45) Headache for Greek Government
The fate of the Greek army was sealed when Prince Konstantínos decided to defend the area!
The Ottoman army did not immediately launch an attack, Ethem Pasha, after all, the army's long-standing general, with regard to military literacy, aristocratic origin, from childhood, he received a systematic military education, the ability is still good!
He knew what exactly the Greeks intended to do. In order to cover the rear of the army led by Lord Kýrillosl, who was attacking the Epirus region, Prince Konstantínos had to defend the city of Trikala to the death!
In the same way, if the Ottoman Empire wants to win this war, Ethem Pasha can simply take care of this army in front of him, and then he can push on, and Greece can't get a decent army at home now!
The two sides were pitted against each other around the city of Trikala, with no major battles but constant small battles! Even so, there are thousands of casualties on both sides every day!
The Ottoman army was a regular army with the advantage of strength, so it could still afford such a small loss!
But the Greeks could not stand it, they were already at a disadvantage in terms of strength, and now with such small-scale attrition, Prince Konstantínos was surprised to find that the exchange ratio between the enemy and us was as high. As 1 to 1.5!
That's not good enough. They are already at a disadvantage. Now, if they continue, the first to collapse will definitely be the Greeks! It's a pity that now he has the will, not the power. They can not improve the army's fighting ability in a day or two!
Although the Ottoman army also lacks training, but they have fought in the war! Even if only to suppress a few rebellions, at least it is also seen as blood, as opposed to new recruits on the side of the Greeks, better than too!
Prince Konstantínos has repeatedly asked for help at home, although he also knows that Greece can not get reinforcements at home, and even the logistical supply lines now worry him!
In order to hold the defensive line, Prince Konstantínos proposed to withdraw the troops attacking the Epirus region and unite them against the Ottoman army in front of them!
Of course, these are false hopes. He knows that now the country is namely can not get reinforcements, nor is it possible to withdraw the troops from the Epirus region!
Ottoman reinforcements have come. His side is under great pressure, and the Greek army in Epirus is also not well. Would he like to withdraw the same Ottomans to do it?
If not, when you are retreating, others chase after you, and if you are not careful, the retreat becomes a rout. It will be a disaster!
If the Greek army was the same before the expansion, there was a possibility of an orderly retreat back.
Now? Don't dream about it! Unless the Greek government is willing to break its back and leave two or three divisions to fend for themselves!
But is this possible? Leaving two or three divisions to hold back is the same as directly abandoning these tens of thousands of troops, and until the critical moment, the Greek government will never do so!
Anyway, Prince Konstantínos, through several encounters, he has now roughly figured out the fighting strength of both sides! The Ottoman army was slightly stronger than the Greek army before the expansion. Now? The two sides are far from the same!
When they added that, the Greek strength advantage was now gone, so Prince Konstantínos had no hope of Greece defeating the Ottoman Empire on its own!
His real aim is to pressure the country and drag two allies down with him as soon as possible! The Balkan League is not a secret at all to a high level like him!
According to his thinking, Bulgaria and Montenegro must now be dragged into battle, no matter what the cost!
Even so, Prince Konstantínos doesn't think this war can end soon, and it would be nice to be able to fight a decent outcome of a truce with the combined efforts of the three countries!
The Ottoman Empire, after all, has been building up its prestige for a long time, which was not good before. When the battlefield is at a disadvantage, everyone can't help but remember the glorious history of the Ottomans!
Pessimism began to spread among the Greek army, which was slightly better than in history, and despite the danger, they could still barely hold on! Of course, without the presence of League, defeat would have been a matter of time!
Historically, the Greeks were miserable at this time, and after a week of the war, they were driven back by the Ottoman army, which then marched across the land of Greece!
Receiving the news from the front, the Greek government was already in a mess. The Greek Army, which counted on high hopes, told them in action that the Ottoman Empire, though corrupt, was not something Greece could challenge!
After receiving the battle report from the Greek-Turkish battlefield, Ferdinand knew that the Greeks would be unlucky!
Originally, the Greek army's fighting ability was not as good as the Ottomans. If the battlefield is placed in the homeland to defend the country, it will inspire the army to fight back. It could also be worth a fight!
Now, the Greeks took the initiative to attack, stretched the battle line, and spread out the troops. It will be in vain if the Ottomans still can not win!
The Greeks had the advantage in total strength, but it was the Ottoman army that had the strength advantage on the local battlefield! If it were an ordinary area, it would be a big deal to give up, but it was the city of Trikala, which the Greeks could not afford to lose, even if they had lost a lot of money!
If Ferdinand replaced it, he would have concentrated his troops in the border areas and held against the Ottomans, waiting for the League to enter the war before launching an attack, which is the correct choice!
But now it's too late for the Greeks! The region of Epirus, now basically captured by the Greeks, would be hard for them to give up, and they do not know how to divide and occupy!
As a result, once the Ottoman reinforcements arrived, it would be difficult for the Greek army to attack Epirus, which could not concentrate its forces on a battle with the Ottomans and could not retreat because of the divided forces!
In order to control the place, the Greek army had now spread out less than 30,000, with the main force of only 70,000 people, and 40,000 Ottoman armies were scorched together and temporarily at a disadvantage!
It's not that the Greek army didn't work hard or that the Ottomans were too good, but blame their logistics!
Of course, their logistics sector is also quite wronged, the battle line moved forward a few hundred kilometers, and no roads and railroads could be used. All rely on human and animal transport and can barely guarantee the supply of ammunition to the front line. It has done a very good job!
In this case, the Greek army is difficult to amass, and the Ottoman remnants all over the place are not cleaned up at once!
There was no shortage of things to do, digging roads and blowing bridges! After the dispersal of the Greek army, in addition to maintaining lines of communication but also collected food in the area in order to solve the problem of feeding the army. If they are now together, the commanders have a headache for the next meal what to eat!
As expected, the Greeks did come to the door, and Ferdinand, of course, would not step in and left it directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deal with the matter.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Metev immediately figured out what the boss meant and not only rejected the Greek government's request and provided the Greeks with a lot of evidence that the Greek government was out of line!
Well, it's just nonsense! The Greek army's fighting ability was already lousy, and it was good enough to fight at this level!
It is a pity that the Greeks themselves blew their cover before, and now they are directly brought out by the Bulgarian military!
Can the Greeks now deny and then say they are weak?
If that were to happen, not only would the Greeks now lose their position in the alliance. The relationship between the two sides would also change. A status of a coalition becomes a one-sided rescue of Greece by Bulgaria!
The political impact is just too big!
...
From the beginning of the war to now, Geórgios I's mood has experienced a lot of ups and downs, and it has not calmed down until now!
Geórgios I asked in a depressed voice, "What did the Bulgarians say?"
To be honest, if he was not forced, he did not want to bow to Ferdinand, do not forget that the two had signed a bet secret treaty! A bow to Bulgaria now means Greece will lose the right to speak in the post-war share of benefits!
The premise is that the Balkan League can win the war!
The Minister of Foreign Affairs said with a bitter smile: "The Bulgarians have made it clear that they are not ready now and that they are incapable of launching an attack on the Ottoman Empire until they have completed their mobilization!
They believe that now that the main forces of the Ottoman Empire have not yet been put into battle, with our strength, we should be able to defeat the enemy in front of us in a short period!"
Geórgios I was furious: "Ferdinand is trying to destroy all of us! Doesn't he know that if we lose the war in Greece, it won't be easy for Bulgaria either? Is he willing to be forever oppressed by the Ottoman Empire? Or is he scared to death of the Ottomans? ..."
When Geórgios I had vented enough, the Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke with trepidation: "The Bulgarians were not unprepared, they had good enough reasons to reject our demands, and they also provided us with a series of important information!
The Ottoman Empire has begun to mobilize, and now throughout the Balkans, the Ottoman army has reached 430,000 men!
One hundred fifty thousand in Istanbul; 80,000 in Macedonia, not counting those who have reinforced the front; 30,000 in Albania; 140,000 Turkish troops fighting with us on the front; and 60,000 in other areas!
From the information they provided, the current Ottoman army, with about 270,000 people spread around Bulgaria, they have held back the main Ottoman force!
Up to now, Bulgaria has completed the mobilization of 310,000 troops. Still, they also had to defend themselves against the Romanians, so they could now put less than 200,000 troops on the battlefield!
The Bulgarian government has followed the long-term plan and will not enter the war early!
We were warned not to think of working without effort, and if we can't even hold out against a mere 100,000 Ottoman troops, then the post-war dividend will have to be re-approved based on our contribution!"
Geórgios I was so angry that he would be spitting out blood. In theory, 250,000 Greek troops against 140,000 Ottoman troops had an absolute strength advantage!
It is a pity that now on the battle line, it has already moved into the Ottomans' territory. After this split, the advantage has become a disadvantage instead!
Of course, if the Greek army is really as powerful as they boast, it's not a problem, as less is more!
In fact, the Minister of Foreign Affairs still has not described it. If not, perhaps Geórgios I will really vomit blood! The Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Metev is not a pushover.
First, he bragged about the Greek army's bravery; according to him, it was easy to defeat the Ottoman army!
He also used a direct example from the Bulgarian-Serbian war, where a Bulgarian regiment could chase a Serbian division.
He advised the Greek army to carry forward the spirit of not being afraid of hardship, fatigue, and sacrifice, to attack the Ottomans bravely, and wished the Greeks an early victory!
Well, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will never say it! At present, he believes that the fighting ability of the Greek army is clear. It is a formality. It is not practical!
To come to this conclusion is very simple: the Ottoman Empire's peasant rebels were able to fight back against one another with the Ottoman army. It is known how useless the Ottoman army was!
From there, he concluded that the Ottoman army's combat power was slightly greater than that of the mob. The Greek army was even worse, not being able to beat the Ottoman army and performing worse on the battlefield than the Armenian insurgents, and then concluded that the combat power of the Greek army was the level of a mob!
Do not feel surprised that civilian officials who do not know the military come to this conclusion. It's pretty normal! In terms of battlefield display alone, that is not a problem at all, but ignore the essence!
At least the Greek army led by Prince Konstantínos qualified their performance. At least in the face of the superior strength of the Ottoman army, they could still defend it. In contrast, the superior power of the Epirus region, the Greek army led by Lord Kýrillos, the performance is terrible!
There is an objective factor - logistics! The Ottoman army is doing battle in their homeland, there are more or fewer reserves everywhere, together with the rear supply, there will be no shortage of supplies in the short term, the Greeks are tragic, was not well-prepared, and now it is even worse!
At the critical moment, the Prime Minister spoke up to save the day, saying, "It's normal for the Bulgarians to have this attitude! Who told our army to perform so poorly?
Not to mention them, I still can't believe this is the great Greek Army, the strongest army in the Balkans. Is this the level?
Of course, now is not the time for us to pursue the blame. It is urgent to let Bulgaria know our actual situation, even if we have to give in the post-war benefits are at stake!
Otherwise, they think we are not doing our best and dragging them into the war. I'm afraid the front line will change over time!"
At the words of the Prime Minister, Geórgios I was awakened. Now Greece was in danger, any failure in either direction, Greece would really have to fight for its life, and for this reason, the navy was ready to go ashore!
Of course, if the navy was really used as an army, it is estimated that Greece was also finished at that time, how to do nothing useful!
Geórgios I asked again, "What did Nikola I say? When can Montenegro enter the war?"
The Minister of Foreign Affairs said with difficulty: "This ~, Montenegro's strength is limited, they are willing to participate in the war, but until Bulgaria's stance is engaged in the war, they are very worried that they will be targeted by the Ottomans after entering the war!"
After all, Nikola I was born in the army, fought in two Russian-Turkish wars, and also received the title of marshal of the Russian Empire. One was still very clear about the military power of Montenegro.
Even if they pour out their country, they will only be able to come up with 20,000 to 30,000 troops, and Montenegro will be finished with one failure!
This time there was little reaction from the crowd, no one expected to rely on Montenegro to break the game! Instead of counting on their 20,000 to 30,000 troops, it would have been more practical to suddenly expect the Greek army at the front to have a fighting boost!
At this point, the Minister of War spoke up and said, "We are running out of strategic reserves of supplies, and the consumption of supplies after the start of the war is much higher than we had anticipated!
In particular, the ammunition consumption has increased by half than we predicted, and at the current consumption rate, it can support at most another three weeks. If a decisive battle occurs, I'm afraid the time we can support is even shorter!"