The realization did not arrive as a single revelation.
It came in fragments.
In half-read dispatches and hurriedly amended maps.
In ports where captains asked questions that clerks could no longer answer.
In chancelleries where junior ministers suddenly found themselves standing in rooms they had never been permitted to enter before.
Across Europe, the shape of the Balkans was being redrawn faster than ink could dry.
In Berlin, a general staff colonel laid two maps atop one another and frowned.
The first showed Ottoman Europe as it had existed scarcely a month prior to their knowledge.
The second, hastily updated, bore swathes of blue and red markings that defied every assumption Germany's observers had made about Balkan warfare.
"This isn't attrition," he muttered. "This is excision."
The phrase would be repeated later, quietly, by men who understood what it meant.
As the greater scale of the war itself was being known to the German Emperor.
And his Military nobles, this was not a border skirmish, or an uprising spawning new small nations, this instead was the birth of a new powerful nation, one that could rival them, while also having access to the seas.
~
In London, the Admiralty was being hard pressed by the government to send greater fleets into the mediterranean to not only reinforce the eastern question but now also to enforce their will on the whole of the Mediterranean itself how else will they stop the introduction of Russian fleets into the seas, as this new Balkan state surely would be friendlier to a great empire like Russia compared to the far away British empire.
The Admiralty itself still hadnt even learned the full scope of the war, or the fact that in the Dardanelles Strait had already resulted in dozens of their ships being sunk by Montengrin naval vessels blockading the British from investigating north or interferring with their armies attempted captures of the Ottoman captial.
~
In Vienna, panic came wrapped in courtesy.
The Emperor's advisors spoke calmly, deliberately, even as their reports contradicted one another.
Serbian territories ceded in exchange for legitimacy were now secure, yes—but the legitimacy itself was rapidly becoming questionable.
Montenegro was no longer behaving like a junior claimant seeking approval.
It now was appearing like a sinister neighbor getting away with a grand treasure by only offering up a single coin in exchange for turning their heads.
The Austro-Hungarian General Staff quietly updated contingency plans along the southern frontier.
Not because they feared possible invasion, since they as a great empire had nothing to fear from a newborn state like this, even if they could content with the Ottomans, pah the Empire could as well, only the British or French would get in the way, fearing any one nation becoming to strong, enough to cause the others to form up and put it in its place.
Instead they built up plans to demand greater territorial gains from the Montenegro King, his crown was bestowed thanks to them, and a mere tract of land would not make up for giving him the chance to declare himself an equal to their own Emperor even if it was only on the lowest rung of an empire.
No their eyes focused entirely on satisfying their greed.
Gaining even greater lands for their empire for outwayed the issue of the current political state and demographic issues of their empire.
They would openly accept lands, even land possessing peoples who did not want to be ruled by the Dual-monarchy of the empire.
Even if Montegro did offer these lands up, while offering boosts in the short term, they would instead only hasten the total collapse of this poor excuse for an empire.
One that in Elias's own mind while different from the Holy Roman Empire thanks to its unification as a single state, was plagued by issues just as great as the Holy Roman Empire, enough so that one could almost go as far as they had done to the predecessor, 'Not Roman' 'Not Holy' and 'Not An Empire'.
It was just as fractured, but at least could make the claim of being a true empire, unlike the predessor Holy Roman Emperors.
~
Meanwhile, in Constantinople, time had collapsed into a blur of sleepless nights and frantic mornings.
The levy formations assembled in public squares drilled with borrowed rifles and mismatched uniforms.
Commands were shouted by inept officers who got city positions thanks to bribes not merit, resulting in their orders being misunderstood, often repeated endlessly without being 'learned'.
The outcome being a poorly trained, and ultimately fearful force that would flee the battlefield at the very first sign of the enemy standing against them.
All the while food shortages in the city worsened day by day.
What grain still arrived was seized by officials or hoarded by merchants.
Bread riots flared and were crushed with alarming speed as the sultan used his ultimate authority to make sure the city remained in his hands.
The capital was not yet starving—but it could see hunger approaching, and fear made it ravenous.
Their officials and armies were still frantically trying to hold off the russian offensives in the north and east, all while desperately trying to deal with the looming issue of the threat now encroaching on them from an unknown force in the east.
~
Elias observed everything about his armies march from beneath the mountains, the system's map now dense with overlapping layers of information.
Endless trains of supplies being shipped out from the bases to supply the front lines with rations created by the RA bases themselves, thanks to the replenishment feature.
At the same time news and reports were coming in from his new garrison forces controlling and policing the new cities, towns, and villages that have fallen under his rule.
The key among these was a proper census of the Empire, or rather the kingdom.
Having a proper census allowed for a proper calling of taxes, even with the Montenegrin overall tax system being overhauled compared to the other nations of earth, where most had dozens sometimes even hundreds of different types of taxes, Elias was instead giving his nation a simplified tax form, one that allowed the empire to operate in the black but while not strangling the people for every last coin they had.
If news of the standard of living within the Balkan states were to spread around i decades to come, the immigration rate would far surpass that of the United States with people dreaming of a fresh start, and avoiding prosecution or exploitation by greedy or lustful lords.
Even still his forward lines continued to march on, meter after meter.
Through the eyes of his summoned soldiers a splinter force of the main army had travelled south not bound for the Ottoman empires capital of Constantinople but instead to secure the coastal regions of the Dardannels Strait, even reaching a point of being able to glimpse clear across the straits themselves to the Turkish mainland in 'Asia' where the true heart of the Ottoman empire still beat, the lands the current armed campaign would push the Ottomans to linger until such time came for the full Empire to fall into the hands of a stronger more stable foe.