Two months after his arrival in Ottoman Syria in September 1860, the Prussianbureaucrat Johann Ludwig Guido von Rehfues (1818–97) and his colleagues setoff on a hauntingly memorable journey to Damascus.² Leaving Beirut early in themorning, they rodefirst up Mount Lebanon. From all the heights to which theirpath took them, they could see the smoke-stained rubble of onceflourishingvillages in the countryside.³ The picturesque hills did not hide the grim fact thata civil war had struck there half a year earlier. It was the last day of November andthe men on horseback were representatives of the European Powers at thecommission they had been tasked with setting up: Pierre Jean Adolphe deWeckbecker (1808–71) was the Austrian plenipotentiary, Leon Philippe Béclard(1819–64) the French, and Evgenii Petrovic Novikow (1826–1903) representedRussia. Since he was unwell, the British commissioner, Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (1826–1902), had stayedin Beirut.