The contents of the Sykes-Picot Agreement are revealed by the Bolshevik government in Russia in November 1917.

Arab consternation at the agreement is palliated by British and French reassurances that their commitments to the Arabs will be honored and by the fact that Allied military operations are progressing favorably.

Faisal accepts the military subordination of his army to overall British command, but for him the fighting is essentially a war of liberation in which Britain is actively cooperating with the Arabs.

The British command, however, considers the Arab army an adjunct to the Allied offensive in Palestine, intended primarily to draw Turkish attention to the East Bank while Allenby mops up resistance in Galilee and prepares for a strike at Damascus.