Greece’s Roman Road

Chapter 225: Balkan situation

On the evening of October 28, at 6:00 p.m., the front-line headquarters of the Greek Macedonian Legion

Constantine's attendant, Colonel Hammett, holding a telegram in his hand, walked into the military tent with a beaming face, and saw the Greek army commander-in-chief, Crown Prince Constantine, who was processing official documents at his desk, excitedly. Said: "Your Excellency Commander, good news"

As he spoke, he put the telegram in front of Constantine.

The tired Constantine, upon hearing the announcement from Colonel Hammett, the attendant, took off the glasses on the bridge of his nose and rubbed his sore eyes from reading documents for a long time: "What is the good news about?"

"Your Majesty, just yesterday, our Greek Navy taught the Ottomans a hard lesson in the Aegean Sea. The fast fleet led by Commander Cantoriotis won a great victory in yesterday's naval decisive battle and sank the enemy country. The tonnage of the warship is more than 10,000 tons, including a battleship and a destroyer.” Seeing Constantine’s exhausted appearance, Officer Hammett picked up the telegram and read in an excited tone.

When Constantine heard the news, he was also stunned. He stood up and picked up the telegram to confirm it himself.

Although it has long been expected that the Greek navy will have a victory, after all, the Greek navy is far stronger than the same period in the original history.

In the original historical time and space, when this war broke out, the only thing the Greek Navy could rely on was an armored cruiser purchased from Italy, named George Avilov.

Under the command of Cantoriotis, the Greeks created an incredible miracle with such an embarrassing warship, plus a number of old and outdated warships, and hit two main ships of the Ottoman Navy.

Claims that a warship has defeated an empire.

The current Greek navy is far stronger than the same period in history. Historically, the Greek navy had the money to buy expensive war cruisers. There is no reason why the Greek navy could not surpass the Ottoman navy.

But what kind of results can be achieved is indeed an unknown.

When Cantoriotis reported the results of the battle to the General Staff, he frankly pointed out that one of the enemy's main battleships, the flagship Barbarossa Sea Redding, was hit hard.

In order to boost the morale of the people at home, the Brandenburg-class battleship purchased by the Ottoman Navy from Germany was also regarded as the result of the Navy’s victory in publicity.

Such a victory is already a very good result for the current Greek Navy.

When the enemy knows that its strength is weak and does not have a tenacious will to fight, there are not many opportunities for the Greek navy to sink the opponent's ships.

After reading the telegram, Constantine pondered for a moment and said happily: "In this way, the route that the Ottomans supported the Macedonia region by sea was cut off by us. good news"

After the defeat in this naval battle, it is basically impossible for the Ottoman navy to attack again, and the Greek navy can confidently and boldly occupy the remaining Aegean islands that are still under the actual control of the Ottoman Empire.

"Also, when I went to the communication room to get the telegram, I also heard that His Excellency Emanuel, Chief of the General Staff, will arrive at our frontline headquarters this afternoon." Colonel Hammett continued to tell what he had heard.

Constantine nodded, indicating that he understood, and then paced back and forth in the tent.

The current Macedonian Legion is currently in a stalemate.

After the last war, the territory of Greece was close to Thessaloniki, which made Thessaloniki almost a border city, and the Greek army was also eyeing this important city.

In this case, the Ottoman army naturally strengthened the city's defenses.

As long as you glance at the map and have a little strategic awareness, you can perceive the importance of this city.

The Macedonian territory owned by Ottoman Turkey is generally surrounded by Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia.

Greece is in the southwest, Serbia is in the north, Bulgaria is in the northeast, and Austrian Macedonia, which is deep in the Balkans, relies on southeastern Macedonia to maintain overland contact with the Ottomans.

Once the city of Thessaloniki falls, it means that the Ottoman troops deployed in the rest of Macedonia face the risk of being cut off from the back.

Once the city is lost, all Ottoman deployments in Macedonia will collapse.

Not to mention, the city itself is a transportation hub and a commercial center.

Precisely for these reasons, according to information gathered by Greece from various sources, the Ottoman army deployed nearly 100,000 troops near Thessaloniki.

In addition, the Ottoman military also built two strong fortresses near Thessaloniki with the help of the Germans.

The two fortresses are the Fortress of Barjani and the Fortress of Kastritesa.

The fortress was constructed with concrete bunkers, artillery and machine gun positions, trenches, barbed wire and searchlights according to the German design.

These two fortresses alone were guarded by a Turkish army of about 35,000 men, forming a solid fortress.

Thessaloniki itself is just a plain city, and there are no gates nearby, but after these two fortresses were built, the city became a difficulty for the Greek army.

Therefore, after the Macedonian Army initially contacted the two fortresses and carried out a tentative attack, Constantine immediately stopped the attack.

In this era of no aircraft and tanks, if you want to use the flesh and blood of soldiers~www.wuxiax.com~ to conquer the enemy's heavy defense fortifications, you must pay huge casualties.

Moreover, the combination of the enemy's trenches, barbed wire and Maxim machine guns also touched Constantine's sensitive nerves.

Subconsciously, Constantine did not want to attack such an enemy position head-on.

Apparently, trench warfare, which will show great power in European wars in the future, has already begun to leak in this war, but it does not seem to have attracted the attention of the mainstream European military circles.

Up to now, it has only been ten days since the war started, and the situation is still unclear. Neither the Serbian nor the Bulgarian army has had time to attack and distract the Ottoman army.

If Constantine stormed Thessaloniki at this time, in order to protect the situation in Macedonia from collapsing, the Ottoman army stationed near Thessaloniki would swear to resist whether he wanted to or not.

That also means that the Macedonian army will face the main force of the Osma army in Macedonia.

On the other hand, in the face of such a solid enemy fortification, the Macedonian Legion also needed more heavy artillery.

Due to the inconvenience of moving the heavy artillery, it takes a certain amount of time to prepare.

Moreover, after more than ten days of contact with the Ottoman army, Constantine found that the Ottoman soldiers did not lack the courage to fight.

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