Chapter 301: Breakthrough

"The art of concentrating strength at one point, forcing a breakthrough, rolling up and securing the flanks on either side, and then penetrating like lightning, before the enemy has time to react, deep into his rear." 

-        Erwin Rommel's comment on Blitzkrieg, quoted by Gordon Alexander Craig

The pursuit continued for a whole day, the cavalry force of the Mamluks, Khalid and Abraham have chased all the way as a spear head deep in to unfamiliar territory with their infantry counter parts still dragged behind collecting prisoners of war left on the road escorting them back as captives. The Ottomans have already drained all of their stamina and strength, only running burning their body from the desire to live, despite the fact that they have not consumed any food or drank any water for the past whole day. 

During the day the Ottomans cannot stop to have a sip of water, as there are always people behind pushing him and thus, he has to continue running. 

When the sun sets, they cannot take a rest cooking some rations, as the enemy cavalry might hunt them down at any moment. 

And when the blizzard night of the winter arrives, they cannot find a safe and warm tent to rest, and they have to continue running with little protection against the freezing weather. 

Filled with thirst, tiredness, hunger and cold, with every few seconds past there will be another fresh corpse laying beside the road. There is no one to moan for them or collect their bodies, as every one's heart has grown cold in this blizzard; Under these circumstances who will have the mood and desire to help others, when they themselves are struggling to keep alive. With this the last bit of organisation in the retreating Ottoman troops vanished and the retreat is replaced with a disorganized shattered escape.

Some soldiers who are drafted from the mountains of Anatolia and Greece took the chance to break free from these people and went in to the mountains in the surrounding with a bow and some arrows deciding to depend on the experience they had living in the mountains, despite they knowing how dangerous can the mountain range of Thessaly be in the winter. 

Some soldiers who are city dwellers started to disobey the orders set to them by their commanders and started forming up in small groups, knowing that the only hope of surviving they have is to return to their home towns and cities where they are more familiar with, and they decided to put the collective strength in use finding an other way out of this – most of the times seating beside the road clearing away from the path of Roman cavalries waiting for the infantries behind to take them as prisoners of war. 

The nobles and lords too lost the prestige and honour they had in the past looking almost no different than the ordinaries escaping along them. Their blood, their title, their prestige… all the things they used to brag about to classify themselves from their people have gone completely useless in this time, and it is then they know that they are actually worth nothing apart from these stuff they used to be pride of, with out the knowledge to survive in nature like the mountaineers or the social skills like the city dwellers they either joined the dead, or they rely on the only advantage they have at least – they have a horse, and if better several loyal guards and slave, and started running away abandoning their control on their army by passing the order of retreat. 

Under the continuous pursuit by the Roman cavalries, accompanied by the increasing worry and fear over death, the Ottoman army which used to be counted as one slowly started to lose that mind set that they are stronger when organised as one army, and began breaking down in to smaller segments, groups, or even individuals. If an army lost this mindset, it will soon lose all its capability to continue fighting becoming even weaker than a peck of wild goose. 

When every one is now living only for himself with the sole purpose of keeping only himself alive, who will then bother wasting his chance of surviving away sacrificing for other people? In nature it is against human will to sacrifice, only made possible when there is a mindset of collective strength implanted in the minds of every man in the army, but now this is a no more disappearing completely. 

The impact and damage of this phenomenon is even far greater than the impact brought by the Roman cavalries to the retreating Ottoman army. As there is now no higher authority maintaining law and order the negative side of human nature is completely exposed, many would start infighting merely for a small piece of bread, for a donkey, or for going first in the road, the comrades and pals who used to fight side by side would draw out their blades and bows and beginning a massive brawling session with their old Roman enemies stopping right behind and watching. 

While at the same time on comparison the chasing Roman cavalries kept their high level of discipline and order, not blinking an eye even when some Ottoman noble deliberately dumped their gold, coins, accessories and armours by the side of the road luring the Roman cavalries to stop their track and pick these things up… Another reason for this is that their commander Abraham just chopped down the head of two soldiers who was picking up these valuables and even tried to force obscene actions on to an Ottoman woman.

Of course, it is not because Abraham wanted to take these valuables for himself, and neither is it because he has a great respect for all women. No commander would ever expect an illiterate sailor who only joined the military for a few months to suddenly has a high level of self awareness of military laws, especially in times of war it depends rather more on the soldier's morale values and self love. That Ottoman woman is most likely a prostitute in the army.

The only reason Abraham decided to impose strict penalty is only because he has realised that his army will have much more benefits to gain if they tighten themselves up strengthening their last bit of muscles chasing down and destructing the entire Ottoman army before them. As if they managed to destroy this army, all of their plunders, coins, gold, accessories, and most importantly the land around Thessaloniki shall be lying in front of them naked stripped of any defences.

And now in this critical moment these two soldiers chose not to continue pursuing the Ottoman enemies, and chose to waste their precious time and effort doing such meaningless activities, is it not ridiculous? Is it not laughable? What if their actions encouraged the rest of the army making every one follow their 'good' example, resulting in the Ottomans getting away, who will be there taking up the responsibility then?

After Abraham executed these two faggots on the spot, then did the messenger come up trudging the hooves of his mount through the pile of blood and reported. "Captain, here is an order from the admiral, that all our forces shall rest on the spot for an hour evading the noon preventing any men down from the dreadful sun light, then we shall commence the final offensive in the after noon, the admiral hopes that you, captain shall fulfil your duty, and hope that you can take full care of your men, please do not let them make any trouble again!"

Abraham nodded his head in acknowledgement with a pair of blood shot eyes, not only because he only had a pitiful amount of two hours of sleep last night on horse back, but also because he had conducted too many killings with his blood that it has became curved and dented. "Please inform the admiral, that my young boys shall not make the same mistake, and we shall pierce through our prey like how lions hunt and tear with their claws on the plains!"

…

A few miles away, the frontier troops of the Ottomans has almost successfully made it out of the plains outside Thessaloniki reaching the outskirt of the city Serres, with Mahumad Pasha Angelovic leading them which greatly shortened the time to finish the route as he is much more familiar in this place than others due to his years of governance in Thessaly. Feeling delighted and relieved they sent messengers on to the walls of Serres asking them to open the gates and let his troops in, give his massive army a place to sleep, food to eat, and water to drink.

However, after a while of waiting the return message that came back from the city plunged the just recovered morales of the entire army back below the freezing point, as the response from the city is a straight away no.