The Ottoman repression in Lebanon is one of the major civilian trials of the First World War. The hangings of 1915 and 1916 are the most visible memory. However, they are part of a broader policy. Arrests, military trials, confiscations and exiles strike opponents and their families. In Beirut, monitoring also reaches educational institutions. Behind the figures honored as martyrs, war upsets homes, deprives families of their property and imposes forced departures.
This first part of a series on the suffering of the people of Lebanon during the Great War focuses on such political violence. The territorial framework requires clarification. The Lebanese State within its present borders does not yet exist. Beirut and Mount Lebanon fall under separate Ottoman constituencies. The repression is unfolding in a much larger Syrian space. Therefore, data on this set cannot automatically become Lebanese balance sheets.
Ottoman repression in Lebanon, beyond the gallows
At the head of the Fourth Army, Djemal Pasha concentrates extensive military and civilian powers. War strengthens that authority. In May 1915, a provisional law granted him exceptional powers over government decisions concerning Syria. This concentration leaves little room for ordinary political mediation.
Power targets reformist and decentralizing networks. Before the war, their demands did not form a single independent program. Some argue for greater administrative autonomy. Others want to protect the Arabic language better. Lebanese, Syrian and Arab projects cross without confusion. Several activists are still seeking Empire reform, rather than its disappearance.
Entry into war transforms relations with European powers into indictments. The authorities seize documents at the French consulates in Beirut and Damascus. They use these correspondences against local personalities. The content of old exchanges thus becomes new in a situation of war and diplomatic rupture.
Aley, Beirut and Damascus: Military Justice
The military court of Aley becomes a central place for this repression. The accusations of treason place politicians, journalists and notables under the capital threat. However, chronology prevents the campaign from being reduced to a spontaneous reaction after a military defeat. Requests for arrest already precede the Ottoman failure in front of the Suez Canal in February 1915.
On 21 August 1915, eleven men were hanged in Beirut. A second wave of executions struck Beirut and Damascus on 6 May 1916. Twenty-one convicts then die in both cities. The latter number covers all two locations. He does not designate twenty-one executed in Beirut alone.
The persons prosecuted include Muslims and Christians. So power does not strike a single community. Trades and trajectories also differ: former elected officials, local officials, lettermen and journalists are among the convicted. The test leaves a trace in both political and press history.
Public executions expose the public to punishment. They do, however, affect much wider circles than the convicted. Their relatives suffer absence, threat and sometimes displacement. To understand this suffering, the list of executed names is not enough. We must also follow families who disappear from homes and neighbourhoods.
Displaced families to Anatolia
Internal evictions accompany the control policy. The authorities are moving families to Anatolia, far from their usual networks. The political objective goes beyond individual punishment: it also involves weakening the local influence of opponents. A notable individual separated from his relations loses some of his means of action.
An academic study of exiles compares their memories in Arabic with Ottoman documents. It shows different paths. The reactions of local governments and the resistance of displaced persons change the conditions of installation. It would therefore be misleading to describe all exiles as an identical route, with the same treatments and possibilities of return.
The figures also call for caution. Historical work evokes several thousand families on a Syrian scale. Contemporary documents offer variable estimates. They do not make it possible to establish a reliable total of the inhabitants of the present Lebanese territory.
On 21 May 1916, an American diplomatic dispatch reported the deportation of families from Damascus and Lebanon. It also mentions confiscations. In part, the editor sends information received from a traveller. The document thus attests to the existence of precise contemporary alerts, but each estimate it contains does not constitute a census.
The same dispatch describes some travel at the expense of the authorities and reports promises of land allocation. These indications do not demonstrate general compensation or its effective application. They show above all why the documentation should distinguish between announced measures, observed situations and indirect information.
Confiscation, concern and loss of ties
Forced departure and confiscation are two different forms of violence that can be combined. The first moves the inhabitants away from their environment. The second compromises the resources retained on site. In a country where prices are rising and supplies are deteriorating, losing access to property increases the vulnerability of the home.
Alerts are also circulating abroad. On May 9, 1916, Washington transmitted a French note to his representation in Constantinople. It brings about imprisonment, exile and ill-treatment in the region. The State Department is asking for unobtrusive checks before any action is taken by the Ottoman authorities.
The note also expresses the fear of an extension of the massacres. This concern belongs to the document of the time. It cannot be transformed into evidence that an announced scenario has actually been achieved everywhere. The Armenian genocide and the repression of Arab opponents are policies and paths that must be studied without confusion.
In a Beirut school, a manual becomes a business
Political coercion affects places far from the court. At Syrian Protestant College, a future American academic institution in Beirut, a geography manual caused a crisis. In December 1915, the authorities challenged its use and certain passages deemed hostile to the Empire.
They demand the withdrawal of the book and the departure of the head of the preparatory section, William Hall. Management explains that the disputed passages do not represent his teaching. However, she decided to withdraw Hall from her post and ask her to leave the Empire.
The 1915-16 Annual Report maintains the rationale for this decision. The establishment states that it does not consider Hall unfair. He presented the measure as a response to the Governor’s requirements. The episode thus documents a concrete pressure on teaching: school content is enough to threaten a job and a presence in the country.
The hangings of May 6 then enter into national commemorations. Other traces of court records, diplomatic correspondence and school records include those of imprisoned persons, seized property, remote families and teachers who were forced to leave.
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