NOVPUB"Boom, boom, boom..."
One shell after another rained down from the sky, throwing Ava City into chaos. Cries and screams echoed throughout the city, as frightened citizens scrambled through the streets.
Akeul had no time to concern himself with work; he grabbed his apprentice and ran towards the backyard. Suddenly, he stopped amidst a pile of clutter, and while clearing the messy debris, said, "Hurry and help, let’s hide in the cellar."
Understanding the gravity of the situation, the young boy nodded and quickly joined in. The original purpose of this hidden cellar was for the blacksmith owner to evade the tax officers.
How could one do business in the Ottoman Empire and not evade taxes? Even though it was just a small blacksmith shop, at its peak, the owner and workers numbered over a dozen.
Merely forging farm tools, pots and pans, these trinkets barely brought in any money, not to mention the officials who would scrape off a layer for themselves, leaving the owner with almost nothing in hand. How could he possibly afford so many people?
The resourceful blacksmith owner certainly didn’t sit idly by; he decisively branched out into a new business—forging weapons, and specifically, those that weren’t exactly legal.
As time passed and the Age of Hot Weapons dawned, the number of private orders dwindled. Mountain thieves, bandits, and pirates—the high-quality customers—became fewer and fewer, and the blacksmith shop slowly declined.
By the time this generation’s owner took over, he had expanded to open a grocery store, but decided to retain the ancestral blacksmith shop. With only Akeul, the master blacksmith, the shop managed to survive by crafting everyday items for sale.
After the war broke out, sensing danger, the owner fled with his family, leaving only Akeul and a young apprentice to watch the store.
The underground business had vanished, and with it, the cellar fell into disuse, occasionally storing some materials but otherwise seldom utilized.
Now, it had become a hiding place for the two of them. In the cramped space, their breathing was audibly clear. The boy, struggling to remain calm, asked, "Master..."
Akeul interrupted, "Stop, I know what you want to ask. But right now, there’s nothing we can do except hide here.
They will surely hide when they hear the cannon fire. Even if you go out now, you won’t be able to help. Cannonballs don’t have eyes; we just can’t stop them, trust in God to protect them..."
When Ava came under attack from naval artillery, Brigadier Erzucher immediately issued an order: "Organize a counterattack immediately, we can’t let the enemy act so recklessly."
The Ottoman Empire had prepared for this war for a better part of a year, purchasing many cannons from England and France. As a key defensive port, Ava had hundreds of cannons lining its coast.
Of course, only about thirty of these were truly effective heavy cannons; the rest were no significant threat to ironclad ships.
Still, this was no meager number. With so many Ottoman port cities, Ava receiving this many cannons showed an extraordinary level of importance.
Normally, no one would engage in a direct exchange of fire between naval ships and coastal batteries; it’s a very foolish choice. Coastal batteries have smaller targets, can be stabilized and focused on land, meaning that the ships would be at a disadvantage in an exchange.
Of course, there are exceptions. The quality of weapons, equipment, and soldiers are also key factors affecting accuracy. It wouldn’t be surprising to lose to naval ships in a bombardment, although this happens very rarely.
"Yes, General!"
No sooner had the voice faded than several young nobility officers quickly stepped forward, picking up the phones in the command room, shouting commands. These phones, without exception, didn’t have sophisticated dialing equipment; they relied entirely on manual switchboard operators.
If someone paid close attention to the German instructions on the base of the phones, it would reveal that these products also indicated they were made in Austria.
These were minor issues; given the limited technology of the era and no chance of remote eavesdropping, it didn’t matter who produced the phones, as they couldn’t be compromised.
In the field of battle, practicality was most important. A majority of the telephone equipment in the international market was exported from Austria, and the Sultan Government couldn’t be picky.
Complicated as it may seem to produce these devices, with the Ottoman Empire’s industrial technology, telecommunications equipment made there simply couldn’t be used.
As commands were issued one after another, the long-awaited coastal batteries began to fire, with deafening blasts resounding constantly.
Two or three nautical miles away (1 nautical mile = 1.852 kilometers), on a warship, a burly middle-aged Fofficer stood on the gangway, peering through binoculars at the distant shore.
The guard, dutiful and responsible, warned, "General, it’s dangerous here, you would be safer in the observation room."
The middle-aged man laughed heartily, "If the enemy can hit us from this distance, then God must be eager to summon me early."
A hit? Most cannons could not even shoot this far, and the few that had the range couldn’t possibly aim accurately at such a distance.
When the Austrian Navy attacked Ava, it was merely firing blindly; there was no need for precision aiming. All that was required was adjusting to the maximum range so the shells could fly as far as possible.
To achieve any significant results, the distance had to be closed again. Even the closest warship to Ava maintained a distance of two nautical miles.
The distance was just right to ensure that the ship’s guns could fire shells into the city while maintaining the safety of the warship.
Glancing at his watch, the middle-aged officer muttered to himself, "They should be here by now. If they don’t show up soon, I’ll just have to do it myself."
This wasn’t the first time they had bombarded a port city. Since April 5, when they began bombarding Ottoman ports, the Austrian Navy conducted live-fire exercises on several port cities every day.
Yes, live-fire exercises. The navy treated this as a training opportunity, using the Ottomans as targets to train their gunners’ accuracy.
It didn’t take long before clusters of colorful clouds appeared in the sky, causing the middle-aged officer to frown, "Order the fleet to close in by 1 nautical mile, and mind the wind direction."
To create an opportunity for the air force, they had to play the bait this time. How else to draw out the enemy shore battery’s firepower without generating enough pressure?
Sure enough, as the Austrian Navy pressed in, the sound of gunfire intensified. Brigadier Erzucher could no longer hide his skill, as the defenders unleashed all their firepower.
Behind two unassuming shore batteries, a young officer, Colonel Saltus, excitedly shouted, "Aim carefully and shoot. Target those warships. Those tiny ones, can you hit them?"
Colonel Saltus was not just another noble officer waiting around to die; as a rising star in the Ottoman Empire’s military, he was a student at the French Saint-Cyr Military School.
Had the war not broken out suddenly, he would have continued his arduous studies in France for two more years before completing his education. Out of desperation, the Sultan Government decided to go for broke and called him back early to fight, graduated or not.
After all, having studied abroad for several years and having been exposed to the most advanced military concepts in the world, he was far superior in theoretical knowledge to domestic, provincial nobility officers.
Under normal circumstances, high-achievers like Saltus would be groomed at the headquarters, or at the very least, serve at the command level of a division. Unfortunately, right after being assigned to Ava, Saltus offended someone.
He promptly criticized Ava’s shore battery deployment as utterly flawed and proposed a modification plan.
In the face of war, the old, antagonistic faction was in the minority. With his rich theoretical knowledge, Saltus successfully persuaded others and was promoted to Colonel for his contributions.
Having offended people, Saltus was quickly sent to a frontline unit for training. In reality, he was just put in charge of guarding the shore battery, and if it weren’t for the war, his life would probably end there.
A soldier yelled out in alarm, "Colonel, there is that big bird in the sky again."
Dissatisfied with the soldier’s shouting, Colonel Saltus corrected him, "That’s an airship, not some ’big bird’."
The eager soldier corrected himself, "Yes, an airship. Hey, something’s falling down. Could it be they’re just dropping scrap paper again?"
For the illiterate soldiers, the leaflets dropped by the Austrians didn’t differ much from scrap paper. Attempts to spread panic and encourage locals to flee using leaflets hadn’t been successful.
The worldly-wise Saltus had already realized something, why would they need so many airships to drop leaflets? One was enough; there was no need to deploy more than twenty at once.
"It’s bad, those are bombs, find cover!" he shouted.
After shouting, Saltus turned tail and ran. His panic was not without reason. No one had experienced an attack like this before, and his quick judgment that they were bombs showed his high level of knowledge.
How to take cover from bombing wasn’t something one could learn from books. Knowing to run was proof enough of his quick reflexes. If the enemy was bombing, they were targeting the cannons, and moving away from the gun emplacement naturally increased their safety.
However, it was all too late. Before he had managed to get far, bombs rained down from the sky, and the gun emplacement received special attention.
The roaring explosions left nothing but chaos behind. The fleeing Saltus was thrown to the ground by the blast wave, with two shrapnel pieces embedded in his arm.
Bearing the pain, he looked up to see the few soldiers who had stayed behind at the site no longer resembled humans; only a crater remained, along with indistinct... (omits several words)
Saltus couldn’t afford to worry about the cannons any longer, enduring the pain, he got up and continued to run, only wanting to get as far from the gun emplacement as possible.
The bombing from above plunged many into a befuddled state, surpassing their capacity to comprehend or know how to react.
The design of the gun emplacement was only meant to engage enemies at sea; no one had considered defending against enemies from the sky.
There was no anti-aircraft firepower to speak of. Who could have predicted the first large-scale bombing in human history?
No matter how chaotic it was on the ground, bombs continued to rain down from the sky, dropping on any suspicious targets they found.
Inside the Ava Defenders’ headquarters, Brigadier Erzucher paced like an ant on a hot pan, utterly lost as to what to do.
…
