Errors of the Pacha—His proper course of Action—Mismanagement of Ibrahim Pacha in Syria—Gain or Loss of Turkey by the Acquisition of Syria—Conduct of the Turks in Lebanon—Quarrels of the Mountaineers—Ill treatment of the Prince—Consequent hatred of Turkish rule—Conclusion.

The first error Mehemet Ali committed was not immediately ordering Ibrahim to march on Scutari after the battle of Nizib. At that time the Allies had not come to a final arrangement, and the British and French fleets were not collected in Besika Bay. Had he done that at once, Russia would certainly have come down to Constantinople with a fleet and army; France would have got alarmed, and probably ordered her fleet up the Dardanelles; Great Britain would have done the same. Russia would have urged the Porte to prevent it, which she would have been obliged to have complied with, and the probability is that Europe would have been set by the ears, and in the struggle Mehemet Ali would most likely have retained the government of Syria; indeed, both France and England would have been obliged to have made use of Mehemet Ali against Russia, and the Porte, who must have joined with Russia in preventing the fleets from forcing the Dardanelles. His second error was, in not concentrating his army the moment he resolved on resisting the decision of the Allies.

At the time we landed in D’Jounie Bay, the Egyptian army in Syria could not have consisted of less than 80,000 men of all arms. They were distributed, it is true, in various parts of the country. Ibrahim Pacha ought to have divined our plan of operations the moment we landed; he ought also to have ascertained from his spies, (which we could not prevent,) the number of our troops, and the works we were throwing up, which of themselves showed our weakness. He must have also known how slow the mountaineers were in coming in in the first instance for arms. Seeing all this, had he acted with vigour, and set his troops in motion from Tripoli, he would first have saved D’Jebail, then occupied Gazir, and prevented the Emir Abdallah from joining our standard. Had Osman Pacha advanced at the same time from Balbeck, and occupied Antura and the strong ground in front of our advanced posts, while Souliman Pacha, strengthening himself at Beyrout with a couple of thousand men from Sidon, might have marched with his army from Beyrout, and occupied the convents and high grounds above the Nahr-el-Kelb, and threatened an advance at the same time at the mouth of the river, he would, in the first place, have prevented a single mountaineer from joining our standard, and the overwhelming force which he would have mustered almost within shot of us, would have been quite sufficient, without firing a gun, to have made us pack up our traps and carry the Turkish troops to Cyprus. By some strange fatality he remained inactive; we gained confidence; were successful in all our enterprises; desertion began in Ibrahim’s army, which was just as likely to have begun in our’s; and when at last Ibrahim made an effort, and advanced to Beckfaya and Boharsof, instead of collecting the whole of his forces, and driving us from Ornagacuan, he did not bring half his troops, and allowed himself to be attacked on both flanks, front and rear, and was defeated. Still the game was not up with him; withdrawing his troops from Tripoli, Aleppo, Adana, and concentrating the whole at Zachle, Malaka, and Damascus, and seeing we hesitated in following up our successes, he ought to have taken advantage of the absence of the squadron at Acre, and the weakening of the garrison at Beyrout, and pushed on the latter place, which he would have taken with ease, and found abundance of provisions. He should then have marched on Sidon, which probably would have shared the same fate.

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.

Shortly after this the Porte threw off the mask; the Grand Prince was arrested and sent to Constantinople, and Omar Pacha, a German who had entered into the Turkish service, and served under my orders in Syria, was appointed by the Porte Governor of Lebanon. He may be a good man enough; but certainly, a Christian having changed his religion was not a fit man to govern the Christians of Lebanon. The poor Prince has lost the whole of his property, and his family is brought to ruin. This is the gratitude of the Porte; this is the reward he has obtained for his eminent services; and this is the way the Ottoman Government have treated their allies.

We are informed by Sir Robert Peel that our Ambassador at Constantinople has protested against these acts, and also against the Porte sending Albanian troops (who are little better than barbarians) into Syria, and that they have promised to remove Omar Pacha, and restrict the services of the Albanians to garrison duty only. How far the Porte will keep their promise we shall see; but, I confess, with such a man as Izzet Pacha at the head of the Turkish Government, and who is only putting into execution what he planned when in Syria, and for which he was recalled, I confess I have no reliance upon him, or indeed upon any Turkish Pacha. They are all alike, and quite incapable of preventing the fate of the Ottoman empire, which is tottering to its base, and the sooner it goes the better; it is unworthy of preserving.

Had my advice been followed, and the seaports of Lebanon, the Bekaa, and Anti-Lebanon, been put under the jurisdiction of the Grand Prince, assisted by a council of the powerful Emirs, and the Turkish troops removed entirely from his territory, causing him to pay a reasonable tribute to the Porte, the whole Mountain would have been bound by gratitude to the Sultan, and would have assisted him to keep the rest of Syria in order. As it is now, there is nothing but the most inveterate hatred existing against the Turkish Government; and I most sincerely hope the different sects will unite, and make a noble effort to drive their miserable and tyrannical rulers out of their fine country. Cultivation and commerce would then revive; a field would be opened to British enterprise, and we might recover the influence we had in the mountains, and which has been lost, in consequence of the inhabitants believing that we have not made use of our power to obtain from the Porte all that was so liberally promised them when we were in want of their assistance.

I cannot close this work without returning my best thanks to all the officers and men who served in the squadron that Sir Robert Stopford did me the honour of putting under my command. The very laborious services they performed in D’Jounie Bay is above all praise; this was no question of sending a Lieutenant and a working party on shore; the whole of the ships’ companies were constantly employed, headed by their Captains. Captain Reynolds was my second in the landing at D’Jounie, and continued his unremitted exertions till he was sent off Alexandria. Captain Berkeley was my second on the attack at Sidon, and both of us regretted that I could not employ him in the assault on shore; but it was absolutely necessary that he should remain on board the Thunderer to regulate the firing as we advanced, and to cover our retreat if necessary. Nor am I less obliged to Captain Maunsell, of the Rodney, who was my ambassador to Mehemet Ali, and who with great decision landed at once at the Palace and opened the negotiations. Indeed, all the officers, both of the Navy and Marines, as well as Selim Pacha, General Jochmus, Omar Bey, and the whole of the Turkish officers, did their duty to my entire satisfaction, and I should be but too proud to command such a force on another occasion. The merits of Admiral Walker are too well known to make it necessary for me to say one word in his praise.

I must also take this opportunity of thanking the Commander-in-Chief for having placed the Allied force under my direction when the ill health of Sir Charles Smith obliged him to proceed to Constantinople.