Answer: The mandate system authorized a member nation of the League of Nations to govern a former German or Turkish colonial area after the conclusion of World War I.
Context/detail:
When World War I erupted, the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany as part of the "Central Powers." In the end, the Central Powers lost and the Turkish empire of the Ottomans ceased to exist as an empire. Turkey remained as a country, but it lost control over other territories that it had held before. Germany was stripped of its overseas colonial holdings.
The League of Nations created a system for governing former German and Ottoman territories, called "the mandate system." There were mandate territories for former German territories in Africa and Asia, as well for former Ottoman territories in the Middle East.
The former Turkish provinces of Syria, Iraq and Palestine in the Middle East were divided into a French mandate territory and British mandate territory. The British mandate rule over Palestine has much to do with the history of the development of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
