Chapter 346: Surrender

At this time, the Austro-Hungarian army was completely unaware of the chaos within Serbia, but this did not prevent them from striking hard against Serbian cities.

After capturing Uzice, the Austro-Hungarian army did not march north to attack Belgrade as Serbia had anticipated; instead, they continued along the road to the east to attack Stararac, another transportation hub within Serbia.

Compared to Uzice, Stararac was smaller in scale. However, in terms of strategic importance as a transportation hub, Stararac was in no way inferior to Uzice.

Once Stararac was captured, even if the Serbian government still held Belgrade, they would be forced to surrender.

Because this meant that almost the entire hinterland of Serbia had been occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While the capital, Belgrade, was certainly important, if all other places were lost, Serbia would effectively exist in name only.

Advancing east from Uzice, the Austro-Hungarian army once again felt the benefits brought by the roads.

Soldiers stepped onto the roads one after another; not only did the marching speed become faster, but supplies from the Austro-Hungarian Empire could also be transported to the soldiers more effectively.

Although continuing the attack to the east was somewhat rash, the Austrian army had also made detailed preparations.

In Loznica and Valjevo, there were 20, 00 troops stationed in each. The purpose of these two armies stationed here was precisely to protect the Austro-Hungarian army deep in the Serbian hinterland and prevent their retreat routes from being cut off by the Serbian army.

Facts proved that these two armies protecting the retreat routes indeed played a great role.

After the scales of war had completely tipped toward the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Serbian government still attempted a final struggle, and the way to do so was to mobilize all available troops to attack the Austro-Hungarian-occupied Loznica.

Loznica was the westernmost border town and the breach where the Austro-Hungarian Empire had torn open the defense line. If they could block this place, the Austro-Hungarian army deep in the Serbian hinterland would have its retreat completely cut off, and then Serbia could fully surround this army.

If this army could be wiped out, it would be hard to say who would win or lose this war. After all, the main force of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was on the northern Polish plains, and the army in the south actually only consisted of these one hundred thousand or so men.

But the ideal is plump, while reality is skinny.

Serbia reorganized a force of over 40, 00 troops, and they launched a massive attack on Loznica.

The 20, 00 Austro-Hungarian troops defending here managed to hold off these 40, 00 men for several days, and finally, 20, 00 reinforcements from Valjevo returned to support, successfully repelling Serbia's final counterattack.

Seeing that the final counterattack had lost its effect, the Serbian government completely lost its fighting spirit.

On May 3, 1889, the Austro-Hungarian army broke through the Serbian hinterland city of Stararac, and an 80, 00-strong army marched north from Loznica, Valjevo, and Stararac to attack Belgrade.

This was like doomsday for Serbia. Not only would the capital, Belgrade, face the situation of being attacked from the north and south, but many cities within Serbia would also face the baptism of the Austro-Hungarian military blade.

After all, this was a war, and the Austrians' attitude toward the Serbians would not be too merciful.

Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire had paid great attention to maintaining order after occupying Serbian cities, many incidents of burning, killing, and looting still occurred.

In order to maintain the combat effectiveness of the army, such things could only be restrained, not eradicated.

This also caused suffering for the Serbians in the occupied cities; on one hand, they hated these invaders, the Austrians, very much, and on the other hand, they were also very hostile toward the incompetent Serbian government.

Amidst the gaze of various European countries, a great chaos erupted in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.

First, the marching crowds stormed the government and the parliament, with people holding up banners calling for the dismissal of the cabinet, venting their dissatisfaction with the government and the parliament.

Belgrade was, after all, the capital; if it were just a public protest and storming, it would be impossible to endanger the government's rule.

But the turning point lay exactly here. Serbian King Milan Obrenovic decisively announced the abolition of the cabinet, the dissolution of the parliament, and the establishment of a wartime provisional cabinet, declaring that he would be committed to ending this war and saving the Serbian people in the occupied areas.

If it were before the outbreak of the war, Serbian King Milan Obrenovic would never have received the support of the people.

After all, he himself was a monarch who advocated absolute monarchy, and the stability of his throne still relied on foreign support.

But in a situation where the cabinet had already lost the hearts of the people, Serbian King Milan Obrenovic's act of forcibly dissolving the cabinet and parliament actually attracted some favor from the people.

Not long after announcing the dissolution of the cabinet, Milan Obrenovic, in his capacity as King, issued an order to the Serbian army on the front line, demanding that they surrender to the Austro-Hungarian army and end this war that should never have happened.

Although the Serbian army on the front line was very surprised by the order from home, they had to comply.

After all, the logistics and supplies of the Serbian army all came from the government; if the government did not support this war, it would be of no use for them to persist.

On that day, the resisting Serbian troops surrendered to the Austro-Hungarian army one after another.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire also quite generously accepted these surrenders and provided them with relatively rich three meals a day.

This could also be considered one of the ways for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to win over hearts. Serbia was like a nail, severely blocking the Austro-Hungarian Empire's pace of expansion into the Balkan Peninsula.

This also meant that if the Austro-Hungarian Empire wanted to expand further south, it had to solve the biggest trouble, which was Serbia.

Imposing all the responsibilities and consequences of this war on the Serbian cabinet government, thereby shaking off the crimes committed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire against the Serbians in this war, was a relatively good way.

Although some Serbians would still be hostile to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, at least there was the Serbian government to help share the blame.

Moreover, letting the Serbian government take the blame also had other purposes. The reason this war broke out was that the pro-Russian Serbian government was very hostile to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The pro-Russian Serbian government had full ambitions for the Bosnia and Herzegovina region occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and with the support of Russia, they even sidelined the pro-Austrian Serbian King Milan Obrenovic.

If the responsibility for this war could be dumped on the pro-Russian Serbian government, allowing the pro-Austrian Serbian King to 【redacted】, this would definitely be good news for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

A Serbia that had returned to being pro-Austrian would not only cease to be an obstacle to the Austro-Hungarian Empire's continued expansion, but could even become a powerful helper for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to confront Russia.

Like Serbia and Bulgaria, these Balkan nations, although their territory and population were not large, their combat effectiveness was indeed very fierce.

This place had been a land of four battles since ancient times, and after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, it became the front line for various European countries to confront the Ottoman Empire.

Although the Ottoman Empire had now weakened, this place had also become the front line of the Russian-Austrian confrontation. It was precisely because of so many experiences that the nations here formed a very fierce and warlike character. A Serbian army of the same size could also exert good combat effectiveness when facing the Austro-Hungarian army. If it were not for their poor level of weapons and equipment and logistics, it would have been quite difficult for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to win this war so easily.

For the Austro-Hungarian Empire, if they could arm 100, 00 Serbian troops, the role they would play would be comparable to 100, 00 of the most elite Austro-Hungarian troops.

These 100, 00 men could hold back at least 200, 00 Russian troops; if there were to be a war with Russia in the future, the role of the Serbians would obviously be quite important.

The news of Serbia's surrender caused an uproar in Europe and also turned the eyes of almost all countries to the war taking place on the Polish plains.

In fact, regarding this war, neither Germany, Austria, nor Russia had any intention of going all out.

This also led to the war on the Polish plains being more like a practical exercise for various countries; all three countries sent a certain number of troops, testing various weapons and equipment they had developed on one hand, and probing various formation deployments and tactical ideas on the other.

The Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War had completely swept line infantry into the trash can, but regarding the various strategic deployments and tactical ideas for the latest warfare, European countries had not yet reached a relatively clear conclusion.

This war between the three major powers was clearly a good way to explore, and the war conducted by the three countries on the Polish plains attracted many powers to send military observer groups, recording the details of each battle in every possible way, for fear of missing any critical moments.

After Serbia announced its defeat, the three countries also knew that this war would not last long.

There was no need for everyone to fight each other to the death; after all, the main focus of this war was still the Balkan Peninsula, and the current war in the Balkan Peninsula had already ended.

Five days after Serbia's surrender, the envoy sent by Tsar Alexander III officially arrived in Berlin, the capital of Germany, and requested peace negotiations regarding this war.

For Germany at this time, this war could be considered to have satisfied their goals.

After all, Germany had not experienced a large-scale war since the Franco-Prussian War, and this war with the Russians could be considered a good touchstone.

Facts proved that even after nearly 20 years, the German army was still one of the most powerful armies at present.

In the limited-scale war on the Polish plains, the German army achieved the greatest results while suffering the lowest soldier losses; this was the best evidence and proof of the German army's powerful combat effectiveness.

Among the current combat loss ratios of Germany, Austria, and Russia, Germany's combat loss ratio was as high as 1: ; on average, every 1 German soldier could trade for 3 Russian soldiers.

The most elite troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire could reach a combat loss ratio of 1: , while ordinary troops could only reach a combat loss ratio of 1: or 1: . .

The worst in terms of combat effectiveness was the Russian army. It was not that there were no elite Russian ground forces that could achieve a 1: combat loss ratio with Germany and Austria, but the scale of the elite ground forces was really limited.

The combat loss ratios of most troops were very poor, and the combat loss ratios of those urgently mobilized troops were even more of a mess.

It was precisely because of the drag of these troops with poor combat effectiveness that Russia's combat loss ratio looked so bad.

However, this was not necessarily a bad thing for Russia. After all, Russia's population was several times that of Germany and Austria, so such a combat loss ratio was not too serious for Russia.

Russia could grit its teeth and bear tens of millions of casualties, but the question was, did Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire dare to bear millions of casualties?

This was not the moment of World War I, and the populations of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were not as large as they would be in World War I.

Currently, according to estimates from various sources, Germany's population should be around 47. million, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire's population should be around 39. million, both of which were at a good level compared to other European countries.

One must know that the population of the United Kingdom at this time was only 32 million, and France's population was only 39. million; those with a population approaching 40 million could be called populous countries across the world.

Spain's population, after all kinds of catching up, was currently only 25. million. This was also the greatest advantage of European countries compared to Spain; population allowed the comprehensive national strength of various countries to climb continuously, and the mobilizable army also expanded from the original hundreds of thousands to millions or even several millions.

Although the populations of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were large, compared with Russia, they seemed so insignificant.

Regarding the statistics of Russia's population, it could currently only be limited to a rough range. There was no way; Russia's territory was too vast, so vast that it was difficult to calculate the population on this land.

Moreover, the administrative system within Russia was also relatively chaotic and corrupt; even a government like Spain, which had been streamlined after reforms, could not accurately count its domestic population, let alone the Tsarist Russian government, which was more difficult to count and more corrupt.

The Tsarist Russian government could only make a relatively rough estimate of its population, which was about 110 million.

And Spain, after conducting certain statistics on Russia's population births and deaths in recent years, estimated that the Russian population data might be as high as 112 million.

Do not underestimate these two decimal places; even if it was only 0. 2, with the support of the unit of one hundred million, it was a scale of 200 million people.

Moreover, such statistics were not precise, and it was very likely that millions of Russians were ignored in the statistics.

After all, the technology of this era was not developed, and no country could achieve relatively precise population statistics.

But what was certain was that Russia had the largest population among all the great powers at present, and it was far greater than the sum of the second and third places.

Such a population advantage was precisely what Russia relied on, and it was also the confidence that Russia did not fear any war.

Just considering Russia's such huge population was enough to make the German government seriously consider whether there was a need for peace talks.

If Russia was really provoked, under the premise that Russia mobilized millions of troops, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire would also have to follow suit and mobilize more than a million troops.

If the war could not achieve its own goals, then the war could only be a waste of various resources and money.

Although the war between Germany and Russia was fought on the Polish plains, for Russian-occupied Poland, Germany had no thoughts at this time.

The price Germany would have to pay to get this piece of Poland would definitely be very high. Rather than this, it would be better to enter peace negotiations with Russia earlier.

Anyway, the initial goal of this war had been achieved; the Austro-Hungarian Empire not only solved the trouble of Serbia but even had hope of going further in the Balkan Peninsula.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire going further in the Balkan Peninsula also meant that Russia's influence must withdraw from the Balkan Peninsula. With one advancing and one retreating, it was a strengthening for the Austro-Hungarian Empire and a weakening for Russia.

(End of this chapter)