The results of the Battle of Helgoland Bay, which broke out on 8 September 1914, spread throughout Europe and then to the Americas and Asia in a very short time, dishonoring the Royal Navy with an indisputable battle loss ratio. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info Not many people understand, and not many people care about the course of this naval battle, people only know that in a naval battle initiated by the British Royal Navy on its own initiative, the invincible British Royal Navy suffered a defeat.

The German propaganda apparatus spread the news of the victory throughout the country with a high degree of efficiency that was simply impossible in peacetime.

On 11 September, His Majesty Emperor Joachim personally rewarded the officers and men of the Navy who had participated in the naval battle on the docks of Wilhelmshaven, and the application reports submitted by the General Staff of the Navy for eight Iron Crosses of the First Class and 183 Iron Crosses of the Second Class were given the green light and approved by the Emperor at the behest of the Emperor.

Moreover, the Emperor's generosity far exceeded the expectations of the General Staff of the Navy, and His Majesty added another Meritorious Service Medal, 1 Iron Cross of the 1st Degree, and 500 Iron Crosses of the 2nd Class to the Navy with a stroke of the pen. These 500 Iron Crosses of the Second Degree, in the words of His Majesty the Emperor, are: The General Staff can issue them to whomever they want, and when the time comes, it will be enough to make up a report. The Army's second-class Iron Cross has already been issued like water, so naturally the Navy can't be disadvantaged. However, in order to prevent the rapid depreciation of the medal, the control of the higher medals must not be relaxed.

The Emperor's generosity led to several records in the history of the Navy:

the largest and most decorated award in the history of the German Navy; For the first time, a German naval officer was awarded the Order of Merit; For the first time, a fallen officer of the German Navy was awarded a posthumous medal.

Because of the tradition of the Prussian army, sacrifice for the country in battle was considered the highest honor of a soldier, and any commendation pale in the face of this highest honor, so it was stipulated that no medals should be awarded to fallen soldiers.

This rule has only been broken twice since the creation of the Order of Merit. The first was after the Battle of Deeppur with Denmark in 1864, a war with heavy casualties that led Wilhelm I to award more than 30 PLMs at once, one of which was awarded to the fallen Friedrich? William? Feng? Major Belen, while the second was awarded to the Swabian royal family who died in the Austro-Prussian War? Prince Joseph. Now, Lieutenant Colonel Varys, who sank with the ship, is the third person to be awarded the Order of Merit since it was established.

In addition to the posthumously awarded Vice-Captain of the Ariadne and the Captain of the Heavy Cruiser Hohenlohe, who was still lying in hospital due to serious injuries, seven people, including Rear Admiral Maas, Colonel Karpf, Captain Vedigan, and Captain Höchen, were personally worn by His Majesty the Emperor on the pier with the Iron Cross of the upper class.

His Majesty the Emperor personally announced that the Elizabeth ship, which was under construction in Wilhelmshaven, was officially named the Marquis Bismarck, and the sailors of the original Marquis Bismarck could voluntarily apply to serve on the new Marquis Bismarck, and all applications would be approved.

The news made the sailors aboard the former Marquis Bismarck on the docks jubilant, even more excited than the fact that they were about to receive the Iron Cross of the Second Degree.

Such a fanfare award was for propaganda, and the propaganda department did not disappoint His Majesty the Emperor. Soon, reports of the award and the deeds of these officers and soldiers spread throughout Germany.

The victory of the Navy set off a wave of enthusiasm in Germany, and although various medals were being awarded to the Army, the first PLM since the beginning of the war was given to the Navy! And the population did not care how many enemy attacks the army repulsed, they only saw that the army was struggling on the French front and constantly retreating in East Prussia. The victory of the Navy gave them a window of catharsis.

The desperate sacrifice of the Ariadne, the persistence of the Marquis Bismarck, the heroic counterattack of the Second Reconnaissance Fleet, the dark night hunt of the submarine force, and the heroic and dramatic battle journey of the crew of the Z-93 have all become familiar and talked about by the German people.

The story of Ensign Schmidt, who saved the Marquis Bismarck, was not known until the construction team that dismantled and transferred the equipment of the Marquis Bismarck, drained the water from the ammunition depot and prepared to take out all the ammunition. Second Lieutenant Schmidt was finally posthumously awarded the Iron Cross, 1st class, but that was a month later.

The song "Let's Go to England" was accompanied by the fact that the hull of the Marquis Bismarck would become a scenery outside Wilhelmshaven, and every warship of the Imperial Navy would have to sing this song to pay tribute to her when it passed by.

At this moment, Germany seemed to be fanatically admiring the navy like a sea power country, and Jochen and Tirpitz spent more than a decade popularizing the idea of sea power, and the impact was far less than that of the wave of sea power set off by Germany in just a few days.

While Germany and even the Allies were rejoicing at this victory, Britain and the Allies were gloomy.

The awkward attitude of the Royal Navy ships on their return led to a sharp drop in the London stock market the next day. With the spread of the news, the national bonds of the Entente countries issued in the United States were no longer in interest for a while. The growing propaganda of the Germans, and the fact that the sailors of the Royal Navy in the North Sea intercepting and inspecting neutral ships clearly felt that the other side was treating them worse and worse, also led to an increase in friction between Britain and neutral countries.

The British public and newspapers were so strongly criticized the defeat of the Royal Navy that the British Parliament had to question the Royal Navy's top brass who had been involved in the development and implementation of the plan for the naval battle in the Gulf of Helgoland, and asked Whitehall to hold a hearing to explain the situation.

A number of top naval officials, including Winston Churchill, were severely criticized by the public, and the Royal Navy had to introduce a man who had backstabbed him, Commodore Case, who had masterminded the Helgoland Bay operation plan. Commodore Case, the head of the submarine force, who knew that he was not treated well by the commanders of the surface ships, thought that he had carried the pot on his back, and God knew where he would be sent to sit on the cold bench. However, the Germans inadvertently pulled him.

After a dragnet search and rescue of the entire Helgoland Bay, the German Navy was confronted with two extremely dramatic events:

One was that two British lifeboats carrying 37 surviving crews from the destroyer Z-93 entered the battlefield from two directions on the Szczecin and the Lübeck, forcing Colonel Brent to lead the fleet to evacuate and were left behind because they were too far away to recover. As a result, 37 German prisoners and 10 British sailors on board were caught by minesweepers after 18 hours at sea.

The identities of the 47 men were reversed after 18 hours, and the Germans who had been captured for only 18 hours included Major Lechler, and his heroic command of the Z-93 was naturally a story that was widely publicized by the German propaganda establishment.

In the other case, the Germans scooped up a seriously wounded British senior officer, who was identified by captured British sailors as Commodore Tillett, commander of Harwich's fleet. For the merit of capturing an admiral of the British Royal Navy, the German propaganda department would certainly not let go.

However, the German hype helped Keith. Brigadier of the Royal Navy was captured by Germany ?! What a shame! This news sparked another round of verbal criticism of the Royal Navy in Britain**, and seeing that the situation was not right, the Admiralty bureaucrats in Whitehall immediately threw Brigadier Tillette out of the blame.

Originally, we thought you died in battle, so forget it, since you are still alive now, then you also had a share in the original planning of the naval battle of the Gulf of Helgoland, so let's take the blame now.

And the Tyrit people did not even have the ability to defend themselves in the prisoner of war camps in Germany, so they naturally became the objects of public fire. The British media, which never disdain a big deal, even grabbed Tierit and compared it with Lieutenant Commander Varys, who commanded the Ariadne to fight to the death and eventually sank with the ship, and bitterly criticized Tyrit for why he sank with the ship with honor to maintain the glory of the Royal Navy.

In fact, when the German admiral Tyrit was fished out of the sea, the Commodore was seriously wounded, and after several hours of immersion in the sea, he was already delirious and dying. Even when the British public's criticism of him was at its worst, the poor brigadier general was still lying on the hospital bed struggling on the line of life and death.

But the facts are no longer important to both the British Admiralty and the British media, the Admiralty needs someone to take the blame, and the media needs targets, and the dignity and glory of the military are ruthlessly trampled on at this moment. Brigadier General Case, who escaped the catastrophe, had no sense of happiness about this, and could only feel deep helplessness and sadness for his friend being criticized by the media.

But the mood of a brigadier general, the Admiralty bureaucrats were not interested, and they now had to deal with a series of aftermath of the naval battle in the Gulf of Helgoland.

The ship losses on 8 September were a drop in the bucket for the deep-pocketed Royal Navy.

The six old cruisers in the "Red Rust Fleet" were already embarrassed; Although the loss of the more cutting-edge city-class light cruiser was distressed, the Royal Navy was not very satisfied with its lower speed, and it was originally planned to replace it with a faster light cruiser led by the Lin Xian class, so such a loss would not make them beat their chests and feel painful.

The loss is still within an acceptable range, but the lost face cannot be recovered at all.

While there were still radicals clamoring for a decisive fleet battle to wash away the humiliation, more and more people began to support the cautious and steady Jericho's long-range blockade theory, "If the Royal Navy can win the final victory without a decisive battle, why not do it?" ”

As a result, the Royal Navy further strengthened its long-range blockade forces, conducting stricter inspections of neutral ships entering the North Sea, and on the other hand, it was on higher alert, awaiting possible retaliatory action by the German Ocean Fleet.

But what the British could not have imagined was that the Germans would move so quickly, so big, and so ruthlessly. (To be continued.) )