Editing History of Lebanon (section)

=== Late 19th century to early 20th century ===
[[Image:Maronite from Lebanon, Inhabitant of Jeïbel, Christian Woman from Lebanon.jpg|thumb|right|Lebanese dress from the late 19th century.]]
The [[Maronite]] [[Catholic]]s and the [[Druze]] founded modern [[Lebanon]] in the early eighteenth century, through the ruling and social system known as the "[[Christianity and Druze|Maronite-Druze dualism]]" in [[Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate]].<ref name="Deeb 2013">{{cite book|title=Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah: The Unholy Alliance and Its War on Lebanon| first=Marius|last=Deeb|year= 2013| isbn= 9780817916664|publisher=Hoover Press|quote= the Maronites and the Druze, who founded Lebanon in the early eighteenth century.}}</ref> The remainder of the 19th century saw a relative period of stability, as Muslim, Druze and Maronite groups focused on economic and cultural development which saw the founding of the [[American University of Beirut]] and a flowering of literary and political activity associated with the attempts to liberalize the Ottoman Empire. Late in the century there was a short Druze uprising over the extremely harsh government and high taxation rates, but there was far less of the violence that had scalded the area earlier in the century.

In the approach to World War I, Beirut became a center of various reforming movements, and would send delegates to the Arab Syrian conference and Franco-Syrian conference held in Paris. There was a complex array of solutions, from pan-Arab nationalism, to separatism for Beirut, and several status quo movements that sought stability and reform within the context of Ottoman government. The Young Turk revolution brought these movements to the front, hoping that the reform of Ottoman Empire would lead to broader reforms. The outbreak of hostilities changed this, as Lebanon was to feel the weight of the conflict in the Middle East more heavily than most other areas occupied by the Syrians.

====Great famine in Lebanon, 1915–1918====
{{main|Great Famine of Mount Lebanon}}
{{blockquote|They lost so many loved ones during that time. My father once said that the rich families survived as they were able to bribe and get supplies on the black market. It was the unemployed, the middle class and the poor that were dying in the streets.|author=Teresa Michel, son of famine survivors<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.thenational.ae/world/lebanon-s-dark-days-of-hunger-the-great-famine-of-1915-18-1.70379?videoId=5587173110001| title=Lebanon's dark days of hunger: The Great Famine of 1915-18| date=14 April 2015| access-date=6 October 2017| archive-date=6 October 2017| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171006161936/https://www.thenational.ae/world/lebanon-s-dark-days-of-hunger-the-great-famine-of-1915-18-1.70379?videoId=5587173110001| url-status=live}}</ref>}}

About half the population of the Mount Lebanon subdivision, overwhelmingly Maronites, starved to death (200,000 killed out of 400,000 of the total populace) throughout the years of 1915–1918 during what is now known as the [[Great Famine of Mount Lebanon]],<ref>Harris 2012, p.174</ref> as a consequence of a mixed combination of crop failure, punitive  governance practices, naval blockade of the coast by the Allies, and an Ottoman military ban on exports from Syria into Lebanon, during [[World War I]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Tanielian|first1=Melanie Schulze|title=Charity of War: Famine, Humanitarian Aid and World War I in the Middle East|date=2018|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=9781503603523|url=http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=28143|access-date=2017-11-14|archive-date=2023-07-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230713003402/http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=28143|url-status=live}}</ref> Dead bodies were piled in the streets and starving Lebanese civilians were reported to be eating street animals while some even resorted to cannibalism.<ref>{{cite news|last1=BBC staff|title=Six unexpected WW1 battlegrounds|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30098000|access-date=24 January 2016|work=BBC News|agency=BBC News Services|publisher=BBC|date=26 November 2014|archive-date=3 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170803005322/http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30098000|url-status=live}}</ref>