1860-61 Syrian Events, Compensation and Serghi of Damascus

Abstract

The subject of compensation, which is frequently encountered in the historical process, has emerged as a result of extraordinary situations such as war and has brought financial burdens for the part that will make these payments. In the last period, the Ottoman Empire not only had to pay war reparations, but also dealt with regional violence and made compensation payments to the victims. The conflicts that started between the Druze and the Maronites in Lebanon in May 1860 grew and spread to Damascus. As a result of the violence against Christians in Damascus, both loss of life and material losses were experienced. In this regard, the issue of resolving the incidents, punishing those who caused these incidents and compensation for those who suffered damage came to the agenda. With the involvement of European States in this issue, it soon turned into an international problem. The state, whose financial capacity is limited, could not compensate for damages with its own means, and therefore, it had to go into debt by using its prospective income. In this study, how the Ottoman Empire coped with these events, the emergence, progress, political and financial consequences of the events leading to the compensation process were investigated. And then the details of the issuance of domestic debt bonds, called “serghi”, which are used to meet the compensation payments, are discussed. Although the financial capacity of the Ottoman State was limited in period in question, it compensated the victims with the exported serghi and it was concluded that these financial practices were also effective in ensuring the peace in the region. In this study, archival sources of the period were used as the primary source.