Chapter 535: The Purge
"But they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven."
- Book of Revelation, 12:8, USCCB
A group of officers in boots anxiously awaits the return of their supreme leader Hamza Pasha.
It has been half a day since the Pasha set off for the Sultan’s palace and is yet to return. Many became increasingly impatient as normally the Pasha should have finished in three hours and came back, and even if the meeting is prolonged, the Pasha would have sent a guard here to inform the officers so that they would not worry too much about it.
An officer suggested that they should leave the city at once to go back to their troops just to prepare for the worst, but he is immediately accused of disobeying the Pasha’s orders to wait for his return, more importantly many believed that leaving the city now is nothing but a show of appeasement and weakness to the Sultan’s court backing off from their silent protest. But either way that officer got what he wanted, he is thrown out of the building and forced to leave the city.
Another hour passed and finally a piece of news came in, a soldier sneaked into the building under the cover of the night and threw these field officers here a shocking news. The commandership of the one thousand plus Ottoman troops stationed in the city has been taken over by a new batch of officers that descended directly from the Sultan’s guard’s regiment. The previous commanding officer and the staff have all been accused of treason and imprisoned, on top of that there came an even more dreadful piece of news, the Sultan has issued orders to put the city on a lockdown and curfew, closing all the city gates refusing to let anyone in or out of the city.
Half of the commanding structure of the Ottoman army is now trapped in the city.
The senior and field officers instantly started debating within themselves on what they should do at this drastic moment. Some suggested that they should go to the nearest gates now and demand the city guards to open the gate for emergency purposes by showing them their ranks and appoints. Some others argued that it would only put them in the risk of being captured at once, while others argued that they should split up and hide their presence in the city first to wait for the best chance to escape. The debate and argument intensified after some time to a point whereby these senior officers almost started a brawl within themselves.
The Ottomans always loved to jeer upon the Rumelians on how they always end up in a civil conflict, not realising that they are just about the same. I guess that it is just humanity.
A knock on the door interrupted these clowns’ mass brawling session.
No one dared to open the door, despite the fact that they have all served in the Ottoman army for he almost their entire life. But there is nothing to worry about, because in the end someone else shall open the door for them, from the outside. The door came blast open, then a group of city guards came bursting in following the explosion, led by a court eunuch shrieking in his unique sharp voice.
"Arrest them all! Arrest these traitors of the Sultanate! I want to have all of them interrogated!"
Over half of the entire Ottoman army’s field officers became busted at once, the chain of command of the army is suddenly cut into half, with the junior officers unable to follow any orders from their heads of command because they are all in prison, while the Sultan too cannot pass any orders to the army because there is no one there to plan and execute their orders. But this is exactly what the Sultana Dowager wanted, she firmly believes that all these senior field officers are members of Hamza Pasha’s gang and their influence need to be dealt with as soon as possible. Then she can take the chance of the chaotic situation in the army to allocate more people loyal to her to fill up the vacuum of power, allowing her to obtain the control of the army, in the end.
It took less than a week for the Ottoman court Kanun and Ulema to finish the trial for all of these senior officers present in the room at that night, and they are all sentenced to death under the charge of treason against the Sultan, even including the stewards and servants who present that night who knew nothing about what are these men planning and what the situation is like are also sentenced to death by the Ulema who found them guilty of exposing the nation’s confidential information to the outside and assisting the rebels in their actions.
Although everyone knows that this is nothing but merely a safety precaution by the Sultana Dowager to make sure that there are no one dressed up as a servant attempting to make a run out of the city, but no one dared to say a thing, the only thing they can do is to sympathise with these poor folks on them appearing in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong job serving the wrong people.
The Sultana Dowager appeared to be totally victorious this time round, her men are slowly sipping into every corner of the Ottoman army command system starting from the general staff and the logistics systems, it seems like in no time the Ottoman army shall be entirely loyal to her. The Ottoman army shall be transformed into a force that is no longer commanded over by professional officers, instead it would become a force commanded by eunuchs.
Of course she knows that by putting a bunch of people who have never been through army life before onto the posts of command would greatly deteriorate the professionalism and capability, but it is only a slight pain as compared to having a disloyal but capable army outside the walls.
At least, the Rumelians would not come and attack Edirne at this point of time, right?
