Famine in Lebanon 1916–1918

The famine in Lebanon from 1916 to 1918 was the result of the First World War and, to a lesser extent, the high degree of specialization of the Lebanese agriculture at the time. B. existed in viticulture and sericulture, while staple foods were imported.

During the First World War , the Ottoman province of Lebanonberg , which was autonomous from 1860 to 1915, was occupied by Turkish and German troops. At the same time, the Entente powers imposed a sea ​​blockade on the Ottoman coast.

As a result of the sea blockade and requisitions of food by the German and Turkish army units operating in Lebanon, famine and epidemics occurred in Lebanon, as a result of which around 100,000 of the 450,000 people living in the province at that time, mainly Christians , perished.

While the German authorities watched the fate of the Lebanese largely inactive (the Protestant-Prussian-dominated German elite were suspicious of the oriental-looking but predominantly French- speaking and Catholic “ Levantines ”), massive protests took place in the United States in particular . a. organized by Lebanese emigrants like Khalil Gibran and certainly contributed to the USA's entry into the First World War. Many Lebanese emigrated during this time, especially to the USA, Canada , Latin America , Australia and South Africa . Today there are around six million Maronites originating from Lebanon alone worldwide . At the same time, several hundred thousand Armenians immigrated, most of whom live in the Bourj Hammoud district of Beirut .

A German eyewitness of the events at that time was the archaeologist Theodor Wiegand , who worked in Baalbek from 1917 to 1918 .

literature

• Gerhard Wiegand (Ed.): Half moon in the last quarter. Letters and travel reports from old Turkey from Theodor and Marie Wiegand 1895 to 1918. Munich 1970 (contains diary entries of the archaeologist Theodor Wiegand, who directed the excavations in Baalbek from 1917-18, about the Lebanese famine of 1916-18)