Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate
In response to a massacre of Maronites by Druze during the 1860 civil war, 6000 French troops landed near Beirut to ostensibly protect the Maronite communities. The Ottoman Sultan, Abdulmejid I, had no choice but to approve the French landing at Beirut and review the status of Mount Lebanon. In 1861, the Ottomans and five European powers (Britain, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia) negotiated a new political system for Mount Lebanon in a commission chaired by Mehmed Fuad Pasha, the Ottoman Foreign Minister. The international commission established a tribunal to punish the Druze lords for war crimes and the commission further agreed on an autonomous province of Mount Lebanon, the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate. In September 1864, the Ottomans and Europeans signed the "Règlement Organique" defining the new entity, including the French recommendation of an elected multi-communal council to advise the governor.