 The Franco-Maronite alliance, over a thousand years old, reached a culminating point in 1860 when Napoleon III dispatched 6000 French soldiers to Beirut in protection of the Maronites, essentially occupying Mount Lebanon with the approval of the Ottoman authorities.Though the French military presence would not last very long, it heightened tensions in London where British politicians were seeing the direct dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire to their geopolitical disadvantage.The possible colonization of Mount Lebanon by the French, applauded by the local Maronite clergy, was obviously contrary to British interests in the area.