What would a united Arab state look like?

In a world where the Triple Entente is defeated by the Central Powers as the result of a German victory at Verdun in 1916 and the Germans and Ottomans are able to briefly suppress the Arab Revolt, but the Arabs are able to overthrow the Ottoman Empire without outside help due to said empire's decaying power in the early-1920s, what would a Arab state stretching from Aleppo Syria, to Aden, Yemen look like?
 
What was the pan-Arab movement like before OTL 1922?

I'm admittedly no expert on Arab culture or history, but it seems like they're a fairly diverse/widespread ethnic group and OTL attempts to create an Arab union didn't last very long.

Is World War I an early enough P.O.D. to create a powerful enough Pan-Arab sentiment to make such a union viable?
 
I am not sure if there was even pan-arabism during WW1 and would it be exist in CP victory scenario. There might be Arab revolts but I doubt strongly that these could be succesful. Ottomans were bad shape on early 20th century but not on so bad shape that Arab revolt could be succesful without foreign aid.
 
A decentralized quasi-feudal structure with King Faisal dependent on the British aid that got him his throne?
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
I think an Arab state that big is a bit unrealistic. What I would imagine is a "Greater Syria" consisting of OTL Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria.
 
The Arab revolt as embodied by Faisal bin Hussein al-Hashemi was in theory a pan-Arab movement; in practice, it had some support in the coffee-houses of Syria* and Iraq (especially the former), but still not much. Bedouins, Mashriqi, Maghrebi, and Egyptians (and maybe the Arabs in Iran around the Gulf) more or less thought of themselves as fairly separate. Yemen and Oman are each their own thing as well, the latter set aside by their Ibadi faith and the former by their...Yemeni-ness. Pan-Arabism including all of those places only rose with Nasser/Baath-style Arab Socialist Nationalism. The idea of a United Arab Republic including Syria and Egypt, for example, would have been ridiculous in 1920, and certainly the Egyptians would never join an uprising in the Mashriq.

A Hashemite state might include the entire Mashriq and the Hedjaz, but the latter is less likely due to ibn Saud, who crushed the Hashemis anyway IOTL and is likely to do the same even in a central power victory, especially since I bet that the British India Office will be more willing to fund a rebellion against the Ottomans than the Foreign Ministry (the benefactors of the Saudis and Hashemis, respectively - yes, this means that Britain was backing both sides of that conflict, though it's not as perfidious as it seems, because it was due to in-fighting between the Office and the Ministry rather than perfidy at the highest levels).

Egypt is de facto independent/a British protectorate by that time, Yemen is split into British protectorate and de facto independent states, Oman is a British protectorate, the Trucial States, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar are British protectorates, the Iranian Arabs are for the most part fairly loyal Iranian subjects...I can't see why any of these groups would feel the need to join an Arab nationalist rebellion (that's not even touching on the mostly French colonies Maghreb and Italian Libya, which weren't included in the OP). Hell, even if the Hedjaz and/or Nejd end up in Hashemi hands, I doubt that the locals would much care - even today, there's no love lost between Bedouins and "civilized" (urban and agricultural) Arabs.

Even a Mashriqi state might eventually split into Syria and Iraq, since it would have two very definite First Cities in Damascus and Baghdad, though something like a very good link north from Damascus through Homs and Aleppo before following the Euphrates down to Baghdad and beyond could help keep things together.

EDIT: a post in the Map Thread reminded me; a Maghrebi union is quite feasible, probably starting as a a currency and customs union after the French leave and evolving from there.

*Throughout this post, Syria refers to the modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestinian Territories, all of which are included in the region historically referred to as "Syria". Well, probably not the southern parts of Israel and Jordan, and Egypt might be inclined to argue the bits south of the Galilee
 
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A Pan-Arab state, whether basically secular or a resurrection of the Arab Caliphate, requires the intervention of at least a battalion of ASBs to establish it and then a significant ASB occupation force to hold it together. The reality is that divisions in the Arab world in 1918 (and today) on tribal, religious, and other lines are far too deep. You could end up with fewer states than OTL with different borders, but a unified state no. Furthermore in 1918 the economy of all of the Arab world was damn close to zero - no oil so all they produced was dates, hummus, etc.
 
What would it take for the Arab Union to be successful, or for it to incorporate more countries into itself?
 
Arab nationalism by the time of WW1 was a mostly Christian Arab phenomena,
by and large the majority of the arabs in the ottoman administration and army officers remained loyal till 1919.

The Al Sauds defeated the Hashemites because the British switched support and wanted to bring them down to size so they can be better managed.
Without British arms the alsauds would have been crushed between the Hashemites and Al Rashids.
 
In a world where the Triple Entente is defeated by the Central Powers as the result of a German victory at Verdun in 1916 and the Germans and Ottomans are able to briefly suppress the Arab Revolt, but the Arabs are able to overthrow the Ottoman Empire without outside help due to said empire's decaying power in the early-1920s, what would a Arab state stretching from Aleppo Syria, to Aden, Yemen look like?

Arab nationalism wasn't that strong among the common Arab in the Middle East or North Africa. It has oil which they could let the Germans/British exploit. So money is no issue. But unity is a problem. Especially in regions like Latakia, Lebanon, Southern Iraq who don't belong to the Majority of the faith in the state (Sunnism). And if you have a minority dictatorship you have an Iraq pre-1991 but larger.
 
without doing away with the Sunni-Shiite split it would be near impossible

Not impossible. I don't know why this is even an issue. Iraq before the 90s had much less Sunni-Shia problem. The problem started when prominent Iraqi Shia conservatives were supportive of the Islamic Revolution and Saddams paranoia because of it made things worse. God knows Iraq under Qasim would be a better place.

And an enlarged Arabia which will be majority Sunni has better chance to demoralise Shia uprisings.
 
Furthermore in 1918 the economy of all of the Arab world was damn close to zero - no oil so all they produced was dates, hummus, etc.

That's like saying that before Silicon Valley, all the United States produced was corn and beef.

Arabia proper was pretty destitute, but Egypt was one of the world's largest growers of cotton and wheat, Syria and Iraq had well developed, diverse agricultural economies and some small-scale industrialization, and Oman was a still fairly significant trade hub, plus the Gulf states with weird little things like Kuwaiti pearls. Saudi Arabia also leaned pretty heavily of income from taxing the hajj.

OTL, we also see Britain happy to lend money to Iraq and Jordan to develop their economies, so there's every reason to assume they'd be happy to do that here too. Syria and Iraq and Egypt all have excellent agricultural land, large populations, terrain that allows construction of good transit infrastructure, and even some natural resources (minerals from the Dead Sea for example - they're not just used in hand creams, but in the 20s the Sea was an important source of potash among other things).

What would it take for the Arab Union to be successful, or for it to incorporate more countries into itself?

The easy answer - no Israel - might help but probably isn't sufficient. OTL, the reason it collapsed was that Egyptians never really saw themselves as being the same people as other Arabs, and Cairo consistently treated Syria as a lesser partner rather than an equal one. Getting bogged down in Yemen didn't help either.

If Cairo could treat Syria as an equal partner, and refrain from, for example, trying to purge their entire political class and reform their economy to be dependent on Egypt's, then the union could last :D

Growth-wise, even with Israel existing, Syria's eventually going to want to annex Lebanon as OTL, and while Jordan can't be conquered due to British support, an early Palestinian revolution could see East Palestine joining the UAR.

Ultimately, stability relies primarily on Egyptians not being arrogant asses.

Arab nationalism by the time of WW1 was a mostly Christian Arab phenomena,
by and large the majority of the arabs in the ottoman administration and army officers remained loyal till 1919.

...I'm not sure how true that is. The Arab Congress (a pre WWI Arab nationalist meeting possibly inspired by the World Zionist Congress) had some Christians from Lebanon, but the majority of attendees were Muslim (specifically, Sunni). Definitely the Lebanese (and other Christians) were very prominent in the whole thing, but I wouldn't say they were the majority.

Interestingly, one of the parties to attend was the Party for Decentralization, a formal political party calling for decentralization and perhaps eventual federalization of the Ottoman Empire while opposing independence, showing that one can be an Arab nationalist and a loyal Ottoman subject at the same time! (although admittedly, most of the attendees were pro-Independence)

The Al Sauds defeated the Hashemites because the British switched support and wanted to bring them down to size so they can be better managed.
Without British arms the alsauds would have been crushed between the Hashemites and Al Rashids.

Not even a little bit. As I said in my earlier post, different parts of the British government supported different sides of that conflict, and the Foreign Ministry, who supported the Hashemites, actually wanted the Hashemite state to be as strong as possible to use as a bulwark against Arab nationalism and independence movements, protecting their ports and clients along the Gulf Coast and especially protecting the Red Sea and the all-important Suez Canal. The India Office (ibn Saud's benefactors) might have been trying to play the sides against each other, but probably they were just following their standard procedure of supporting local petty nobles to create stable clients.

And as far as being crushed goes, modern Saudi Arabia is the 3rd Saudi state. Ibn Saud, even without British arms, had a smallish but very loyal army with the absurdly high morale that only holy warriors can muster. He could have pursued a guerrilla war against anyone in the Nejd and kept them off for years. The Hashemis or Rashidis could have defeated him, maybe, and especially with outside support, but he definitely wouldn't have been crushed.

If you're interested in the foundation of the Saudi state, I cannot more strongly recommend "Ibn Saud, the Puritan King of Arabia" by Kenneth Williams. It was published in the early 30s by a British diplomat who had been involved with the entire process, and is one of the few books about the history of modern Saudi Arabia that wasn't written with the Saudi government looking over the author's shoulder[1].

without doing away with the Sunni-Shiite split it would be near impossible

As others have said, this is a more recent development. In the early 20th Century, Sunni-Shia relations were arguably the best they've ever been in the history of Islam, with, for example, Sunnis and Shiites uniting in India to oppose the destruction of the Ottoman caliphate. Several prominent jurists made attempts to reconcile Sunni and Shiites laws and beliefs in the 20s and 30s, too, often in the name of Arab unity.

It has oil which they could let the Germans/British exploit. So money is no issue.

Oil reserves weren't discovered in Arabia until the late 30s

EDIT: I recommended the wrong book about Saudi Arabia in [1]; I was referring actually to "The Birth of Saudi Arabia" by Gary Troeller.

The Williams book is a good companion piece to Troeller, but Williams is a little too in love with ibn Saud; Troeller is more objective about the whole thing. Apologies.
 
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