tion of the diversified elements of the empire and repression of all non-Turkish nationalism. To this end they prohibited all societies formed by non-Turkish groups. Arab nationalists were driven underground. Impetus was given to the de- centralist and the separatist wings around them. A group of Syro-Palestinian and Lebanese students and emigrants in Paris organized the Young Arab Society aiming at securing Arab independence from Turkish rule. But the Arab Congress which it sponsored there in 1913, and which was attended by twenty-four delegates from Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, including two Lebanese from New York, called simply for home rule and the recognition of Arabic as the official language. It also warned against meddling by European powers. Secret societies mushroomed in Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo. Arab officers in the Turkish army formed their own cells. Lack of communication facilities made it difficult to co-ordinate or integrate the work of the separate organiza- tions. With these developments the Young Turks were unable to cope. Their domestic troubles were complicated by foreign ones of even more serious nature. When war broke out in August 191 4 the Constantinople regime cast its lot with the Central Powers.
Late in that year Jamal Pasha, a member of the trium- virate, arrived at Damascus as governor-general of Syria- Lebanon- Palestine and commander-in-chief of the fourth Ottoman army. The area was considered dangerously anti- Ottoman with strong pro-Arab leanings and with the Christians of Lebanon entertaining pro-French sympathies. Jamal lost no time in abolishing Lebanon's autonomy and launching a policy of intimidation, deportation, torture and suppression of all nationalist activity. He inaugurated a reign of terror before which earlier ones paled and earned the sobriquet al-Saffah (bloodshedder) . At Alayh, c bride of Lebanese summer resorts', he instituted the following summer a military court which summarily sentenced, even condemned to death, suspects and nationalist leaders. Those
