Chapter 1126 Conquering Albania (Part 2)

Chapter 1126 Conquering Albania (Part 2)

The Albanian coalition, which had been beaten to a pulp again, had completely lost the courage to continue fighting. Most tribes chose to surrender unconditionally, and the few who were unwilling to surrender retreated into the mountains or continued to resist in areas far away from the Austrian border.

This was not good news for the Austrian Empire. The surrender of the mountain people only meant that the enemy had turned from open to dark.

Franz was not afraid of a real fight between the two sides, after all, his side was good at this and had an absolute advantage.

However, once entering the mountains, not only would they have to fight a huge security war, but they would also need to identify the enemy and ourselves, otherwise it would be very likely to provoke a larger-scale rebellion.

All the problems seemed to have returned to the starting point. The Austrian Empire did not have enough troops, and could not pay the huge price of occupying the mountains.

In the end, the Austrian army only stationed in the main checkpoints on the periphery and some key areas identified in advance by the geological team.

In fact, as a great power, it is impossible to stop exploring the surrounding areas. Similarly, the Austrian Empire was not the only great power that explored the Albanian region. The Russians had also sent expeditions to the area.

Although the Russians were fighting the Ottoman Empire under the banner of helping their allies, they did not want the Austrian Empire to join the war at all.

After all, the Austrian Empire, an ally, had already demonstrated its strong strength in the previous year, and Nicholas I did not want it to continue to become stronger.

In addition, in the Russians' plan, there was no place for the Austrians in the Balkans, and the former did not want the latter to continue to expand in the Balkans.

The behavior of the Austrian Empire in the southern mountains directly exposed its weak nature, which made the Russians relieved, and the drama of surrender and rebellion in the mountains was staged again.

But these people could not have thought that this was their last time to die, because the Greek army had broken through Thessaly and attacked Albania from another direction.

It is well known that the strongest fortresses are often broken from the inside, and there are a large number of Greeks living in the mountains in southern Albania.

Their identity and culture were discriminated against and oppressed under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, but it was not the Ottomans who oppressed them, but the Albanians as neighbors.

After hundreds of years of assimilation, most Albanians have converted to religion and gained a higher social status, but Greeks have better preserved their cultural heritage, and are relatively more engaged in education, business, and medical-related work, and are relatively more enthusiastic about farming.

This inequality in social and economic status makes it impossible to bridge the contradictions between the two sides. In the past, when the Ottomans were pressing on their heads, both sides could temporarily put aside their hatred.

But the Greeks did not have much resistance to the arrival of the Austrians, after all, the current ruler of Greece is also a German.

After a series of disastrous defeats, the Greeks' war-weariness reached its peak.

At this time, the news came that the Greek army defeated the Ottoman army in Thessaly and was preparing to join forces with the Austrian army to attack Albania. The Greeks in the southern mountains were boiling, and they knew that the time for revenge had come.

The mountains in southern Albania were finally completely pacified under the double-sided attack of Austria and Greece, and the cooperation of the local Greeks.

A large number of Albanians fled to Macedonia, and the western defense line built by Reshid Pasha completely collapsed.

After the war, the morale of the Greek army was very high under the personal leadership of King Otto I, and the weapons and equipment purchased with loans from the Austrian Empire also played a role.

The Ottoman army was unable to suppress and could only hide in the fortress to defend. Fortunately, Franz had known that this situation would occur, so he specially supported a large number of siege troops, supplies, and a whole staff group.

However, facing the crudely built bastions of the Ottomans, the Austrian side had no good solution. It would take a lot of time to remove these nails, and a large number of casualties were inevitable.

Fortunately, the predecessors had already given a solution to the problem, and it was done by going around.

Unless the Ottomans could build a whole group of bastions, or build the bastions as big as a city, there was no way to stop the Greek army from attacking other areas by detours.

Soon the Ottoman army in the Thessaly region was trapped in isolated bastions, and their fate was either surrender or being trapped to death.

The Ottoman army could also fight to the death! If they really had the courage, they would have done so long ago. He did not surrender directly, but he had not yet convinced himself.

Reshid Pasha gathered heavy troops in the East Thrace region, hoping to use the local bastions to block the coalition's attack, but Reshid Pasha forgot two things.

First, there were more than two million Greeks in the Ottoman Empire, who were concentrated in the southern Balkans. Their economic and social status had long been inconsistent, and they had long been resentful of the Ottoman Empire.

When the Greeks' own army came over, there were guides everywhere, and don't forget that this is the era of the nation, and nothing can inspire people more than national justice.

Wherever the coalition passed, the Greeks won food and followed, and the scene of welcoming the king's army with food and drink continued to be staged.

Second, the Western Thrace fortress group is backed by mountains in the north and the sea in the south, and there are rivers in front of it, which can be called natural barriers.

But at this time, the control of the Mediterranean was in the hands of the Austrian Empire, and Franz could send warships to swagger around Reshid Pasha's fortress group and directly attack its rear.

The coalition army was heading straight for Constantinople. When Sultan Mejid, who had just woken up, learned that the coalition army was only a few dozen kilometers away from Istanbul, he was so angry that he spat out a mouthful of black blood on the gauze curtain of the dragon bed.

Sultan Mejid lost consciousness again, and the court doctor hurried forward to check.

"How is the Sultan!" Reshid Pasha shouted anxiously. The Ottoman Empire had reached a critical moment. If the Sultan died at this time, the empire would probably be over.

At this time, the only ones who could inherit the Ottoman Empire were Mejid's younger brother Abdul Aziz and his eldest son Muhammad Murad.

The eldest son Muhammad Murad was only 8 years old at this time, and Abdul Aziz was Mejid's opponent. Abdul Aziz opposed total Westernization and the Ottoman Empire's long-standing pro-British policy.

Whether from an emotional point of view or from the interests of his own group, Reshid Pasha hoped to support Mejid's eldest son Muhammad Murad as the new Ottoman Sultan.

A bloody storm is quietly brewing in the precarious Ottoman court. In a secret room in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, when the clouds have cleared and the rain has stopped, the unruly Eagle of Bucharest is lying on the body of the target she is going to assassinate, her chest heaving violently.