The British get their way on 4 February 1941 in Egypt and then back to Syria

The cadets from the Officer Candidate Training Unit were informed about the ultimatum given to the Egyptian government and were sent to the palace of King Farouk. They arrived before 9pm and were formed up in parade. The Egyptian royal guard presented arms in response. The British ambassador arrived after 9pm and went to speak to the king. He was there for about 15 minutes and then left. After he left, Nahas Pasha was asked to form a government. He did accept the request, although he wrote a letter for the British ambassador saying that neither the treaty between Egypt and Great Britain nor the fact of Egypt being a sovereign nation should allow the British to force political changes in Egypt. The British agreed that they would treat Egypt as a valuable ally and enter into a collaboration with them. This calmed the political situation. Elections were held that approved of the agreement, although the political opposition disliked the deal. The whole incident was kept secret until after the end of the war. The incident was one of many reasons that ended the British military occupation of Egypt after the war.
Back to Syria, in early February 1942, General Morshead traveled the 20th Brigade area for five days, seeing the situation for himself. He disliked having the 20th Brigade at Aleppo, as it seemed exposed and that they would not be able to withdraw. He remembered his experience in 1941 in the withdrawal from western Cyrenaica into Tobruk. In addition, 20th Brigade was considered to be the 9th Australian Division reserve. He thought that is they really would have six weeks warning, they should blow demolitions immediately. He was also skeptical about how long the air force would use the "covering landing grounds". He thought that they would almost immediately abandon them, leaving 20th Brigade with air cover.
General Morshead was also unhappy with the emphasis on building defenses at the expense of training. The Australians had previously been permitted to traing for three days a week and then build defenses for three days. General Morshead objected to the situation and General Wilson, 9th Army Commander, agreed that training was important. They agreed that they could hire civilians to dig so that Australians could train. Another problem was equipment for the 9th Australian Division. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.