Serbia Front — November 1871
The first assault came before dawn.
A pale moon hung over the snow-choked valleys north of the Morava, where the remnants of the Ottoman garrisons tried to cling to their posts and hold the Serbian heartland.
The frozen ground cracked beneath the weight of boots — ten thousand 'Montenegrin' soldiers advancing in silence.
From a distance, they looked like wraiths.
White-clad, their breath steaming, rifles glinting faintly in the cold.
No bugles.
No drums.
Just the steady grind of steel and frost.
By the time the Ottoman sentries noticed movement on the horizon, the Montenegrins were already upon them.
Within hours, the first trenches outside Kragujevac were overrun.
The defenders fought as best they could — ragged conscripts, old rifles, numb fingers barely able to pull their triggers.
The snow swallowed the sound of dying men.
Inside the city, the Ottoman commander, Ahmed Pasha, tried to rally what few battalions he had left.
But his cannons froze in their carriages, the powder damp and useless.
Every resupply route had been cut.
He ordered fires built along the walls to keep his men from freezing — but those same fires betrayed their positions.
By the third night, Elias's northern army had encircled the city.
The siege of Kragujevac lasted only three days.
On the morning of the fourth, the Montenegrins breached the southern gate.
Their advance was a mechanical perfection — volleys fired, reloads executed with the crisp rhythm of a factory line.
Ottoman resistance crumbled, unable to stand the combined efforts of the invading Montenegrins, aided by General Winter.
When the white banner of surrender was raised over the town square, the Montenegrins entered not as conquerors, but as executioners.
"Search and Secure."
That was the order given.
But every soldier in Commander Jin's army knew what that truly meant.
For two days, squads combed the streets and cellars, rounding up anyone in Ottoman uniform — but also anyone suspected of rebellion.
The Serbian partisans, ragged and desperate, had fought their own war in the shadows.
Now, in the confusion, Elias's men "found" them too.
And one by one, they disappeared.
Publicly, the army reported having found signs of ottomon barbarity, as the rebel cells demise was placed on the Ottoman host.
But the truth was simpler.
There could be no second rebellion in Montenegro's new territories, and and to make sure of that the current rouge elements would be excised from the 'patient'.
By the time the searches ended, Kragujevac (Belgrade) was silent.
The Ottoman prisoners were marched toward holding camps, while the Montenegrins replaced every banner and sign with their own crimson standard of the Principality.
Jin, operating under the 2nd Regiment, oversaw the last of the clearances.
His men quickly packing up the Ottoman gear and weapons to be sent home for recovery, while the army itself began to hand out rations to curry favors with the locals, unlike the ottomans who only took from them.
The gains were great, on top of the thousands of musket-rifles, and carbines they also looted a few dozen cannons, all of this was sent on guarded convoy back to Montenegrin to the nearest RA base to be smelted down in the refinery to become juicy credits for Elias.
When the order finally came to advance again, the army split.
Half turned northwest to secure the Austrian border, establishing a chain of outposts from Šabac to the Drina.
The other half pushed deeper into central Serbia, capturing towns and defeating much smaller garrisons of Ottoman forces, unaware that the regional capital had already fallen along with its army.
Within two weeks, the Serbian territories — leaderless, exhausted, and terrified — had fallen under complete Montenegrin control.
And all across the front, Montenegro's flag flew.
~
Southern Albania Front — Concurrent Operations
The Southern Army's campaign was less a war than a parade.
Commander Kovec's men swept through Tirana the moment they arrived, without resistance.
The Ottomans had already stripped the region bare, transferring every available regiment north to reinforce the Danube front effectively leaving the region behind practically abandoned to the fate of being picked up by another neighboring nation.
What remained were scattered militias and tax officers.
As such the Albanian city quickly fell into their hands.
By the time word reached Durrës, the ironclads of the Adriatic Fleet had already appeared offshore — their heavy guns silhouetted against the silver horizon.
The Ottoman harbor guards abandoned their posts, leaving the city's gates open.
Kovec's troops seized the docks, repaired the telegraph lines, while tending to the locals a little to gain some information on the Ottomans.
Before relaying all of it to Elias via the system link.
Tirane, Durres, and Vlore fell under their control within a week of marching out, just the march itself took four days to reach Vlore, meaning the army could march to, and gain complete control in less than a day before moving on.
Meeting minimal resistance if any at all, while the locals were celebrating their arrival as liberators.
Hearing this over the link, Elias quickly commanded for only a token force be left behind to maintain a presence while the bulk of the army would swing East, heading for Thessalonica to claim the entire region bordering Greece for the Principality.
And so, the Southern Army began its lightning march, threading through the mountain passes, crossing rivers crusted in ice.
Their supply lines were minimal — unnecessary, save for sending of captured supplies back to the homeland.
The system replenished food and ammunition as they advanced, leaving no need for proper supply lines ferrying new goods to their march.
~
As the capture of the Albanian coast was completed the Naval Officer aboard his flagship merely grunted in approval, leaving behind a small fleet of ships to guard the Adriatic and patrol the coast while the majority of the navy would move out, heading to sail around greece and enter the Aegean Sea beginning to combat the Ottoman navy, raiding along the coast line quickly to deal a massive blow to their nested naval forces tucked away for the winter.
~
Eastern Spear — The Drive Toward Macedonia
While the northern and southern prongs consolidated their gains, the Eastern Army became the hammer.
Commander Rex, unflinching and efficient, drove his twenty thousand men across Kosovo, scattering Ottoman detachments like dry leaves.
Each captured depot fed the advance; each victory snowballed into the next.
At Prizren, they encircled and annihilated a regiment of four thousand.
At Skopje, they overran the city in a single night assault.
Rex reported the fall of the city in a transmission sent directly to Elias's headquarters:
"Skopje secured. Resistance minimal. Captured materiel: thirty-six artillery pieces, twelve thousand small arms, and one hundred thousand rounds. Losses negligible."
By Novembers end, Rex's men had crossed into southern Macedonia.
The Ottoman commanders, still believing Montenegro a minor power, assumed these were Russian auxiliaries.
They would learn their mistake too late.
And in doing so lose themselves Thessaloniki, and opening the gateway for the Montenegrin push to Constantinople.
Throughout the entire month of November from the onset of Montenegro's true war, Elias's losses had only amounted to just over one thousand of his men.
But in terms of gains.
Montenegro now occupied land four times over its origional size.
And thanks to the captured war materials from the defeated Ottomans which was starting to arrive at the hidden RA bases the Credit stream was begining to receive its bumper harvest making it possible for a massive expansion of the armed forces to make the drive to claim even more territory no longer just a dream but a reality.