Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 1241: WW1: Balkan Attack (1)

Vlorë

Danilo Jawanovich, the captain of the Austrian Navy stationed at Vlorë, upon learning about the movement of the Bharatiya Navy, heaved a sigh of relief. He might be a captain of the Austrian navy, but in reality, he only had around 20 ships under his command. Now, that might sound like a lot, but they were all modified merchant ships, not purpose-built warships, not machines of destruction. So, when he received the intelligence from his scouting vessel that the Bharatiyas had directed their fleet towards the Italian Federation, he couldn’t stop himself from internally celebrating.

He knew the Italian Federation was an ally, and he also knew that once Italy lost its coast, there would be no one to provide reinforcements and logistics support if the enemy attacked his own jurisdiction in the future. But still, that day was too far away, and if the Bharatiya Empire had attacked his jurisdiction instead of the Italian coast, his life would have been on the line. Compared to that, seeing an ally suffer was naturally more acceptable.

"Captain, we’ve got an urgent message sent through the fireworks."

Unfortunately, he couldn’t be happy for too long. Hearing the message, the smile disappeared from his face, his eyes became bloodshot, his face turned pale and bloodless, and his heartbeat began to rise rapidly.

"FU**"

In the meantime...

Italian coast

Over 150 merchant vessels, modified with small-calibre naval guns, were assembled in a hurry, and the four battleships the Italian Federation had built for the European Union were put into service prematurely, without even completing their seaworthiness trials.

Paolo Mancini, the admiral of the Italian Navy and a senior officer of the European Union, stood on the deck of the flagship and received confirmation that all the ships had been assembled and were ready to move under his command. But his face held a sombre expression. The messenger who came to deliver the message felt awkward at not receiving a response, so he simply offered a salute and left.

’It looks like the Admiral has no confidence in this battle at all,’ he thought, and he would be right.

Paolo didn’t have the confidence to take on the Bharatiya Navy. If possible, he would choose to avoid the battle at any cost, because unlike most sailors under his command, he had actually seen what going up against the Bharatiya Navy was like. The Mediterranean fleet and the Atlantic fleet that went against the Bharatiya Navy had almost completely collapsed, with hundreds of thousands of professionally trained sailors dead. He was one of the few senior officers who survived and made it back. It was due to this experience that he was made into a senior officer within the Italian Federation, and subsequently an admiral after further training.

Paolo let out a deep breath and finally decided to simply do his best. Thankfully, the military command wasn’t too brainless either; they did not order him to defeat the Bharatiya Navy, they simply asked him to entangle the navy until reinforcements arrived. This, he could do.

His contemplation was broken by a red firework that went up into the sky right at the horizon. Looking at it, his eyes sharpened, and his hands began to shake.

"Let’s get this over with," he muttered in a low voice and decisively walked into the command quarters.

First command, on the way to Tiranë 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

After several hours of travel, Vaibhav Krishnamurthy finally came across a fortress. His route to his target, Tiranë, was not a straight one. He had to go around a huge jungle, making his travel longer. This also put him in a constant state of unease. Due to his almost obsessive desire to keep the grain inventory at least above the 70% mark, he would purchase grain and necessities from the villages and towns his command passed through. But since he was travelling in a no man’s land, with no human settlement in sight for hundreds of kilometres, his restlessness flared up, making him slightly irritable.

Thankfully, he was aware of his own situation, so as a countermeasure, he had ordered his troops to hunt down the animals they came upon and use them as nutritional supplements for a few meals. This helped bring the quickly depleting inventory under control.

So, upon coming across a fortress that could potentially possess grain and other necessary supplies, instead of being wary, he became extremely excited.

"Use the siege cannons to quickly breach the fortress," he ordered.

Lavanga Sinha, who had once again come under Vaibhav Krishnamoorthi, resolutely nodded and led a small battle formation forward. One thing was clear: even if he was under Commander Vaibhav Krishnamurthy, it was no longer as a lieutenant general; instead, it was as a deputy commander, meaning that in the commander’s absence, he could take over his role and command the entire 600,000 troops.

Arriving at the fortress, he felt that something was odd because the enemy had far too little artillery. In his count alone, there were only around 20 to 25 artillery pieces, not even the usual 24-pounders or the 48-pounders. Instead, they looked like 12-pounder cannons.

Was this really the force of the Austrians at the front lines? He couldn’t help but question it.

He pointed at a subordinate and ordered, "Send someone to have them admit defeat and open the gates."

The subordinate left. A few minutes later, he came running back with a strange expression on his face.

"They rejected the offer, Your Excellency."

Lavanga’s eyebrows rose slightly, but then he simply shrugged and motioned for the cannons to fire.

"Boom."

"Boom."

The artillery hit the walls of the fortress, like missiles, the explosions sending soundwaves rippling through the air. The enemy also counterattacked, but the range of a 12-pounder was simply too short, so apart from making Lavanga Sinha feel a little guilty, because it looked like an adult bullying a small child, it had no other use. In the end, only an hour later, the wall was breached, and the army advanced.

But when Lavanga Sinha entered the fortress, he was shocked because the Austrians had run away. They had completely abandoned the fortress and had disappeared.

And not only that, several hours later, he received the message that the villages in the surroundings of the fortress had been completely ransacked, with no grain in the warehouses or in the villagers’ houses. Apart from what little was left for their own survival, everything had disappeared.

"**** **** it!"

Lavanga cursed.

"Inform the commander about this situation, also"

"Have those guys who ran away been apprehended yet?"

"Some of them have, sir, but unfortunately, this fortress is built on a natural vantage point overlooking a strait, so there is no other way to get behind the fortress than to go through the strait. By the time our scouts got behind, most of them had escaped, with only a few injured ones who had been slowed down getting caught."

"The general should be quite furious, I guess."

"He shot the captured soldiers in plain sight, sir."

"Figured. Then did he send the intelligence back to the rear command?"

"Affirmative!"

Rear command

Vijay received the intelligence reports from all four commands that were advancing forward, and his brows furrowed.

Not because the resistance was intense, but because it was not intense enough. The fortresses and strongholds fell at a speed that made it seem almost too easy for the army.

He should have been happy with this outcome, but he was not. He felt that something was off, and only after he received the message from the first command did something click in his mind. He understood the idea of the Europeans.

Technically speaking, not all fortresses should have been equipped and armed, since there were too many of them on the European continent. Every noble had the habit of building a good fortress, even at the expense of the common people, so every countryside had one. A large army would not necessarily use it, since naturally it was not big enough. But ever since the war started, commands two, three, and four had come across armed fortresses one after another. By the time the first command sent back its intelligence, commands two, three, and four had already come across their second fortress.

Although all the fortresses were breached in quick succession without much resistance, the point was that the army had to breach every fortress manually in order to avoid letting enemy forces exist in the rear.

"So this is your strategy, to consume the resources of the empire and hopefully come up with a counterattack with the time gained?"

"No, that’s not it. I am sure they know that no matter what they come up with, it cannot bridge the technological canyon between the two forces. In that case, are they buying time for something else?"

Then it suddenly hit him.

"Right, the railways. They should be buying time for the railways. So that means the Kingdom of Austria and the Kingdom of Slavic Byzantium, and possibly even Italy, are being used as buffers to absorb the attacks."

A wave of clarity washed over him.

"Well played indeed."

He had to admit it, it was a very good strategy. And even if he now knew their plan, he could not go against their wishes, because this was an open conspiracy. Even if he knew it was a conspiracy, he could not do anything against it. He would still have to breach the fortresses one at a time, and he would still have to waste a lot of time dealing with the small forces, consuming a huge amount of resources in the process.

As an immediate measure, he sent an order back to his son to increase the interval of logistical supply, and he also sent orders to the four commands to pick up the pace, with the hope that someone would come up with a better way to clear the fortresses instead of continuously bombarding them.

A huge plan began to take shape in his mind. The Europeans had taken the initiative and made full use of their local conditions, putting him in a passive position, a position he could not simply escape from. So in that case, should he do something outside the chessboard the Europeans had set up? Should he come from a completely new angle and catch them off guard?

The more he thought about it, the more his eyes brightened. Even if things continued as they were, and he conquered the Kingdom of Austria and the Slavic Byzantium, it looked like the European Union was not going to surrender. But what if he did something unexpected, something so unexpected that it would leave them hopeless?