In April, 1842, Omar Pasha imprisoned the leading Druze sheiks, and Albanian soldiers were arriving daily, as if to disarm the Druzes.
And so it proved.

The Turks decided to take the matter into their own hands.

An army was marched into Lebanon, accompanied by Moslem sheiks and teachers, and the whole Druze nation was compelled to appear, outwardly at least, as Moslem.1 The motives of the government in this were chiefly political, but partly religious.
They wished to be able to draw recruits from this brave people for the army, which could not be done should they become Protestant Christians; and also, to retain a strong party in Lebanon, to be used, as they afterwards were used, against the large nominally Christian majority of its inhabitants.

They expected thus to control the mountains, and keep down the influence of foreign Christian powers.
1 These statements are made on the authority of a document received from the mission in the year 1869.
In this manner were the operations for educating and Christianizing the Druzes suddenly arrested.

In working out their policy, the Turks necessarily resorted to measures intended to place the Druzes in bitter antagonism to all the native Christians.