The early morning sun shone into the room, and Eder slowly woke up, took away the jade arm that carried his new wife, Sophie Marie, and got out of bed. Princess Sophie Marie, who was awakened by the movements of her new husband, opened her beautiful eyes and looked at Edel, who was already up.

"You're going to take a break."

Edel said with concern when he saw that he was awakened by his wife. He knew that his wife was tired in the past few nights after getting married, who made her so beautiful, beautiful and moving, the crown prince couldn't bear the temptation in his heart at all, so he could only wronged her.

"Okay."

His wife, Sophie Marie, replied sweetly, and gave Edel a sweet smile after saying that, it seemed that she was quite satisfied with her newlywed life.

Edel walked out of the room, just in time to meet the head of the guard, Calust, coming up to him and saying to him.

"Your Highness, just now we have received news that Italy has issued an ultimatum to the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Turkey was asked to hand over the territory of North Africa to Italy. The reason for this is that Italians have been treated unjustly there. ”

"Bring it to me."

The chief of the guard, Calus, handed the telegram he had just received to the crown prince, and Eder took it and looked at it carefully.

Across the Italian Sea, the Ottoman Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were his deserts in North Africa, with limited economic value, but a strategic importance. It confronts Sicily and controls the narrower seas of the central Mediterranean.

In 1881, during the partition of the Turkish Poltai government's occupation of North Africa, Algeria (which France invaded in 1830 and gradually made it a colony) and Tunisia (1881) became French protectorates, so that the nominal Turkish possessions in North Africa were also owned by the Western colonists, and France was prepared to annex the Turkish provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. (Libya)

This attempt was opposed by European countries, especially Italy, which had long wanted to establish a colony in North Africa. To this end, Italy actively engaged in political and diplomatic activities, reached agreements and tacit understandings with the great powers (the Triple Alliance between Germany and Austria) and recognized Italian interests in North Africa.

In preparation for the annexation of the provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, Italy continued to emigrate and send merchants to the two provinces from 1880 to 1911, buying land and actively expanding its power. sending naval officers to change into fishermen's clothes and carry out coastal surveys in the name of fishing for sponges off the coast of Tripolitania; He instructed Italian Catholic priests to go deep into the interior to collect intelligence in the name of missionary work. Drawing lessons from its defeat in Ethiopia in 1896, Italy is constantly spying on the timing of its choice.

When the second Moroccan crisis occurred, Italy decided that it would lose the opportunity if it did not act, so it preemptively struck ahead of Turkey's invasion of North Africa, citing the injustice being inflicted on Italians in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

An ultimatum was issued to him on 28 September 1911, threatening to invade the said area. Turkey called on all countries to stop Italy's invasion attempts, but the major powers persuaded Turkey to accept Italy's demands. In this case, the Italo-Turkish War broke out.

After reading the telegram, Eder began to think about the impact of the Italo-Turkish war on Romania.

On the face of it, this war in Libya is too far for Romania. However, the Ottoman Empire now had a large area of territory in the Balkans (Thrace and Macedonia are now Ottoman territories). However, the local forms are very complex, and the various ethnic groups are mixed. There are Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Albanians, etc., including Romanians, who also have a population of more than 100,000 in the area.

Now the Balkan countries are eyeing the Ottoman territories. And now the situation in the Balkans is quite complicated, with Bulgaria and Serbia standing behind the polar bear Russia, and the Greeks behind the British support. Germany, on the other hand, had a huge interest in the Ottomans and Austria-Hungary supported the Ottomans because of the same national question. Due to the huge investment of Germany and the recent marriage with Austria-Hungary, it is now widely believed that Romania has Germany and Austria-Hungary behind it.

Now that Italy is taking the lead in North Africa in this battle to carve up Ottoman territory, it is believed that other countries will not lag behind.

"Keep a close eye on the situation in the Italian-Turkish war."

Edel said to Chief Guard, Calust.

"Yes, Your Highness."

The chief of the guard replied.

In the time that followed, Eder kept a close eye on the Italo-Turkish war. Although the Italian army was preparing for invasion at this time, by the time the war broke out, a large number of Italian troops were not ready.

These Italian troops appeared in Tripoli on the evening of September 28, 1911. But it was not until October 3, 1911, that the bombing of the port began. The city was then occupied by 1,500 Italian troops, and when the news was sent back to Rome, it raised the enthusiasm of those who advocated the invasion. Other diplomatic options within Italy were abandoned, and now the Italians intended to seize the territory by force.

And after the Turkish army was captured by Italian troops in Tripoli, they were determined to defend its provinces. However, instead of concentrating all their troops for a decisive battle, the Turkish army was scattered on all sides to harass the Italian army. On the diplomatic front, Turkish government officials have travelled throughout Europe to express their wishes. They organized local Arabs and Bedouins to defend against the Italian invasion.

It was not until October 10 that the Italian landing force appeared on a large scale (the day before the Xinhai Revolution). At that time, it was believed that the Italian detachment of 20,000 men was considered sufficient to complete the conquest. Because the local Ottomans only had one division of more than 7,000 troops, not only lacked weapons and ammunition, but also mainly scattered in various cities and ports. Moreover, most of the men in this division were from the interior, and they were unwilling to fight in North Africa, far from the mainland, so the will to fight was generally not high, and it would be crushed in the face of a modern army selected from Italy.

In the cities of Tobruk, Beida, Sirte, and so on, sure enough, the Italian army showed a normal level. On 19 October, the Italian fleet covered the landing of an infantry division in Benghazi and, after two days of fierce fighting, captured the city. Faced with the occupying situation of the main cities along the coast, the Italian army began to make stupid moves.

On 23 October 1911, a force (about 1,500 men) deployed outside Benghazi, almost completely surrounded by mobile Arab cavalry, these supporting local forces, led by regular Ottoman forces, inflicted heavy losses on this army, an attack portrayed by the Italian press as a simple revolt, but almost annihilating most of the Italian army. As a result, the Italian army was expanded to 100,000 men, while the Ottoman Empire, the other side of the war, had only 20,000 Arab tribes and 8,000 Turkish troops.

There were many new weapons in this war, and the most interesting of them was the role of aircraft in this war. In the armies of both sides, Turkey does not have aircraft, Italy has about 20 military aircraft, 32 pilots, attached to the Italian Army, organized as the 1st Aircraft Company. The Italian Army mobilized 9 aircraft and 11 pilots to participate in the battle. The aircraft were packed and shipped to the Gulf of Tripoli on 15 October.

From 6:19 a.m. to 7:20 a.m. on the 23rd, Captain Piazza, the captain of the team, flew a Blério XI. plane to the Turkish positions between Tripoli and Azizia for more than an hour to conduct reconnaissance, thus opening the prelude to the aircraft's participation in the battle. On the 25th, when Deputy Captain Moizo was piloting a "Newport" plane to reconnoitre, the wing was injured by three rifle bullets, which was the first time that the plane was killed or injured by enemy ground fire. On 1 November, Second Lieutenant Gavoti flew a pigeon aircraft to drop four 2-kilogram Sipeli grenades on Turkish positions in the Tajira Oasis and Ain Zara areas of North Africa, the first bombing in history, with Turkey accusing Italy of bombing hospitals.

Although these aircraft did not perform very well in the war, they were able to see the great role of the aircraft in the future. Countries that do not have the manufacturing capacity choose to buy them, and those who have the ability to step up the research and development of practical aircraft.

Romania is one of those who are capable.