On intervention

The second intervention in the nineteenth century on humanitarian grounds is regarded the great power intervention in Lebanon and Syria, headed by France.¹ Both were at the time provinces of Greater Syria, within the Ottoman Empire, which included today’s Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

When the intervention in Lebanon and Syria took place in 1860–61, the debate among publicists on humanitarian intervention that had started in the 1830s was almost thirty years old, with a slight majority favourable to such interventions, which included major jurists of the time (see chapter 4), and there were also the recent contributions of Cobden, against intervening, and Mazzini and Mill in support of counter-intervention and intervention in humanitarian plights (see chapter 5).

France, the main initiator of the intervention, did not yet have thinkers participating in the debate for or against intervention d’humanité.² As for intervention in general, the leaders of the French Revolution had come out in favour of both non-intervention and intervention. Condorcet, for instance, asserted in 1792 that it is an inalienable right of a people for their state to have a Constitution and no outside power could intervene in this domain³ and non-intervention was adopted by the French National Assembly in 1790 and in the 1793 French Constitution.⁴ The French Revolution can also be credited with the right to intervene in order to lend diplomatic and even military support ‘to all peoples who shall wish to recover their liberty’ (Declaration of 19 November 1792).⁵

In 1823, Chateaubriand, as French Foreign Minister, stated that ‘no Government has a right to interfere in the affairs of another Government, except in the case where the security and immediate interests of the first Government are compromised’.⁶ Two decades later, during the July Monarchy (1830–48), the historian François Guizot, as French Foreign Minister, maintained that ‘[n]o State has the right to intervene in the affairs and government of another State so long as its interest and proper security do not render this intervention indispensable’.⁷

The opposite, intervention to assist liberation movements, resurfaced in the early days of the July Monarchy with Lafayette and Armand Carrel,⁸ and in the wake of the February 1848 French Revolution by writer Alphonse de Lamartine, as French Foreign Minister (whose stance was then defended in Britain by J. S. Mill).

Consequently, if one can speak of a French approach to intervention from 1789 until 1860, it could be summarized it as: (1) non-intervention in a state’s political system; (2) intervention if French interests are at stake; and (3) assistance to liberation movements under foreign domination. A new dimension to be seen in 1860–61 was intervention for the sake of humanity, as evoked by French officials and mostly by Foreign Minister Édouard Antoine de Thouvenel. Napoleon III, then in power, had a contradictory record of having militarily intervened in 1849 against the Roman Republic, much to the disappointment of Mazzini (the head of the governing triumvirate of the Republic), upon the Pope’s invitation to restore the Papal States, and ten years later having sent the French army to support the Italians fighting against Austria–Hungary for Italian unification.

Britain was then under Palmerston as Prime Minister, who, contrary to Castlereagh’s non-intervention stance (see chapter 6) and as an admirer of Canning, ‘drew the outer limits of permissible conduct for Britain as the champion of liberalism as well as an opponent of the European despots’.⁹ But he was careful not to upset the European balance of power or British interests for ideological reasons, by being too supportive of national self-determination and constitutional government. He thus earned the criticism of non-interventionists, such as Cobden, as well as interventionists in support of liberty, such as J. S. Mill. Palmerston was also well aware of the downside of intervention in civil wars, noting that ‘they who in quarrels interpose, will often get a bloody nose’¹⁰ and used non-intervention as a ‘ring-holding device’.¹¹

In the years 1830–60, British jurists had been at the forefront of the ongoing debate together with their German, Italian and American colleagues, and were evenly split among opponents and supporters of humanitarian intervention, though by far the most authoritative and recent contributions were by two influential publicists within the British establishment, Phillimore (in 1854) and Bernard (in 1860), both guarded supporters of moral grounds for intervention (see chapter 4).

The landscape

Among the Arab-speaking communities, the Maronites (Eastern Catholics linked to the Roman Catholic Church), the largest community in Lebanon, and the Druzes (an offshoot of the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam), one of the smaller communities, lived in Lebanon in two self-governing districts headed by an Ottoman governor.¹² From 1840 until the events of 1860, there was tension between them that was accentuated by European influence and commercial, religious and other interests in the region. More generally, European intrusion in the region and the traditional Ottoman policy of keeping religious communities apart (the millet system) hardly provided the ground for integration between the Arab communities of Lebanon (Arab nationalism as pan-Arabism was to arrive at the start of the twentieth century, with Christian Arabs at the forefront¹³).¹⁴

The Maronites sought the support of France and Paris was keen to oblige, a support deeply resented by the Druzes. French involvement had its origins in the first capitulations of 1536 and 1569, under the reigns of Sultans Suleiman the Magnificent and Selim II.¹⁵ The end result was that the French regarded themselves as the defenders of the Maronites of Lebanon, their agents and protégés in the Levant. The British played almost the same role with the Druzes and for a while Palmerston toyed with the idea of a ‘special relationship’ with the Druzes (the missionaries went even further in the belief that they could convert the Druzes to Protestantism).¹⁶ The French and British consuls as well as the consuls of other powers, especially Russia (as regards the Lebanese Greek Orthodox community), became routinely involved in various aspects of Lebanese life.¹⁷

European interest in the region had also another dimension worth referring to. As Davide Rodogno points out, Syria and especially Lebanon were presented by romantic writers, such as Lamartine, and Orientalist painters, such as David Roberts and Edward Lear, as an ‘Eden on earth’, ‘a timeless biblical land’ in need of ‘cultural redemption and religious salvation’ so as to be reconnected with the evolutionary ‘stream of Time’ from which it had been severed due to the Ottoman conquest and tyranny.¹⁸

The Muslims in the region (Sunni, Shia and Druzes) strongly objected to the emancipation of the Christian subjects of the Empire initiated with the Tanzimat reforms, from 1839 onwards, which made the Christians, in law, equal to the Muslims. Equality before the law, despite far from strict adherence to it by the Ottomans in Greater Syria (or elsewhere in the Empire), benefited the Christians, who were generally better educated and made the most of new opportunities for economic and social ascendency: entry into the civil service, representation in provincial councils and prosperity, taking advantage of the European economic presence and protection in the region. The Maronites made their new-found freedoms as conspicuous as possible, building churches, establishing community schools and so on, at times with a show of superiority, or so it seemed to the Muslims, who became increasingly resentful. Another aspect of the Tanzimat was the adoption of a code which permitted Europeans and their protégés to buy agricultural land and real estate, the outcome being that property was bought from impoverished Muslim notables in Damascus and elsewhere.¹⁹ The Muslims became increasingly frustrated with this turn of events, dreading that their dominant role was slipping away for good. In this, the Christian powers had a hand, with their aid to the Christians and calls for the full implementation of the sweeping 1856 Reform Edict.²⁰

On the Maronite side there was a rise in expectations. They learned French and were inspired by the principles of the French Revolution; they increasingly felt themselves to be an alien island in a Muslim ocean and began to dream of the creation of an independent Maronite Lebanon, or at least a French protectorate.²¹

The massacres and the Ottoman authorities

The ‘massacres of ’60’ (madhabih al-sittin), as they are known in Lebanon and Syria, which started in April and continued until July, were premeditated²² in the sense that the Maronites were planning an all-out attack against the Druzes, the aim being the creation of a Maronite protectorate under France.²³ The Maronites had been mobilized by their notables and clerics, headed by ‘Awn, the Maronite bishop of Beirut, and prepared themselves with arms in units under a commanding officer, poised to assail the Druzes. The Druzes took wind of it and organized themselves for the worst.²⁴

Sporadic violent clashes began in April 1860, with Maronites raiding a Druze village. The well prepared Druzes retaliated ferociously, burning villages (within a few weeks more than sixty villages were in ashes), sacking churches and monasteries and massacring 10,000 to 15,000 Christians (not even sparing the Greek Orthodox Arabs, with whom they were on good terms), in what was the bloodiest ethno-religious confrontation in the history of sectarian strife in Lebanon (the number of Druzes killed is unknown).²⁵

The acts of arson and atrocities continued, culminating in an appalling massacre in Damascus (9–11 July 1860) of 5,000 to 10,000 Christians. The Russian, French, Austrian and US consulates were sacked and part of the famous city was ablaze, with the governor doing nothing to stop the carnage.²⁶ Apparently the underlying cause of the onslaught was the aforementioned Muslim resentment at the rising Western influence and the economic prosperity of the Christians.²⁷

The role of the Ottomans in the region from April to July 1860 has been a subject of controversy: were they inefficient, callously indifferent, or had they colluded with the Druzes? The key Ottoman officials in charge were the two governors, Khurshid Pasha in Lebanon and müşir (field-marshal) Ahmed Pasha in Damascus, an able soldier who had distinguished himself in the Crimean War.

The view of prominent French international lawyers until the First World War, such Despagnet and Rougier, was that there was ‘complicity’ on the part of the Ottoman authorities in having allowed the massacre of ‘six thousand’ people to take place.²⁸ The American Stowell was of the view that the Druzes ‘had massacred six thousand Christian Maronites without any efforts on the part of the Porte to fulfill its obligations to protect the victims’.²⁹ But let us see what the specialists of the region have to say.

Ottomanists tend to absolve the local Ottoman authorities of any responsibility. The Shaws also claim that the British had sent arms to the Druzes so as to counter French influence with the Maronites.³⁰ Most Arab and other Middle East specialists attribute responsibility of one kind or another to the Ottomans, ranging from ineffectiveness and indifference to actual participation in the onslaught. According to Hitti, the Ottoman regulars did nothing to stop the fighting and the irregulars (bashibazouk) ‘maltreated and pillaged refugees fleeing to Damascus or Beirut’.³¹ Salibi points out that when the European consuls in Beirut urged Khurshid to act, he was in no position to do so or ‘stood by and watched’.³² According to Akarli, the Ottoman authorities were ineffective in protecting the Maronites and other Christians due to a shortage of armed personnel, mismanagement and unwillingness to fight fellow Muslims to protect Christians.³³ Ma‘oz puts most of the blame on Ahmed Pasha³⁴ and suggests there was ‘a concealed alliance’ between him and local leaders ‘to punish the Christians for their disobedience’ by ‘secretly instigating or at least tacitly directing the fatal course of events’.³⁵

Among Middle East scholars Tibawi is almost alone in absolving the Ottoman authorities of responsibility. He maintains that the accusations of conspiracy with the Druzes ‘have never been judiciously investigated by any historian’³⁶ and that Khurshid could do little, due to lack of adequate forces.³⁷ Abraham takes the opposite line, pointing to Ottoman collusion on the part of both governors, while blaming the onslaught and even the instigation on the Druzes.³⁸

In the most detailed study of the Maronite–Druze clash, by Farah, the picture that emerges is that the data do not confirm the Maronite view and French press reports of Druzes chiefs spoiling for a fight in 1860. In fact, Sa‘îd Janblât, the senior Druze leader, had urged both communities to show restraint, but to no avail. The decision to initiate an all-out ethnic war was taken by the Maronite leadership in Beirut with the approval of Bishop ‘Awn.³⁹

As to the possibility of the Porte being somehow involved, no documentary evidence has surfaced to prove such a scenario.⁴⁰ Plausibly, the anti-Tanzimat circles may have encouraged ethnic strife so as to bring about a crisis that would overthrow reformist Sultan Abdulmecid in favour of his conservative brother, Abdulaziz, but this hypothesis has also not found documentary evidence.⁴¹

European and Ottoman reaction

The news of the gruesome events reached the Ottoman capital only after a delay of some two months (on 7 June 1860), via the Izmir telegraph station. The European consuls in Beirut gave a slanted pro-Maronite account of the events, especially the French consul-general, Bentivoglio, who referred mainly to the massacres of Christians, portraying them as innocent victims, the Druzes as barbarians and alluding to the complicity of the local Ottoman authorities.⁴² Lavalette, the French ambassador at the Porte, cabled his Foreign Minister, Thouvenel, referring to ‘the interest of humanity’ and suggesting a military operation against the Druzes and local Ottoman authorities, whom he regarded as accomplices.⁴³

Thouvenel, who was familiar with the region (he had served as ambassador to the Porte in 1855–59), sent the chilling dispatch to his British counterpart, Lord Russell. He appealed to the other four great powers for a unanimous response, because, he said, this was ‘a question of humanity, and does not comprise any difference of opinion between cabinets’.⁴⁴ Thouvenel told the Prussian ambassador that France wanted to maintain the Ottoman Empire, ‘but to maintain it in conditions which can be reconciled with the rights of humanity and of civilization’.⁴⁵

On the Russian side, Alexander Gorchakov, the Russian Foreign Minister, suggested joint Franco-Russian action. France called for the convening of a conference of the powers, but British Prime Minister Palmerston was uneasy with France’s motives and was reluctant to give his approval.⁴⁶

The Porte condemned the atrocities at the highest level – that of Sultan Abdulmecid. The anger of the Sultan and of his two senior officials (both enlightened reformists), Grand Vizier Ali Pasha and Fuad Pasha, the Foreign Minister, with the behaviour of the regional authorities was genuine; it was seen as a disgrace to the Ottoman army. The Sultan took the unusual step of sending Fuad with 15,000 soldiers and extraordinary emergency powers to oversee the operation (he named him Commissioner Extraordinary of the Porte and personally handed him the seal of authority, by Ottoman ritual a sign of considerable commitment) and thus gave few pretexts for European meddling in the Empire’s internal affairs. Abdulmecid sent letters to Napoleon III and Queen Victoria expressing his grief at the massacres, promising the re-establishment of order, punishment of the guilty and assuring justice for all.⁴⁷

The Damascus massacre was a turning point. European and in particular French public opinion was horrified. The Ottomans were accused, especially by the French press, of deliberately staging the massacres and there were calls for military intervention. Thouvenel stated that ‘[i]n the face of these massacres, reproducing from city to city and everywhere where Christians live, it is impossible not to recognize that humanity commands the Powers to interpose their action’.⁴⁸ The British press and public were in favour of intervention for humanitarian reasons and supported the French initiatives. Russell conceded, fearing a Russo-French alliance that would isolate Britain, and endorsed the sending of European troops in the name of humanity if it was sealed by an official agreement between the five powers and the Porte.⁴⁹

Upon Thouvenel’s invitation, the five powers and the Ottoman Empire convened an ambassadors’ conference in Paris (26 July–3 August 1860). The Porte was represented by its Paris ambassador, the worldly Vefik Effendi, whose instructions were to stall and try to divide the other powers, but to give in if the five were united.⁵⁰ Two Paris protocols were adopted (3 August 1860). The first justified ‘active cooperation’ by referring to the Paris Peace Treaty of 1856 (article IX), which guaranteed the rights of Ottoman Christians.⁵¹ The second provided for 12,000 soldiers to be sent, 6,000 of them French, together with sufficient naval forces from various European countries and commissioners from the great powers. A disinterestedness proviso was inserted: not to seek ‘any territorial advantage, any exclusive influence, or any commercial concession’.⁵² The period of foreign troop presence was to be limited to six months (at British insistence). A declaration by Abdulmecid was included in the second protocol, stating that his aim was ‘to stop by prompt and efficacious measures, the effusion of blood in Syria’.⁵³

Clearly, the operation was intended to be a ‘rescue mission’ and not a punitive one.⁵⁴ Napoleon’s message to the French force as it left Toulon (6 August 1860) was ‘to aid the Sultan recall to their allegiance subjects blinded by an antiquated fanaticism’.⁵⁵ The French contingent was headed by General de Beaufort d’Hautpoul, with instructions that the expedition was not to be ‘an occupation of some duration’; the mission was ‘essentially restorative, temporary … assuming the character of an act of justice and humanity’.⁵⁶

Fuad was informed of the Damascus massacres while his ships were refuelling in Cyprus. Exasperated, he arrived in Beirut on 17 July and hastened to Damascus to re-establish order and give little excuse for French presence in the city.⁵⁷ His ‘justice was swift and harsh’.⁵⁸ He was able to re-established order prior to the arrival of the French troops, who landed on 16 August 1860; he assisted the Christians and arrested offenders, hundreds of whom were put to death or imprisoned following summary trials. Ahmed Pasha (a friend of Fuad) and some sixty Ottoman officials were hanged, while Khurshid and his officers were imprisoned. Fuad wanted to demonstrate that the Ottoman government was in no way responsible for the massacres, which were, as he put it, against ‘the principles of civilization current in the world’.⁵⁹ In order not to provide grounds for the French to render their presence a real occupation, the Pasha did not punish the Maronite instigators.⁶⁰

In record time no less than twenty-eight warships from the powers and also from small states (such as Greece and Sardinia) arrived on the coastline of Lebanon to monitor the situation. Fuad’s troops, together with the French contingent under Beaufort and the five commissioners of the great powers, were able to keep the peace. The French troops were no menace to the Ottoman authorities and did not engage in any major military activity. The French acted as peacekeepers and not as peacemakers (to use present parlance), since Fuad had already pacified the region. The French soldiers were engaged mainly in humanitarian activities. Indeed, they ‘beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruninghooks’,⁶¹ burying the dead, cleaning streets, and rebuilding houses, villages and farms.⁶²

The six-month limit was extended upon French request (with Russian support) to three more months, after which the French forces duly left, having gained acclaim inside and outside Lebanon for their conduct.⁶³

Final agreement

Fuad was able to dominate the scene and control the other commissioners, with the support of Lord Dufferin, the British commissioner.⁶⁴ The mandate of the commission was to punish the guilty, secure reparations for the Christian losses and suggest reforms that would ensure order and security.⁶⁵ Deliberations, with Fuad chairing, started on 5 October 1860 with the aim of arriving at a new arrangement for Lebanon. The French tried to set up a Maronite Lebanon under a native Christian governor. The Austrian and Prussian commissioners aligned with the French, but Fuad, with Dufferin’s support and help from the Russian commissioner Novikov, was able to shelve the French idea. Finally, after eight months of talks, the six commissioners were able to reach agreement (May 1861) on a draft statute for Lebanon.⁶⁶

The draft was revised at a meeting of the ambassadors of the six powers at the Porte under the chairmanship of the Grand Vizier, which concluded with the signing of the Beyoglu Protocol (9 June 1861). A new system of autonomy was adopted, the Règlement Organique, known in Lebanon as the Mustasarrifiyya (Governorate). Lebanon became a separate administrative region (sanjak) from Syria. The six Lebanese communities (Maronites, Druzes, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Sunni and Shia) participated in a twelve-person Administrative Council based on their percentage. The Mustasarrifiyya was to be headed by a Christian governor from outside Lebanon, with the consent of the great powers. The first governor was Daud Pasha, a Roman Catholic Armenian by birth, which proved an excellent choice, for he was one of the most capable officials of the Empire. In effect, Lebanon, though part of the Ottoman Empire, now came under the collective tutelage of the powers and remained so until the First World War.⁶⁷

Assessment

Humanitarian and other motives

Humanitarian concern on the part of the French government was not insincere, as seen in the French internal correspondence from Napoleon III, Thouvenel and other French officials regarding the plight of the Maronites.⁶⁸ The dismal fate of the Christians ‘constituted an affront to the conscience of Europe and to the specific susceptibilities of the French, who had long prided themselves on their traditional role as champion of the Roman Catholic peoples in the Near East’.⁶⁹

However, instrumental motives were also prevalent. Thouvenel had realized that in this case humanitarian concerns were compatible with Realpolitik.⁷⁰ With the intervention, France sought to enhance its influence at the expense of Britain and place a marker for the future, should ‘the Sick Man’ dissolve: namely, to acquire Syria as a protectorate. Moreover, Napoleon wanted to project himself as a resolute leader, to be respected internationally, to divert the attention of the French public and, by the same token, to enhance his waning popularity at home, especially with the clerical party and Catholic public opinion, which was incensed by his recent stance in support of Italian unification (one of the outcomes being the dissolution of the Papal States).⁷¹

More generally, Syria and Lebanon were at the centre of an arc between the British route to India and the Straits route to the Black Sea, a region of French–British rivalry for most of the century, though the rivalry was kept within reasonable bounds.⁷² Britain’s motives were humanitarian and it opted for collective intervention so as to keep a close eye on France. London’s support for the Druzes was motivated by a sense of justice (after all, the Maronites had started it) and as a counter-weight to French support for the Maronites.⁷³

The overall verdict

All the international lawyers who have referred to this episode, from those days until today, regard it as ‘motivated substantially, if not entirely, by humanitarian considerations’.⁷⁴

Jooris, a contemporary French jurist, had claimed that the intervention was not only humanitarian but also due to the fact that European flags had been insulted and Europeans living in Syria had been killed and their properties destroyed.⁷⁵ Lawrence asserted that as ‘the Great Powers intervened to put a stop to the persecution and massacre of Christians in the district of Mount Lebanon, their proceedings were worthy of commendation’.⁷⁶ Rougier regarded it as ‘a very clear application of the idea of intervention for humanity’, not least because it was ‘disinterested’.⁷⁷ Stowell referred to it as ‘an incident typical of humanitarian intervention’⁷⁸ and ‘one in which the states were actuated by motives of humanity to prevent religious persecutions which took the form of massacres of the Christian Maronites’.⁷⁹

This was also the assessment from 1945 onwards.⁸⁰ Even opponents of humanitarian intervention, such as Brownlie, have claimed that: ‘No genuine case of humanitarian intervention has occurred [in the nineteenth century] with the possible exception of the occupation of Syria in 1860 and 1861’.⁸¹ Franck and Rodley do not concur on various grounds (especially on the role of the Maronites in starting the mayhem) but praise the operation for being a multilateral one.⁸²

But three factors make this case questionable as a stricto sensu humanitarian intervention. One is that the Ottomans were not overtly averse to the operation. Secondly, Fuad had the situation well under control before the arrival of the French troops and French activity hardly amounted to a military intervention. Thirdly, those to blame for the initial aggression were the Maronites, making them less worthy to be singled out for intervention, although they suffered immensely.⁸³

We will limit ourselves to the first issue. Bluntschli claimed that the acquiescence of the Sultan was sought in order to ‘save appearances’ and so that ‘the Porte’s hand was forced’.⁸⁴ Equally, Rougier regarded the consent of the Ottoman Empire as ‘a fiction’ sought ‘in courtesy towards the Sultan’.⁸⁵ Stowell put it thus: ‘[a]lthough the Sultan gave his official consent to this occupation, it was none the less a measure to which he only consented through constraint and a desire to avoid worse’.⁸⁶

Be this as it may, there was by and large ‘relative disinterestedness’ on the part of the five powers, and their humanitarian concern seems ‘genuine’.⁸⁷ As for the French, as Gary Bass points out, they acted on the basis of treaty obligations; worked alongside Fuad’s mission; ‘forswore any imperial or commercial gains from its mission’; ‘participated without reservations in the international commission’ set up there; ‘allowed the Concert to dictate the parameters of the expedition; and accepted European restrictions on the size and duration of the French occupation’.⁸⁸

The outcome in Lebanon was almost idyllic. Apart from disorder in 1864–67, the 1861 Lebanese settlement proved resilient, with the region enjoying peace, known as ‘the long peace’, until the eve of the First World War.⁸⁹ 

Concluding remarks

In the Lebanon case one sees several elements that appeared in the Greek case (Christian humanitarian plight, mixture of motives, multilateral character, agreements, self-denying clause, peacekeeping force, calls to end hostilities, role of public opinion). The new features with a bearing on the evolution of humanitarian intervention are the following: (1) co-optation of the state on whose territory the outrages had taken place, (2) an overseeing committee comprising commissioners of all the great powers, and (3) the setting up of a new political-administrative arrangement which placed a region of a state under the collective tutelage of the great powers, limiting that state’s control over its sovereign territory.