The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1123: Many heroes compete for supremacy or everyone pushes down the wall?

The Ottomans lived up to their reputation as the sick man of West Asia, suffering defeat after defeat in their wars with the Russians.

Especially on the Eastern Front, Trabzon and Erzurum fell one after another, and the Russian army is advancing towards the Diyarbakir region.

Although the Ottoman Army on the Western Front could only retreat to several fortresses such as Varna and Silirates, it did slow down the Russian army.

But behind the Ottomans, the Bulgarians launched an unprecedented uprising, which forced the former to divide its troops to suppress the latter, which led to a crisis in the Dobruja region.

Dobruja is located on the Russian-Turkish border, bordering Moldavia to the west and the Black Sea to the east. It was the Ottomans' front line against Russia.

At the beginning of the Ninth Russo-Turkish War, the Russians advanced rapidly, as if they were determined to take Constantinople.

However, Franz was not jealous of the Russians' achievements. The reason he declared war on the Ottoman Empire was mainly to force Britain to sign a peace agreement.

Although Austria had won consecutive victories against Britain and even achieved an epic victory, in fact the pressure on the British government mainly came from within, not from the war with Austria.

If multiple conflicts had not broken out at the same time, the British fleet would have entered the Mediterranean again.

Even though the British, with their wealth and power, could hold out, Franz did not want to continue. He needed a stable environment to slowly deal with the Hungarians and those internal problems that might threaten Austria.

Austria and Russia were invincible in the Middle East, even if the British tried their best. As for the British's original historical allies, the French and the Kingdom of Sardinia, one was still electing a president, and the other was struggling to protect itself.

Instead, Franz brought in some helpers, the first of which was Greece. Otto I was Franz's cousin, and the two sides had a close relationship.

After the "Don Pacifico Affair", relations between Greece and Britain continued to deteriorate, and the royal family, the government, and the people all felt deeply humiliated.

It was precisely because of this hatred that the Greeks on Crete chose to help Austria. Of course, it is not known how much of this was due to the efforts of the Greek government.

In short, after the island seizure incident, whether the Greeks admit it or not, they have already stood on the side of Austria.

Franz's act of returning the sovereignty of Crete to Greece won the favor of the entire country, and Austrian merchants and officials were far less arrogant than the British, so they were naturally more liked by the Greeks.

As a new country, Greece has always been threatened by the Ottoman Empire. If it wants to survive, it must have strong foreign aid. After falling out with Britain, they have to find a new backer.

Then the Austrian Empire, which is closer to Greece and has a mortal enemy with the Ottoman Empire, is undoubtedly the best choice.

Otto I was a monarch who was very fond of grand narratives, and his "great ideals" continued to influence Greece even after his death.

Otto I's great ideal was to make Greece the successor of the Byzantine Empire and take back everything that the Eastern Roman Empire had lost.

There were 250 million Greeks in the Ottoman Empire, three times the population of mainland Greece, and most of them were dissatisfied with Ottoman rule.

Of course, Otto I was not crazy. He divided the whole plan into five steps: the first step was to recover Crete, the second step was to conquer Thessaly, the third step was to restore the territory of ancient Greece, the fourth step was to take Constantinople, and the fifth step was to rebuild the Byzantine Empire. Although it sounds a bit unrealistic, it is indeed exciting. At the same time, because of this great ideal, Russia is very unfriendly to Greece.

At this time, Crete had been liberated with the help of Austria, so Otto I and the whole of Greece were looking forward to the next step.

Otto I himself was a symbol of warmongering. In Greece, where the population was only over 80, he always maintained an army of people.

This time, the entire country was mobilized and an army of 100,000 was gathered in one go. Otto I personally served as the commander-in-chief and went to the front line.

Another helper was our old friend Muhammad Ali. This heroic leader who unified Egypt once again demonstrated his heroic qualities after successfully quitting opium tincture.

Although Egypt was forced to sign a series of unequal treaties after its defeat, he took advantage of the conflicts between the great powers to prevent most of the treaties from taking shape, and even forced the British to bribe him and his eldest son in order to obtain the right to do business normally.

Of course, the Second Turkish-Egyptian War did cause great damage to Egypt. Even though Muhammad Ali had been keeping a low profile and secretly accumulating strength over the years, Egypt has not been able to recover to one-third of its original strength.

However, the reason why heroes are heroes is because they dare to think what ordinary people dare not think, dare to do what ordinary people dare not do, and they will do anything to achieve their goals without being bound by any rules or morals.

The first thing Muhammad Ali did before going to war was to massacre several important cities in the country, first Cairo, then Alexandria, and then Said.
His primary purpose in doing so was to eliminate the forces that opposed him and the pro-British faction, and his second purpose was to plunder wealth to wage war.

The standing army has less than 50,000 men, which is nothing.

Muhammad Ali directly ordered a forced conscription and gathered an army of 200,000 people in less than a month. After Austria officially declared war on the Ottoman Empire, the army headed straight for Jordan.

For a time, war broke out all around the Ottoman Empire. Sultan Mejid felt a splitting headache when he looked at the mountain of urgent reports and fainted on the spot.

But before he fainted, Magid gave one last order, which was to behead Viscount Stratford if the British could not give him an explanation.

This might be the toughest position Mejid had taken against the British since he became the Ottoman Sultan. In fact, he felt at that time that if he had not deployed troops in the Balkans, perhaps today's situation would not have happened.

Viscount Stratford felt that he was very wronged and wanted to meet with the Sultan, but unfortunately Magid had fainted.

The Ottoman palace guards and eunuchs didn't care about that. After all, in their minds, Mejid was the king.

Mustafa Reshid Pasha, who was appointed Grand Vizier again, was also at a loss. He could not think of any countermeasures because the main forces of the Ottoman Empire were concentrated in the Balkans. This was undoubtedly a huge strategic mistake.

At this time, the Ottoman Empire had to face attacks from four countries from five directions, which was beyond what the Ottoman Empire could bear.

Mustafa Reshid Pasha has begun to consider the details of the peace talks. How much benefit should he give up in order to save the empire?
What he didn't know was that the Ottoman Empire's ally, Grand Prince Milos of Serbia, had betrayed the alliance and launched an attack on the Ottoman Empire.

How could Milos Obrenović, who was as powerful as Muhammad Ali, miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?