In the late summer of 1940, in July, day and night alternated. The smoke and artillery of the Battle of France have been frozen into the past, but on the European stage, the new drama has not yet opened the heavy curtain.

As early as June 27, Hitler returned from France to Berghof Castle, located on the outskirts of Munich. As his villa and summer retreat, this "Eagle's Nest" has become the second center of power after the Chancellery: many major decisions such as the merger of Germany and Austria and the signing of a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union were made by Hitler after deep consideration here. This time, however, Hitler lived a truly leisurely life in the Eagle's Nest, not only delegating the day-to-day affairs to the ministers, but also leaving the military and diplomatic affairs to Keitel and Ribbentrop.

Isn't it? Now the war has been won. The Western security threat that once hung over Germany's head for more than 150 years is now shattering like glass under a heavy hammer. The defeated France established a new government in the spa town of Vichy, more than 3 million newly conscripted reservists were demobilized and dismissed, and all its equipment warehouses and munitions factories were also closely supervised by the German army. Berlin could crush France to death with a single finger if it wanted to, and the latter now had less military strength than even Spain in the southwest!

Although the British on the other side of the Channel continued to resist, Hitler believed that they would surely understand the most obvious truth that peace with Germany would be beneficial and war would be harmful. You must know that the armistice demands conveyed by Germany to Britain through the Pope and Sweden are not intolerant: Britain only needs to return the overseas colonies that annexed Germany in the previous war and re-sign a German-British naval agreement, so that the more than 200,000 soldiers of the expeditionary force captured by Germany can be immediately welcomed back, and at the same time, Germany will stop the Atlantic break-up campaign. As long as the London government has a little sense, it will immediately seize this golden opportunity to escape, because no matter how you look at it, they have no chance of victory!

The most critical enemies of the West have been settled, and all that remains is a few trivial things in Eastern and Southern Europe.

Before the Battle of France, Germany still had to carefully co-opt and calculate when facing the countries of southeastern Europe, and it was not uncommon for them to hit soft nails. However, with the destruction of the Franco-Belgian, British-Dutch coalition forces, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, which were once potential enemies or wall-to-wall grasses, immediately took a more than 90-degree turn in their attitude towards Germany and became unprecedentedly flattering and enthusiastic. Even Italy, which has always been a maverick and emphasizes itself as the top European power everywhere, has to take Germany's will as the most important point of consideration, and has virtually made itself a follower of Germany.

With the backing of this absolute strength, the territorial crisis in Romania, which had made Hitler nervous on June 26, was quickly resolved by German diplomacy. On the one hand, Germany "advised" the Romanian side to accept the Soviet Union's reasonable demand to recover the Bessarabian region, and on the other hand, it reminded the Soviet Union without warning that the province of Bukovina, which they were about to occupy additionally, was not part of the Soviet territory demarcated by the two sides last year.

Eventually, the Soviets halted their advance in 1914 before the old borders, and Romania, the current enemy, had no choice but to move closer to the Axis powers, reducing itself to a slave labor lackey who had to pay protection money while desperately paying protection money.

The only thing that attracted Hitler now was the complete solution of the Eastern question. Whether in terms of strategy, politics, ideology, or the so-called "living space", the Soviet Union was a target that Hitler had to eliminate, but the German army, which had just experienced the operation on the Western Front, needed at least a few months to reorganize and rest, and now it was already past the best time to use troops on the Eastern Front, so the operation could only wait until the beginning of next spring. Hitler had already handed over the plans for this new war to his generals, while he himself waited quietly at home for peace from Britain.

During this time of waiting, neither the army commander Brauchitsch, nor the naval commander Raeder, nor Jodel, who was relied on by Hitler as an adviser, did not remember to remind the Führer of what he would do to deal with the ensuing battle if Britain refused to make peace.

In addition to the belief that Britain would give in to the relents, they were more overwhelmed by the brilliant victory they had already won – who would have thought that the coalition forces would be completely crushed in six weeks when the campaign on the Western Front had just begun, two months earlier? The most the German High Command wanted was to occupy the Low Countries and then use them as bases to bomb Britain along the front of the Air Force, but the actions after the occupation of France did not exist in their minds at all!

Germany, which had won an unprecedented victory, began to hang up on the spot inexplicably, while Britain's preparations for war were in full swing.

On the eve of the collapse of the Gordon Expeditionary Force, the British government issued a general mobilization order for the country, and more than 1 million adult males were drafted into the reserve to begin rigorous training under the leadership of more than 20,000 veterans who narrowly escaped from Dunkirk Beach. Britain could have mobilized several times as many troops, but due to the extreme shortage of weapons, the existing reserves and factory capacity were simply not enough to meet the minimum needs of the army, so they had no choice but to give up.

However, the aid from the United States gave the British military another glimmer of hope. The arrival of 300,000 rifles, 80,000 machine guns, 900 field guns and corresponding ammunition was a relief for the British, and with this first step, the British had every reason to expect to be able to obtain more armament from across the ocean.

Although the British do not have enough weapons now, they have not wasted their 47 million manpower at their disposal. All adult males between the ages of 16 and 55 were required to join the "National Defence" and, in addition to their daily training, began to dig trenches and build fortifications on a large scale in areas of southern Britain where landfall was at risk.

Even British women were mobilized to learn how to make and plant improvised explosives, as well as to take part in the construction of defences that carried earth and rock. Churchill, who was resolute in the battle, immediately delivered a perfect battle speech, which dispelled the despair and panic of the British people at the end of the expeditionary force and the defeat of France, and completely detonated the unyielding anger in their hearts.

However, the integration of domestic forces is only the first step for the authorities in London to continue the fight. The most urgent problem facing Churchill at this moment is the sudden crisis of the maritime landscape.

Under the armistice agreement between Germany and France, Germany was to occupy all coastal territories in the north and west of France, which caused German influence to extend from the North Sea region to the Atlantic, posing an unprecedented threat and oppression to British shipping. If the German fleet had been based in the western ports of France, the journey into the North Atlantic would have been at least 1,000 nautical miles shorter than that from Norway, and more importantly, there would be no checkpoints on this route, such as the Danish Channel and the Faroe Waterway.

Therefore, even if the number of warships of the German Navy does not increase, with its geographical advantages, the attendance rate of its ships will surely usher in an explosive increase in 1~2 months, or even double the current situation. Britain's worst nightmare in more than 100 years is about to become a reality: an enemy with a mighty fleet can at the same time brutally strangle its busy and fragile maritime lifeline without being bound by geography. Half a century earlier, Britain had felt this threat in France, but the British navy was far more powerful than the French fleet at that time, and it was not afraid of this provocation. Now, however, the balance of power between the two sides has changed dramatically.

After several previous fiascos, there are only 7 capital ships, 1 aircraft carrier, 10 heavy cruisers, and 16 light cruisers left on the core ships on the British Navy's service list. This size pales in comparison to even the Italian fleet in the Mediterranean, which had nine battleships, but the number of cruisers was slightly inferior. And if it were applied to the specific situation of each ship, the situation of the British would be even more dire and miserable.

After nine months of working around the clock at the Vickers shipyard, the King George V, which was scheduled to be completed by December 1940, was finally hastily delivered to the naval fleet on June 27. Strictly speaking, this new battleship, which was launched in February last year, actually has a lot to be completed, but the urgent situation makes it impossible for the British Navy to wait even a month, so it directly forcibly takes over the ship, and those places that have not yet been built can only be tried at sea while the workers continue to work.

But even so, the date when she will finally form a fighting force has made the British top brass extremely anxious. As the first British capital ship to be built after the Nelson class in 13 years, the King George V uses many new technologies and equipment, including a 14-inch quadruple main gun turret that has never been built before; And this will inevitably significantly extend its run-in time.

A similar situation was with the King George V, the battleship Queen Elizabeth. The old ship returned to the shipyard in August 1937 for a large-scale refurbishment, which was expected to last up to 40 months, and was also due to the pressure of the war, which led to her return to service in early June 1940. However, despite the previous experience of the same type of sister ship being refitted, it will take some time for the queen to get used to the new body, after all, there is no guarantee that the new equipment will work perfectly.

In addition to these two new ships that still need to be run-in, the remaining British battleships are the three old ships of Barham, Revenge, and Ramillis. Compared with the Warrior and the Malaya, which were killed in Norwegian waters at the beginning of the year, they had a significant generation difference in combat effectiveness, and they were even more powerless in the face of the German fleet. Therefore, in the short term, the British Navy can only be driven by the capital ships of Hood and Prestige, and the strength is already shockingly weak.