Wars and independence: 1840–1914

For the next two decades, the Mountain was host to various forms of conflict: most notably periodically from 1840 through 1845, in 1852, 1858, and 1860. Of these, the harakāt of 1841–2, 1845, and 1860 amounted to general civil war.¹ These were decades of convulsion as well as transformation for the Lebanese. During this period the Egyptians were expelled; the Druze-Maronite Imarah came to an end; and the formal structures of the feudal system were abolished. Born in conflict, the Lebanese were to give birth to even more.²