These movements being communicated to the Governor of Acre, would have encouraged him to hold out; and if he was forced to withdraw, he could have joined Ibrahim, and again marched on Acre, where they would have found a practicable breach; and most certainly, at that season of the year, the British squadron would not have remained in so open an anchorage.
Such vigorous measures would have had a great effect on France, and there is no knowing what might have happened. This was not done; and Ibrahim, without making one effort to draw our attention from Acre, or to profit by our absence, remained inactive, and to his astonishment, heard of the surrender of that renowned fortress, which he had not in the least calculated upon. Still his cause was not lost; our troops were divided in Beyrout, Sidon, Tyre, and Acre, and, I believe, we had also some at Tripoli.
The gale of the 29th of November alarmed the Admiral for the safety of the squadron. The coast was abandoned, except by a steamer or two, and there was nothing whatever to have prevented Ibrahim from again advancing, and recovering all his losses, and which he would have been perfectly justified in doing when the Convention was rejected. Why he did not, to every military man acquainted with the country, and with our weakness, must be a matter of surprise.
Had any of these operations I have described been put in force, Mehemet Ali would have been now in Syria, and a war among the European Powers in all probability would have been raging.
We will now examine what Turkey has gained by the recovery of the Syrian provinces. She has got back her fleet, which will never be of the least use to her, and is an expensive floating ornament to the Seraglio. Situated as the Turkish empire is, with a rapid stream cutting her in two, it is evident her only proper defence is a fleet of steamboats; with these, and the Bosphorus and Hellespont properly fortified, she may defy attacks either from the north or the south, and have a rapid means of communicating with her islands and possessions on the Syrian coasts, and of suddenly transporting troops to any part of her extensive empire. The Turks are not sailors, and never will be, and are therefore much better adapted to serve in vessels moved by steam than in line-of-battle ships, where seamanship cannot be dispensed with.
The Porte has regained Syria, and with it a most extensive kingdom and discontented population, and instead of keeping her army at home to defend her against Russia, her natural enemy, she is obliged to maintain a large force in Syria to keep down her justly irritated subjects, whom she has neither the talent nor inclination to govern either with prudence or decency. Syria is divided, as before, into pachalics, and influential Turks are appointed, as usual, to govern them. There is neither law nor justice. The Turk sits all day smoking his pipe, and the people are plundered by their underlings as usual; and they now feel they were better off under the government of Mehemet Ali than they are now under their former masters. They pay the taxes they formerly did under the Porte; they pay Mehemet Ali’s taxes in addition, and are plundered into the bargain by their old rulers. Property of every description is less protected than it was, trade destroyed, and the roads insecure throughout the country. As for Mount Lebanon, whose population was the first to come forward and join our bands, and whose position the Allies and the Turks themselves promised to alleviate—how have they been treated? As yet they have received little or no remuneration for the burning of their villages and destruction of their property by Ibrahim Pacha, in revenge for their having joined the standard of the Sultan. They have been badly paid for the losses we ourselves caused them at D’Jounie, at Beyrout, Acre, and Sidon. The old feuds between the Maronites and Druses, which had nearly subsided, have been fomented by their rulers, and I fear Mehemet Ali himself, as might have been foreseen, has not been altogether blameless in assisting to set them by the ears.
In the course of my work it has been shown that the Maronites were the first to take up arms in the cause of the Sultan. The Druses being more under the influence of the old Emir Bechir, came forward at a later period, and when the war was nearly finished, they became jealous of the Maronites; and the Turks, instead of by prudent management discouraging these feelings, rather fomented them, with the view of weakening both. The mountaineers had been armed during the insurrection, and they are looked upon more as enemies, than friends who had assisted in bringing them back to power.
In the beginning of November, 1841, about the period when the taxes for the support of the local government were to be raised, the chiefs of the Druses requested the Grand Prince to attend at Deir-el-Kamar, the seat of government, to consider how the taxes were to be distributed; this being acceded to, they sent orders to the different tribes to come armed to the meeting, which was certainly not a very peaceable way of settling who was to bear the burden of taxation. These tribes concealed themselves in the houses of the Scheiks of the family of Abu Bekr, in Deir-el-Kamar, and, without provocation, sallied out of their houses, set fire to the town in several places, and plundered and murdered several of the peaceable inhabitants. The Maronites, taken entirely by surprise, suffered very considerably at first, but being rallied by their leaders took up arms, and a regular battle ensued, which lasted with occasional intermission for several days. The Prince defended himself in his palace, but seeing the Druses were the strongest, repeatedly sent to Selim Pacha, who commanded the Ottoman troops at Beyrout, for assistance; none, however, arrived. This was exactly what the Turks wanted—the more men killed on each side, and the more exasperated they became against each other, the better they were satisfied. “Divide and Govern,” was their motto.
When the news of this unfortunate rencontre came to the knowledge of our gallant Consul-General, Colonel Rose, he immediately set out for the mountains, and at imminent hazard to himself, succeeded in putting an end, for a time, to the broil. Unfortunately, however, the Maronite Christians hearing of the danger of their countrymen at Deir-el-Kamar, sent a strong force to relieve them; this, as might be expected, again brought the Druses into the field, and again the Grand Prince sent to Selim Pacha, but his appeal to him was in vain, and the Druses being the strongest, he was besieged in his palace for twenty-four days.
Instead of Turkish troops being sent to put down the insurrection and relieve the Prince, he received orders to repair to Beyrout; and his provision and ammunition being expended, he was obliged to capitulate with the Druse Scheiks, who guaranteed his safety and that of his retinue and their property; and though the negotiations were carried on through the medium of the messenger sent by Selim Pacha, no sooner had the Prince quitted his residence, than the Druses rushed upon them, seized their arms, horses, and clothes, and even stripped them to their shirts. The Prince himself did not escape this indignity. On his arrival at Beyrout he made strong and repeated representations to Selim Pacha, and entreated him to assist in putting down the civil war, but in vain. The fact is, Selim Pacha was acting under the orders of the Porte, who only wanted a good excuse to put an end to the government of the ruling Prince.