Chapter 104： The Italian-Turkish war broke out

The early morning sun shining into the room, Edel woke up slowly, removed the jade arm that carried his new wife Sophie Marie, and got out of bed. Princess Sophie Marie, who was awakened by her new husband's actions, opened her beautiful eyes and stared at Edel who was already up.

"You are taking a break."

Edel saw that he was awakened by his wife and caring about it. He knew that his wife was exhausted these few nights after the marriage. Who made her so beautiful and beautiful? The crown prince could not bear the temptation of his heart and could only wrong her.

"Ok."

Wife Sophie Marie replied sweetly, and gave Edel a sweet smile after speaking. It seemed that she was quite satisfied with her newly married life.

Edel walked out of the room, just in time when the captain of the guard Carust came over and said to him.

"His Royal Highness, I just received news that Italy issued an ultimatum to the Ottoman Empire. It asked Ottoman Turkey to hand over the North African territory to Italy. The reason is that the Italians received unfair treatment there."

"Bring it over and show me."

The chief of the bodyguard, Carust, handed the telegram he had just received to the crown prince, and Edel took the telegram and looked carefully.

Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in Ottoman across the Italian Sea are a desert in North Africa with limited economic value, but an important strategic position. It confronts Sicily and can control the narrower sea surface in the middle of the Mediterranean.

In the process of partitioning the North African territory occupied by the Turkish government of Porte in 1881, Algeria (France began to invade in 1830 and gradually reduced it to a colony) and Tunisia (1881) were successively reduced to French protected territories. The nominal possessions are also owned by Western colonists, and France is prepared to use this as a pretext to annex the two provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in Turkey. (Libya)

This attempt was opposed by European countries, especially Italy, which had long wanted to establish a colony in North Africa. For this reason, Italy actively carried out political and diplomatic activities, reached agreements and tacit understandings with various powers (the three countries formed a three-nation alliance between Germany and Austria), and recognized Italy's interests in North Africa.

In order to prepare for the annexation of the two provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, Italy continued to immigrate and send merchants to the two places from 1880 to 1911, purchase land, and actively expand its power; it sent naval officers to replace fishermen. Clothes, under the name of fishing sponge on the coast of Tripolitania, conducted coastal surveys; instructed Italian Catholic priests to go deep inland to collect information under the pretext of missionary work. Italy learned the lessons of its failure in Ethiopia in 1896 and kept peeking at the timing of its choice.

When the second Moroccan crisis occurred, Italy believed that if it did not act, it might lose the opportunity. It used the unfair treatment of Italians in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica as an excuse to preemptively and preemptively before Turkey sent troops to North Africa. .

issued an ultimatum to him on September 28, 1911, threatening to invade the above-mentioned areas. Turkey called on all countries to stop Italy’s invasion attempts, but the major powers persuaded Turkey to accept Italy’s request. In this case, the Italian-Turkish war broke out.

After reading the telegram, Edel began to think about the impact of the Italian-Turkish war on Romania.

On the surface, this war in Libya is too far for Romania. However, the Ottoman Empire now has a large territory in the Balkans (Thrace and Macedonia are now Ottoman territories). However, the local form is very complicated, and all ethnic groups are mixed together. There are Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrin, Albanians, etc., including Romanians and there are more than 100,000 people in the local area.

Now the Balkan countries are eyeing the Ottoman territory. And now the situation in the Balkans is quite complicated. Bulgaria and Serbia are behind the polar bear Russia, and the Greeks are also supported by the United Kingdom. Germany has huge interests in Ottoman to choose to support him, and Austria-Hungary also supports Ottoman due to the same ethnic issues. Due to the huge investment of Germany and the marriage with the Austria-Hungary Empire, Romania now generally believes that Germany and Austria-Hungary stand behind Romania.

Now Italy is the first in North Africa to provoke this battle to carve up Ottoman territory, and I believe other countries will not fall behind.

"Pay close attention to the situation of the Turkish war."

Edel said to Carrust, the head of the guard.

"Good lord."

the chief guard replied.

In the ensuing time, Edel paid close attention to the trend of the Italian-Turkish war. Although the Italian army was ready to invade at this time, when the war broke out, a large number of Italian troops were not ready yet.

These Italian troops appeared in Tripoli on the evening of September 28, 1911. But it was not until October 3, 1911 that the bombing of the port began. The city was subsequently occupied by 1,500 Italian troops. When the news was sent back to Rome, those who advocated the invasion were enthusiastic. Other diplomatic plans in Italy were abandoned, and now the Italians intend to seize this territory by force.

The Turkish army was determined to defend its province after being captured by the Italian army in Tripoli. However, the Turkish army did not concentrate all the troops for a decisive battle, but scattered around to harass the Italian army. In terms of diplomacy, Turkish government officials traveled throughout Europe to express their wishes. They organized local Arabs and Bedouins to defend against Italian invasions.

It wasn't until October 10 that the Italian landing forces appeared on a large scale (the Xinhai Revolution officially broke out the day before). At that time, all countries believed that a detachment of 20,000 people in Italy was considered sufficient to complete the conquest. Because the local Ottoman division has only one division, more than 7,000 people are armed, not only lacking weapons and ammunition, but also mainly scattered in various city ports. Moreover, most of this division is from the interior, and is unwilling to fight in North Africa far from the mainland. Therefore, the will to fight is generally not high, and it will be defeated in the face of a modern army selected from Italy.

In cities such as Tobruk, Beda, and Sirte, the Italian army really showed a normal level. On October 19, the Italian fleet covered an infantry division to land in Benghazi. After two days of fierce fighting, the city was occupied. Faced with the situation of people occupied in major coastal cities, the Italian army began to stun.

On October 23, 1911 a unit (about 1,500 people) deployed outside Benghazi was almost completely surrounded by mobile Arab cavalry. These supporting local armed forces were in the regular Ottoman empire Under the leadership, this army was hit hard. The attack was portrayed as a simple resistance by the Italian media, but it almost wiped out most of the Italian army. Therefore, the Italian Corps expanded to 100,000 people, and the Ottoman Empire on the other side of the war had only 20,000 Arab tribal armed forces and 8,000 Turkish troops.

Many new weapons have appeared in this war, and the most concerned one is the role of aircraft in this war. In the two armies, Turkey has no aircraft. Italy has about 20 military aircraft and 32 pilots. They belong to the Italian Army and are organized as the first aircraft company. The Italian Army mobilized 9 aircraft and 11 pilots to participate in the war. The planes were packed and shipped to the Gulf of Tripoli on October 15.

From 6:19 to 7:20 on the 23rd, Captain Piazza flew a Blario Ⅺ plane to fly over the Turkish position between Tripoli and Azizia for more than an hour of reconnaissance. Kicked off the prelude to the aircraft's participation in the war. On the 25th, when Vice Captain Moizo was piloting a "Newport" aircraft reconnaissance, the wing was injured by three rifle bullets. This was the first time that the aircraft was damaged by enemy ground fire. On November 1, Lieutenant Gavoti drove a "pigeon" aircraft in the Tajila Oasis and Ain Zara regions of North Africa and dropped four 2kg "Sipeli" grenades at the Turkish positions, which became historical In the first bombing, Turkey accused Italy of bombing the hospital.

Although these aircraft did not perform very well in the war, all countries can see the great effect in the future. Countries that do not have manufacturing capabilities choose to buy, and have the ability to step up research and development of practical aircraft.

Romania is among the capable group.