Montenegro, Summer 1871
The first guns thundered in April.
Reports from the north arrived like the beat of a war drum — the Russian legions had crossed the Danube under the cover of darkness, their banners unfurled once more against the Crescent.
In their wake came the Romanians, striking from the Carpathians, while the Bulgarians, long chafing under Ottoman rule, rose in revolt across the plains of Thrace.
The Tsar's proclamations spoke of liberation, of Christian brotherhood, of vengeance for centuries of humiliation.
But for Elias, it was all noise — useful, necessary noise.
The unification of the balkans indeed could be done under the guise of religious unity, or even common slavic ancestory, but it didnt mean this unification needed to be done under the tsar's banner.
Even if the balkans was freed from this war, Montenegro would not fall under any alliance, they would play the neutral middle ground until the first world war, but whether the world powder keg would wait till 1912 to erupts once more, was for only the fortune tellers of the world to know.
Elias 'watched' the war happen day by day from his command center in the mountains, the communications center a flurry of activity as cables were intercepted and decoded day and night to track all positions on the map in the war room.
Every battle, every troop movement, every Ottoman counterattack was logged, cross-checked, and plotted.
In the north, the Russians main force fought savagely at Plevna and Silistra, battering their heads against entrenched Ottoman positions, a repeat of the previous war.
To the east, the Bulgarians' uprising was spreading like wildfire — causing chaos among the Ottoman army whose supply lines evaporated like water in the high noon sun.
And in the west, Serbia had declared its war of independence, its small army pushing across the Morava Valley with surprising zeal, all the while Austria-Hungary watched on hungrily wishing they could get involved but fearing possible invasion by the victorious German Confederation still celebrating their lighting win against the French Empire, which now became the French Republic once more.
The whole of the Balkans had begun to burn.
But Elias?
He waited.
His formidable army did not march with the Prince's national forces instead they maintained security at home, preventing bandit forces from rising up in the absence of the national armed forces.
Fifty thousand men, waiting for the call to strike.
Every one of them trained, equipped, and conditioned by the system to perfection.
They drilled in silence, their movements so precise they seemed mechanical — a display of discipline that would make visiting diplomats pale.
Elias observed them from the balcony, arms crossed behind his back.
Rex stood beside him, silent as ever, though the old commander's eyes burned with the hunger of a predator waiting to be unleashed.
Rex a veteran of the American civil war, was Elias's most senior commander at the moment, and he was simply waiting for the word from his lord to commence the operation.
Recent reports had indicated the Ottomans had already thrown everything they had into the fight, a primary force going north to meet the coalition forces of Russian, and Romanian forces, dealing with the Bulgarian forces along the way.
Meanwhile local garrisons across the land were linking up to deal with the various uprisings they were seeing across numerous provinces.
Elias knew the time was almost right.
The Prince of Montenegro had avoided the main battlegrounds for safer fights leading his few thousand men into Serbia to assist with their independance uprising.
But unknown to the prince, he had doube-agents working in his midst.
For decades since coming back to this time, Elias had been inserting system generated soldiers into the Montenegro army.
And by now after twenty years, a good portion of the princes army was not even his own.
Sure they obeyed his commands but that was only until their true master gave an order himself.
Even the battlefield high command were Elias's.
The reason was simple.
First to take over the national army from within, while at the same time keeping his forces close to the Prince, since he was eager for accomplishments ones that could not be denied by the other monarchs or Europe, accomplishments that would allow him to rise up from his current station to stand on their level as a fellow monarch of a european nation.
Sadly for Nikola he would not be Montenegro's first king.
Elias had already long planned for the man to pass heroicly in this fight, with this son Peter had been groomed for that honor, thanks to Elias's spies, while a 'queen' had been selected from amonst the spies as she was willing to take on the task of controlling her future husband all while making sure Elias retained absolute control over the nation.
Since his army was not participating yet in the war, the honor of war merit thus far fell to his navy.
The frigates and corvettes roamed the mediterranean as pirates.
Acting in force to raid Ottoman shipping, while also striking hard blows against their naval vessels.
This was to secure additional wealth for their emperor.
The ships themselves when possible were captured by the marines, but otherwise shot, gunpowder and even cannons were claimed before vessels were scuttled, the looted war good being smelted down in the ore refinery to cash in on credits.
~
Below decks, stokers sweated at the furnaces while engineers checked the new breech-loading cannons — weapons that could fire twice the range of any Ottoman gun afloat, artillery to replace canons mounted onto turrets on deck of the ships.
Once the time came to raise the flag and act as the offical navy of Montenegro.
The first blow would fall on Durrës, the ancient port city that guarded the entrance to Albania.
Once it fell, the Montenegrin army would pour through, from the north, while also landing via the navy, sweeping along the coast toward greece before turning face and marching east through north Macedonia.
A sea invasion paired with a land advance — the kind of coordination that no Balkan state had ever attempted thus far.
Elias had no interest in half-measures.
When his army marched, captured war supplies would be funneled home to be smelted down.
While at the same time new armies would be raised from his bases across Montenegro before shipping out company at a time to join and reinforce the fronts.
From anyone watching outside the war, it would appear that Montenegro was committing fully to the war, with every able body man taking up arms in the crusade.
A risk yes, but if they pulled it off, the captured territory would be entitled to be theirs, but the new question would be if they could hold it.
Even before his war started Spies acting as diplomats had already arrived in Greece to gauge the crowned republic's view on the war itself, and possible designs about joining a Balkan alliance... against the ottomans, perhaps more.
The actual discussion was to gauge how willing Greece was to cooperate, only to learn the nation was poor, and due to fears about Britains involvement into the war once more had them choosing to be sidelined.
Leaving them in a state with their army not even being called up for service.