Chapter 343: Why Is Army Life So Boring

"Altın kılıç her kapıyı açar"

"Money opens all gates except the one for heaven."

-        Turkish Proverbs

When it is about time for the army with a strange composition of various civilian militias led by their Sultan reached a distance roughly ten Roman miles away from the front line, Hamza Pasha is already there himself waiting for his Sultan being filled with anticipations rubbing his hands in the cold. Never had he been so overjoyed since the demise of Sultan Mehmed II under the Theodosian walls.

He has reports of the recent political chaos ongoing in the capital city ever since the demise of the Grand Vizier, and his mind has slowly turned cold thinking that it is now impossible to have any more reinforcements coming in his way, making him realise that he is now perhaps the only force left in the entire Sultanate with the mind and spirit to battle the invading Rumelians. But now, this tiny piece of reinforcement consisting of only around four thousand militias who received little or no professional training, still gave both him and his men a superb amount of morale buff.

Especially when the flag of the Osman white horse belonging to the Sultan is set flying in the air above the fortress again.

The young Sultan is tasked to make a speech to the entire force by only himself, as it is inappropriate and inconvenient for the Sultan Dowager to go out and speak to so many men for very obvious reasons. Although the Sultan is merely a child, he still showed up a great courage not possessed by children of his age speaking to almost a thousand people before him, making a speech in a way just like an adult. Many Ottoman soldiers in the compound, for the very first time in almost six years, felt the support coming from their sovereign, now they know that they are not forgotten.

…

"What are these pricks cheering about?"

In a distance away on the mountains a team of four Roman scouts are supervising the movements going on in the Ottoman encampments. Antonius has received news from his patrolling ships a long time ago that an Ottoman reinforcement of unknown numbers is coming for the aid of their foes, which immediately sparked the nerves of every one here planning the operations.

They are still trying to figure out a way to counter the current tactics by the Ottomans, as their foes now is no longer just trying to block them off the walls, but instead the Ottomans themselves are building simple fences and fortifications outside the walls, with towers holding archers as well overseeing the movements inside those walls. They have developed a strategy of using walls against walls, fortifications against fortifications. And now news came from the scouts that there is an unknown amount of enemies, most probably a few thousand, arriving from the capital city.

The rest might not realise it thinking that this is just another reinforcement put in to action by the higher ups of the Ottoman Sultanate, but Abdullah viewed this in another totally different perspective. He thinks that judging from the previous intels, if the Ottoman Sultanate is now able to amend a force of a few thousand people and send it to the front line, that only means one thing, that is the Ottomans have solved their interior disputes some how and is now able to concentrate on dealing the western military threat.

Which can be very dangerous as the Romans are not prepared enough for a long enduring full waged war with the Ottomans that can go up undecisive in half a year, with tens of thousands of people squeezed in such a small area the Roman logistics system shall be the first one in the war to suffer. The economy of this newly established state, which is just showing a sprout of improvement, will be devastated as the drafting system continues with the farmers forced to leave their farm lands in the spring next year just to carry supplies for the front line troops. This is definitely not what the operations planning team had planned at the start of the war.

Antonius do have a bunch of catapults at the back, but due to the lack of mathematicians in field these catapults does not have that elevated angle to fire in to the simple Ottoman fortresses at the back at their current station. If these catapults are going to be pulled back their projectiles would most likely hit their own walls thus forfeiting any plans involving these manufactured war machines.

Then how about an attack by fire?

By dawn a bunch of Mamluk horse archers, led by Khalid himself, charged out of camp right towards the Ottoman barricades flanging two waves of arrows attached to explosives and igniting materials in the hope of starting a fire, but even before the fire starts spreading, the howling wind from the North accompanied by the freezing land compressed the little fire in to non existent.

The massive army stay waiting for their chance to attack in the narrow strip of terrain. But the only order they are receiving is to continue waiting, for almost a month. In the long run of the time it slowly extinguished the boiling thirst of the soldier's will to fight the Ottomans, and with time it too brought another common thing in to the army camp, that is boredom.

Boredom, a thing or an emotion that is pretty common among soldiers in camp due to their repetitious daily routines and lack of connections to the outside world, especially when they miss their family members or the lavish and busy lives as city dwellers. Apart from boredom one must know another fact, that is the current economy of Antonius is far from efficient in supporting an army accounting to almost sixty five thousand people, thus it is still an army that mostly works on the laws of conscription where by all farmers, sailors and city dwellers are enforced to serve their term of national service when it is winter, or when war comes.

This brings another problem, a conscripted army is relatively much lesser disciplined than a professionally trained army, and a lesser disciplined army combined with another factor of boredom makes Antonius' soldiers do some stupid things like finding prostitutes, sleeping on duty and being absent for trainings. Finally, things turned serious ere are some soldiers complaining that the in camp food taste like dung, and thus they came out of the camp to steal some winter crops from the farmers near by villages.

If things ended here it would merely be a disciplinary issue if it gets found out by their higher ups, or even be let free because the commanders themselves sometimes close one eye for such actions. However, these pricks, after getting found out by the villagers, went on to rob them and threaten the poor villagers to not expose this piece of information to any one.

What made things worse is that when the bunch of soldiers, no, robbers went in to the farmer's stead, they went on to do forced inhumane actions with the farmer's unmarried daughter, which immediately sparked the fury of an entire village, causing them to take up any thing they can find, from pitch forks to spades and ploughs. The angry villagers then chased the soldiers out of their village killing one in the process, and eventually this case is raised up to the level of Antonius.

This is the very first time that such things have ever happened in an army led by Antonius itself. Before this such things only used to happen in the crusaders, the Ottomans or the army of Constantinople, and Antonius used to laugh at them, but now, this kind of thing is being done by his own soldiers.

"Admiral, this kind of things would certainly happen one day. If it did not happen today, it would surely happen some time in the near future." Julian came in and reported with a face of utter seriousness. "We are no longer a professional army limited to a small group like last time, our soldiers are mostly conscripted coming from various back grounds. They might be hooligans in the outside world we never know… And further more…"

"Further more what?" Antonius is clearly not in his good mood today.

"…Admiral, we have been stagnating for too long before these Ottomans…" Julian said lowering his head. "You know, boredom and lack of activities is one of major things that affect army morales…"

"I know, Julian." Antonius sighed massaging his forehead. "But I cannot get them out for training or exercise in captain level, you see… We need every unit to be on their post, what if the Ottomans decide to break through one point when our men are out for training?... By the way, have you compensated the villagers?"

"Aye, admiral, I gave them a compensation enough to soothe their anger… Actually, I have a suggestion, how about some sports event?"