The Anglo-Ottoman allied force of more than five hundred thousand sounded terrifying, but in reality, hundreds of kilometers of the Danube River had to be defended. Though the Sophia region to the west was easy to defend and hard to attack, troops still had to be stationed there to guard against surprise raids.
With the Kingdom of Greece joining the war, East Thrace could not be left undefended either.
In the end, Baron Raglan could mobilize only seventy or eighty thousand men on the main front. The Ottomans had sent either the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled, or strong young men snatched up at the last minute. That alone would have been manageable, but what was even more fatal was that these so-called armies were not only poorly trained but also undermanned.
Instead, the Redcoat Army had become the backbone of the main battlefield, making Baron Raglan want to curse his mother.
The Ottoman Empire's upper ranks were not truly trying to fob Britain off; they simply had no idea what conditions were like at the bottom. Though only a wall stood between them, the city and the land beyond it were two different worlds.
War flared up again. The moment the fighting began, the battlefield was shrouded in blood and gun smoke. Countless limbs, weapons, entrails, and military banners were left scattered across the field.
As a mournful horn sounded, soldiers from both sides began to withdraw. The world fell silent, and the battlefield was left to the crows and wild dogs.
Suddenly, one of the corpses began to tremble. A man laboriously pushed away the bodies covering him, walked over to a dead Ottoman squad leader, tore the silver ornament from his cap badge, and stuffed it into his coat pocket.
Then he picked up