In 1918 British and French troops occupied the Arabic-speaking regions of the Ottoman Empire and by 1920 had expelled the Arab nationalist regime in Damascus and divided the area between themselves as they had agreed to do in the Sykes–Picot treaty signed two years earlier. Out of their share, the French created in 1920 the two Mandates of Syria and Lebanon with their own locally recruited military organization, first called the Syrian Legion and later the Troupes Spéciales, which were combined for both countries.