See above. With the prestige exception of holding down the 3 Holy Cities, did the Ottomans benefit much from having the Arab portions of their empire around? They were some of the most lightly populated regions of the empire historically, had a lot of tribal issues and rebellions and weren't particularly wealthy as far as I can tell. If the Ottomans had lost Libya, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Hejaz and Yemen far earlier than IRL, would they have really been stymied all that much in WW1?