March 1872 — Montenegro
The snow was dying.
Each day, the white veil that had blanketed the mountains retreated a little farther up the slopes, revealing the black stone and the muddy valleys below.
As the snowmelt ran off and began to cleanse the european landscape revealing its natural beauty once more.
The air no longer bit like a blade; it merely stung, filled with the scent of thawing earth and coal smoke from the forges that had not rested even in the depths of winter.
Spring was coming, and with it — war.
Not that the Balkan warfront had been idle during the winter.
At least not for the Montenegrin army at least, all throughout the months of winter they had been active and moving around the map of Eastern Europe on campaign greedily taking everything they could get their hands on.
But for the other european powers, winter was when their armies could finally shake off the snow, and consider stepping out from the barracks in which they holed themselves up huddled over hearths.
From his balcony in Bar, Elias watched the harbor awaken.
Where once the docks had been crowded with fishing boats and small transports, now they bristled with steel.
The Montenegrin Navy, reborn under his system's relentless might, gleamed in the morning light.
Metal-hulled frigates, their turreted guns turning slowly under testing rotation, stood in ranks along the piers like soldiers awaiting inspection.
The older ironclads had been scrapped officially, but in secret under the cover of darkness Elias had simply paid the fee to upgrade the ships a handful at a time to convert the Ironclad navy into official frigates, while the wooden sailing ships turned into corvettes.
Steam boilers hissed.
Flags snapped in the wind.
The port of Bar had become a naval bastion — the heart of an empire still pretending to be a principality.
Elias's gaze drifted south to the horizon, where the sea met the pale sky.
Somewhere beyond that line, the Ottoman fleet was bleeding to death.
His new warships had swept through the Aegean and Adriatic alike, intercepting Ottoman convoys and raiding supply ports.
Their victories were clean, precise, and brutal.
Ottoman merchant ships feared to even set sail into the meditteranean right now for fear of the elite ghost ship force.
Whenever the fleet was out, the odds of getting sunk was 1:10 for every one of Elias's ships sunk, the ottomans would lose 10.
More than that, one out of every four ships from the ottomans would surrender before even going to battle when not grouped together in a fleet.
Fear was a weapon — and Elias wielded it with expertise.
With the french only just recently starting to acquire a reputation for waving the white flag that would continue on for decades to come, the Ottoman empire was quickly developing a regional reputation for being cowards on the Mediterranean.
Each captured Ottoman ship brought with it spoils beyond measure.
Bronze, or iron cannons, powder, iron shot, gold, silver and silk — all were stripped, cataloged, and fed into the ever-hungry war economy.
His refineries glowed at all hours, melting down the past to forge the future.
Though not all the spoils were fed into the refineries with a few trade ships dropping their cargo into the coastal towns and cities of Montenegro, and the occupied territory, bringing in trade wealth that this region had never seen before.
And so, through the long winter, his empire grew richer and stronger while the rest of Europe still squinted at the Balkans, unsure of what had truly happened.
But that would soon change.
Once the snow melted fully, couriers, merchants, and diplomats would begin to move again.
The information lockdown that had shielded Montenegro's rise would crack — and the world would see.
They would wake up to find a monster that had hidden in their midst.
Though it was up to Elias, and his ability to project power, to prevent the Great powers of Europe from trying to band together in a coalition to take down this emerging power, while opening up the region for exploitation once more.
Only Britain, France, and Germany the greatest of the powers right now had no real access to the region, and equally so they didnt want to empower Austria, or Russia further.
While, they could get involved to return the lands to Ottoman control, it was clear the writing on the empire was on the wall.
The Ottoman time of domination was long over, their ability to hold back the Russians had passed and even if the lands were returned, they no longer had the means to protect or govern such an expanse.
~
The great map table dominated the chamber in his command HQ, the surface covered with colored markers denoting divisions, fleets, and supply depots, on all sides of the conflict.
Simple electrics flickered against the steel, and concrete surfaces of the walls, the air thick with the scent of wax, coffee, and oil.
Rex's forces continued to hold the east, holding an occupied front stretching from Skopje down through Kavala in the south.
Kovec's southern divisions had secured the Macedonian and northern greek territories before forming up on the Aegean coastlines.
And now, the reinforcements had finally arrived.
For weeks now he had been producing regiments only to send them to reinforce or take over guardianship of the occupied territories to solidify his control over the regions.
Before then producing new regiments and battallions to join the corps already waiting on the frontlines.
His expansion of the army had finally reached a grand total of one hundred and twenty thousand men.
A grand army, perhaps not one that could match numbers with the great powers of Europe or even America, but his units were elite by European standards, and no nation could boast having one hundred thousands elites, especially not across all the armies branches.
Montenegro, once a rugged backwater of fewer than a quarter-million souls, before the first Ottoman war, had increased to just over a half-million and now including the occupied zones, along with their remaining prospects for capture before the end of the war had increased their population to over six million souls at this point.
Roughly around the same size as Morocco in North Africa, but still a far cry from the dozens of millions or hundreds of millions found in the great empires like the British, French, or Russians.
Even the United states was greater than 10 times the size populationwise to his new empire.
But his navy, fully upgraded to modern standards of the time, was a force to be reckoned with, even Britain the predominant naval power of this age, was only just converting their old sailing ships into steam driven steel ships.
Meanwhile Elias had close to 80 warships already afloat, double the size of the Italian navy by comparison.
~
Across the Sea — The Americas
Half a world away, another storm brewed unnoticed.
In the wake of the American Civil War, the continent still reeled from exhaustion, as the reconstruction efforts were still underway to bring the nation back into full working state.
The great cities of the East were rebuilding, railroads stretching west once more into the vast plains.
Washington's politicians congratulated themselves on "peace restored."
But in the heart of the continent, peace was a lie.
Along the great plains, from the Dakotas to Colorado, campfires burned at night beneath banners the U.S. Army no longer recognized.
Tribes once divided by language and blood had begun to unite — Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche — under a single confederation.
Their weapons were not bows and lances, but rifles.
Modern rifles.
Guns provided to them by mercenaries who had once fought under the Confederate banner — the Grey Wolves.
Weaponry captured from the Federal Union forces and shipped to the Commanche forces fighting to protect their rights and lands as allies to the confederacy.
Thousands upon thousands of musket-rifles, barrel after barrel of power, and boxes of shot.
An aresenal, meant to empower the native tribes.
But not just power but also knowledge was shared.
Thanks to Elias's summoning ability he had sent a special spy one who when spawned appeared no different from the common native americans had arrived as a consultant, fluent in all the tribal languages and dialects.
Warning of an imminent danger from the colonies.