On August 15, 1852, the Russian army launched the Second Battle of Bulgaria. The main force of the Russian army came out in full swing and crossed the Balkans to launch an attack on the coalition forces.

It is difficult for Franz to understand that the Russians are not ignoring and suppressing all the main forces. No matter how bad they are, they have to leave enough troops to guard the logistics transportation line? No matter whether they don’t understand or not, he has to help the Russians recover.

Austria needs this war to continue. Only when the Russians and Britain and France fight true fire will Austria have a good opportunity to advance westward.

Franz frowned and ordered: "Order the troops on the front line to be on standby at any time. Once the coalition forces rush in, they will pretend to be Balkan guerrillas and help the Russians guard the transportation line."

If Austria hadn’t been a multi-ethnic country and had a large number of ethnic minorities in the army, it would have been difficult to help the Russians.

Politics is shameless. As long as the lid is not lifted and there is no evidence from Britain and France that it was done by Austria, everyone will continue to pretend to be confused and find an opportunity to take revenge next time.

If the lid is unveiled, then there is nothing to say that it can only fight back. Franz hates adventure in such extreme things.

Marshal Radsky suggested: "Your Majesty, it is easy to be exposed to the direct intervention. Otherwise, we support the local militia and guerrillas of the Bulgarians.

The Russians did not take them seriously, but the information provided by the frontline military observers believed that they had a high fighting will and had a certain combat effectiveness.

As long as we provide them with a batch of weapons and equipment, and arm these people, it is almost impossible for the coalition forces to attack them."

Austria needs the Russians to continue fighting, but is not prepared to go on the battlefield and help the Russians fight, which means the strategic bankruptcy of the westward advance.

We can't expect the Russians to be trustworthy. Austria will help them conquer Constantinople, and they will send troops to help Austria unify the German region, right?

Thinking from the perspective of others, if Austria's strategy was realized, would Franz still do his best to help the Russians now?

Sincere cooperation is based on common interests. Once the interests are gone, everyone's position will change.

Franz shook his head and said, "It is simple to support the Bulgarians, we are not short of that little arms.

But how do the Russians explain? According to the Covenant, Bulgaria is the territory of the Russians, and we cannot reach out to it."

In order to avoid conflicts, the Russian-Austrian alliance agreed very clearly, and the division of the forces between the two countries was very clear, and they could do whatever they wanted on their own territory, but they could not reach out to their allies' territory.

Now the Russians promote Slavism in the Bulgaria region and Slavism in the Principality of Montenegro, but they did not move the two principalities of Serbia and the Danube Basin.

Russians abide by the rules, so Austria naturally cannot break the rules. This is the basis for the alliance between the two countries, and it is easy to destroy and difficult to establish.

Prime Minister Felix proposed: "If you don't arrange for people to smuggle arms into Bulgaria, there are many active arms dealers in the Balkans recently, so we can find someone to act as agents."

Metternik opposed: "No. If it is a few thousand steps, we can naturally let the arms dealers sell to the Bulgarians.

But now we have the ability to block the coalition raid, which requires at least one or two divisions of weapons and equipment.

If so many weapons flow into the Bulgaria region, we don’t know anything, is it just right?

Besides, Bulgarians don’t have that much money to buy weapons now, and arms merchants don’t charge money for selling arms. Such a weird thing happened. As long as the Russians are not stupid, they know that we did it."

Smuggling arms can only make small fuss, and once the scale is larger, it will be difficult to keep it confidential.

The Ottoman Empire has been controlling weapons dàn     yào flowing into Bulgaria. If a large number of weapons now enter Bulgaria from the Austrian-controlled area, Austria would not be able to explain clearly.

Franz thought for a while and said, "Pick some of the second-hand weapons in our warehouse that can still be used and the weapons seized in the Balkans, and let the quarantine officers steal to the arms merchants in their own name, and we will participate in the rest."

It was a strange thing to order his subordinates to resell weapons and equipment, but it happened now.

A large amount of Austrian equipment appears in Bulgaria, which will definitely attract the attention of the Russians. If it is replaced by second-hand equipment, it is estimated that the Russians will feel like they are close friends.

The largest arms dealer in Bulgaria is now the Russian Expeditionary Force. The officers reselled the seized weapons and equipment to local guerrilla organizations for profit.

Since the Russian team has done it, it is not surprising that the Austrian army follows the trend. Even if the Russians find out, they will help cover it up, otherwise their reselling of arms will be exposed.

Prime Minister Felix thought for a while and said, "Your Majesty, this is probably a drop in the bucket. The local militia in Bulgarian are too poor. It is very difficult to buy some qiāng branches. They cannot afford artillery.

If the coalition forces send troops to the back to carry out sabotage, although the number of troops will not be too large, it will not be too small. At least it is based on regiments. The local Bulgarian militia may not be their opponents."

"Don't worry, as long as the Bulgarians can delay time, it's enough. With this time as a buffer, the Russians must have reacted." Franz said calmly.

Franz is still at ease with the combat effectiveness of the Bulgarian militia. He had fallen into a misunderstanding before, and these people on the front battlefield could not defeat the regular army.

However, at the doorstep, there is no problem with these Bulgarians delaying the enemy's marching speed.

The raid behind was originally a word - fast. If the speed was not fast enough, not to mention cutting off other people's logistics line, just exposing their whereabouts and not being eaten.

...

Balkans coalition command

"General Mostepash, why did you tell me what happened? Why did you have no news about the Russians in this attack?

Don't tell me about the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of troops, you haven't noticed it?" French commander Aimabre Jean-Jacques Pelicier asked

"General Mostepash, you are to blame for this incident. The Russians have begun to attack. You don't know. We will not let you know.

This is the homeland of your Ottoman Empire. You can't get any information about this. Do your officials all eat shit?" British commander Montes accused

Faced with the accusations of the two, Mostepahsha had nothing to say. They were all guest soldiers and they didn't know that the Russians' actions were excusable. They actually made the Russians complete military mobilization under their noses and still knew nothing.

"I'm sorry, we will deal with the dereliction of duty seriously. The same thing will not happen again. Now that the enemy has already been attacked, we should fight the enemy first!"

After saying that, Mostepsa picked up the baton, clicked on the military map, and analyzed: "Here, and here, are the focus of our Russian army's competition.

Judging from the firepower on the battlefield, the focus of the Russians' attack this time should be Sliven.

Slivan has been a strategic location in the Balkans since ancient times. Once the Russian army occupied this place, it will form a strategic advantage for us.

From here to Edirne, we can no longer establish an effective defense line. If the Russians left a hundred thousand troops in Slivan, we would leave two hundred thousand troops to watch them.

In addition, another city that the Russians may focus on attacking is Sofia.

Sofia is located in the southern part of the Sofia Basin and is also a strategic location of the Balkans. If you master it, you will have half of Bulgaria.

If Sofia is lost, the Russians can be connected with the Austrians in the north, and Belgrade, which we are still sticking to, will lose its strategic significance."

Looking at the map, Montes's face changed. Now the British army is stationed in Sofia, and together with them, there are 30,000 Ottoman troops.

The choice was to garrison here because the British Expeditionary Force internal analysis was in advance, and the Russians' target was Constantinople and the focus of the offensive would be on the Slivan area.

If the coalition forces win and initiate fǎn     gōng, Sofia is in a favorable position again and can pounce on the Danube as fast as possible and cut off the Russian army's retreat. This is a good place to gain military achievements.

But now, the Russians may also make breakthroughs in the Sofia region. After conquering this place, most of the Balkans fell, and the political gains were greater than military.

French commander Aimabre Jean-Jacques Pelicier analyzed indifferently: "If the Russians want to seize Constantinople, the Slivan area is an unavoidable hurdle. Unless they are not afraid of us surpassing the back path, the Russians must conquer here.

If we lose the Slivan area, the battles that will come after us will be difficult. At that time, the Russians can attack and retreat or defend, and we can only passively deal with them.

Now your country has given up the Serbian region. Even if Sofia is lost, it will be nothing more than losing the central and western Bulgaria, plus Belgrade.

This war is still early, and the winner is laughing and said that the last one is the winner. We don’t need to care about the gains and losses of a city and a place. It is worth giving up some land temporarily for the final victory.”

Montes strongly opposed: "The Sofia region cannot give up just like this. The Russians have bewitched the Bulgarians. If it continues, more Balkans will be bewitched.

At that time, we will find that the more and more enemies are fighting. With these people's support, even if we defeat the Russians, we will not be able to drive them out of the Balkans.

The 30,000 reinforcements we sent from our country have already set out and will arrive in the Balkans the day after tomorrow. The 20,000 troops of the Kingdom of Sardinia have also arrived in the Balkans and sent their 50,000 people to reinforce Sofia.

Due to the logistics constraints, the Russians had limited troops in the Balkans, so they could not have had too many troops to attack Sofia, and a hundred thousand troops could definitely be defended.

Slivan here is protected by the French army, and the Russians have almost no possibility of breakthrough. As long as we block this wave of attacks, we can launch a counterattack.

We have an absolute advantage in terms of military strength. No matter how strong the Russian army is, it is not our opponent in the Balkans."

The military serves politics. As the first battle of the British army on the Balkans, it was impossible for Montes to retreat without a fight, which was related to the face of their British army.

The French have already made their mark. Even if the French army suffers a loss, on the surface, they are all winners, and failure is the blame for the Ottomans.

The British Army also needs to establish its authority, and they also need to prove their strength to the outside world and improve their domestic status. This determines that they cannot act with the French, otherwise they will be considered as a so-called man.

Mostepashia supported: "General Montes' proposal is good, Sofia cannot afford to lose, and we cannot afford the political influence."

Negatively speaking, it is an unknown whether the Russians can be driven away. If both sides suffer losses and both sides will be unable to recover lost territory, wouldn’t it be a big loss to give up Sofia now?

The British were very powerful, that was the power of the navy; the French were very powerful, that was the French in the Napoleon era; the Ottoman Empire was very powerful, that was in history.

The Russians are now strong, and the army is strong. After many battles with the Russian army, there are many Ottoman governments who are terrified of Russian conquests, and even Mostepashes will inevitably be affected.

The Sudanese government is ready to move the capital. If it were not for morale, the capital of the Ottoman Empire would now become Ankara.

The bears were too difficult to get them out of the Balkans. The Sudanese government would not dare to continue to put the capital in Constantinople and be neighbors with them.

Two to one, Aimabre Jean-Jacques Pelicier did not continue to oppose it. He was an Allies, but he could actually command the French army, and the Ottoman army could barely command it. The arrogant Johnniu did not buy his account.

Aimabre Jean-Jacques Pelicier proposed: "Since that's the case, let's divide the labor. The defenders in the Sofia region were mainly British troops, named the Left Route Army, with General Montes as the commander.

The Slivan area, including the Kazanlek area, is stationed by the French army. I personally serve as the commander, which is considered the central army. The remaining areas are General Mostepahsha, as the right army.

The battle on the front line is tight, and there is no time to waste it for us. If there is no problem, we will take office as soon as possible!"

Montes said without hesitation: "There is no problem. This distribution is reasonable and can maximize the combat effectiveness of the troops."

.Version 13
Chapter completed!