When news of another coup d'état in the Ottoman Empire arrived, Natsuki and his family were enjoying a New Year's hot spring trip in Baden-Baden, Germany. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoPrior to this, the Ottoman government had just signed an armistice with Bulgaria and Serbia, and the dawn of peace had returned to Europe, and the coup d'état by the Young Turks had once again cast a cloud over the Balkans.

(The United Progressive Council, headed by the Young Turks, had been in power since the 1909 revolution, and in July 1912, the pro-British Freedom and Reconciliation Party staged a coup d'état to oust the Young Turks from power as the Ottoman army suffered successive defeats in the Italian-Turkish War.) In January 1913, Enver, an important leader of the Young Turks, returned to Constantinople, and he led his supporters to storm the council chamber and kill the military minister Nazim Pasha on the spot, forcing the resignation of the Kamil Pasha government and restoring the power of the Young Turks)

A few days later, the "Turkish hero" Enver, who had successfully led the coup, secretly arrived in Baden-Baden and was personally received by Kaiser Wilhelm II. During its reign from 1909 to 1912, the Young Turks maintained close ties with Germany and enjoyed political support from Germany and Austria-Hungary during the Italo-Turkish War and the First Balkan War. Enver, who rose to prominence after the coup d'état, served as military attache in Germany from 1909 to 1911, and was impressed by the efficiency and iron discipline of the Germans, so he advocated political and diplomatic closer to Germany and the establishment of a new German-style army in Turkey.

Although he did not participate in the secret talks between Enville and Kaiser Wilhelm II, Natsuki quickly learned from Crown Prince Wilhelm that the Ottoman Empire would launch a counteroffensive against the four Balkan countries with the political and military support of Germany, and that in order to help the Turkish army win the victory, Germany would urgently provide a large number of weapons and ammunition, and at the same time send a group of senior officers. They will still be nominally military advisers, but unlike in the past, they will be directly involved in the military command of the Turkish army.

Soon after, Wilhelm II selected one of the generals who had volunteered to be the head of this special advisory team: Otto Liman von Saunders, who would later dominate the Near East and West Asian fronts, and inflict great hardships on the Allied armies.

Throughout the history of the First World War, Enver and General von Sanders were important figures in the Allied Front. The former is a controversial figure with outstanding merits, both for the blood of the Armenian massacre and for the merits of the Battle of Gallipoli, who is regarded by the Turks as a national hero and is still respected by the people decades later (a state funeral was held when the body was brought back to Turkey); The latter was very successful in the military field, not only helping to modernize the backward Ottoman army, but also becoming the de facto commander of the German-Turkish army during World War I, defeating the Allied forces at Gallipoli, and later defending the Allied army on the Palestinian front, enjoying a good reputation in both Germany and Turkey, as well as with his opponents.

Unfortunately, as a proud member of the navy, Natsuki had little contact with Enville and General von Saunders, and Fatih Pasha also came to Germany shortly after the signing of the German-Turkish Secret Treaty. After three major coups (revolutions), the son of the former Sultan not only did not suffer bad luck, but rose through the ranks to become the chief of naval staff of the new government - in Natsuki's opinion, his military ability is not as good as that of an ordinary Kiel Naval Academy graduate!

It is not terrible for people to be talentless, but it is terrible to have no self-knowledge. Fatih knew his own pounds, and he also knew that most of the senior generals and officers of the Ottoman Navy were mediocre talents who relied on their family background and boasted of their horses. With the current situation of the Ottoman Navy, backward equipment and technology are not the most fatal constraints, officers cannot command, sailors do not know how to operate, everyone wastes time, courage tends to zero, and the negative factors of people are the key problems that lead to the decline and degeneration of the Ottoman Navy!

To make a difference in the war against the Balkan states, the Ottoman Navy first needed a group of commanders with modern military literacy.

During the Italian-Turkish War, Natsuki had a win-win cooperation with Fatih, and this time he could also use the Balkan war to train talents, but the Ottoman Empire had earlier handed over the order for dreadnoughts to the British Vickers shipyard, which made Natsuki unhappy. Since his old friend was already at the top of the Ottoman Navy, and the new member of the shipbuilding alliance, the Bremen Wiesel shipyard, had not yet found a suitable order for the shipyard capable of building large warships, he naturally demanded that the second Ottoman Empire's dreadnought be ordered from Germany.

In the Ottoman Navy, the influence of British advisers and instructors was as dominant as that of German advisers and instructors in the Ottoman Army, and during the six months that the Freedom and Pacifiers were in power, British influence increased further, and the coup d'état of the Young Turks changed this situation, and the new naval secretary and fleet commander were either pro-German or nationalists with no clear inclinations. Anyway, the first dreadnought ordered from Britain only paid a deposit of 800,000 pounds, and it is unknown whether the follow-up payment can be raised, and the continuation of the second dreadnought to Britain was only an intentional decision of the previous Ottoman government, and no binding treaty was signed.

After making this commitment a clause of the secret treaty between the two countries, Natsuki reported to Tirpitz and Wilhelm II his plan to send a naval advisory group of staff officers, ship officers, and technical non-commissioned officers to the Ottoman Navy, and to assist the Ottoman Navy with a number of "Lightning" high-speed torpedo boats that had been included in the refitting plan to help it fight the Greek fleet in the Balkan War, which was approved by the Secretary of State of the Navy and the Kaiser.

After this, Natsuki wrote to his friends, mobilized them to participate in the foreign aid operation, and recommended von Kaganak, a former classmate of the German Navy General Staff, who was quite accomplished in the field of tactical theory, but lacked the test of actual combat contingency to meet the test. Despite being wary of going to Turkey, von Kaganak accepted a six-month assignment as a special military adviser to Fatih Pasha out of his new appointment to Natsuki.

Thanks to the Berlin-Constantinople two-way railway line, German military aid soon arrived in Turkey. After weeks of military preparations, the new Ottoman government, full of ambition, refused to honour the terms of the armistice that had been agreed upon, and the Balkans were once again in turmoil.

With the help of the German military advisory group, the Ottoman army formulated a detailed battle plan before the war, concentrated the reinforcements requisitioned from all over the country near the capital, and first started with the Bulgarian army that threatened Constantinople, launched a counteroffensive with superior forces and artillery fire, and maintained a defensive position in the southern Balkans; The Ottoman Navy formed an artillery fleet of the Brandenburg-class battleships "Barbaros Haireddin" and "Turgitres", sailed out of the Dardanelles Strait under the cover of torpedo boats and submarines to shell the coastal areas occupied by the Bulgarian army, while the armored cruiser "Hamidih" under the command of Captain Rauf went deep into the Aegean Sea alone to attack and capture Greek supply ships.

In the first two weeks, the Ottoman army won successive victories on the eastern front, forcing the Bulgarian army to retreat to the border at the outbreak of war, and the armored cruiser "Hamidih" sank three Greek ships in succession in the waters near the Halkidiki Peninsula in the northwestern Aegean Sea, and then moved to the eastern coast of Greece, attacking Greek freighters and fishing boats, and the sorties of the "Barbaros Sea Redding" and "Turgitres" also greatly alarmed the Balkan Alliance, although the Greek Navy claimed to have five battleships in service, However, two 2,000-ton coastal defense battleships built in the 60s of the 19th century, and three 4,800-ton old battleships built in the late 80s and early 90s of the 19th century, together could barely compete with the two Brandenburg-class battleships, and the Ottoman torpedo boat group that had severely damaged the Italian fleet in the Italian-Turkish War appeared with it, making the Greek Navy lose the courage to fight head-on. As a result, maritime transport in the Balkan Union tended to stagnation.

However, the replenishment of troops and equipment alone could not cure the stubborn ills of the old army, and it was often difficult to implement the guidance of the German military advisory group. Reinforced by Serbian troops, the Bulgarian army gradually stabilized the eastern front near Thrace, and several rounds of Ottoman attacks ended in failure, while at Shbakar in the southern Balkans, the Serbian-Mongolian Negoro forces forced the Ottoman army, which had been besieged for months, to surrender. Soon after, the Balkan coalition gathered heavy forces in Thrace, inflicted heavy losses on the Ottoman army in front of them with well-trained artillery units, and then launched a counteroffensive on all fronts. A few weeks later, the coalition captured Adrianople, an important stronghold of the Ottoman army, and re-approached Constantinople.

Seeing no hope of victory, the Ottoman government had no choice but to sue for peace again. By the end of May, the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan League signed the Treaty of London, officially ending the First Balkan War. The Ottoman Empire's territory in Europe, with the exception of Constantinople and a small plot of land near it, was ceded to the Balkan Allies. With such heavy losses, the Ottoman Empire was like a crumbling old tree, and few people thought that such a painful defeat would usher in a change in the feudal empire that had lasted for more than 500 years. The ruling Young Turks Party learned the hard way and decided to emulate Germany militarily in an all-round way, and the army was reorganized by the German military advisory group and equipped with German equipment, thus moving closer to Berlin politically and diplomatically.

With the signing of the formal agreement, although the Balkan countries have ceased to fight, the hidden danger of uneven distribution of spoils has been buried, and the contradictions between the interests of the major powers are still prominent, all of which have made the Balkan Peninsula increasingly become a veritable "powder keg". In addition, in the Balkan War, people experienced the power of all kinds of new weapons and new technologies, the firing range and rate of fire of artillery were greatly increased compared with the past, the machine guns showed no less lethality than artillery, and forced the army units to change to evacuation formations in the offensive, and aircraft were used to carry out bombing in addition to aerial reconnaissance, and the use of armored vehicles and radios and other military technical equipment is bringing about a tactical innovation. Those who can learn from this experience and anticipate the direction of the development of war technology will inevitably have a head start in the next war, while those who turn a deaf ear and rest on their laurels will pay a heavy price for their slow response.

(End of chapter)