them. He then reneged on this promise, telling Derby (26 November) that Robertson would have a chance to comment at the meeting itself and that decisions would have to ratified by the War Cabinet after they had been made. Lloyd George restored Wilson's freedom of action by instructing Wilson to send his reports directly to him. Hankey wrote (26 November) that only Britain, the USA and Germany were likely to last until 1919 and that "on the whole the balance of advantage lies with us, provided we do not exhaust ourselves prematurely". By the time of the initial SWC meeting (Versailles 1 December 1917) Allenby's successes, culminating in the Fall of Jerusalem (9 December 1917), demonstrated the potential of attacks in the Middle East, particularly compared to Haig's apparently unproductive offensive at Ypres, followed by Cambrai in November (initial success followed by retaking of gains). Russia had finally collapsed (Brest Litovsk Armistice 16 December) yet only a handful of American divisions were available so far in the west. After the Fall of Jerusalem Derby threatened to resign if Lloyd George sacked Robertson, but the War Cabinet (11–12 December) minuted its dissatisfaction at the information which he had given them about Palestine. Maurice claimed that intelligence from Syria "was too stale to be of use" and Robertson claimed that the speed of Allenby's advance, often with little water, had taken everyone by surprise. After the Fall of Jerusalem, Allenby irritated Robertson by writing that he could conquer the rest of Palestine with his present force of 6–8 divisions, but said he would need 16–18 divisions for a further advance of 250 miles to Aleppo (the Damascus-Beirut Line) to cut Turkish communications to Mesopotamia. In a paper of 26 December, Robertson claimed that the conquest of the remainder of Palestine might mean an extra 57,000 battle casualties and 20,000 sick. Amery (30 December) thought this "an amazing document even from him" and that such arguments could have been produced against any major campaign in history. By mid-January Amery and Lloyd George were arranging for the Permanent Military Representatives at Versailles to discuss Palestine (they thought Turkish ration strength was 250,000 "at most" whereas the General Staff put it at 425,000, of whom around half were combatants). Robertson tried to control Lt Gen Sir William Raine Marshall (Maude's replacement as C-in-C Mesopotamia) by handpicking his staff. Smuts was sent to Egypt to confer