Arthur's actions were swift, and on July 10, 1915, the Aviation Research Office split up the aircraft and aviation business, and all the industries related to aircraft development and manufacturing were transferred to a new factory, the Royal Aircraft Factory.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky also successfully became an astronaut and rocket expert at the Institute of Aeronautics, responsible for theoretical research in cosmonautics and rocketry.

Arthur even encouraged Tsiolkovsky to recruit well-known aviation experts from Russia and elsewhere to work in Australasia, and Arthur offered more lucrative positions and rewards.

Australasia's aerospace and rocket research and development will also be spearheaded by the aeronautical laboratory.

However, whether it is a space voyage or a rocket, it will not be a scientific research project that will bear fruit in a short period of time.

Including the nuclear weapons that Arthur had already thought about, the research time of these things is calculated in decades, and it is enough for Arthur to have an eyebrow before World War II.

The most important task of Australasia at present is to win this war, to make more profits in this war, and it is best to establish Australasia's position as the fourth power after Britain, France, and the United States after the First World War.

As for surpassing Britain, France, and the United States, it is unlikely that it will be achieved until Britain and France lose most of their colonies, and before the United States officially enters the war and is defeated by the coalition forces.

Britain and France aside, after all, they are old colonial powers. The United States also has a wide range of land and a larger population, and its industry and economy are far greater than that of Australasia, which is not easily surpassed by Australasia for the time being.

The only way to quickly overtake the United States during World War I was for the Americans to lose their heads, directly support Germany, and join the Allies.

Under the joint efforts of Britain, France, Russia, Australia, and Italy, even if the United States joins the Allies in the future, it will definitely not be an opponent of the Entente.

This is certain, and the Americans are not too militarily strong, and their role for Germany is more than transporting resources.

However, Germany's geographical position was greatly limited, and the North Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the Central Powers had long been blocked by the Allied fleets.

Turning back to the wars in Europe, on the Balkan front, after the fall of Constantinople, the rout of the Ottoman Empire was inevitable.

It is worth noting that the large area of hills and plains west of Constantinople was an important grain producing area for the Ottoman Empire.

However, this area was the fastest to fall in the war, which also led to the Ottoman Empire's food production was not enough, especially as the war accelerated the consumption.

Coupled with the full-scale landing of Allied troops on the border of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire faced a very serious crisis.

The lack of weapons and ammunition for the army, the lack of food and clothing for the population, and the lack of medical supplies for all had caused the Ottoman Empire to collapse internally, depending on when, the heavy punch of the Entente made its appearance collapse.

Commander Martin had Arthur's advance orders and was not very interested in attacking Asia Minor.

After leaving a part of the Balkan army to fight in Asia Minor, Commander Martin led the Australasian Expeditionary Force, which numbered less than 100,000, along the Suez Canal south, intending to land near the Persian Gulf and open up a new battlefield.

In later generations, it was known that the place with the largest oil reserves in the world was the Middle East, and the place with the largest oil reserves in the Middle East was the coast of the Persian Gulf.

It is no exaggeration to say that Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and other countries along the Persian Gulf coast in later generations accounted for more than half of the world's oil reserves, and the annual output value was as high as one-third of the world's total oil production.

The British occupied only the truce states (the UAE) and the protectorate of Bahrain, as well as Kuwait and Qatar. Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other regions are still under local indigenous or Ottoman rule.

What's more, the British army in this area was not very large, and the British offensive was mainly concentrated in the Egyptian region.

This also means that Australasia can choose suitable land in this area to occupy, as long as Britain, France and Russia agree, it can also obtain sovereignty over this land after the war.

In fact, the only difficulty was to obtain the consent of the British. The distance from the Russians, and the good relations between Russia and Australasia, made it unlikely that the Russians would get in the way.

As for the French, they thought about how to defeat the Germans during the war, how to weaken them after the war, and they were not very interested in a single colony in the Middle East.

As for Italy, the last power of the Entente, his opinion is not important, and I believe that Britain, France and Russia will feel the same way.

It is not to blame that the four major powers of the Entente despise Italy, Austria-Hungary has only deployed 100,000 troops on the border with Italy, and 500,000 Italian troops have not crossed the border until now, which is enough to prove the incompetence of the Italian army.

For the structure of the Entente as a whole, the number of navies was sufficient at the moment, and what was lacking was a country capable of confronting Germany and Austria-Hungary on land.

Obviously, Italy is not. Even Britain and France originally had the idea of asking Italy to send troops to support the German-French border, but after the frequent reports of Italy's defeats, such an idea was immediately dispelled.

The Italian army was tantamount to adding to the chaos, this was the consensus reached by the British and French commanders after looking at each other.

Although this does not represent the combat effectiveness of some of the elite Italian troops, the overall combat effectiveness of the Italian army is indeed very poor, and it should be regarded as the worst among all the European powers at present.

While it was possible for Britain to prevent Australasia from acquiring new colonies in the Middle East, it should not be too strong to do so.

Oil has indeed been discovered in the Middle East, it is the Iranian region that has discovered oil fields in the Suleiman region of Muscat, while no valuable large oil fields have been found in the land controlled by the Ottoman Empire and the British.

The discovery of large oil fields will not be until the 30s, and it will be almost 20 years since the earliest.

In addition, this land is relatively far away from the Suez Canal, and there is also a certain distance from India, so it will not jeopardize the British vital Mediterranean Su, the East Canal, the Indian Ocean, and the Indian shipping routes.

For the British, India and the Suez Canal were the most important, while the rest of the world was not so important.

It was only necessary to make certain concessions in other interests, such as the distribution of German warships after the war, and the British did not think that they would stop Australasia's expansion in the Middle East.

Arthur's planned expansion along the Persian Gulf coast was initially set at the line between Iraq and Saudi Arabia along the Persian Gulf coast, and at the same time tried his best to win over Qatar.

This area has a large amount of oil reserves, and its proximity to the Persian Gulf makes it possible to transport oil by sea.

Both the coast of Iraq and the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia have large oil reserves, and are currently under the control of the local indigenous people or the Ottoman Empire.

The only special point of Qatar, although claimed by the British, really fell into the hands of the British after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

Qatar is not a large area, and if you give away some of your benefits, you should be able to exchange it from the British.

As for Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, which were already under the control of the British Empire, Arthur had no intention of destroying relations with Britain for the time being, and the British Empire was not something that Australasia could afford to offend for the time being.

It was also under Arthur's order that Division Commander Martin led the Australasian Expeditionary Force to land from the coast of the Persian Gulf with a clear goal, all the way north, intending to break through from the Saudi region all the way to the Iraqi region.

At present, there are wars in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, and Iraq is one of the few grain-producing areas in the Ottoman Empire, which is very important to the Ottoman Empire.

Once the Mesopotamian plains in Iraq were lost, the Ottoman Empire would face an even worse food crisis, and if it did not surrender, the famine would be enough to cause civil strife in the Ottoman Empire.

Although waging a war will cause the indigenous people of this part of the Middle East to suffer the harm of war, and even be affected by the war, and die in a large area.

But for Division Commander Martin, the interests of the country were above all else. Not to mention sacrificing some natives of the Middle East, when necessary, Division Commander Martin is even willing to sacrifice himself.

On July 15, 1915, the Australasian Expeditionary Force officially landed near Qatar.

It is worth mentioning that at this time, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were still connected, and Qatar was a peninsula, not an island.

As for why there was a river barrier between Qatar and Saudi Arabia in later generations, you have to ask the Saudi government at that time.

At this time, controlling Qatar and part of Saudi Arabia was the Emir State of Rashid, an emir state established by the Rashid family on the Arabian Peninsula under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

To put it simply, the Emir state of Rashid was the lackey of the Ottoman Empire.

The combat effectiveness of the Ottoman army was in shambles, not to mention an indigenous state like the Emir of Rashid.

Tens of thousands of indigenous soldiers encountered the Australasian Expeditionary Force and were defeated at the first touch.

Where had they ever seen the Australasian army fight in such a bold way, bullets and shells as if they didn't need money, not only brought huge physical casualties to the Rashid indigenous soldiers, but also brought them a major blow to their souls.

Their army was made of paper, unable to withstand the charge of the Australasian army.

On 17 July, the Australasian army had entered Saudi Arabia from the Qatari region and was marching along the Persian Gulf coast towards the Mesopotamian plain.

The good news for the Emir of Rashid was that most of the Persian Gulf coast was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, and their armies finally did not have to face an enemy such as the Australasian Expeditionary Force.

But for the Ottoman Empire, it was not so good, and the Australasian army was like a desperate reaper, rushing towards itself.

3000 words for the first update, ask for a monthly pass, ask for support!

(End of chapter)