<P> Ottoman rule over the eastern Mediterranean lasted until World War I when the Ottomans sided with the German Empire and the Central Powers . During World War I, the Ottomans were driven from much of the region by the British Empire during the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire . </P> <P> In World War I, the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany . As a result, it was embroiled in a conflict with the United Kingdom . Under the secret Sykes--Picot Agreement of 1916, it was envisioned that most of Palestine, when freed from Ottoman control, would become an international zone not under direct French or British colonial control . Shortly thereafter, British foreign minister Arthur Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promised to establish a "Jewish national home" in Palestine but appeared to contradict the 1915--16 Hussein - McMahon Correspondence, which contained an undertaking to form a united Arab state in exchange for the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. McMahon's promises could have been seen by Arab nationalists as a pledge of immediate Arab independence, an undertaking violated by the region's subsequent partition into British and French League of Nations mandates under the secret Sykes - Picot Agreement of May 1916, which became the real cornerstone of the geopolitics structuring the entire region . The Balfour Declaration, likewise, was seen by Jewish nationalists as the cornerstone of a future Jewish homeland . </P> <P> The British - led Egyptian Expeditionary Force, commanded by Edmund Allenby, captured Jerusalem on 9 December 1917 and occupied the whole of the Levant following the defeat of Turkish forces in Palestine at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 and the capitulation of Turkey on 31 October . Allenby famously dismounted from his horse when he entered Jerusalem as a mark of respect for the Holy City and was greeted by the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic leaders of the city . </P> <P> Following the First World War and the occupation of the region by the British, the principal Allied and associated powers drafted the mandate, which was formally approved by the League of Nations in 1922 . Great Britain administered Palestine on behalf of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1948, a period referred to as the "British Mandate". The preamble of the mandate declared: </P>

When was palestine separated from the ottoman empire