Under the terms of the 1915 McMahon-Hussein Correspondence and the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement, Transjordan was intended to become part of an Arab state or a confederation of Arab states. British forces retreated in spring 1918 from Transjordan after their first and second attacks on the territory, indicating their political ideas about its future; they had intended the area to become part of an Arab Syrian state. The British subsequently defeated the Ottoman forces in Transjordan in late September 1918, just a few weeks before the Ottoman Empire's overall surrender.