1885, I came to save Greece

Chapter 240 The Orphans of Greece

Constantine pulled his black cloak tighter around his shoulders, turned and stepped back into the command post.

A night breeze swept in from behind him, causing the oil lamp flame on the table to flicker. The celebrating generals had dispersed, and the noise and smell of alcohol had vanished. Only he and Alexandros remained in the command post, the latter standing silently in the shadows.

"They're all gone?" Constantine took off his cloak and tossed it onto the back of his chair.

"As you command, dismiss them all. The celebration banquet is scheduled for tomorrow night." Alexandros' tone was completely calm, as if the revelry just now had nothing to do with him.

Constantine didn't go to the desk piled high with victory reports, but went straight back to the huge sand table. His finger didn't linger on Ioannina, where the blue flag had just been planted; it crossed the plains of Thessaly, the lights of Athens, the turbulent islands of the Aegean Sea, and finally, deep in the Mediterranean, pressed heavily on a model of a solitary island.

Crete.

"The victory at Ioannina was a spectacular fireworks display." Constantine's fingers rustled across the rough map model. "It was dazzling and loud enough to capture the attention of everyone in Constantinople, London, Paris, and Berlin."

He looked up at the Director of the Intelligence Bureau beside him.

"Now, while the fireworks have faded and everyone's necks are still craned, we should light another fire."

Constantine turned and walked to the large oak desk, where he sat down. He didn't pick up a pen, but instead interlaced his fingers on the desk.

"Alexandros, record."

"I'm here." Alexandros emerged from the shadows, holding a notebook and a pencil.

"To Mr. Elephelios Venizelos," Constantine began, his voice steady, as he dictated a letter powerful enough to trigger a major earthquake in the Mediterranean.

"Mr. Venizelos, from the front lines in Larissa, I extend my highest respect to your tireless efforts for the Greek people on Crete. Your passion for the nation is like the sun over Crete, its heat felt even from the mainland."

He did not address Venizelos with the condescension of royalty, but rather as an equal, "Sir".

"The victory at Ioannina is not the end; it is merely the beginning. It proves one thing: the roots of the seemingly enormous Ottoman Empire have long been rotten. We only need a strong enough wind to blow it down completely. Now, the main force of Edhem Pasha is tied down in Thessaly, his western supply lines have been cut off by Metaxas, and the Empire's military deployment in the Balkans is paralyzed."

Constantine spoke slowly, making sure Alexandros could remember every word.

"The wind has already risen. But the wind from the mainland alone is not enough."

"In my correspondence with my brother-in-law, His Majesty Emperor Wilhelm II of the German Empire, he expressed to me more than once his deep concern for freedom of navigation in the Eastern Mediterranean. He believed that any destabilizing factors that hindered the free passage of German merchant ships in the Aegean and Mediterranean should be eliminated."

He casually tossed out the "King" card. It wasn't a threat, but rather an unspoken "guarantee."

History has given our generation a brief window. Through this window, we can see a great, unified Greece in the future. But this window may be obscured at any time by the fog of London or the clouds of Paris. It will not be open to us forever.

Constantine leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table.

"Only when the general's sword and the statesman's pen point in the same direction can they pave a true future for Greece. I have drawn my sword. Now, I await the echo of your pen on the front lines."

After he finished speaking, the entire command center fell into a long silence.

Alexandros stopped writing, staring at the contents of his notebook, each word feeling as heavy as a thousand pounds. The letter contained not a single word of command, yet it was more deadly than any military order. It wasn't a request; it was a gamble he couldn't refuse.

"Send it through the most discreet channels." Constantine's voice broke the silence. "I don't care what method you use, this letter must be on Venizelos's desk within three days."

"Understood." Alexandros closed his notebook, his body disappearing back into the shadows as he silently withdrew from the command center.

He didn't use any regular postal system or military messengers. In a secret location in Athens, he awakened an agent codenamed "Nut" from the Royal Intelligence Service's most secretive "Shadow" department.

This agent appeared to be just an ordinary middle-aged fruit merchant. He had dark skin, rough fingers, and carried a faint sweet scent from years of dealing with fruit. No one knew that he was fluent in three major Cretan dialects and could draw a precise layout of all the warehouses in Chania port freehand in ten minutes.

Two days later, a merchant ship flying the Italian flag slowly sailed into an inconspicuous smuggler's harbor outside Chania, north of Crete. A fruit merchant carrying a basket of oranges, mingling among the porters unloading their cargo, disembarked unnoticed.

A law firm located on a street in Hania.

Eleftherios Venizelos, Crete's most prestigious political leader, is reviewing a legal document concerning a land dispute. A staunch republican, he has repeatedly criticized the outdated monarchy in public. He remains deeply wary of the Crown Prince, whose power has grown increasingly formidable in Athens through his iron-fisted crackdown on the oligarchs.

An assistant knocked and entered, whispering, "Sir, there's a fruit merchant outside who claims to be your distant cousin. He says he has some of your mother's belongings to personally deliver to you."

Venizelos frowned. He knew all his relatives.

"Let him in."

The fruit merchant entered the office and respectfully placed a small wooden box wrapped in oilcloth on Venizelos's desk. Without saying a word, he turned and left, disappearing into the crowd on the street.

Venizelos opened the wooden box. Inside were no so-called "relics," only a letter sealed with sealing wax. He tore open the seal and unfolded the letter. Constantine's familiar, powerful handwriting came into view.

He had only read the first paragraph when his breathing became rapid.

He stood up and paced back and forth in the cramped office, the letter in his hand crumpled in his hand.

He laid the letter flat on the table, with two newspapers beside it. One was the Athens newspaper, *Pravda*, its front page featuring a headline in the most prominent font announcing the victory at Ioannina, accompanied by a stern portrait of General Metaxas. The other was the London newspaper, *The Times*, which, in an inconspicuous corner, reported that the British Mediterranean Fleet would be heading to Malta for "routine resupply."

Venizelos looked at the letter and the two newspapers, muttering to himself.

"Use a complete military victory to bind the surging public opinion."

"Using a vague and unsubstantiated Kaiser 'concern' to contain the British navy."

"To gamble with a so-called 'shared future,' to stake my life, and the fate of all Crete..."

He picked up the letter, walked to the window, and looked out at the street where a squad of heavily armed Ottoman soldiers swaggered past. A bread vendor, unable to dodge in time, was casually pushed to the ground by a soldier, his bread scattering everywhere.

humiliation.

The humiliation that had been suppressed for nearly five hundred years.

He turned around abruptly and walked back to the table.

"His Highness... he's not asking me to revolt. He's informing me that the game has begun, and I must sit down at the table."

He saw that one and perhaps last chance: an opportunity for Crete to break free from Ottoman rule and return to the embrace of its mother, Greece.

Even if the person who handed him the ticket was the monarch he was most wary of politically, the destination of the ticket was the dream he had pursued all his life.

late at night.

Venizelos sat alone in his office, holding the letter close to the candlelight.

Flames licked at the paper, Constantine's handwriting distorted in the firelight, finally turning into black ash that drifted upwards. Like the last vestige of hesitation in his heart, it vanished into thin air.

He opened the office door.

Outside the door, several of the core comrades had been waiting all night. Seeing the flame burning in Venizelos's eyes, their hearts leaped into their throats.

Venizelos looked at them, his voice not loud, but every word carried immense weight.

"Go, gather all the resistance members, from San Nicolaos in the east to Kissamos in the west, not one less."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over each expectant face.

"Tell them that the orphans of the Mediterranean have been wandering for nearly five hundred years."

"Now, it's time to go home."