ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the fate of the Greek minority living in Turkey and of the Armenians whose diaspora was to be part of Lebanon's own story. Smaller Christian groups include the Roman Catholics, the Armenian Orthodox and the Nestorian Assyrians, some of whom came to Lebanon after the massacre of 1933 in Iraq. By the turn of the century, and to the eve of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was clearly in a state of disintegration, the Christian Balkans lost, North Africa under European control, French, British or Italian, and even within the Muslim heartland Armenians and even a few Muslim Arabs were becoming restive. Through pressure from local politicians, Great Britain and the United Nations, the French were obliged to grant Lebanon formal independence in 1943 and by the end of 1946 to evacuate their last troops from the Levant.
