Bulgarian Empire

Chapter 137: Talks, Sieges

The Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs argued: "The armistice has not yet been signed, the two countries are still at war, and our cessation of the attack has already shown the peace-loving attitude of Bulgaria!

But giving the enemy the chance to recover their strength, we will never do it! Unless the war ends, the blockade cannot end!"

Aleksandar I in Belgrade is now on the verge of collapse! From the beginning of the talks until now, he had crushed five rebellions in just over a week!

Nope, probably not really a rebellion either! During a desperate shortage of supplies, the people fought for what they could live on and started a riot!

Ever since the Bulgarian army laid siege to the city, prices in the city have skyrocketed and are now dozens of times higher than before the war!

The capitalists do not have the idea of sharing the problems with the government. They have refused to accept the dinar! The rich people are lucky, have prepared before, and always have some foreign currency or gold and silver. Now they can barely get through!

The working class suffered, and ordinary citizens were not the same. The family in the city at least still has some reserves of food!

Some people work alone in the factory, food and shelter are in the factory, cooking household items are not everyone have, so what reserve food!

As soon as Belgrade was besieged, the factories were shut down, and the capitalists suffered losses, so naturally, they were not in charge of the food!

The few dinars in hand were about as much as straw and could not be spent! Under the threat of hunger, robbery and theft were in full swing, and crime in Belgrade was on the rise!

Of course, this is all a minor problem. Serbia is not much of an industrial country in the first place. The few workers in Belgrade have mainly been mobilized into the army!

Not many are left, or the truly old and weak can not afford to make much of a scene!

The point is that before in order to defend the city, they fully mobilized the city of Belgrade. Instead of young and strong men, but also they organized young and strong women to form two female divisions, ready to fight the Bulgarians in blood to the end!

In theory, more than 100,000 troops are now inside the city of Belgrade, six or seven times more than the enemy outside the city! If it were medieval times, Aleksandar I could have launched a counter-attack by now!

The amount of people is not necessarily a good thing. They can not pay military pay, and military food can not also be there! The Serbian government now has to worry about feeding these people!

It is impossible to transport food from outside the city, and more food from the Bulgarian army to the city is not enough to eat!

The young Aleksandar I, although limited in ability, but not really stupid! He knew the mutiny would immediately happen once they cut off the food! For the sake of security, he had to urge the Serbian delegation to speed up the talks!

When the Serbian delegation spoke, the Austrian diplomat was dumbfounded. And now you're giving in?

Well, that's the way to go if that's the case! In order to make a full show, according to the original plan, these 'difficult' talks were to be delayed until 1895, but now only a week later, the Serbs themselves gave in!

Since he was doing the siege, how could Ferdinand have left out the Austro-Hungarian diplomats?

The Serbs probably never dreamed that they would be sold out just after their side had shown concessions!

Just this one message, Bulgaria paid another 50,000 pounds for the price of another day! Wait until the end of the war, the Bulgarian government, the top, will suddenly find that the war is not the most costly. Doing foreign relations is!

But the news, too, is really worth the price! Although a secret agreement has been reached with Austria-Hungary, if Serbia is willing to pay a greater price without harming the interests of Austria-Hungary, it can still be managed!

Knowing that the Serbian government could not hold out any longer, Ferdinand decided to add more fire!

Belgrade is located in northern Serbia at the junction of the Sava and Danube rivers. It is the capital of the Kingdom of Serbia, the country's political, economic, and cultural center, and an important contact point between Europe and the Near East. It has great strategic importance and is known as the key to the Balkans.

Food and water are two essential elements for defending a city! After cutting off the supply of food and coal, Ferdinand turned his attention to the water supply!

Upon receiving the order, Popov, who had surrounded the city, immediately complied! Belgrade is located at the junction of rivers. It is impractical to try to poison it! Ferdinand was not letting them do it either. The implications would be too bad!

Ferdinand's order was to use one: a very primitive, traditional, but the effective method - cut off the river upstream!

Of course, not to really cut off the Sava and Danube, because otherwise there would be no place to clean up the lightly diverted river!

It would have been fine if talks hadn't started, but now that they have, it's a bit much to create artificial floods and submerge farmland and villages downstream!

Popov now wants to force his prisoners to dump dirt and garbage into the river and make a gesture to cut off the river and put pressure on the Serbian government!

The muddy river water is not suitable for direct drinking in the city either! As for the consequences, it's none of Ferdinand's business, and the Serbian government should have a headache anyway!

Popov acted outside the city. Belgrade is in chaos! The water source is contaminated, the well is stifled, anyway, located at the junction of rivers, digging down can always dig out water!

Of course, with fewer people, this is no problem! The problem is that now Belgrade, in addition to the local residents and the army, has increased by more than 100,000 people, so how many people's water is not just a few wells can handle!

First, they looted food, now, they robbed water, and the government had to send troops to maintain order in the city!

In just ten days, the army shot thousands of people, which stabilized the situation, and the Serbian government authorities knew Belgrade was on the verge of collapse!

Aleksandar I now hold high-level meetings every day to think about strategy! Another crucial reason is not to give his men a chance to conspire to prevent a coup d'etat! Who told Serbia to have a tradition of coup d'etat?

At the dreary meeting, the Minister of Industry said stiffly: "The situation in Belgrade is worsening. Industry and commerce in the city have all ceased!

The capitalists are going crazy. They block my home every day, and now I can't go home!

In the long run, I'm afraid the situation will get further out of control!

The Bulgarians are trying to force us to concede and accept their terms wholesale!

Now they may cut off the river at any time. Once it happens, our downstream areas of farmland and towns will be devastated, and the consequences are grave!

If the talks fail, I'm afraid there won't be a single slice of Serbia!"