Under Ferdinand's urging, the Military Committee, General Staff, Army Ministry, and Navy Ministry jointly drafted a homeland defense proposal in the shortest possible time!
That was right—a purely defensive plan, intended to forge a sturdy turtle shell and wait for the enemy to attack. It was conservative to the extreme.
The defenses would primarily rely on the favorable terrain of the Balkan region. From the front lines to Sofia, even the narrowest areas had four lines of defense. Even against an army of over ten million men, these lines would be enough to hold them off for a year or half.
Oh, this was not the General Staff boasting. Restricted by the terrain of the Balkan Mountains, there was simply no room for too many troops to maneuver. In a sense, an attack by ten million troops was not much different from an attack by two or three million; in any case, the number of troops that could be directly committed to battle was limited.
The reason Serbia and Montenegro had dared to declare war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire in history was that they had favorable terrain on their side. They could slowly grind the Austro-Hungarian Empire down and wait for the Entente to win—then they would win as well.
Of course, they had overestimated the Entente and underestimated the Alliance. They had not expected the great war on the European continent to become a war of attrition! Although they had successfully tied down the Austro-Hungarian Empire for a year or two and ultimately became victors, the price they paid was exceedingly grievous!
Naturally, Ferdinand would not make the same mistake. As long as Bulgaria prepared in advance, by current estimates, it could mobilize at most 3.8 million troops after war broke out. Victory or defeat would be hard to