Beirut was twice occupied during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 by squadrons of the Imperial Russian Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, first in June 1772 and second from October 1773 to early 1774, as part of its Levant campaign. Russia's main objective in this campaign was to assist local forces led by Egypt's autonomous ruler, Ali Bey al-Kabir, who was in open rebellion against the Ottoman Empire.
Russia, led by Catherine the Great, was pressing the Ottomans in Europe. Ali took advantage of the Empire's preoccupation with Russia to declare Egypt's independence; in 1771 he sent an army led by Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab to occupy Ottoman territory in the Levant. Abu al-Dhahab unexpectedly returned to challenge Ali for control of Egypt. Ali requested Russian military assistance against both his rival and the Ottomans. When this aid, in the form of a small Russian squadron, arrived in the region, Ali had already fled Egypt and taken refuge in Acre, the power base of his ally, Zahir al-Umar. After helping repel an Ottoman offensive on Sidon, the Russian squadron sailed for Beirut. They bombarded the town in June 1772 and occupied it from June23 to 28.
Ali requested further assistance from Russia to recover Egypt from Abu al-Dhahab. The Russians had recently entered a period of truce with the Ottomans, constraining their involvement in the region. They did, however, promise Ali a large squadron. Impatient, Ali set out for Egypt with a small force that was defeated near Cairo; he was imprisoned and died a few days later. When the Russian squadron arrived in June 1773 and learned of Ali's fate, its commander allied with Zahir and the Druze chieftain Yusuf Shihab. The latter had agreed to pay the Russians a tribute in exchange for their liberation of Beirut from Jazzar Pasha, Shihab's insubordinate vassal whom he had recently appointed as governor of the town. The bombardment of the town began on August2, and Jazzar surrendered after two months, on October10. A few hundred Albanian mercenaries were left as occupiers.
The occupations are of debatable historical importance. Despite their brevity, they marked the first time in over 250 years that Beirut was ruled by a power other than the Ottomans. It also marked the first occasion on which Russian rule was imposed over an Arab city.
Background
The pressure of Austria and Russia on the northern Ottoman frontiers since the beginning of the 18th century had encouraged insubordination among local governors in the largely decentralised Arab provinces of Ottoman Syria. In 1768, while the Russian Empire was suppressing a Polish uprising near the Ottoman border, a Cossack regiment chased some of the rebels across the border and reportedly carried out a massacre in the town of Balta. The Sultan eventually responded by declaring war on Russia. He demanded military assistance from Ali Bey, a Mamluk, who was the most powerful official in Ottoman Egypt at the time. Ali closely observed the course of the war, sending the required 3,000 soldiers to the aid of the Sublime Porte in 1769. Early in the following year, however, he declared Egypt's independence, chiefly in response to the war with Russia. Later he struck an alliance with Zahir al-Umar, a wealthy Arab ruler in northern Palestine. Ali and Zahir shared common ground in their opposition to Islamic fundamentalism, the Sultan's isolationist policies towards Europe and the imposition of Ottoman dignitaries to their courts.
At the same time, Tsarina Catherine the Great, lacking an organised Russian fleet in the Black Sea, drew up plans with Count Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov to detach a large number of ships from the Baltic Fleet and deploy them to the Mediterranean. Russia hoped they would attack the Turkish Straits from the rear, and that its naval presence in the Aegean Sea would provoke a Greek rebellion. This newly formed Mediterranean Fleet, headed by Orlov and commanded by Admiral Grigory Spiridov, sailed from Copenhagen on September23, 1769. By March1, 1770, the first detachment was anchored off the southern Morea, where the Orlov revolt broke out. This was followed by bombardments and troop landings at different locations in the region over the coming months. On July7 a Turkish fleet was crushed at the Battle of Chesma, which crippled the Ottoman Navy and gave the Russians naval command of the Mediterranean for the remainder of the war. Turkish ships that survived retreated to the Dardanelles. Rear-Admiral John Elphinstone proposed a direct assault on Constantinople, but was instead convinced by Orlov to blockade the Straits with his squadron, while the rest of the fleet went on the offensive in the northern Aegean.