Greece to roman road

At 6pm on the evening of October 28th, the frontline headquarters of the Greek Macedonian Army

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

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

After hearing the announcement from Colonel Hammett, the tired Constantine took off the glasses on his nose and rubbed his sore eyes caused by looking at documents for a long time: "What kind of good news is it about?"

"Your Excellency, Commander, just yesterday, our Greek Navy gave the Ottomans a hard lesson in the Aegean Sea. The fast fleet led by Commander Kontoriotis won a complete victory in yesterday's naval decisive battle and sank the enemy. The tonnage of the warships is more than 10,000 tons, including a battleship and a destroyer." Seeing Constantine's tired look, Attendant Hammett picked up the telegram and read excitedly.

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

Although it had long been expected that the Greek navy would win, after all, the Greek naval strength was far stronger than that of the same period in original history.

In the original historical time and space, when this war broke out, the Greek Navy had only one armored cruiser purchased from Italy, named George Avilov.

With such an embarrassing warship and a group of old and outdated warships, under the command of Kontoriotis, the Greeks created incredible miracles and severely damaged two battleships of the Ottoman Navy.

It was claimed that a warship defeated an empire.

The current Greek navy is far more powerful than the same period in history. Historically, the Greek navy had no money to buy expensive battle cruisers. There is no reason why it cannot defeat the Ottoman navy.

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

When Contoriotis reported the results of the battle to the General Staff, he frankly pointed out that after one of the enemy's main battleships, the flagship Barbarossa Sea Reading, suffered heavy damage, he knew that he had no way to escape and chose to rush to the beach.

In order to boost the morale of the domestic people, the Ottoman Navy purchased the Brandenburg-class battleship from Germany during external publicity, which was also counted as the navy's victory this time.

Such a result is already a good result for today's Greek Navy.

When the enemy knows that it is weak and does not have the will to fight tenaciously, the Greek navy has few chances of sinking the opponent's ships.

After reading the telegram, Constantine thought for a moment and said happily: "In this way, the Ottoman support route to Macedonia by sea has been cut off by us. This is also a good news for our Macedonian Army. good news"

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

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

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

The current Macedonian Legion is currently in a stalemate.

Since the last war, Greek territory was close to Salonika, which made Salonika 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.

With just a glance at the map and a little bit of strategic awareness, one can realize the importance of this city.

The territory of Macedonia held by the Ottoman Turks was generally surrounded by Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia.

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

Once the city of Salonika was lost, it meant that the Ottoman troops deployed in the rest of Macedonia faced the risk of being cut off from their retreat.

Once this city was lost, all Ottoman military deployments in Macedonia would be shattered.

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

It is for these reasons that, according to information collected from various sources in Greece, the Ottoman army deployed nearly 100,000 troops near Salonika.

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

The two fortresses are Bazani Fortress and Kastritsa Fortress.

The fortress was designed according to the Germans and was equipped with concrete bunkers, artillery and machine gun positions, trenches, barbed wire and searchlights.

These two fortresses alone were guarded by about 35,000 Turkish troops, forming a strong fortress.

Thessaloniki itself is just a plain city with no passes nearby. However, after the construction of these two fortresses, the city became a difficulty for the Greek army.

Therefore, after the Macedonian Legion initially contacted the two fortresses and conducted a tentative attack, Constantine immediately stopped the attack.

In this era without aircraft and tanks, if you want to use the flesh and blood of soldiers to conquer the enemy's heavily defended permanent fortifications, you will definitely have to pay huge casualties.

Moreover, the combination of enemy 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.

Obviously, trench warfare, which would show great power in future European wars, had already begun to emerge in this war, but it did not seem to attract the attention of the mainstream European military circles.

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

If Constantine were to attack Salonika at this time, in order to protect the situation in Macedonia from collapse, the Ottoman troops stationed near Salonika would resist to the death whether they wanted to or not.

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

On the other hand, facing such strong enemy defenses, the Macedonian Army also needed more heavy artillery.

Because heavy artillery is inconvenient to move, it takes a certain amount of time to prepare.

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