Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
I don't think you understand logistics. Trying to mass a large army with a single, single-track rail line is not possible. There are only so many trains you can run along the line (and back). It just doesn't work that way. Once you have entrained people, you have to detrain them and reorganize. You could make a trip from Paris to Vladivostock in 15 to 16 days, but ty sending an army of 400,000 troops that quickly in the middle of a war. Won't happen. Otherwise, how did the Russians lose the Russo-Japanese War? They should have been able to mass their gigantic army and crush the small Japanese one.
An armistice was declared just two months after the war began. After that, the Ottomans were hemmed in on a front only 20 miles across - there are only so many troops you can use along a front so small.
Again, you really need to read about the war before making these sweeping pronouncements, and I don't mean the Wikipedia article.
An armistice was declared just two months after the war began. After that, the Ottomans were hemmed in on a front only 20 miles across - there are only so many troops you can use along a front so small.
Again, you really need to read about the war before making these sweeping pronouncements, and I don't mean the Wikipedia article.
There are difficulties with rail, but it says more about the disorganisation of Ottoman rail than anything else.
By 1904 it was possible to travel by rail from Paris to Vladivostock in 15 or 16 days. Now you might say thats a special case but rail was not slow by design.
If the Ottomans were largely defeated in the first month, their defeat was not total untill the fall of Edirne. Had they routed the Bulgarians it seems likely they could have proceeded to overturn all the victories of the League one by one.
The siege of that city took three to four months. The Ottomans should have been capable of mustering a sizable force to relieve the city in that time.
It seems difficult to justify claims it couldn't be done. The fact it couldn't be done in my view points to Ottoman incompetence and disorganisation. This isn't some stab against the 'sick man of Europe' but merely an observation.