Chapter 146
Chapter 146
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 146
Chapter Title: Balkan War (2)
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July 1912.
The Ottoman Empire, unable to withstand the Balkan League's relentless pummeling, finally threw up its hands in surrender and sat down for peace talks with the alliance.
As Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece engaged in what was billed as fervent debate—but was really just a shouting match—over how to carve up the Ottoman Empire in London, I too had come to the city to check on how the conference was unfolding.
"Welcome, Marquis Choi."
"It's been a while, Foreign Secretary Grey. Ah, is that Scott's statue I see over there?"
"Yes, it's a monument honoring one of Britain's greatest explorers. They're planning to erect one for Mr. Amundsen right beside it."
Foreign Secretary Grey gazed proudly at the statue still under construction.
Of course, considering how Britain in the original history had refused to accept Scott's defeat and acted so pettily toward Amundsen, the scene was almost laughable.
'Still, I never thought Scott would actually win.'
In the original history, Amundsen had been desperate to conquer the South Pole after Peary NTR'd his North Pole claim. But here, having fulfilled his lifelong dream of reaching the North Pole, his passion for the South Pole had waned considerably.
There was no sudden pivot from the North to the South Pole to stab Scott in the back, either.
Thanks to that, even though Scott had dragged horses along just like in the original history, he managed to reach the South Pole first.
Of course, he was too exhausted afterward to make it back alive, but he'd at least secured his honor. Amundsen didn't claim the South Pole first, but he recovered Scott's body—which they hadn't found in the original timeline—and returned a hero. A win-win for both sides, no?
"So, how are the peace talks between the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan League going?"
"Ha, the peace talks?"
As we shifted from Scott's life-or-death victory at the South Pole back to the main topic, Grey's face grew weary, his brow furrowing as he let out a heavy sigh.
Hm, just as I'd expected—a total mess.
"The Ottomans aren't the problem, really. Losers always have precious little to say."
"So it's the Balkan League that's causing trouble."
"Exactly. They're already tearing into each other over who gets the bigger share of the spoils. Anyone unfamiliar with them would mistake these allies for sworn enemies."
He wasn't wrong.
Without the common foe of the Ottoman Empire, the Balkan states would have long since been at each other's throats—and they pretty much were anyway.
"On top of that, Austria-Hungary is pushing for Albanian independence, hasn't it? The Serbs are foaming at the mouth over it."
It was Austria-Hungary's countermove to check the Russian Empire backing the Balkan League.
In fact, after the First Balkan War ended, Albania did gain independence, and Serbia's hatred toward Austria-Hungary—which had coveted Albanian territory—skyrocketed once more.
Of course, their relations had already hit rock bottom after the Bosnian Crisis, so it hardly mattered if they worsened further.
"Still, I don't think the talks will drag on much longer. The Balkan League will soon have bigger fires to put out."
"Pardon? What do you mean, Marquis?"
"Word is, the current Ottoman government is catching hell over the peace terms with the Balkan League."
Especially the issue of ceding Adrianople—or Edirne, as the Turks called it—to Bulgaria, which had sparked no end of controversy.
Where was Edirne, anyway?
It was the symbolic city that had served as the Ottoman capital before Mehmed the Conqueror sacked Constantinople, the city of longing, and severed the 2,000-year Roman lineage for good.
Now the Ottoman government was agreeing to hand it over to Bulgaria as a condition for peace, and Turkish voices were rising in protest that this was going too far.
"Are you suggesting the current Ottoman regime might collapse, Marquis?"
"The Freedom and Accord Party holding power is on shaky ground after the war's defeat and these humiliating terms. The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which opposes the peace deal, won't let this golden opportunity to reclaim the government slip away."
As everyone knew, power in the Ottoman Empire had been held by the Committee of Union and Progress since the Young Turk Revolution.
But true to form for a bunch of soldiers, the CUP grew increasingly authoritarian, losing public support and the 1911 elections to the Freedom and Accord Party—commonly called the Liberal Union.
Now, having not only lost the Balkan War but also on the verge of signing a humiliating peace treaty with the League, would the military-dominated CUP just sit idly by?
'Not a chance.'
They'd already staged one coup to oust the Sultan.
Nothing stopping them from doing it again—and history proved they would.
The man who would lead that coup and become a power broker in the Ottoman Empire was Ismail Enver.
He'd drag the Ottomans into World War I on the Allied side, triggered by Churchill's battleship NTR.
'Enver, huh. What a loose cannon, unreliable in all sorts of ways.'
To be fair, he was the poster boy for pro-German factions in the Empire.
But with Britain now on our side, I couldn't rule out the possibility of Mr. Gallipoli flipping Enver toward the Russo-Bulgarian alliance instead of cozying up to Germany.
The Ottoman entry into the World War had been a near-unilateral decision by Enver, despite opposition from Sultan Mehmed V and many others.
'Even so, after getting their battleships stolen by Britain, the Ottomans aren't likely to ditch Germany and side with enemy Russia.'
But no matter how absurd, anything could happen in this world—and given Enver's unpredictable nature, caution was warranted.
'If Churchill can't shake his blonde, balding thug tendencies here and snatches more battleships, I could promise to get compensation from Britain after the war ends or something.'
"Marquis?"
"Ah, sorry. Got lost in thought for a moment. Anyway, with a coup likely brewing in the Ottoman Empire, the peace talks have a high chance of collapsing entirely."
"Trouble on top of trouble."
Grey let out another heavy sigh, as if the mere thought gave him a headache.
But did he know this was nothing compared to what was coming?
Crash!
"Ismail Enver Bey, what in the world is this?!"
"What is it? Purging the traitors who sold our homeland to the Slavs and saving the Empire."
As expected, it wasn't long before a coup erupted in Constantinople.
Ismail Enver, along with Mehmed Talaat Pasha and Ahmed Djemal Pasha—who would later form the Three Pashas—stormed the Sublime Porte (the Ottoman government's nickname) with military boots and seized control of the Empire.
"No peace with the Balkan League. No ceding Edirne, of course. The Ottoman Empire will fight to the end!"
And so the war reignited.
The Balkan League, drunk on victory in London and obsessed with dividing the spoils, rushed back to the front lines with pale faces—only to face an unexpected Ottoman counterattack.
"The Ottoman forces are resisting more fiercely than anticipated. The Chatalja and Gallipoli fronts have stalled."
"In the end, the war's outcome hinges on capturing Edirne."
However, the Ottoman counteroffensive did little to turn the tide.
Unlike Enver's bold dreams of reversing the war by scrapping the treaty, the goddess of victory had long since turned her back on the Empire.
Especially since the Bulgarians had already besieged Edirne before the peace talks even began. Things worsened when Serbian forces joined with 38 siege guns and 120mm and 150mm howitzers bought from France.
Boom! Boom boom! Boom!
"Damn it, that cursed city just won't break."
"If shells can't bring it down, drop more shells. Don't give up—keep up the assault!"
Yet Edirne refused to fall easily.
It was a fortress city fortified by German military advisors and siege experts, deemed invincible by the Ottomans.
But General Nikola Ivanov's Bulgarian forces and the Serbs didn't relent. When the talks collapsed and war resumed, they even launched night assaults, intensifying the pressure on Edirne.
Edirne crumbled under the merciless Bulgarian and Serbian artillery barrage.
But the Bulgarians didn't stop there. Inspired by their German role models, they deployed airplanes.
Vroooom~
"Enemy planes in the sky!"
"Fuck, everyone down!!"
Screeeee~ Boom! Boom boom—!
Flying Yogurt planes buzzed over Edirne, hurling specially modified grenades at Ottoman troops.
They weren't massive aerial bombs—just hand grenades—but it was enough to demoralize the Ottomans, unaccustomed to attacks from above.
In the end, five months after the siege began...
Two weeks after the truce ended and fighting resumed, Edirne fell.
"...We surrender."
Mehmed Şükrü Pasha, commander of the Edirne garrison who'd fought his utmost for five months, surrendered with tears in his eyes. The city's Muslims and Jews fell victim to ruthless plundering by the victory-drunk Slavs.
With Edirne lost to the Balkan League, Enver and the new Ottoman regime despaired. Abandoning all hope of victory, they soon agreed to peace, ceding all territory except Constantinople and its environs.
Yet even as the guns fell silent, war on the Balkan Peninsula wasn't truly over.
As everyone knew, this was just the First Balkan War.
The Second was waiting right behind it.
And ironically, the seed for it was sown in the very siege of Edirne that ended the first.
"Huh? What the hell? Why's all mention of us Serbs completely missing?"
"Have the Bulgarians lost their minds?!"
The rift began when Bulgaria, in reporting the war to foreign correspondents from around the world, conveniently omitted Serbia's role in the Edirne siege and hogged all the credit.
Serbia naturally protested this shabby stunt, and tensions soon spilled over into disputes about dividing northern Macedonia.
The two armies, forgetting they were allies, began military standoffs in jointly occupied zones. What had been friendship exploded into enmity at the London Treaty meant to end the First Balkan War.
"Refusing to honor the agreed territorial division? What is the meaning of this?!"
"On that matter, Serbia believes we need to renegotiate. That's all."
October 1912.
Having returned to London to witness the signing of the London Treaty as the German Empire's representative, I gave a wry smile toward the Serbian and Bulgarian delegates already glaring daggers at each other before the ink had even dried.
The Russian delegation, hoping to solidify their influence on the Balkans via the League, could only wrack their brains at the unbelievable sight of it crumbling the moment the war ended.
"So, just as you predicted, a Second Balkan War is inevitable."
"The enemy will change, though. And it'll most likely be Bulgaria."
Venizelos smirked slyly at my words.
Greece would normally have been clamoring for its share of Macedonia there.
But Venizelos, hearing my prediction that the League would implode from Serb-Bulgarian strife after the war and spark a new conflict, had instead stepped back to watch from the sidelines.
"Bulgaria's got the worst odds of defeat, then?"
"Not just Serbia—the Ottoman Empire's gnashing its teeth at them too. And Romania will jump in."
Romania, sitting right above Bulgaria and sharing no border with the Ottomans, had gained nothing from the First War and stayed out.
But in the upcoming Second, with the troublesome downstairs neighbor Bulgaria turning villainous, they'd finally lift their heavy rears and declare war.
'And the defeated Bulgaria, unable to sate its grudges against Serbia and Romania, would join the Central Powers in World War I for revenge.'
Proving their vendetta, they'd rampage wildly, smashing Serbia, routing Romanian and Greek forces, even thrashing the British and French expeditionary armies in the Balkans.
Their nickname "Balkans' Prussia" wasn't for nothing.
'Of course, they'd be the first to surrender and bail once the Central Powers started losing.'
Either way, Germany gained a useful ally, so there was no reason to meddle in the Second Balkan War.
Romania... their royals were Hohenzollern cadets, but they'd likely side with Russia like in the original history.
King Carol I was pro-German, but he'd die soon after the World War began, succeeded by Ferdinand I—a realist prioritizing national interest.
'Plus, the royal family may be German, but the government is blatantly pro-Russian and drooling over Austria-Hungary's Transylvania and Bukovina.'
We could try steering them to neutrality depending on the war situation, but for now, we'd have to watch Romania closely.
No need to overdo it—pushing Greece back a step and focusing Bulgaria's resentment squarely on Serbia would suffice to prevent future headaches.