Beyoglu Protocol

Terms that reorganized the administrative structure of Lebanon as province of Ottoman Empire.

Following the massacres by the Druze of thousands of Lebanese and Syrian Christians in the summer of 1860, the Ottoman sultan, Abdülmecit I, sent Mehmed Fuat Paşa, foreign minister, to Syria to resolve the crisis. Fuat had two goals: to restore order and to prevent the European powers from intervening. Though France landed troops and Britain sent a fleet, Fuad was thorough and provided them with no excuse to intervene further. In June 1861 the French withdrew their forces, and on 9 June the sultan issued the Beyoglu Protocol, which reorganized the administrative structure of Lebanon. Under the terms of the protocol, Lebanon was given a new Organic Law that established Lebanon as a privileged province headed by a non-Lebanese, Ottoman Christian governor (mutasarrif) appointed by the sultan after consultation with European governments. The predominantly Christian mountain region was detached from the coastal district of Beirut and Tripoli as well as from the inland Biqa Valley. It was a smaller, more homogenous province, but it survived intact without major disruptions until World War I.

Bibliography

Hurewitz, J. C., tr. and ed. The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics, 2d edition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975.

Shaw, Stanford, and Shaw, Ezel Kural. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976 - 1977.

— ZACHARY KARABELL