Bulgarian Empire

Chapter 186: 46) Blessings Do Not Come In Pairs, Calamities Never Come Singly!

"It's not just strategic supplies that are in desperate need. Our fiscal deficit has not been solved, although the war has just started, and we must think about it!

If there is a material reserve shortage, we can still import, but without money, I'm afraid we can do nothing!

The Ministry of Finance has done everything it can to raise funds! European consortiums are not optimistic that we can win the war, and loans are simply not being negotiated!

The bonds are also failing in the international market, and so far, the bonds we put up for sale have been entirely unsold, even though we have raised the interest rate to twenty percent!

It can also only sell some in the country, which is less than 10 million Drachmas (about 400,000), which is certainly not enough for the huge expenses!

In order to win the war, we ordered a large number of supplies from European countries, which in turn consumed a large amount of our foreign exchange reserves, and with the late final payment, we had to use part of the gold reserves to solve!

From the current point of view, I am afraid that the war will not end in a short time, and if we cannot solve the financial problems, we will be bankrupt soon!" As soon as the Minister of War finished his words, the Minister of Finance poured a pot of cold water on Gergios I!

The Minister of Finance was only mentioning the expenditure, not the revenue. It is clear to everyone that to raise funds, the Greek government has long since introduced a war tax, all other tax rates have increased significantly, and government revenues have actually increased!

But the debts were too much. The international loans reached 700 million Drachmas (about 28 million pounds)! In addition, there are a bunch of bonds and other messy debts of at least 500 million Drachmas!

All of the above are owed by the central government of Greece, and local authorities owe not a few!

Yet how much is the Greek government's revenue? An absolutely unbelievable figure - less than 110 million Drachmas!

Even at a 5% interest rate, the annual interest will support more than half of the revenue! It is why the Greek government went bankrupt after losing the Greek-Turkish war!

No matter how the war, the debt still has to be paid! In the 19th century, the Great Powers could not eat anything. Even if the Greeks declared bankruptcy, the debt should repay the debt can not be less!

In any case, now Gergios I is terrified to play bankruptcy!

If not, the Great Powers will take over the finances and simply abolish the army and navy. How will the war be fought then?

Gergios I looked at the crowd with a bitter smile and said, "What else can we do? Tell us all! No matter how much it costs, let's get through this hurdle in front of us first!"

Tax increase? Not this one. The private sector can't afford it now!

A loan? Who is willing to lend now? The Greek government's revenues are so bad that even if it wins the war, it can't afford to pay off such a huge debt, and the bottom line is that it can't take out a mortgage that would make people happy!

Bonds? Are not selling it, twenty percent interest, no one wants!

...

One thought came to mind and was dismissed!

These are the trouble of the previous few terms, the ability to raise money to use all the tricks, tariffs, minerals, rights of way, all kinds of financial taxes, as long as you can mortgage, and nearly all mortgages out!

It includes the government buildings now used by the government. All mortgaged to the capitalists. The Greek government can now be said to be really poor!

Seeing the silence of the crowd, Gergios I's face gloomy down. The Prime Minister knew that there was no way to hide. He takes the initiative to come forward. It is better than being pointed out!

"Alas!"

The Prime Minister sighed, then said: "From the current situation, we can only use the reserves of gold for emergencies in the short term! The other is to end the war as soon as possible. This aspect depends on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs!

Our army is not as strong as we thought!

The only way to win this war is to pin your hopes on your allies!

What we have to do now is to push Bulgaria and Montenegro to join the war as soon as possible through diplomatic means. We can make concessions in terms of the splitting of the spoils!"

Gergios I nodded and was about to say something when he suddenly realized that the Prime Minister had trapped him!

On the surface, it seems to suggest something, but it essentially says nothing!

There is no solution to the fiscal crisis! People have been concerned about the consequences of using reserve gold, which is already drying up. The big deal is the collapse of the Drachma, which has become second in terms of danger after losing the war!

End the war as soon as possible? Who wouldn't want to? It's obvious now that the Greek army can't beat the Ottomans, and even if allies join in, the victory is uncertain! If possible, everyone would instead, the war did not happen!

Diplomacy? Hell, didn't it just fail? Concede on the spoils of war? To that extent?

Gergios I, who had been a king for many years at least, looked dissatisfied for a moment and continued to ask: "Then, Prime Minister, what concessions do you think we can make? What is the bottom line?"

The Prime Minister, who thought he had dodged a bullet, now has a bitter face as if everyone owes him money!

He gulped and said, "This ~ ~, I think ~ ~ we have a wrong estimate of the strength of the Ottoman Empire this time. If we want to reach the target set, I'm afraid it will not work!

Instead of that, why not promise Bulgaria what we can't get our hands-on in exchange for them entering the war earlier and reducing our losses!"

Gergios I's worst fears still happened, even the Prime Minister has lost confidence in this war, others can imagine the thoughts in their minds!

What about the soldiers and officers at the front? Do they still have hope for victory in this war?

Then there is Bulgaria and Montenegro. If they also have no hope for the war, does that mean they will tear up the pact?

So what was Greece to do in this war? How to end the war with dignity? Where should the future of Greece go?

The crowd didn't know what Gergios I was thinking, but they were interested in the Prime Minister's proposal to drag the allies down first, no matter what!

It is better for the three countries to face the Ottoman Empire together than for Greece to face it alone! Even if they lost the war, there would be someone to take the blame, which is better than Greece's bad luck!

The Minister of War immediately echoed the words about the problems at the front. No one else is clear. Does he not know?

Prince Konstantnos's telegrams for help were called a dozen times a day; the Greek army in the region of Ioannina did not ask for reinforcements, but the situation was worse. Supplies were not available!

Although they can collect food locally, weapons and ammunition cannot be used and are totally dependent on the rear supply! If you don't move, it is fine. Once you move, if you fight a big battle with the Ottomans, the guns in your hands may become sticks on the ground!

Now the soldiers have only seventy rounds of ammunition per capita. It sounds good, but when you fight a battle, you will find that there is really not enough!

However, the logistical supply line was not so secure because the time was too short, the Greek army had not had time to clean up the place, and there were remote areas where the Ottoman government was still intact!

If the Ottoman Empire hadn't really been rotten, maybe the Greek army on the Ioannina front would have been completely cut off from logistical supply lines!

Of course, it also has something to do with the poor logistics of the Greeks. Even if there is no obstruction, the same can not guarantee logistical supplies! Who told the Ottoman Empire not to pay attention to the access to this area?

So far, the war has been almost a week, and most front-line troops in the war can not receive a supply of enough!

Now the Greek army on the Epirus front, with more than 100,000 people, was pressured by 40,000 to 50,000 Ottoman troops, not that they could not beat the enemy, it was too limited weapons in hand, and do not dare to fight it!

Unless the enemy can be destroyed or crippled at once, the war continues, and the Greek army will have to take the bayonet stick!

...

Just when the Greek government was worried about the war, there was a change on the front line!

Epirus region is fine, no matter what, the Greek army had so many numbers to defend on the ground, the Ottoman army did not have enough troops, and did not dare to attack in full!

The problem was in the Trikala city defense line. The Ottoman garrison in the Rapsani region rushed to reinforce! Although only a few thousand men, but enough to change war by appearing in a specific place!

Ethem Pasha had enough troops in hand to directly order the two incoming regiments to attack Karditsa and threaten the rear of Prince Konstantnos's army!

The commander of the reinforcements, Captain Gurbey Pasha, was a rare young and strong member of the Ottoman army, typically a newborn cow who was not afraid of the tiger!

He knew that with just two regiments in his hands, it would be a fool's errand to capture Karditsa, a key defense of the Greek army, under normal circumstances!

And the fact that he was given orders by General Ethem Pasha just to attack and not to capture Karditsa speaks volumes!

Captain Gurbey Pasha did something that caught the world's attention. He went directly to the rear of Karditsa, alone, and sabotaged it!

On April 25, 1897, at noon, a regiment under Captain Gurbey Pasha had an unlikely encounter with a logistics convoy of the Greek army outside Karditsa.

There is no doubt that on the enemy's side, of course, it was fucked! There was heavy fighting between the two sides, and when the garrison of Karditsa heard the news, they immediately organized infantry to rush to the battlefield to reinforce them.

It is a pity that the logistic transport was the worst of the lot in the Greek army. An army of more than 300 men, together with a group of folk, made up a pair of thousands of men all the time.

Even with their heroic performance, the battle against the more numerous Ottoman regulars ended in defeat after half an hour of fighting!

When reinforcements arrived, only a trail of bodies was left behind, and the supplies they could carry away were taken away by the Ottomans, and the few bombs they could not carry away were gone!

To cause trouble for the Greeks, Captain Gurbey Pasha also came up with the trick of giving each prisoner a bullet, don't get me wrong, he didn't slaughter the prisoners!

The bullets were in the legs. They just turned the captives into wounded and left them where they were! Of course, those who had resisted weren't among them and were sent to God!

It was just the beginning. The next time, with the Ottoman army doing what it did, in just two or three days, Prince Konstantnos reaped four or five thousand wounded, plus the logistical supply line collapsed!

In the 19th century, when medicine was scarce, being wounded by a bullet was not a simple matter! Even in the leg, many people would face a ruthless choice: whether to amputate the leg to save their lives; or choose to gamble their lives on whether the wound would become infected!

Don't expect the wound to be just a scratch. The Ottoman Empire and the Greeks have been feuding for more than a day or two!

The bullets were undoubtedly hitting the bones, and they didn't come in time to receive treatment. In fact, Prince Konstantnos harvested a group of seriously wounded men who could have died at any time!

Looking at the wailing wounded, Prince Konstantnos, even with his good restraint, could not help but curse angrily: "Fuck off! These beasts are worse than animals! How can they do this? God will not spare them, this group of damned shit will definitely go to hell! ..."

Not only him, but all the Greeks present were on the same page. Captain Gurbey Pasha's approach had broken through their bottom line and completely enraged the Greeks.

Anger is the greatest enemy of mankind. It affects his rational judgment!

In order to take revenge and to open up supply lines, Prince Konstantnos gritted his teeth and pulled a division of reinforcements from the front line to surround the lone army of Captain Gurbey Pasha!

There was a large forest over ten miles away from the city of Karditsa. The woods are the camp of the Ottoman army of Gurbey Pasha, and the reason for choosing this place is that it is easy to defend and run away!

The Greeks would be surprised if they didn't retaliate after such a big deal. Of course, if the Greeks really pull troops from the front, with the intention of Gurbey Pasha, his task is to give the Greeks trouble!

The Greek army was already at a disadvantage in terms of strength. Once again pulled, the defense line will inevitably be flawed, which created a chance for the Ottoman army at the front!

It does not matter if Prince Konstantnos can be calm and continue to do stop-and-go business. Anyway, as long as the logistical supply lines are cut, they will finish the Greek army on the front line sooner or later!

As for whether the Greeks would take a detour, Gurbey Pasha was not worried at all! The Greek commanders on the front line will probably cry if they take a detour, which will no doubt lengthen the supply line and increase the distance by several hundred miles!

Because they were running out of ammunition, Ethem Pasha did not fight them with superior strength but instead fought a war of attrition, grinding with the Greek army little by little to consume their ammunition!

In just a few days, Prince Konstantnos's hands of material reserves once again reduced under the current level of consumption. If they can not quickly open the supply line, half a month later, he will face running out of ammunition!

It was a foreign plot, and the Greeks were forced to follow the Ottomans' plan.

From the moment Prince Konstantnos drew troops from the front, the fate of the Greek army was locked in place!

The change in the Greek lines could not be concealed from the Ottomans, and General Ethem Pasha knew that the long-awaited chance to fight had finally come when he determined that the Greeks were less than one division in strength!

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