Great Famine of Mount Lebanon

Great Famine of Mount Lebanon مجاعة جبل لبنان
Starving man and children in Mount Lebanon
Country	Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Ottoman Empire, modern day Lebanon
Location	Mount Lebanon
Period	1915–1918
Total deaths	Est. 200,000
Effect on demographics	Population of 400,000 declined by 50%

The Great Famine of Mount Lebanon (1915–1918) (

Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate was one of three entities in Greater Syria or ‘Bilad al-Asham’ under Ottoman control, including the Syrian^[9] and Beirut Vilayets.^[10] Mount Lebanon's economy relied heavily on sericulture; raw silk was processed in looms and finished goods were shipped to the European market.^[7] While sericulture constituted 32.9% of Mount Lebanon’s income in 1914, 45.6% of the region’s economy was dependent on remittances from the diaspora in the Americas, making them the ‘largest’ source of income by the onset of the war.^[8]

Causes

Famine is not characterised by a dearth of food but rather by the inability of people to access it.^[11] Multiple factors compounded to create an environment that worsened the pre-existing food shortages caused by the First World War.

Pressure

Pressure within a community occurs when external factors weaken ongoing food shortages. The impact of WWI acted as the primary example of pressure in Mount Lebanon: the Ottoman war effort that prioritised food for soldiers on the front lines when the Empire neared collapse and the Entente naval blockade impacted the economy.^[12]

The movement of Ottoman troops to the front following the 1915 Suez Canal campaign caused a 'bottleneck' in the transportation system of Greater Syria.^[13] While there was ample grain and wheat in Damascus,^[12] moving it to the mountainous region of Mount Lebanon when the price of hiring a railway carriage had tripled became almost impossible. The Ottoman requisition of transport animals further plagued any efforts at moving aid to the mountainous region.^[12]

Hold

The ‘hold’ in a famine system applies when something keeps or ‘holds’ pressure in place for a prolonged period without release.^[14]

The region’s ability to export silk, a backbone of the economy, to European countries such as France was inhibited as a result of Ottoman military alliances and the subsequent Entente Blockade. The Ottoman alliance with the Central Powers caused the Entente Powers to block international trade routes in order to hinder Ottoman supply ; see Blockade of the Eastern Mediterranean during World War I [fr]. This made the transportation of remittances into the region increasingly difficult, and was worsened by the congestion of land-based transport. The region’s dependence on income from external sources reduced local purchasing power and drove the price of food up as it became more scarce.^[12] Low rainfall and record-breaking locust infestations laid waste to the remaining crops,^[7][5] which further exacerbated the situation and put increasing pressure on already limited food supplies.^[12]

Growing crops was already a challenge in the mountainous region, and the inhabitants relied on food imports from the adjacent Bekaa Valley and Syria. To counter the Allied Blockade, the Ottomans adopted a severe policy of acquisition by which all food supplies were prioritised for the army.^[7] Jamal Pasha, commander of the Fourth Army of the Ottoman Empire in Syria, barred crops from entering Mount Lebanon.^[5]

Self-reinforcing Dynamics

The inability to access already-diminished food supplies was further exacerbated by a black market run by well-connected usurers.^[15] The black market for grain arose as a representation of self-reinforcing dynamics, perpetuated by humans in response to the food crisis. Merchants often 'strategically withheld'^[12] their grain and wheat supplies from the market for weeks at a time in order to raise the price and then flood the market. While the Beirut municipality implemented solutions to the illegal trade, they were ultimately unsuccessful.^[12]

The politicisation of aid was another self-reinforcing dynamic. In urban areas such as Beirut, the American University (formerly known as the Syrian Protestant College or SPC) distributed aid to locals on conditions of religious and moral ‘worthiness’.^[16] US aid was sent via boat, the USS Caesar or ‘Christmas ship’ to modern-day Lebanon in an agreed break of the Entente blockade. However, it was stopped at Jaffa port in modern-day Israel and the aid never reached Mount Lebanon, where it was to be transferred upon arrival at the port in Beirut.^[17] Self-reinforcing dynamics went so far that cannibalism became a common phenomenon, particularly amongst parents who ate their children.^[18]

The above mechanisms contributed to the worsening food insecurity and culminated in the outbreak of famine. How long a famine will last is dependent on how long the pressure, hold and self-reinforcing dynamics are kept in place.

Collapse and Re-balancing

Re-balancing occurs when one or more aspects of the system collapse which allows for the stabilisation of food supply, in turn ending the famine.^[14]

The end of the famine in Mount Lebanon coincided most notably with the end of the First World War in 1918, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent arrival of French and British forces into the region. However, the situation did not 'normalise' until the following year.^[19]

For this reason, the creation of Greater Lebanon or 'Le grand Lebanon'^[20] under the administration of France was objectively paradoxical:

''In that sense, the transition between Ottoman and French rule in Lebanon hinged on the ability of the French Empire to enforce a blockade for the duration of the war, and then arrive to relieve the famine its navy had helped create, with ships laden with grain.''^[4]

First grain shortages

The Ottoman Empire

On 14 November 1914, Beyhum took off to Aleppo, where he negotiated with authorities, securing grain freight cars from the

Malnutrition and starvation left the inhabitants vulnerable to the spread of disease at a time of societal upheaval.^[12] Malaria, typhus and body lice became widespread amongst a population which grew increasingly susceptible to such illnesses. This was worsened by the movement of troops across the country, who were at greater risk of dying from disease than battle wounds.^[25]

Around 200,000 people starved to death at a time when the population of Mount Lebanon was estimated to be 400,000 people.

The Syrian–Mount Lebanon Relief Committee was "formed in June of 1916 under the chairmanship of Najib Maalouf and the Assistant Chairmanship of Ameen Rihani"^[27] in the United States.

Literary references

On 26 May 1916,

Tawfiq Yusuf 'Awwad's landmark full-length novel Al-Raghif (The loaf) is set in the impoverished mountain village of Saqiyat al-Misk during World War I. In the novel, 'Awwad describes scenes from the great famine.^[29]

There was a woman, lying on her back, covered with lice. An infant with huge eyes was hanging to her naked breast. One of the men pushed her with his foot and waited... Tom bit his fingers and stepped forward. The woman’s head was tipped back and her hair was sparse. From her bosom jutted out a scratched and battered breast that the infant kneaded with his tiny hands and squeezed with his lips, then gave up and cried.

— Tawfiq Yusuf 'Awwad, Al-Raghif (1939)

Memorials

The first memorial to memorialize the victims of the famine was erected in

• Ottoman Empire in World War I
• Aftermath of World War I
• Turnip Winter

References