In the 40s, the German Empire had a population of more than 100 million, and its economic scale and industrial output were more than three times that of other European countries combined, and the level of science and technology, especially the advantages of military science and technology, had reached the point where all the great powers looked up to it, and the million standing army had the most sophisticated weapon system and the most complete logistics supply in the world, and its powerful air force had the ability to destroy everything, and the torrent of steel on the ground was enough to break through any line of defense...... As a result, after the intervention of Germany, Austria-Hungary had to terminate the purges in the Duchy of Bukovina ahead of schedule and withdraw their elite troops from the region, but the trials that had already taken effect were not reversed, countless wrongful convictions were settled, and thousands of Romanian families were plunged into deep grief and grief. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Surprisingly, both the central government of Austria-Hungary and the officials of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Duchy of Bukovina turned a blind eye to this unnatural loss of population, perhaps in their eyes, as long as there was no loss of territory in the empire, there was no harm in reducing the number of minorities living there, and it would optimize the racial structure of the empire and improve the overall quality of the citizens of the empire.

The so-called purge of the Romanians in the empire made Crown Prince Otto internationally known, and of course, the foreign press gave him the titles "heir to the empire with a leather whip", "bloodthirsty guards of the Habsburgs", and derogatory connotations such as "tyrant" and "brutal", and the concept of racial persecution began to gain more and more attention and entered the deliberations of the League of Nations, although the Council of the League of Nations ultimately did not make an official ruling on the actions of Austria-Hungary in the Duchy of Bukovina. But the incident still had a significant impact on the international reputation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Habsburgs.

However, for the Austro-Hungarian leadership, and especially for Crown Prince Otto himself, the purges in the Duchy of Bukovina had achieved their intended purpose and should have been seen as a political victory. In the following period, most of the nationalist movements in the empire died down, especially in the territory of the old Serbian kingdom occupied by Austria-Hungary, and rumors circulated among the Slavs that the Austrian army was about to carry out a brutal purge against them.

As speculated, the purges in the Duchy of Bukovina were not Otto's only plan, and by May 1944 the Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht had once again begun a massive redeployment, with more than 150,000 soldiers transferred to South Serbia. However, the large-scale purge of the Serbs did not take place, and most of the Austro-Hungarian troops were stationed near the Albanian border, after which the Albanian government received an ultimatum from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which demanded that the ports of Durres and Vlora be leased indefinitely for the use of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the name of maintaining stability in the Adriatic Sea.

During World War I, the Austro-Hungarian army, with the support of the Germans, forcibly occupied part of Albanian territory, including these ports, to prevent the wavering Italians from defecting to the Entente. After the war, Austria-Hungary wanted to continue to garrison Albanian ports so that the Austro-Hungarian navy could freely enter and leave the Adriatic Sea, but this was not possible due to the strong protest of the Italians. During World War II, the Austro-Hungarian Empire once again invaded Albania and forcibly occupied a small part of northwestern Greece, which brought them close to meeting the Italians in the same camp. After the end of the war, Austria-Hungary was once again forced to withdraw its troops from the occupied areas of southern Europe under international pressure, which made its navy continue to be pinned down by Italy in the Adriatic region and unable to expand its sphere of influence to the northern shores of the Mediterranean, which in turn affected the enthusiasm of the imperial top and the public to develop the navy.

Despite the Austro-Hungarian army's overwhelming military force, after receiving assurances from the Italian side, the Albanian king Sogu I categorically rejected Vienna's unreasonable demands and mobilized his army-for-tat, the dictator who had served in the Austro-Hungarian army, first established a bourgeois regime, and then staged a coup d'état to establish himself as the monarch, could never have imagined that Austria-Hungary would deliberately cultivate power in the Albanian army in order to seize several Albanian ports. Just four days after Sogu I rejected the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum, the Albanian general Ordasi, who had long been secretly supported by Austria-Hungary, staged a military coup d'état, and the coup army quickly took control of the capital Tirana, they captured the fleeing Sogu I and hanged him......

Without waiting for the situation in the whole of Albania to be completely stabilized, Austria-Hungary could not wait to come to collect the "return on investment", and the Austro-Hungarian Navy, which had been prepared for a long time, sent half of its main fleet to Albanian waters, and more than 6,000 marines forcibly landed in the port of Durres, and the local defenders did not resist after receiving orders from Ordasi. On the same day, General Ordasi, on behalf of the Albanian Provisional Government, signed an agreement with Austria-Hungary to lease the ports of Durrës and Vlora to Austria-Hungary at a cost of 4 million Imperial kroner per year.

Despite the uproar caused by the signing of the Lend-Lease Agreement in Albania and the immediate backlash from the Italian side, 12,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers landed at the port of Vlora the following day. The Austro-Hungarian ships escorting the landing force encountered the Italian fleet that had come to intervene outside the harbor, and the two sides were tense and almost caused a war, and the Austro-Hungarian troops who landed in the port were also greeted by the local people, and more than a dozen soldiers were injured by stones or vases thrown from the street. Although the process was somewhat dramatic, it is important that the Ossi Empire took over this important port near the Adriatic Estuary, which was used as an outpost for the Austro-Hungarian navy to gain more covert and safe access to the Adriatic Sea.

In Vienna and in Austria in the narrow sense of the word, the high-ranking and popular people praised Crown Prince Otto for the forcible lease of Albanian ports as an improvement in the strategic position of the empire, but in other parts of the empire, especially in Hungary and Bohemia, where there was little interest in the struggle for sea power, the crown prince's actions were completely unpopular, and government officials, army generals, and ordinary people in the streets were worried about such risky speculation. As they feared, the resulting crisis did not end with the capture of the two ports by the Austro-Hungarian army, but intensified. The troops loyal to Sogu I were in eastern and southern Albania for fear of liquidation, and Ordasi immediately sent troops to suppress them, but the commander of the garrison in the north was instigated by the Italians to hold back, while the rebels in the south were soon provided with Italian funds and weapons to enter the country through Greece, and they defeated Ordasi's forces in succession at Pelat and Grahms, and took advantage of the situation to approach the capital Tirana.

In order to avoid the collapse of Ordasi's provisional regime and the large amount of investment in the early stage was in vain, the Austro-Hungarian crown prince concocted a play to send troops to quell the rebellion at the request of friendly countries, and more than 30,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers went to Tirana via Durrës and directly intervened in the Albanian civil war. With the help of the well-equipped Austro-Hungarian army, Ordasi thwarted the rebels' plot to seize the capital in one fell swoop, and quickly recaptured the two central provinces, but the Austro-Hungarian army that entered the war failed to help him completely eliminate the hidden danger, on the one hand, the Austro-Hungarian army consumed a lot in the battle of Tirana, and the ammunition supply could not keep up, on the other hand, the Hungarian government sang a "counter-tune" in the rear, and they accused the crown prince Otto of leading his army into the war as a prelude - when the Imperial Diet authorized him, the Austro-Hungarian army had been fighting in Tirana for several days, Such unconstitutional acts must be duly punished.

In order to maintain the stability of the empire, Austrian Emperor Karl I had to remove Crown Prince Otto from the post of commander and replace the cautious General Stumpf with the command of the Southern Task Force, and the Austrian general's first order after his arrival was that all Austro-Hungarian troops entering Albania were only responsible for defending the ports of Durrës and Vlora, and assisting the Albanian government forces in defending the capital Tirana, and the rest of the military operations in the region were not involved. Losing the air and ground support of the Austro-Hungarian army, Ordasi's troops were soon beaten by the rebels and could not take care of themselves, and since then, the two sides of the Albanian civil war have relied on the Austro-Hungarian Empire to "supply oxygen" on the one hand, and Italy to "transfuse" on the other.

Albania was plunged into endless wars, but the perpetrators were not born because they were removed from office. Back in Vienna, Crown Prince Otto received praise from all walks of life and led his staff team to devise a new strategy of warfare - the devastating victory at Tirana had given him an unprecedented interest in the war and he considered himself another military genius of the European royal family. In view of the fact that Austria-Hungary played the role of soy sauce during World War II and had not experienced the cruel test of war for more than 20 years, he invited the diplomatic attachés of Germany and Japan in Austria-Hungary to help, but the news leaked out before the battle plan for Greece was submitted to the Austrian emperor for review, and the outside world naturally thought that Austria-Hungary was ready to use force against Greece, so as to solve the geopolitical defects that had plagued Austria-Hungary for nearly a century, and take an important step in the transformation from a regional naval power to an intercontinental naval power.

As soon as the news broke, the Kingdom of Italy responded with the strongest possible military mobilization throughout the country.

(End of chapter)