The Greeks now had a shared border with a new nation, and yet relations were better than they had been under relations with the Ottomans.
They were common foes, both nations originally born after throwing off the yoke of the oppressors.
Both on the Southern and Northern ends of the map, Montenegro obtained new shared borders where forces were now encamped taking over the border guard duties from the Ottoman, and Serbian forces,
Unlike the east where their armies marched with unrelenting pace and fury.
The Austro-Hungarians were not interested in conflict since they were more interested in securing the serbian regions relinquished to them by the Monenegro King in exchange for legitimacy in claiming the remaining fallen serbian lands.
Meanwhile in the south the Greeks did not oppose the Montenegro seizing of Albania, or even macedonia.
While their King did want to raise the topic of their claims to Macedonia as a former part of the Greek Kingdom, and states the might of the Montenegro army made his advisors convince him otherwise lest Greece were to join the Ottomans as a target for invasion.
As a result their forces did not mobilize.
They did not move.
They simply stood watch and carried on like nothing at all had change.
Elias watched a few exchanges between his new border guards and the Austria, and Greek ones.
His orders were to be friendly, even going so far as to share alcohol and food with them, however this did not mean their vigilance waned.
Proper senties and patrols were still carried out looking for possible illegal crossings into Montengro territory, or smuggling of illicit goods to either fund the underground movements against their occupation, or even poison the people of the kingdom.
The same was true of the North, however these borders were even more tightly protected, with the borders themselves being closed at this time preventing the entrance or leaving of anyone from the country.
This was a means to restrict the flow of information to alert a worldy great power right on their doorstep.
For the Austrians this was simply standard protocol, afterall they were a 'small nation, at war with a great power like the Ottoman empire, if agents hidden in the empire slipped through to cause trouble, The Kingdom could even attempt to lay blame on the feet of the Austrian Imperial Family, furhter exaserbating the situation and possibly drawing in other powers to the conflict.
~
The only real action was happening in the East, as the Montenegro Royal Army had split into two forces, one guarding the border to the north, attacking messengers and retreating Ottoman forces, clearly marking the line in the sand where none, be they Ottoman, Bulgaria, Romanian, or Russian would cross.
While the southern army was the tip of the spear, continuing their drive towards Constantinople.
Outside Edirne, the city gates stood open.
The local commander had fled hours before the Montenegrin vanguard arrived, taking his personal guard and whatever coin he could carry.
What remained was a stunned garrison officer who surrendered the city's keys with shaking hands and a face gone gray from lack of sleep.
No shots were fired.
Edirne fell not with a bang, but with paperwork.
On his system map the Red marker of the city shifted into a blue one symbolizing its complete capture.
The army seperated out a reasonable garrison force before giving chace to the running commander.
This was no longer a campaign.
It was a collapse.
The European portion of the Ottoman Empire was completly undefended as all their available forces were in the north fighting the Russian offensive.
In Constantinople, panic finally began to coagulate into something actionable.
Clerks shouted over one another as reports—fragmentary, contradictory, increasingly dire—piled onto desks already buried beneath unanswered requests.
Couriers arrived breathless, uniforms stained with sweat and dust, carrying orders that contradicted the ones already issued that morning.
Day after day, more cable transmissions went silent indicating a great failing, the situation was drastic enough that levy forces were being called up to serve as a national defense force that was raised in the capital itself, but these were not soldiers, farmers ferriers, and stableboys were being give a rushed education in how to handle and fire a rifle.
Meanwhile the Sultan himself was busy ripping his hair out with worry, a worry so dire not even his harem of wives, and concubines could ease.
The Sultan's court was fracturing along familiar lines.
Some demanded immediate counterattacks and a all or nothing attitude to the war with Russia.
Others called for negotiations, willing to sacrifice Imperial territory if it meant buying time to rest and recover their strength afterwich a retaliation could be performed to recapture the lost lands.
A smaller, quieter group began to discuss evacuation plans—these were the defeatists who believed the might of the empire and its Sultan had faded like the evening sun, with the light on the empire about to be snuffed out allowing the empire to fade into history.
Outside the palace, grain prices spiked, merchants were quick to learn of the creation of this new army, having predicted a collapse of the northern front which meant the loss of those war supplies and the future requisitioning of more food to feed this second army, resulting in even less being available for the commonfolk.
~
The war at sea was fairly quiet, with the Montengrin Navy blockading the Dardanelles Strait preventing the Ottoman navy from escaping into the Mediterranean, or reinforcements from North Africa or the Middle East from reaching the European lands.
While other nations ships were monitored, with specifically British and French trading ships being restricted from travelling up the strait due to growing military action and a fear for their safety.
If they pressed and made to advance anyways, the ships would be raided and sunk, their goods becoming property of the Kingdom, while the official cause was being sunk in proximity to Ottoman-Russian naval operations.
As for other nations they were heavily warned and upon hearing this decided to turn round and sail away for safer ports.
Meanwhile across Europe even as Elias's armies were only a few short days away from beginning their siege of the Ottoman capital.
The Great Powers were finally opening their eyelids to discover that they had misunderstood the situation, and in doing so allowed a new great power to emerge in the blink of an eye.
One whose territory surpassed the Italian Kingdom, while it's Military might could only be theorized to be stronger than the Ottoman Empire.
This would rank them at the bottom of the Great powers but even still, the emergence of a new great power would shake up the current political situation and further destabilize a hotbed of aggression thats been building up over the last few hundred years.