'the emirate east of the Jordan'), officially known as the Amirate of Trans-Jordan, was a British protectorate established on 11 April 1921,[4][1][2] which remained as such until achieving formal independence as the Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946.

From July 1915 to March 1916, a series of ten letters were exchanged between Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, and Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner to Egypt.

[9][10] The area of Arab independence was defined to be "in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca", with the exception of "portions of Syria" lying to the west of "the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo"; conflicting interpretations of this description was to cause great controversy in subsequent years.

The primary negotiations leading to the agreement occurred between 23 November 1915 and 3 January 1916, on which date the British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, initialled an agreed memorandum.

[16] The Hejaz railway was completed in 1908 and greatly facilitated the Hajj pilgrimage along the Syrian route from Damascus as well as extending the Ottoman military and administrative reach southwards.

Assisted by the British army officer T. E. Lawrence, the Sharif of Mecca Hussein bin Ali led the successful revolt which contributed to the Ottoman defeat and breaking up of its empire.

We can confirm this recognition of ours even if our forces do not currently control major parts of Transjordan.’"[18] In March 1920, the Hashemite Kingdom of Syria was declared by Faisal bin Hussein in Damascus which encompassed most of what later became Transjordan.

[19] Following the provision of mandate to France and Britain at the San Remo conference in April, the British appointed Sir Herbert Samuel High Commissioner in Palestine from 1 July 1920 with a remit over the area west of the Jordan.

[20] After the French ended the Kingdom of Syria at the battle of Maysalun, Transjordan became, for a short time, a no man's land[5][13] or, as Samuel put it, "..left politically derelict".

[21][22] In August 1920, Sir Herbert Samuel's request to extend the frontier of British territory beyond the River Jordan and to bring Transjordan under his administrative control was rejected.

Samuel's terms were accepted, he returned to Jerusalem, leaving Captain Alec Kirkbride as the British representative east of the Jordan[24][25] until the arrival on 21 November 1920 of Abdullah, the brother of recently deposed king Faisal, marched into Ma'an at the head of an army of 300 men from the Hejazi tribe of 'Utaybah.

[27][28] In early 1921, prior to the convening of the Cairo Conference, the Middle East Department of the Colonial Office set out the situation as follows: Distinction to be drawn between Palestine and Trans-Jordan under the Mandate.

They are also pledged by the assurances given to the Sherif of Mecca in 1915 to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs in those portions of the (Turkish) vilayet of Damascus in which they are free to act without detriment to French interests.

An additional outstanding question was the policy to be adopted in Transjordan to prevent anti-French military actions from being launched within the allied British zone of influence.

The conference provided the political blueprint for British administration in both Iraq and Transjordan, and in offering these two regions to the sons of Hussein bin Ali, Churchill stated that the spirit, if not the letter, of Britain's wartime promises to the Arabs might be fulfilled.

[44] The Hashemite emir Abdullah, elder son of Britain's wartime Arab ally Hussein bin Ali, was placed on the throne of Transjordan.

Britain recognized Transjordan as an independent government on 15 May 1923, and gradually relinquished control, limiting its oversight to financial, military and foreign policy matters.

[48] This technical dispute did not rise to any form of open struggle, and the Kingdom of Hejaz was to take de facto control after Faisal's administration was defeated by the French.

[53] This followed a proposal from Lawrence in January 1922 that Transjordan be extended to include Wadi Sirhan as far south as al-Jauf, in order to protect Britain's route to India and contain Ibn Saud.

[55] With respect to the demographics, in 1924 the British stated: "No census of the population has been taken, but the figure is thought to be in the neighbourhood of 200,000, of whom some 10,000 are Circassians and Chechen; there are about 15,000 Christians and the remainder, in the main, are Moslem Arabs.

[57] The most serious threats to Abdullah's position in Transjordan were repeated Wahhabi incursions by the Ikhwan tribesmen from Najd in modern Saudi Arabia into southern parts of his territory.

The emir was powerless to repel those raids by himself, and had to appeal for help to the British who maintained a military base with a small air force at Marka, close to Amman.

[e] The independent administration was recognised in a statement made public (the statement had been agreed in October 1922 following the approval of the revised Mandate on 16 September 1922 with publication made conditional on completion of a probationary period) in Amman on 25 May 1923: "Subject to the approval of the League of Nations, His Britannic Majesty will recognise the existence of an independent Government in Trans-jordan under the rule of His Highness the Amir Abdullah, provided that such Government is constitutional and places His Britannic Majesty in a position to fulfil his international obligations in respect of the territory by means of an Agreement to be concluded with His Highness"[3][64][f] During the eleventh session of the League of Nations' Permanent Mandates Commission in 1927, Sir John E. Shuckburgh summarised the status of Transjordan: It is not part of Palestine but it is part of the area administered by the British Government under the authority of the Palestine Mandate.

[71] According to the U.S. State Department Digest of International Law, the status of the mandate was not altered by the agreement between the United Kingdom and the Emirate concluded on 20 February 1928[72] which recognized the existence of an independent government in Transjordan and defined and limited its powers.

[85] The Polish representative said that he did not object to the independence of Transjordan, but requested that the application be postponed for a year on the grounds that legal procedures required by the Covenant of the League of Nations had not been carried out.