma­ronite pa­tri­arch. For a few days they were treat­ed with lav­ish hos­pi­tal­ity, and then the pa­tri­arch sum­moned them be­fore him and told them that they must leave the city with­in twen­ty-​four hours. The rea­son for their dis­grace they dis­cov­ered lat­er. Not sus­pect­ing that they were be­ing put to the test, they had eat­en meat on a Fri­day, and this made the pa­tri­arch think that they were not true Catholics, but were there as spies.

Leav­ing Beirut in haste, Wood and his friend sought shel­ter with the Drus­es, who re­ceived them with open arms. For two years Wood lived among the Drus­es, in the vil­lage of Obey. There he learned Ara­bic and be­came thor­ough­ly ac­quaint­ed with the coun­try and with the ways of the Drus­es, and there he con­ceived the idea of win­ning the Drus­es for Eng­land to coun­ter­act the in­flu­ence of the French Ma­ronites. He went back to Lon­don, where he suc­ceed­ed in im­press­ing his views up­on the For­eign Of­fice, and he re­turned to Syr­ia charged with a se­cret mis­sion. Be­fore long he per­suad­ed the Druse chief­tains to ad­dress a pe­ti­tion to Eng­land ask­ing for British pro­tec­tion.

British pro­tec­tion was grant­ed, and for over thir­ty years Richard Wood, vir­tu­al­ly sin­gle-​hand­ed, shaped the des­tiny of Syr­ia. It was he who broke the pow­er of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali; it was he who guid­ed Ad­mi­ral Stop­ford in the bom­bard­ment of Beirut; it was he, again, who brought about the land­ing of En­glish troops in Syr­ia in 1841; we find him af­ter­wards in Dam­as­cus as British Con­sul, and wher­ev­er he went he was al­ways busy spread­ing En­glish pow­er and pres­tige. He un­der­stood the East thor­ough­ly and felt that Eng­land must be strong in Syr­ia if she wished to re­tain her im­pe­ri­al pow­er. It is very un­for­tu­nate that the pol­icy of Sir Richard Wood was not car­ried out by his na­tion.

It was with high hopes and ex­pec­ta­tions that I ap­proached the Lebanon. I was look­ing for­ward to the mo­ment when I should find my­self among peo­ple who were free from the Turk­ish yoke, in a coun­try where I should be able to breathe freely for a few hours.

But how great was my con­ster­na­tion, when, on en­ter­ing the Lebanon, I found on all the roads Turk­ish sol­diers who stopped me ev­ery minute to ask for my pa­pers! Even then I could not re­al­ize that the worst had hap­pened. Of course, ru­mors of the Turk­ish oc­cu­pa­tion of the Lebanon had reached us a few weeks be­fore, but we had not be­lieved it, as we knew that Ger­many and Aus­tria were among those who guar­an­teed the au­ton­omy of the Lebanon. It was true, how­ev­er; the scrap of pa­per that guar­an­teed the free­dom of the Lebanon had proved of no more val­ue to the Lebanese than had that oth­er scrap of pa­per to Bel­gium. As I en­tered the beau­ti­ful vil­lage of Ed-​Damur, one of the most pros­per­ous and en­chant­ing places on earth, I saw en­tire reg­iments of Turk­ish troops en­camped in and about the vil­lage.

While I was wa­ter­ing my horse, I tried to ask ques­tions from a few in­hab­itants. My fair hair and com­plex­ion and my kha­ki cos­tume made them take me for a Ger­man, and they bare­ly an­swered me, but when I ad­dressed them in French their faces lit up. For the Lebanon, for all it is thou­sands of miles away from France, is nev­er­the­less like a French province. For fifty years the French lan­guage and French cul­ture have tak­en hold of the Lebanon. No French­man has more love for and faith in France than lie in the hearts of the Lebanese Chris­tians. They have nev­er for­got­ten that when mas­sacres were threat­en­ing to wipe out all the Chris­tians of the Lebanon, ten thou­sand French sol­diers swept over the moun­tains to spread peace, life, and French gayety.

And when the poor peo­ple heard the lan­guage they loved, and when they found out that I too was the son of an op­pressed and ru­ined com­mu­ni­ty, all the sad­ness and bit­ter­ness of their hearts was told me,--how the Turk­ish sol­diers had spread over the beloved moun­tains of Lebanon; how the strong, stal­wart young Lebanese had been tak­en away from the moun­tains and forced in­to the Turk­ish army; how the girls and wom­en were hid­ing in their homes, afraid to be seen by the sol­diers and their of­fi­cers; how the chief­tains were im­pris­oned and even hanged; and how vi­olence and pil­lage had spread over the peace­ful coun­try.[Foot­note: Since the above was writ­ten the Amer­ican press has chron­icled many atroc­ities com­mit­ted in the Lebanon. The ex­ecu­tion of lead­ers and the com­plete block­ade of the moun­tains by the Turk­ish au­thor­ities re­sult­ed in the starv­ing of eighty thou­sand Lebanese. The French Gov­ern­ment has warned Turkey through the Amer­ican Am­bas­sador that the Turks will be held ac­count­able for their deeds.]

I could not help won­der­ing at the mis­takes of the Al­lies. If they had un­der­stood the sit­ua­tion in Pales­tine and Syr­ia, how dif­fer­ent­ly this war might have even­tu­at­ed! The Lebanon and Syr­ia would have raised a hun­dred thou­sand picked men, if the Al­lies had land­ed in Pales­tine. The Lebanon would have fought for its in­de­pen­dence as hero­ical­ly as did the Bel­gians. Even the Arab pop­ula­tion would have wel­comed the Al­lies as lib­er­ators. But alas!

With a sad­dened heart I pur­sued my jour­ney in­to Beirut. My com­ing was a joy­ful sur­prise to my sis­ter. Many sad things had hap­pened since she had last seen me. Dur­ing my im­pris­on­ment she had suf­fered tor­tures, not know­ing what would hap­pen to me, and now that she saw me alive she cried from hap­pi­ness. She told me how kind­ly she had been treat­ed by Pres­ident Bliss, of the Syr­ian Protes­tant Col­lege, and of all the good things the col­lege had done.

What a bless­ing the col­lege was for the peo­ple of Beirut! Many un­for­tu­nate peo­ple were saved from prison and hard­ships through the in­ter­ven­tion of Pres­ident Bliss. He nev­er tired of ren­der­ing ser­vice, won­der­ful per­son­al ser­vice. But alas, even his in­flu­ence and pow­er be­gan to wane. The Amer­ican pres­tige in the coun­try was bro­ken, and the Turk­ish Gov­ern­ment no longer re­spect­ed the Amer­ican flag. An or­der is­sued from Con­stantino­ple de­mand­ed that the of­fi­cial lan­guage of the col­lege be Turk­ish in­stead of En­glish, and Turk­ish of­fi­cers even dared to en­ter the col­lege premis­es to search for cit­izens be­long­ing to the bel­liger­ent na­tions, with­out trou­bling to ask per­mis­sion from the Amer­ican Con­sul.

[IL­LUS­TRA­TION: HAIFA]