On Monday 9 July 1860, the old city of Damascus exploded in unprecedented communal violence. Over the course of eight days, a mostly Muslim crowd tried to exterminate the Christian community. Surviving Damascenes remembered the bloodletting, eyes downcast, as “the Damascus Events”.
The murderous mob in Damascus took inspiration from a civil war in neighbouring Mount Lebanon earlier that same summer. In late May 1860, the Druze community launched a series of surprise attacks on Christian strongholds in the southern highlands. Druze victories over Lebanese Christians excited a blood lust in Damascus that fed on deep and growing antagonisms against their own Christian neighbours. When the Druze over-ran the Lebanese Christian stronghold of Zahleh in June 1860, shopkeepers strung up lanterns in the markets of Damascus in celebration.
While the violence in Mount Lebanon stemmed from different roots than in Damascus and involved different communities — Druzes versus Maronites in Mount Lebanon, Muslims versus all Christian denominations in Damascus — they had one element in common: the attackers believed the Christians posed an existential threat to their lives and livelihoods. In the face of such a threat, extermination came to be seen as a reasonable solution. In that sense, both events were genocidal moments.