Recognizing their defeat, the Ottomans signed an armistice in October 1918, ending their participation in the First World War. The Arab rebels were overjoyed, thinking that they had won their independence. Faisal set up a provisional government in Damascus to act as the core of a new independent state. They would soon discover that things were a bit more complicated. While the British had promised Hussein that he could found his own country after the war, they had also promised some of the same territory to the French in the Sykes-Picot agreement and had publicly stated their intention to create a homeland for Jews in Palestine.
The matter of new borders was to be decided at the Paris Peace Conference. While the Paris Peace Conference is most famous for producing the Treaty of Versailles, it would also determine the fate of much of the Middle East. Hussein sent Faisal, along with a delegation that included Lawrence, to Paris to argue their case for an Arab state. The result would be an agreement that met some but not all the demands of each interested party.
The French were to receive control of Syria and the British would administer Iraq, but they were to rule these territories as so-called “Mandates” under the pretense that they were to guide the people under their control towards eventual self-government. Hussein would get his independent state centered around Mecca and Medina and take on the title “King of the Arabs,” but was denied the territory in the north. In the wake of this decision the French immediately marched on Damascus, crushing the Arab forces under Faisal’s provisional government and driving Faisal out of the city.
Despite all appearances, this was not the end for Faisal. In 1920 an Arab insurrection broke out in Iraq. In order to quell this uprising the British invited Faisal to take on the position of King of Iraq. Still, resentment against what had happened in Damascus continued to fester. Seeking revenge against the French, Faisal’s brother Abdullah put together a small force of tribal Arabs and threatened to carry out raids against the French in Syria. In an effort to deescalate tension Winston Churchill intervened, meeting with Abdullah in Jerusalem and installing him as King of Jordan.
Still, the breakup of the Ottoman Empire left lasting scars on the region. Resentment of the French and British, and of the West as a whole, never dissipated and most of the monarchies established after the war would be replaced by more extreme regimes. Hussein would not remain “King of the Arabs” for long, as he was unseated by the dynasty of Ibn Saud who would go on to found Saudi Arabia. Faisal would manage to gain independence for Iraq in 1932, but his successor fell to a coup in 1941 and Iraq would eventually come under the control of the Ba’ath Party. Only Abdullah’s monarchy would remain, with his descendants ruling Joran to the present day.