novelSusiti Chapter 263 The Final Attack
Chapter 263 The Final Attack
Larissa, the Greek frontline command post.
The atmosphere inside the tent was the complete opposite of the deathly silence of the Ottoman military camp; it was like a boiling volcano.
When a communications soldier rushed into the tent and presented Constantine with a coded telegram from Metaxas containing only four words.
"The fireworks have been lit."
The breaths of all the generals inside the tent stopped for a moment.
Constantine took the telegram, glanced at it, and a sinister smile appeared on his face, like a lion eyeing its prey.
Without saying another word, he turned and strode out of the tent.
Outside the tent, hundreds of messengers, who had been waiting in formation, led their warhorses in neat rows. Excitement and anxiety were written on the faces of every one of them.
They had been waiting for this order for far too long.
Constantine stood before them, his voice not loud, but clearly reaching everyone's ears.
"Relay my orders!"
"All-out attack!"
He paused for a moment, his gaze sweeping over everyone.
"Tell our soldiers!"
"Their dinner was in the Turkish camp!"
The order was like a bolt of lightning, instantly spreading throughout the entire Greek army's positions.
"Beep—beep beep—"
The loud and urgent bugle calls rose and fell, breaking the silence of the early morning.
On the long-silent Greek battlefield, in the trenches and behind the bunkers, countless heads wearing steel helmets emerged.
The Greek soldiers, having rested and recuperated, charged out of their trenches with unstoppable force.
They crossed minefields and barbed wire, launching a relentless pursuit towards the already crumbling Ottoman positions on the other side.
This is no longer a battle.
This was a one-sided pursuit and reaping.
It was a ruthless and merciless hunt.
Faced with the Greek army, whose morale was high and who were well-rested, the hungry and demoralized Ottoman soldiers had almost no will to resist.
Their only thought was to throw down their weapons and kneel down in surrender.
When the Greek soldiers stormed into the first line of Ottoman defenses, they found the ground in ruins and Turkish soldiers kneeling on the ground, trembling with their hands raised.
They stormed into the second line of defense and found hordes of routed soldiers fighting amongst themselves for a piece of black bread.
Within just one hour, the battlefield had been transformed into a massive prisoner-of-war receiving station.
Constantine did not linger in the rear command post to enjoy the fruits of victory.
He spun around and mounted a thoroughbred warhorse, completely black with not a single stray hair. This horse was a gift from his brother-in-law, Kaiser Wilhelm II.
"Guards! Follow me!"
He drew his cavalry commander's sword and pointed the blade forward.
Behind him, the royal cavalry guard, composed of the most elite soldiers, roared in unison, closely following their crown prince like a red-hot dagger, bypassing the defeated soldiers who had lost their threat, and thrusting straight into the heart of the enemy's rout.
His goal was not to kill these demoralized soldiers.
His target was the greatest prize of the war—the enemy commander, Edheim Pasha.
The political significance of capturing a marshal of an enemy country alive far outweighs that of annihilating an army of 100,000.
A captured Ottoman high-ranking officer, under threat of death, revealed the last known location of Edhem Pasha and the general direction of his escape.
Constantine's cavalry guards galloped along the route indicated by the intelligence.
The horses' hooves kicked up clouds of dust.
Half an hour later, they finally caught up with their target near a sparse grove of trees.
Edhem Pasha was being escorted in a hasty retreat by a small squad of less than a hundred Sultan's personal guards. They were the only unit in this collapsing army that had maintained its organizational structure.
"Surround it!"
Constantine gave the order.
Hundreds of Greek cavalrymen, like open iron pincers, flanked the small force from both sides, quickly trapping it in the center.
The Sultan's personal guards lived up to their reputation as the empire's elite. Even in dire straits, they quickly formed a circular formation, protecting Edhem Pasha in the center and pointing their rifles in all directions.
But their resistance was futile.
After a symbolic exchange of fire, watching their comrades fall one by one to the precise shots of the Greek cavalry, the remaining guards finally laid down their weapons.
The crowd dispersed.
Edhem Pasha, the once invincible Ottoman marshal who had dominated the Balkans, stood alone in the center of the ranks.
His marshal's uniform was covered in dust, making him look disheveled. His once arrogant face was now ashen.
He looked at the excessively young Greek crown prince on horseback, at that handsome, expressionless face.
He recalled Major von Riedl's warning.
He remembered his foolish roar back then.
He recalled the towering flames and the army's avalanche-like rout.
Constantine did not say anything to humiliate him.
He simply sat on his horse, looking down at him, and then calmly extended his hand.
A simple yet powerful movement.
Edhempasha's body trembled violently.
His lips trembled, as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't utter a single word.
Finally, he closed his eyes.
He stretched out his aged, trembling hands and slowly unfastened the ancestral command sword bestowed upon him by the Sultan, a symbol of his lifelong glory and power, which hung at his waist.
He never parted with that knife.
That knife was a symbol of his family's battles for God.
Holding the knife, he walked step by step to Constantine's horse.
Then, he personally handed the knife to Constantine.
The once proud lion of the old era bowed its head to the eagle of the new era at this moment.
Constantine took the heavy command sword and weighed it in his hand.
He did not look at Edhem Pasha, but instead cast his gaze toward the more distant East.
That direction leads to Constantinople.
His journey has only just begun.