Chapter 255: The Disaster Comes to Town

  Chapter 247 – Disaster Descends

The Battle of Constantinople had been fought to this point, and there was no telling how many corpses there were in the corners of the city that hadn’t had the time to be disposed of, and had simply begun to rot.

Both sides of the warring parties, have just cleaned up the corpses in front of their own eyes, while the corners of the city, inside the residents’ houses could not care less.

Hot summer descended, August Constantinople, the whole city is filled with the stench of rot, the atmosphere is depressing terrible.

The guns were still roaring, leaving only a field of broken walls that spoke of years gone by. The Russians had paid too much for the capture of this city.

The daily report of casualties sent up, Mareshkov has long since stopped reading. Every day he had to pay thousands of casualties, a few months in a row he had long been numb.

The fame of the “Constantinople meat grinder” had spread all over the world, and wherever there were Europeans, the brutality of the war was being spread.

If one were to count, one would find that the Russian army’s losses here have already exceeded the sum of the two Bulgarian battles, but the Russians are still fearless.

Simply because the outer defenses of Constantinople were all breached, or rather blasted through, and after paying tens of thousands of tons of ammunition, the fortifications were reduced to rubble.

The street battle has begun, and now the two sides have entered the stage of purely fighting for human life, and the exchange ratio between the two sides has gradually decreased from the initial five to one to four to one and three to …… one to the present already 1.3:1.

A middle-aged officer said in a deep voice: “Your Excellency the Commander, we have lost all of our cannon fodder troops, and the Bulgarian guerrillas that we have collected have also suffered heavy losses.

There are not many young men left in the Balkans at the moment, and I’m afraid that if we want to replenish our troops now, it will be very difficult to do so.”

Of course there is not much left, this war has gone on so far and the people who have lost the most are the local population.

The Ottomans took strong men to fight the war, the Russians took strong men to fight the war, Britain and France didn’t take strong men, it was the Ottomans who did it for them.

The Balkan Peninsula has a population of just over 10 million people, and the number of young men is only how much? How could they possibly stand up to this?

Before the attack on Constantinople, the Russians captured most of the soldiers to do hard labor, driving the people to attack the city tactics, the Russians are still rarely used.

After arriving at the city, the situation changed, the tragic casualties, so the Russians had to use a lot of cannon fodder.

Maenshikov voice grimly replied: “know, how many count, cannon fodder died out, on our own people top.

The enemy can’t hold out much longer, as long as we capture this last urban area, we’ll have won the war!

Order the court martial office to strictly enforce the military law, those who do not advance in battle will be killed, those who lightly talk about retreating will be killed, and those who disturb the heart of the army will be killed!”

There is no way, this war is not only about the fate of Russia, but also about Mareshkov’s own fate.

If he could not conquer Constantinople, he had better die on the battlefield, or there would be many people who would want to tear him alive.

From a purely military point of view, Mareshkov was a dullard, fighting a dull battle without any regard for the casualties of his army.

In order to keep the war going, the Russian army relied on the harsh military law, in order to establish the authority of Mareshkov did a big thing, on-site execution of noble officers who violated the military law!

Not one or two noble officers died in his hands, but dozens of them.

If Constantinople is conquered, he will be a national hero of Russia, and these executed nobles are synonymous with cowardice, along with the family behind them are despised.

If Constantinople had not been captured, the situation would have been different. Historically, Nicholas I couldn’t bear the consequences of his defeat in the Crimean War, not to mention Mareshkov.

Mareshkov hadn’t lived enough, he didn’t want to die so infamously, so now he fought for his life. Sensei does not care what kind of person, how much background, as long as you dare to violate the military law that is – kill.

“Yes, Commander!” The middle-aged officer replied solemnly

Not only Maeshkov, the fate of the top officers of the Expeditionary Army were all tied together. The Battle of Constantinople was extraordinary, if they lost here, none of them should think of having a good life.

……

Crimean Peninsula, the greatly superior Anglo-French allied forces had not had time to celebrate when a bolt from the blue came, in July 1854 cholera broke out in the French barracks.

The hot weather combined with unsanitary conditions and without waiting for the allied forces to react, the plague broke out all at once, spreading from the French barracks to the British barracks.

The flies and mosquitoes on the Crimean Peninsula became the perfect aids to the spread of the virus, and a large number of Allied soldiers began vomiting diarrhea and then died in their tents.

The public places of the Allied armies had been filthy and the sanitary system was a sham. The number of sick people rose dramatically, and the plague momentarily reached out-of-control proportions.

By early August, 500 British soldiers had died of disease in the Varna region. The number of French deaths rose to more than 60 a day.

This was just the beginning of a sudden plague that initially went undetected and spread to other areas as the crowds moved in.

Constantinople.

Not far from the docks, more than ten French soldiers were resting in an open space when one of them suddenly began to vomit, attracting everyone’s attention.

A young man asked with concern, “Alphonse, what’s wrong with you?”

The man who was vomiting replied breathlessly, “I don’t know, I just suddenly felt a little nauseous and wanted to throw up.”

An officer-looking man said, “It’s probably a cold, take care of yourself, and if it doesn’t work tomorrow, then you’ll go to the military doctor’s side.”

Obviously, he just thought that Alphonse had a cold, this kind of minor ailment everyone usually relied on their body to fight it off, only the serious ones would go to the military doctor.

Even though the French army did better logistically than the British, medical resources were likewise very scarce, and unless they were upper-middle class officers, it was equally difficult for ordinary soldiers to get effective treatment.

At this time another man said, “No, I have to go to facilitate.”

After saying that, without looking back, he ran not far away to settle.

Such a small hiccup obviously wouldn’t attract everyone’s attention. They were reinforcements that had just arrived not more than a few days ago and were now adapting to the climate of Constantinople.

We’ve all seen a little bit of adverse reaction because of the water and soil, everyone has seen a lot. Usually, they would be fine after a short period of time, but if not, they would have to be repatriated.

However, most of the men did not want to be repatriated, even with the high casualty rate on the battlefields of Constantinople.

Because the body can’t adapt to the climate and triggers an adverse reaction, it’s usually impossible to return safely, and most will die on the way.

The sea in this era was not to be messed with, and the environment on board the ship was quite harsh, and in the absence of medical care, once you fell ill, you had one foot in the grave.

Looking at the increasing number of sick people, the French commander Emabule Jean-Jacques Pellissier finally realized that something was wrong, but unfortunately it was too late by this time.

Too many people died in Constantinople, in order to defend this fortress city, the French soldiers fell more than 100,000 alone, the Russians died only more, the civilian casualties within the city are even more uncountable.

Because of the war, there was no way for the French to clean up the bodies in the city, in fact many of the bodies were buried by collapsed buildings and could not be cleaned up even if they wanted to.

This created a favorable environment for the rats and flies to survive, and the number of rats and flies in Constantinople this summer exceeded the highest record in history, as if they were the masters of the city.

Pelissier named to the guard, “Ask Dr. Ambroise to come here and give him this information.”

Despite his suspicions, Pelissier was not sure about the outbreak of the plague. Until this time, the news of the outbreak of plague in the Crimean Peninsula had not been communicated to him.

Busy with the defense of Constantinople the whole day, Pelissier did not have the energy to pay attention to the small news, and of course he may not be able to pay attention even if he wanted to.

The allied forces have been plagued by disease since the beginning of the Crimean Peninsula, this is no longer news, and everyone has gotten used to it over time.

Moreover, the time when the allied forces on the Crimean Peninsula determined the outbreak of the plague was only a few days earlier than Pelissier, and the virus had already entered the city before that.

Because of the war, a large number of people died here every day, and over time the human spirit became numb to death, so what’s a few deaths from disease?

……

Ambroise said seriously, “Your Excellency Commander, I just went to the hospital and combined with this data, we can tentatively conclude that the plague is here!”

Pelissier’s face sank, the worst had still happened. Constantinople was connected by the sea, both reinforcements and supplies could be sent up in a steady stream, as long as he was willing to take casualties, he had the confidence to keep holding on.

The only exception was one situation, and that was the plague. Human beings are weak in the face of disease. Pelissier could defeat the Russians, but was helpless in the face of disease.

“Can it be controlled?” Pelissier asked with concern

Just control, treatment he was no longer looking forward to. Infected with the plague in this era, you just have to let fate take its course, there is no special medicine.

Ambroise thought for a moment and then said, “I’m sorry, Your Excellency Commander, I can’t answer that question.

It depends on the spreading nature of the plague, and also to determine how many people have been infected with the virus by now, before we can finally draw a conclusion.

However, this is a time of war, and the army is too frequently mobilized, and we have a severe shortage of doctors, so it’s impossible to spread out to the troops to diagnose and treat them, and it’s impossible to determine which ones are common colds and which ones are plague.

In fact, from the symptoms, it’s possible for these symptoms to occur with a common cold, and if the death rate wasn’t so high, I’d suspect that this was just a highly transmissible influenza.”

What makes the plague scary is in the speed of transmission, and the high mortality rate.

Pelissier continued, “Can you determine the attributes of this plague?”

The plague was also categorized, and different classifications ended up causing different lethality.

Ambroise shook his head and said, “The information we currently have in our hands is too little to determine the source of this plague, as well as the means of transmission, we cannot rule out the possibility of it being a bubonic plague.

From a professional point of view, I personally believe that Constantinople is no longer suitable to continue.

Too many people have died in the city, many times we can smell rotting corpses in the stinking gutters, and war is supposed to be a source of plague breeding.”

Pelissier smiled bitterly and said, “Well, Dr. Ambroise, the task of investigating the plague and combating it, I leave to you.

As for the question of Constantinople’s suitability for habitation, I can’t answer you, it’s not just a military matter, it involves politics as well.”

Constantinople was not fit to stay, this truth was equally known to Pelissier, all outbreaks of plague, certainly not fit to continue to stay.

But the consequences of abandoning Constantinople were so severe that at least he, the commander of the expeditionary force, couldn’t yet pocket it, and he didn’t even have a say in the matter.

Ambroise replied, “Well then, Your Excellency the Commander. All I can say is that I’m doing my best, and there’s no guarantee of the final result!”

(End of chapter)