Following the implementation of the initially secretive 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the occupied remnants of the Ottoman Empire between France and Britain, French military administration was established in the Levant.

On July 2, 1919, the Syrian Congress passed a number of resolutions pertaining to the formation of Syria as a completely independent constitutional monarchy with Faisal as king, asking for assistance from the United States, and the refusal of any rights claimed by the French.

[8] The hopes of Faisal that either the British or Americans would come to his aid and intervene against the French quickly faded with what many consider the defining catalyst for the creation and destruction of the Arab Kingdom of Syria: the Anglo-French Agreement, which provided for the withdrawal of British troops from Syria starting on 1 November, rendering OETA East a sole Arab administration on 26 November 1919, thus having the French only answer to themselves in the upholding of the Anglo-French Declaration.

Several violent incidents in the region initiated by Arab militias, like the Battle of Tel Hai and the raid on Samakh, led to further international support for the French.

He raised a small body of disbanded troops and civilians, poorly armed relative to the modern, well-equipped professional French Army, and led them to Maysalun.

Although he had no illusions about the outcome of the battle, al-'Azma wanted to make it clear that Arab Syria would not surrender without fighting, in order to deny the French occupation any legitimacy.

Following the San Remo conference and the defeat of King Faisal's short-lived monarchy in Syria at the Battle of Maysalun, the French general Henri Gouraud established civil administration in the territory.