An Unexpected Delight

Shipload after shipload of supplies departed from Britain, passed through the Suez Canal to the Persian Gulf, then crossed Persia by land into the Ottoman Empire.

The arrival of international aid directly spurred the Ottoman resistance movement. The Sultan seemed as though he had been pumped full of chicken blood, bursting with unprecedented enthusiasm.

The frontline officers and soldiers felt it most clearly. The enemy's resistance had grown increasingly tenacious; even the old, the weak, women, and children had taken up guns and were firing at them.

Before this, the Ottoman Empire had limited weapons. There were barely enough to equip the regular army, and some soldiers were still using primitive flintlock muskets.

The civilians were equipped mainly with cold weapons. The occasional antique hunting rifle was considered a treasure, and posed little threat to the Allied forces.

After receiving British aid, however, the Ottomans' predicament of insufficient weaponry had changed.

Perhaps Britain's military-industrial capacity was inadequate. The Ottoman army had not gained many new rifles, but its stock of antiquated weapons and equipment had increased dramatically.

It was obvious that the British were clearing out their inventory this time. There were weapons of every description, and some artillery pieces could be traced back to the previous century.

No matter which century they came from, once these firearms fell into Ottoman hands, they could still wield considerable power under these particular geographical conditions.

As a result, the Allied forces came under mounting pressure on the battlefield. The first to find it unbearable was not the Principality of Montenegro, but Greece, which had more troops.

There was no helping it. Montenegro had too few people to afford heavy losses. Maxim Trentiyev had inherited his ancestors' martial traditions, adhering to the principle of inflicting the greatest possible damage on the enemy with