With contested seas and naval blockades across Montenegro’s borders, landing troops and supplies in the Balkans was a difficult process for the allies. A process which only became more difficult with the introduction of Greece into the war on behalf of the Imperial Powers.
Montenegro and its 50,000 men found themselves quickly encircled by the German forces Bruno split off from his main army that equally were greater than ten times the number of defenders. At most, the Allies managed to land a division worth of their soldiers in the region, and that was combined across its many nations.
This division was currently trying their best to gain ground in Greece, where the Hellenic Army was rather incredibly holding its ground for the most part. Outnumbered, and fighting on two fronts, the Serbians and Greeks were in a similar position.
The difference was, the Imperial Powers advancing from the north of Serbia consisted of the top three largest, most well trained, and most technologically advanced armies in the world. While Greece was combating less than 30,000 men of actual modern capabilities in their north, with the remaining being conscripts thrust in to battle with limited training and obsolete equipment.
Perhaps the Greeks could have been pressured into splitting their forces had Bulgaria entered the war, but currently they were watching and waiting. Frankly speaking, their only reason for joining the war was to gain territory contested with the Greeks.
But they would only have such acquisitions should the Allies win. And as 1914 came to a close, the Allies were the very clear losers from any perspective other than their own. Bulgaria had chosen not to enter the war.
As a result, the Greeks only had one border to defend, and that was their border with Serbia as neutral Albania blocked a Montenegrin disruption in the northwest, and Thrace was currently under Bulgarian possession.
Meaning that other than by sending troops into Montenegro to aid Serbia, the Ottoman Empire, no matter how close they were to their Balkan ally, had no means of directly advancing into Greece without first dragging the Bulgarians into the conflict.
Not to mention that in this life, it was no exaggeration to say that the Ottomans had replaced the Austro-Hungarians as the second worst army in the world, just behind the Italians. After all, most of the issues plaguing the Austro-Hungarian Army in Bruno’s past life had been solved to a sufficient enough degree thanks to his input during this new timeline.
Because of this, the British and French officers commanding the brigades that were sent to the Balkans were now forced to have a serious and grim conversation about the current reality they were facing together.
The Allied Expeditionary Force sent to the Balkans were led by a British Brigadier General, the man was not in the best of moods after recent events, and he naturally gave voice to these grievances with an inflection in his tone that hinted he was struggling to keep things together.
“I have to say, the surrender of the Serbian Provisional Army sent to buy us time against the Imperial Powers in the North was not exactly an expected occurrence… And now we sit here in south, with our flanks entirely exposed to an enemy which is quickly advancing upon our position entirely uncontested.
Even worse, any resistance we would have otherwise expected from the local populace has been completely nullified by the Serbian traitor’s words which the Germans have abused every form of medium they can to get them to the masses!
I hate to admit it, but things are not looking good for us, we either end up trapped between two armies and get obliterated in the process, or we find a way to jump ship and get out of this mess we have found ourselves in…”
Neither the French nor Ottoman commander looked like they had any better suggestions as they silently eyed each other before sighing and shaking their heads in an act of complete and utter defeat. Nobody really knew what they could do.
Fleeing wasn’t exactly an option. Serbia had no coastline, and by now any escape route through Montenegro had been thoroughly cut off. Not only by the Imperial Powers naval blockade of its shorelines, but also because the Imperial Army Group had by now cut off any access to Montenegro’s borders through their occupation of Serbia.
Could they rally their forces together and make a desperate attempt to break through German-occupied territory? Of course, but even if they managed to get into Montenegro, what then? By the time they even reached the coast, the Germans would have forced the Montenegrin army to capitulate.
The other option was to open discussions with Albania and Bulgaria for military access so they could peacefully flee to Ottoman lands. Albania, however, was in a complete and total state of anarchy as various groups waged war for power after its German prince fled the country at the start of the war.
There was no single entity to negotiate military access with that would be universally recognized across the lawless nation. So then, Bulgaria was the logical option, except for the fact that Bulgaria had more or less made a statement of dedication to “total neutrality” after Greece’s entry into the war.
This total neutrality was, of course, contingent on the Imperial Powers continuing on their inevitable route to victory. But, in the meantime, it meant they were not taking sides, and that meant there was not much to discuss regarding allowing them to flee through Bulgarian borders into Ottoman territory.
Because by doing so Bulgaria risked provoking the Imperial Powers, and that was not something they were willing to do even if it meant currying favor with the Allies, who as far as Bulgaria was concerned was about half a year away from total defeat.
No… after the British General spoke, even he understood the foolishness of his words, abandon ship? That simply wasn’t a practical solution, no matter how much they tried to think of one. Realistically, they had three options, double down on their efforts to advance into Greece and force the minor power to surrender before their allies could catch up.
Fight until the last man, and in doing so, condemn themselves and their men to meaningless deaths. Or surrender like the Northern half of the Serbian Provisional Army had done. Either way, the Serbian commander in charge of the forced sent to intercept Bruno had doomed the Balkans to a complete and utter defeat.
One that would allow between one and two million men across three nations to be sent to other theaters of war, and allow the entirety of the Hellenic Army and Navy to focus its forces on capturing disputed territory with the Ottoman Empire.
The war had just shifted even further into the favor of the Imperial Powers, and nobody but Bruno, and the other military leadership in the Balkans, currently understood this fact.