In May 1916, British diplomat Mark Sykes and French diplomat François Georges-Picot concluded a secret agreement partitioning much of the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire into British and French spheres of influence pending an allied victory in World War I. When the agreement became public after the Russian Revolution of 1917, it was widely seen in the Arab world as a repudiation of the McMahon-Hussein Correspondences, a series of letters between the British High Commissioner to Egypt and the Sharif of Mecca that promised British support for an independent Arab state in exchange for an Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

While ultimately the partition was modified, trust between Arab leaders and European powers never fully recovered.