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

Chapter 1126 Conquering Albania (Part )
The Albanian coalition forces, which had suffered another bloody defeat, had completely lost the courage to continue fighting. Most tribes chose to surrender unconditionally, while 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 covert.

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

However, once entering the mountains, not only do they have to fight a costly security battle, but they also need to identify friend or foe, otherwise there is a high possibility of inciting a larger-scale rebellion.

All problems seemed to have returned to the starting point. The Austrian Empire did not have enough troops, and could not pay the huge cost 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, it is impossible for a great power to stop exploring the surrounding areas. The Austrian Empire was not the only great power that explored the Albania region. The Russians also sent expeditions to the area.

Although Russia was fighting the Ottoman Empire under the banner of helping its allies at this time, it did not want the Austrian Empire to join the war at all.

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

Furthermore, in the Russians' plans, there was no place for the Austrians in the Balkans, as the former did not want the latter to continue expanding in the Balkans.

The Austrian Empire's behavior in the southern mountains directly exposed its weak nature, which made the Russians breathe a sigh of relief, and the drama of surrender and rebellion in the mountains was staged again.

But these people could never have imagined that this would be their last chance to die, because the Greek army had already broken through Thessaly and invaded Albania from another direction.

It is well known that the strongest fortresses are often breached from the inside. There are a large number of Greeks living in the mountains of 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 their Albanian neighbors.

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

This inequality in social and economic status made the conflict between the two sides irreconcilable. In the past, when the Ottomans were like a huge mountain pressing down on their heads, both sides could temporarily put aside their hatred.

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

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

At this time, news came that the Greek army had 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 in an uproar, and they knew that the time for revenge had come.

The southern mountains of Albania were finally completely pacified by the pincer attack from Austria and Greece, as well as the internal and external 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 it 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 an entire staff group.

However, facing the Ottomans' crudely built bastions, the Austrians had no good solution. Trying to pull out these nails would not only take a lot of time, but also result in heavy casualties.

Fortunately, our predecessors have already given a solution to the problem, so we just need to go around it.

Unless the Ottomans could build an entire group of bastions, or build a bastion as big as a city, they would not be able to prevent the Greek army from attacking other areas by detours.

Soon the Ottoman troops in Thessaly were trapped in isolated bastions, and their fate was either surrender or death.

The Ottoman army could have fought to the death! If they really had the courage, they would have done so long ago. They didn't surrender directly because they just couldn't convince themselves.

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

First, there were more than two million Greeks in the Ottoman Empire, who were concentrated in the southern Balkans. These people’s economic and social status had long been inconsistent, and they had long-standing grievances against the Ottoman Empire.

When the Greeks' own army came, there were guides everywhere. And don't forget that this is an era of nation. Nothing can be more inspiring than national justice.

Wherever the coalition forces passed, the Greeks followed with food and drink, and scenes of welcoming the royal army with food and drink were constantly staged.

Second, the Western Thracian fortresses are backed by mountains in the north, face the sea in the south, and have rivers blocking the way in front, which can be described as a natural barrier.

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

The allied forces headed straight for Constantinople. Sultan Mejid, who had just woken up, was so angry when he learned that the allied forces were only a few dozen kilometers away from Istanbul 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 physician rushed forward to check on him.

"What happened to the Sultan?" Reshid Pasha shouted anxiously. The Ottoman Empire had reached a very critical moment. If the Sultan died at this time, then the empire would probably be finished.

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 the time, and Abdul Aziz was an opponent of Mejid. 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 perspective of his own group's interests, Reshid Pasha would rather support Meccid's eldest son, Mehmed 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.