In the evening, the Portsmouth military port should have fallen silent after a day of noisy weather, but the evening of August 14 was very different, the harbor was full of barges and traffic boats, the harbour was full of barges and traffic boats, the harsh metal grinding sounded in the large warships that looked like floating fortresses, the strong anchor chains were raised one by one, and the heavy anchors were rediscovered, and on the way to the piers in the city, the taxis honked their horns rapidly and raced like racing cars. Officers and sailors who had been delayed in returning home were sent to the gangway of embarkation......

At the pier near the departure channel docked the flagship of the British Channel Fleet, HMS Prince Wales, a sturdy battleship with a towering mast, which had been in service only three years earlier than the Dreadnought, had a standard displacement of only 3,400 tons less than the Dreadnought, and used the same 12-inch guns as the Dreadnought. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoBecause of the appearance of the "Dreadnought", all the battleships with non-full heavy gun designs fell behind overnight, and the fierce naval competition made these "former dreadnoughts" and "quasi-dreadnoughts" quickly fade out of the main lineup of the navies of the great powers under the condition of being painted, and the replacement was logical, how many people still remember the high hopes and expectations they carried when they were completed?

In the officers' conference room of the Prince of Wales, Vice Admiral Benard Kerry, commander of the Channel Fleet, and his four squadron commanders were all present, surrounded by the fleet, the senior staff officers of the squadron, and the captains of the battleships. In this spacious and tidy conference room, some people have bright eyes and are gearing up, some people are tangled and thoughtful, and some people are sad and worried, and the atmosphere is quite strange.

The Harwich fleet had damaged two German capital ships at a heavy cost to its elite losses, and the British Naval Staff ordered the Channel Fleet to raise fire and anchor and stand by for sortie—Bennard Kerry informed his generals and officers of the situation, and then there was a superficial discussion, and the available information was not sufficient to make accurate inferences about the prospects of the battle, regardless of whether the merit was ahead or the sword and the fire, as long as the order of the superior was given, the soldiers must obey unconditionally.

As the sun sets, blood-colored light shines through the portholes into the command room and on the spotless oak floor.

The hatch was finally pushed open, and the communications officer arrived with great antiquity, and he telegraphed to the fleet's deputy commander, Admiral Finnas Thersby. The general opened the telegram folder, glanced at it, and hurriedly handed it to Benard Kerry.

The commander of the Strait Fleet looked at the telegram with a solemn face, and only after a moment did he raise his head and scan the crowd.

"Gentlemen, the pilots of the aviation service have detected that the German fleet is still loitering in the waters of the previous engagement, and it is estimated that at least one of the two damaged battleships is temporarily out of power. Under these circumstances, His Majesty personally signed an order requiring us to attack in the formation of the fifth, seventh, and eighth battleship fleets. If there is no encounter with the German fleet tonight, then our task will be to cover the shelling of the German coast by the 4th cruiser. ”

With this turn and turn, everyone's mood is like riding a roller coaster, which is complicated and indescribable.

Vice Admiral Kerry looked at his watch and said in a calm tone: "It's 6 o'clock and 10 minutes, everyone will return to the ship immediately and make arrangements." At 6:30, the Fifth Squadron departed for port; 6:45, 7th Detachment; At 7 o'clock sharp, the eighth detachment. We will regroup our columns after passing through the Strait of Dover...... Good luck to all, gentlemen! ”

None of the officers objected, except for the quiet sound of chair legs rubbing against the floor. In the blink of an eye, only Kerry, Thursby, and a few fleet staff officers were left in the empty conference room.

Bennard Kerry, who is in his sixties, with his back in his chair and his eyes closed, is the opposite of Finnas Thursby, who is ten years younger than him, with his hands on the table, his head down, his eyes wide open, and his eyes very blank.

"Could this be another trap for the Germans?" The major officer on the side questioned softly. In the process of plundering vast colonies and squeezing the wealth of backward countries, British businessmen, officials, and even some military officers used all the tricks of deception, coercion, and blackmail, and the empire on which the sun never set became stronger step by step.

The gray-haired colonel, apparently well-informed, replied: "It certainly cannot be ruled out, and we must be careful to guard against it." ”

The major officer added: "The German navy first laid a mine array in the northern sea to block our large fleet, and then lured our mine strike fleet into another minefield they had laid in advance in the central sea. ”

Hearing this, Bennard Kerry opened his eyes, and the blankness in Thursby's eyes was suddenly replaced by deep worry.

The colonel thought it made sense, and suggested: "It seems necessary to send minesweepers to the Strait of Dover, and it would be better for the fleet not to take the nearshore route that the Germans guessed." What do you think, sir? ”

Kerry nodded subconsciously, but he didn't give orders to his subordinates to convey the order. After thinking for a moment, he said slowly: "Even if two of the capital ships of the German fleet were indeed damaged by mines and were seriously injured, and we were able to intercept them before they withdrew to German waters, how sure are we of victory?" ”

"Whatever they do get into trouble from time to time, it's not far from the German coast, and the German Navy can quickly send cruisers, torpedo boats, and submarines to reinforce them, and those ultralight torpedo boats with speeds of more than 35 knots may also arrive with halfway refueling." ”

"Our battleships are slow, individual firepower is weak, and only by giving full play to our numerical superiority can we defeat the enemy, so the ideal position of engagement should be within the English Channel, followed by near the mouth of the Thames, and the closer we get to Germany, the more obvious our disadvantage." Kerry continued with his partner's words, and the angry tone made the staff officers next to him tremble, and the major officer hurriedly turned his head to confirm that the hatch was closed.

Realizing that his tone was a bit excessive, Kerry paused for a moment, and then softened his tone when he spoke again: "The speed of the minesweepers is too slow to be suitable for this operation, and our tight vigilance makes it difficult for German surface ships to have the opportunity to lay mines on a large scale in the waters near the Strait of Dover and the mouth of the Thames, and submarines can only carry a small number of mines, and the Germans have sent many submarines to the northern part of the North Sea, and the probability of deploying minefields with submarines should be low." ”

After this reasonable analysis, the fleet staff officers finally understood Kerry's intentions. It was the task of the British Grand Fleet to confront the main German fleet, and the strength of the Channel Fleet determined that it was only suitable for defensive operations near the English Channel and the Thames estuary to prevent the German navy from breaking through the strait and threatening the sea lines of communication between Britain and France. Although many people think that the British Expeditionary Force, which is only tens of thousands of troops, is inconspicuous on the German-French battlefield where two million troops collide with each other, since the outbreak of the war, Britain has not only sent tens of thousands of troops to France and all kinds of materials needed to maintain their war, but also made the French people firm in their confidence and confidence in resisting the German army. After the defeat in Jutland, if the Channel Fleet also suffered heavy losses, then the last bit of fighting spirit of the British military and civilians would also be exhausted, if the German fleet took advantage of the weakness to break into the English Channel, not only could the troops on standby not be transported to France, but the British Expeditionary Force that had arrived in France would also be cut off from the back route, and the consequences would be unimaginable at both the tactical and strategic levels!

As the planned time approached, the roar of the engines echoed in the ship's cabin, the hull trembled slightly, the scenery outside the porthole began to recede, and Kerry led the officers onto the bridge. The sun was setting near the horizon, and the shadow cast by the ships on the sea was many times larger than their actual size, just as the German navy had a psychological effect on its opponents after successive victories.

The light ships on anti-submarine alert were the first to leave the port, the flagship of the Channel Fleet "Prince of Wales" and the seven battleships belonging to the Fifth Battleship Squadron slowly sailed through the channel, then the Seventh Squadron with four battleships and the Eighth Squadron with five battleships, the five battleships of the Ninth Fleet were like the oldest and worst of the veterans in a group of veterans, lonely and helpless to stay in the harbor, four of them had removed their main guns for the newly designed shallow water heavy gunboats, Originally planned to support the landing of Marines on the northeastern coast of Germany, these shallow-water heavy gunboats had now lost the advantage of the British main fleet, and the plan to penetrate the soft underbelly of the Germans was no longer a construction on the beach, but a ridiculous utopia.

Meanwhile, on a train in the middle of England, King George V, dressed in a Royal Navy uniform, silently watches the blood-colored sunset. Before his brother's unexpected death, he worked as a naval cadet for 6 years and a naval officer for 9 years, thinking that he would make a career out of it for the rest of his life, and dreamed of winning a Trafalgar-style victory as a fleet commander, but fate put him on the throne as the supreme commander who led a nation rather than a fleet. The feathers of Jutland, the sinking of Scarpa Bay, the reasons for his defeat, and the assumption that he would not be king but commander of the fleet, would have turned out very differently—it was an unanswered assumption, and it plunged George V into another agony: if his brother Albert Victor had been alive, England and Germany would not have been at war because of "the bastards of the Balkans", and Britain would continue to maintain its superiority over the German navy by virtue of its strong national power and developed shipbuilding industry, Forcing the Germans to maintain both a large army and navy, perhaps without a bloody war, Germany would have withdrawn from the shipbuilding race because of its financial collapse, pocketing its ambitions for maritime supremacy.

However, all this is only hypothetical, the reality is that Britain is facing the most severe and dangerous situation in a hundred years, if the French army cannot withstand the stormy attack of the Germans, if the Russian army is not able to stab the Germans in the back in time, Britain will usher in its own sunset in blood......

(End of chapter)