NOVEL WEB Vol. 1 Chapter 140: The War is Over
Radoman knows that it's all over! The Serbian government was finished, and his own political life was over!
Austria-Hungary's patience with Serbia has run out, and support is not unlimited!
The Serbian government is not aware of it, and now it is because of its slow response that the bitter fruit can only be swallowed by themselves!
So the political veteran Radoman, after sending a telegram to the country, describing the specifics, decidedly fell ill and was admitted to a Vienna hospital!
The Serbian talks team, which could only be replaced by his vice, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, continued to participate in the talks!
Time rushes by, a week has passed, and as they enter November, there is still no progress in the talks!
The Serbian government now has only two options before it.
Either agree to the Bulgarians' terms, sign an armistice and end the war!
Either hold on and wait for Belgrade to collapse and surrender to the Bulgarians!
Knowing what the Bulgarians were up to, the high-ups in the Serbian government knew that they were in big trouble this time! The Prime Minister, far away in Vienna, gave them a good start and fell ill in numbers!
Their political life will be over after losing the war anyway! Now that they are sick, they just don't have to carry the name of the traitor!
Others can hide, but only Aleksandar I can not hide! Who asked him to be the king?
In the Serbian royal palace, Alexander I thought angrily, to bear the blame for altogether, only now want to hide, no door, no window!
He said coldly: "Someone, go and invite the ministers over to the council! If they are sick, carry them here! Anyway, all senior government officials must attend this afternoon's meeting!"
...
At this point in the war, there is no longer much doubt! When it ends, it is a matter of time. Bulgaria has ended the war economy!
In Sofia's palace, Ferdinand is busy counting expenses together with the high-level government!
Good man, it's really a big one, a million gold in one shot!
Since they declared the war until now, the expenses, large and small, have amounted to more than 70 million two hundred and forty thousand Leva (about two million eight hundred thousand pounds, 2.1 tons of gold), and this is just the beginning!
Later there are casualties pension, meritorious awards, new land management, and a series of things that are not a small expense!
But now Ferdinand is not the least bit worried about this huge expense!
The Bulgarian army occupied two-thirds of Serbia, even though it was primarily mountainous and not much richer! Even so, the harvest was still good!
It is too low a means to rob directly, and it is easy to corrupt military discipline and takes the blame!
It's much simpler just to set up blockades to collect taxes and inflate prices! Anyway, during the war years, prices do not rise! The capitalists are also the ones who are taking the blame!
As for the life of the Serbs, it was not Ferdinand's turn to worry about it! The Bulgarian army now distributed relief food to civilians, even though it was only a small piece of black bread!
The latter problem is the Serbian government's headache!
"Are the casualties counted yet?" Ferdinand asked with concern, and this was his biggest worry!
Prime Minister Konstantin immediately replied: " It has been initially counted, from the declaration of war to the present, nearly a month, the Bulgarian army launched a total of small and large battles, more than hundreds of times!
As of yesterday, the troops reported upwards of 40,000 casualties!
Twelve thousand five hundred and seventy-four of them have died; there are also more than eight thousand seriously wounded, still under treatment, and many of them have been amputated, with no possibility of returning to normal; the rest are lightly wounded and have begun to recover one after another, returning to the troops!"
After hearing the Prime Minister's words, Ferdinand's suspended heart finally settled down! Fortunately, the lightly wounded can recover. Otherwise, losing more than 40,000 soldiers was enough to damage Bulgaria's strength!
Even so, Ferdinand sighed! To fight a Serbia, all the way to extend the pressure, the two sides engaged in less than a month and paid the price of more than 20,000 people!
Then slowly said, "Do a good job on the back of the tribute! We can't let heroes bleed and shed tears!"
When they saw Ferdinand's bad mood, the crowd wisely put away their smiling faces, as if they had changed, all turned into a look of sadness and pity!
Of course, true or false does not matter, but they must still do the show! Otherwise, if the top does not pay attention, the bottom still has to pay out the full amount of pensions in place?
Ferdinand is not a saint and can not ask others to be a saint! If there is someone at the top of the government who is really a saint, he will definitely be the first to tell him to get lost!
After a moment's pause, Konstantin said sincerely, "Please rest assured, Your Highness! Our government will definitely do a good job in the aftermath, and there will never be a situation where heroes shed their blood and tears!"
Ferdinand nodded. He knew that now the Bulgarian government was still sincere, plus now the burst of nationalism, which had just defeated Serbia, everyone's patriotic passion was high. There should be few people who dare to play the idea of pension!
It continued, "What about the Serbian losses?"
When he heard Ferdinand ask about the situation in Serbia, Konstantin said with a bright smile: "Your Highness, the Serbs are finished this time, and it will be difficult to recover in twenty years!
From the data collected from all over the region, the Serbian army has already confirmed more than 200,000 dead, and the actual number will only be higher!
Since the Serbs were poor militarists, they sent the country's young and strong labor force into the army. In addition to the more than 200,000 who have died in battle, we still have 120,000 prisoners in our hands!
Serbia's young and strong population has now been reduced by at least half!
In addition, I helped relocate nearly 300,000 people from the south bank, and now we issue relief food. While the local military controls it, it is not a big problem!
Once the war is over, these 300,000 people will become an untimely bomb! If the Serbian government fails to settle them properly, the civil war will probably break out again under heightened conflicts!"
Ferdinand smiled, knowing that settling 300,000 people was not that simple, especially among old and sick people!
Let them continue to be farmers, and you have to have land for them to grow? If you let them work as workers, it's even more problematic! If they work as laborers, they cannot do it; if they are skilled, they do not know how to do it; and the Serbian government cannot provide so many jobs!
END OF VOLUME I : FOUNDATION