Greece’s Roman Road
Chapter 128: key to war
Thessaly Legion, Front Command
The Thessaly Legion headquarters received the news immediately: The Marine Corps successfully captured the city of Thessaloniki on the 27th and night.
There was a relaxed and happy atmosphere in the conference room, because it meant that the most important step of Athena's plan had been completed.
"Now the whole war situation is very clear. The Ottoman Macedonian Legion's logistical supply transfer station has been taken care of by us." Chief of Staff of the Legion, Kanaris, said briskly.
The officers burst into laughter.
"Think about it, the more than 80,000 Ottoman Macedonian legions in front of us are eating horses and feeding ammunition, and the consumption every day is an astronomical figure."
"For such a legion, the logistics supply line was cut off by us, and the enemy was completely passive."
The main idea of the so-called Athena plan is to use the 40,000 Congolese colonial troops suddenly strengthened by the Greek army to disrupt the deployment of the enemy's army, and use this as an opportunity to find the enemy's flaws, and then use the enemy's flaws to lay the foundation for a complete defeat of the enemy. .
The Athena Project is such a surprisingly successful project.
Undoubtedly, there is a lot of risk involved in this plan.
What if the enemy did not act according to the general staff's expectations?
What would happen if the Marine Corps landed a large number of soldiers on the coast in such a short period of time and failed?
This is also the reason why the Chief of General Staff believes that Athena's plan is too risky.
Fortunately, so far, attacking the enemy's flaws - taking advantage of the emptiness of Thessaloniki's defenses, using the Marine Corps sneak attack, the Greek army has been successful, but the period after this is the most critical stage of victory. .
"The next period of time is the most critical" Constantine said in a serious tone.
"If the enemy's reinforcements take back Thessaloniki first, get through the supply line of the front-line army, then the morale will soar, successfully defeat us, or continue the war."
There is no doubt that once the enemy recaptures Thessaloniki and regains its strength, the best outcome for Greece is that the war will continue to stalemate. For Greece, a small country with few people, this can almost directly declare the war to fail.
Even though the Ottoman Empire's national strength was seriously declining, the skinny camels were larger than horses, with a vast territory and a population of tens of millions.
By contrast, Greece has a population of no more than two million and a territory of only 50,000 square kilometers.
Greece is not qualified to hold a stalemate with each other at all, and the size of the two countries is not on the same level.
A quick decision is the only option for Greece to win the war.
On the other hand, the Ottomans are different. As long as they continue, although they will suffer a certain amount of consumption and cause the domestic economy to deteriorate, it is still more cost-effective than losing the war.
There is a fundamental difference between big and small countries in terms of their ability to withstand war.
For a big country, if a war is lost once or twice, although it will be disheartened, its huge size can still allow it to support it and have a chance to turn over.
In a country like the Ottomans, since entering the 19th century, the decline of the Ottomans has been extremely obvious, and several wars have ended in failure.
Had it not been for the interference of other countries, the Ottoman Sultan would have been overthrown by Ali of Egypt.
At that time, Ali's army had even taken Nicaea.
Even so decadent, until the 20th century, the Ottomans remained one of the major powers in Europe.
This is not the case for a small country like Greece. A war directly determines the fate of the country.
There won't be any chance to turn around at all.
A war is lost and the cost is enormous.
The fate of the losers of military adventures is the constant military coups, economic turmoil, serious internal frictions in the country, and hardship for the people.
"It's still our Thessaly Legion. Before the enemy regained Thessaloniki, we defeated the face-to-face enemy - the Ottoman Macedonian Legion, and then quickly rushed to the aid of Thessaloniki and Epirus, and won a brilliant victory."
The atmosphere in the conference room became solemn.
In the course of the subsequent war, Thessaloniki will become the key to the war.
Osman regains Thessaloniki, then Osman will win.
The Greek army firmly held Thessaloniki, and after defeating the Ottoman army, which was stuck in supply woes, was able to end the war with a victory.
The fate of Thessaloniki determines the fate of the two countries.
This is a race against time.
There is no doubt that in order to win the war and regain the initiative on the battlefield, the Ottomans will draw troops from all over the country to attack Thessaloniki frantically in the next period of time.
Relying on 2,000 marines is far from enough to defend this important city.
After all, the Marine Corps is not a regular army. Their only heavy weapons are some mortars.
It is urgent to send reinforcements to support Thessaloniki.
"Commander of the first division, Major General Manugianasky," Constantine ordered.
Manu Giannasky immediately rose respectfully from his chair.
"Order your unit to go to Thessaloniki immediately and help the Marine Corps where it is," Constantine said solemnly.
The first division was the earliest established division in Greece, and most of the soldiers were elite, brave and good at fighting.
It's just that since the beginning of the frontier battle, it has been placed behind the front by Constantine as a strategic reserve.
This put Manu Giannaski, the first division commander, in an embarrassing situation, and he has always had opinions on this arrangement.
Now the 1st Division was finally given a combat mission.
It's just that Manujianaski felt a huge pressure in an instant.
Looking at the embarrassed Manugianaski, Constantine frowned and said, "Major General Manugianaski, don't you feel intimidated?"
The people in the conference room were somewhat considerate to Manugianaski: As the key to the victory of the war, Thessaloniki, the Ottomans will definitely send a large number of troops to besiege Thessaloniki.
Just relying on one division of Manugianaski, even if it was the first division of the Greek Army, with a strong combat capability~lightnovelpub.net~ was not enough to make up for the huge gap in numbers.
"Your Excellency the Legion Commander, if you want the 1st Division to stay in Thessaloniki for a longer time, you must supply us with more heavy equipment."
"Let's not say anything else, you have to allocate at least 90 Maxim heavy machine guns to us."
"There are also heavy artillery, the 105mm howitzer we purchased from the French, you should also add 20 to our first division."
The Ottoman Empire Army has a lot of heavy artillery with a caliber of more than 100 mm. Due to the limitations of the mountainous terrain in northern Greece, such heavy artillery is difficult to use.
However, the terrain of Thessaloniki is different, and it is surrounded by a plain. Such heavy artillery can be called a battlefield killer, not only with huge lethality, but also with a long range.
In order to quickly retake Thessaloniki, the Ottoman army must not be stingy with the use of heavy artillery in the offensive in Thessaloniki.
Relying only on the artillery regiment of the 1st Division, the 75mm rapid-fire field artillery equipped, both in terms of range and power, could hardly cope with the threat of the Ottoman army's large-caliber heavy artillery.
As for the Maxim heavy machine gun, from the perspective of defensive operations, it is indeed more suitable for defensive operations.
The Maxim heavy machine gun weighs 27 kilograms and is water-cooled. It is really not very useful in the offensive operations of the frontier battle. It is better to use it by the first division.
Constantine thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement with Manugianasky's request.
