Russian Navy in Beirut, 1773-1774

Published on December 16, 2016



It was amusing to dig some gold nuggets about the long-forgotten (even in Russia) Russian military involvement in the East Mediterranean (modern Lebanon, Syria and Israel) in 1770s, during the reign of Catherine II of Russia (known as Catherine the Great).

The next time the Russian Navy re-appeared in that area only in 1958. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P7388.pdf (Its presence there in the Nineteenth century was insignificant, especially since Russia lost its Naval might as a result of the lost Crimean War).

The Russian fleet and marines fought in the Battle of Sidon , bombarded and twice occupied Beirut.

There were also hundreds of volunteers, such as Southern Slavs and Greeks from Ottoman-controlled areas.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03068375508731555?journalCode=raaf19

http://www.e-perimetron.org/vol_2_2/davie_frumin.pdf

During the war, a Russian fleet under Count Orlov entered the Mediterranean Sea for the first time in history. It was intended to draw Ottoman Navy out from the Black Sea.

In 1771 the Mamluk ruler of Egypt Ali Bey Al-Kabir allied with Zahir Al-Umar, the shaykh of Acre (Modern Akko in Israel), against powers of the Ottoman Sublime Porta. Zahir al-Umar al-Zaydani (alternatively spelled Dhaher al-Omar or Dahir al-Umar) (ظاهر آل عمر الزيداني‎‎; Ẓāhir āl-ʿUmar az-Zaydānī, 1690–1775) was the autonomous Arab ruler of Galilee in the mid-18th century, while the area was a part of the Ottoman Empire. For much of his reign, starting in the 1730s, his quasi-state mainly consisted of parts of Galilee and parts of South Lebanon with successive headquarters in Tiberias , Arraba, Deir Hanna, Nazareth and finally Acre (Akko). Al-Umar is now increasingly considered a national hero and one of symbolic historic figures by the modern Palestinian Arabs.

He was a very interesting, unique personality with great deal of tolerance for his times. Al-Umar has actively promoted settling Jews and their economic activity in Galilee too.

http://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/JQ%2063_Zahir%20al-Umar.pdf

http://erenow.com/common/eugenerohanthearabsahistory/3.html

The Egyptian general Al-Dhabab marched on Damascus, but the Ottoman governor of Damascus convinced him to turn on Al-Kabir.

Abu Al-Dhahab then returned to Egypt and forced Al-Kabir to flee to Al-Umar.

At this point, Count Orlov, with Catherine’s approval, established friendly relations with the coalition of those two anti-Ottoman rebel rulers.

In 1773, Yusuf Shihab, the emir of Mount Lebanon, entrusted Beirut’s defences to Ahmad Al-Jazzar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusuf_Shihab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Lebanon_Emirate

When Al-Jazzar began to act independently, Yusuf got into contact with Zahir Al-Umar to remove him. Zahir suggested they enlist the Russians.

The Russian squadron under Captain Ivan Kozhukhov blockaded and bombarded Beirut.

In July 1773, a Russian detachment consisting of five frigates and fourteen smaller ships, landed troops at the fortress of Beirut. Russian forces besieged the town for over two months, capturing the fortress, two smaller galleys and 41 cannon and exacting a tribute of thirty thousand piasters. After the surrender of the fortress, the Russian marines stayed in Beirut until January of 1774. From June 23 to September 29 of 1773, a thousand-people strong Russian landing Marines engaged in various operations on Lebanese coast.

Zahir negotiated Jazzar’s withdrawal. Jazzar then entered Zahir’s service only to rebel against him very shortly. The Russians occupied Beirut for a second time to force Yusuf to pay a ransom. The occupation of Beirut lasted four months.

Since Beirut had traditionally helped fund the military efforts of the Turkish Sultan, Turkey’s situation was now weakened.

During this campaign all marines were awarded with silver medals, inscribed “To the Victors.”

This campaign introduced the first George’s ribbon awards of the newly established Order of Saint George, which became the symbol of personal bravery in combat.

Now its orange and black colors are associated with WW2 veterans celebrations in modern Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_of_Saint_George

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_St._George

The Mediterranean expedition had another unexpected consequence.

Thousands of local volunteers, Greeks, Albanians, Serbs, Montenegrins, joined the Navy. In the beginning, they were all called the Albanians, or as Turks called them, the Arnauts.

After the conclusion of the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji in 1774, they were brought to Russia together with their families.

Catherine the Great allotted them residence in the Crimean fortresses of Kerch and Yenikale. It was the first mass return of Greeks to Crimea after 2000 years, since the Ancient Greece had cities, villages and ports all over the peninsula.

This Russian-Turkish War of 1768–74 brought Crimea under Russian influence from the control by the Sublime Porta.

In 1774 Crimea was declared independent and allianced with Russia. The Crimean Khanate became part of Russia in 1783.

It put an immediate stop to four centuries of the infamous Crimean Khanate slave trade.

The slave trade was very lucrative, especially in women, because Ukrainian and Russian women were highly prized in Istanbul for their beauty. The historian Alan Fisher has estimated, that as many as a million members of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were carried off into slavery between 1474 and 1694.

http://www2.econ.hit-u.ac.jp/~areastd/mediterranean/mw/pdf/18/10.pdf

https://www.academia.edu/2971600/Slave_Trade_in_the_Early_Modern_Crimea_From_the_Perspective_of_Christian_Muslim_and_Jewish_Sources

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/the-crimean-tatars-and-the-ottomans.aspx?pageID=238&nid=64230

Her Magesty The History is an amazing collector of seemingly discrepant events and symbols, which then resurface as the suddenly coherent, logical and unified collection, sometimes in a few centuries since the original emergence of artefacts.

Russian new symbols of the courage and honor, such as George’s Ribbon; Crimea, Navy and Marines in times of their glory, projecting force as a Blue-water Navy, helping local rulers in Levant in winning domestic conflicts, international assistance, multi-polar world and challenging dominant superpower, all those now come together and resurface as icons of new national symbolism in modern Russia.

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Leo Goldfeld

Leo Goldfeld

Experienced Leader, “Im ein ani li…"​

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