Romanian Eagle

The early morning sun shone into the room Edel slowly woke up, took off the jade arm carrying 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 looked at Edel who was already up.

"You take a break."

Edel saw that he was awakened by his wife and said with concern. He knew that his wife was exhausted these few nights after getting married. Who made her so beautiful and beautiful, the crown prince couldn't bear the temptation in his heart at all, so he could only wrong her.

"OK."

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

Edel walked out of the room and happened to meet the captain of the guard, Carust, who came over and said to him.

"His Royal Highness, I just received news that Italy has issued an ultimatum to the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Turkey is required to hand over the territory of North Africa to Italy for escrow. The reason is that the Italians have been treated unfairly there."

"Bring it here and show it to me."

The captain of the guard, Carust, handed the telegram he had just obtained to the crown prince, and Edel took it and looked at it carefully.

Across the Italian Sea from Ottoman Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, is a desert in North Africa with limited economic value but important strategic position. It faces off against Sicily and has control over the narrower seas in the middle of the Mediterranean.

In 1881, in the process of dividing up the North African territory occupied by the Turkish Portay government, Algeria (the French invaded and gradually reduced it to a colony in 1830) and Tunisia (1881) successively became the protected territories of France. The nominal territory is also owned by the Western colonists, and France is preparing to annex the Turkish provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica on this ground. (Libya)

This attempt was opposed by European countries, especially Italy, which had long wanted to establish colonies in North Africa. To this end, Italy actively engaged in political and diplomatic activities, reached agreements and tacit understandings with various powers (formed a tripartite alliance between Germany and Austria), and recognized Italy's interests in North Africa.

In preparation for the annexation of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, Italy, from 1880 to 1911, continued to emigrate and dispatch merchants to the two places to buy land and actively expand its power; to send naval officers to replace fishermen's Clothes, in the name of catching sponges off the coast of Tripolitania, to carry out coastal surveys; instructing Italian Catholic priests to go deep into the interior to collect intelligence in the name of missionary. Drawing on the lessons of its failure in Ethiopia in 1896, Italy is constantly watching for timing.

When the second Moroccan crisis occurred, Italy believed that if it did not act, it would lose the opportunity, so it used the pretext of the unfair treatment of Italians in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica to preemptively preempt Turkey before sending troops to North Africa. .

It was given an ultimatum on September 28, 1911, threatening to invade the above-mentioned areas. Turkey called on all countries to stop the Italian invasion attempt, but the major countries persuaded Turkey to accept Italy's request. In this case, the Italian-Turkish war broke out.

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

On the face of it, this war in Libya is too far for Romania. But now the Ottoman Empire has a large territory in the Balkans (Thrace and Macedonia are now Ottoman territories). However, the local form is very complex, and various ethnic groups are mixed together. There are Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Albanians, etc., including Romanians, with a population of more than 100,000.

Now the Balkan countries are eyeing the Ottoman territory. And now the situation in the Balkans is quite complicated, with polar bear Russia standing behind Bulgaria and Serbia, and British support behind the Greeks. Germany has huge interests in the Ottomans to choose to support him,

Austria-Hungary also supported the Ottomans due to the same ethnic issues. Due to the huge investment of Germany and the recent marriage with Austria-Hungary, Romania is now widely believed to be behind Germany and Austria-Hungary.

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

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

Edel said to the captain of the guard, Carust.

"Okay, Your Highness."

The captain of the guard replied.

In the ensuing time, Eder closely followed 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.

These Italian troops appeared in Tripoli on the evening of September 28, 1911. But the bombing of the port did not begin until October 3, 1911. The city was then occupied by 1,500 Italian troops, and when the news was sent back to Rome, the enthusiasm of the advocates of the invasion swelled. Other diplomatic options within Italy were abandoned, and now the Italians intend to seize the territory by force.

The Turkish army was determined to defend its province after Tripoli was captured by the Italian army. However, the Turks did not concentrate the entire army for a decisive battle, but spread out to harass the Italian army. On the diplomatic front, Turkish government officials traveled all over Europe to express their wishes. They organized local Arabs and Bedouins to defend against the Italian invasion.

It was not until October 10 that the Italian landing force appeared on a large scale (the Xinhai Revolution officially broke out the day before). At that time, Italy's 20,000-strong contingent was considered sufficient to complete the conquest. Because the local Ottomans have only one division with more than 7,000 troops, not only lacking weapons and ammunition, but also mainly scattered in various city ports. Moreover, most of the division's people are from the mainland and are unwilling to fight in North Africa far away from the mainland. Therefore, the will to fight is generally not high, and they will be defeated in the face of a modern army selected from Italy.

In Tobruk, Beda, Sirte and other cities, the Italian army showed a normal level as expected. On October 19, the Italian fleet, covering an infantry division, landed in Benghazi and occupied the city after two days of fierce fighting. Faced with the situation of people who were occupied in all the major cities along the coast, the Italian army began to make a fool of it.

On October 23, 1911, a force (about 1,500 people) deployed outside Benghazi was almost completely surrounded by mobile Arab cavalry, and these local armed forces, led by regular Ottoman troops, severely damaged the area. The attack was portrayed by the Italian media as a simple revolt, but nearly wiped out most of the Italian army. Therefore, the Italian Corps expanded to 100,000 people, while the other side of the war, the Ottoman Empire, had only 20,000 Arab tribesmen and 8,000 Turkish troops.

Many new weapons have appeared in this war, and the most concerned is the role of aircraft in this war. In the armies of the two sides, Turkey has no aircraft, and Italy has about 20 military aircraft and 32 pilots, which 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 battle. The planes were packed and shipped to the Gulf of Tripoli on October 15.

From 6:19 to 7:20 on the 23rd, the captain, Captain Piazza, flew a Blelio XI plane to the Turkish positions between Tripoli and Azizia for more than an hour of reconnaissance. Opened the prelude to the aircraft's participation in the war. On the 25th, when Deputy Captain Moizo was flying the Newport aircraft for reconnaissance, the wing was injured by three rifle bullets. This was the first time that the aircraft was killed by enemy ground fire. On November 1, Lieutenant Gavoti piloted a "Pigeon" aircraft and dropped four "Sipeli" grenades weighing 2 kilograms on Turkish positions in the Tagira Oasis and Ain Zara areas of North Africa, becoming a historical record. The first bombing resulted in Turkey accusing Italy of bombing the hospital.

Although these aircraft did not perform very well in the war, countries can see that it will play a huge role in the future. Countries that do not have the manufacturing capacity choose to purchase them and step up the research and development of practical aircraft if they are able.

Romania belongs to the capable group.