On 8 October, Admiral Milne took command of the Agamemnon, led the battleships New Zealand and the Commonwealth, escorted by four Kent-class armored cruisers and eight destroyers, to Malta, the most important maritime supply station of the Allies in the Mediterranean, to join the French fleet, which had arrived before the command of Vice Admiral La Perel. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The port of Malta could not accommodate so many warships, so the large warships were concentrated in the sea outside the large port of Malta. However, La Perel was cautious, and with the cooperation of the British, all the light ships, including the British light cruisers originally stationed here, were dispatched by him to blockade the nearby waters and intercept all ships that approached Malta to prevent leaks.

The battleships with a large range and self-sustaining power were in good condition and sufficient supplies at this time, so there was no need to enter the port. Battleship Barr.

La Perel was a little unhappy about Milne's arrival, the French Navy dispatched 2 dreadnoughts, 6 quasi-dreadnoughts, 6 armored cruisers, and 12 destroyers, while the British sent only 8 quasi-dreadnoughts, 4 armored cruisers, 4 light cruisers, and 8 destroyers, but let one admiral seize the command of the combined fleet. As for what you said that there are still ships of the British Mediterranean Fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean? Again, it doesn't belong to the Combined Fleet.

At this time, Milne was actually a little awkward, he knew very well that the strength of the French in the combined fleet was stronger, and the 2 Kolbe-class dreadnoughts were the core pillars of the entire combined fleet, and he was able to obtain the command of the combined fleet only because he was an admiral and the commander of the French was a vice admiral.

And this operation must rely on the full cooperation of the French, and the two sides must cooperate sincerely, so Milne, as the commander of the fleet, took the initiative to visit La Perel to show his sincerity.

La Perel had the same tacit understanding on this point, so as a sign of solemnity, La Perel specially asked the ship's military band to play the British national anthem "God Save the Queen" and the Royal Navy military anthem "Oak Heart" when Milne boarded the ship.

Milne Den Jean? On the back deck of the Barr, La Perel took the initiative to meet it, and the two generals were making ? The Barr saluted and shook hands in front of the majestic rear main turret group, and the cameras of the reporters accompanying the army flashed to record this precious scene.

"Your country's two dreadnoughts are the core combat power of the battlefleet, so I hope that Your Excellency Vice Admiral will lead the two dreadnoughts to take the lead, with our country's 8 battleships in the center and your country's 6 battleships behind." Let? In the chart room of the Barr, Milne stood in front of the chart and placed two small pieces of wood of different colors representing the ships of the two countries.

"No problem, the French fleet will fully carry out your orders." La Perel understood that Milne's arrangement was to take care of his own emotions, and to deal with the 3 dreadnoughts, he had to put his 2 dreadnoughts in front, but if all the French battleships were in front and the British were all behind, then when the 10 German dreadnoughts were fought later, the French fleet would have to bear almost all the losses, and the British fleet would preserve its strength to the greatest extent.

Milne's current arrangement left the British fleet with most of the battle losses, which made La Perel let go of the little bit of grief that the British had usurped command of the Combined Fleet.

"Thank you for your cooperation, and I am confident that we will achieve a brilliant victory." Milne smiled, and it was clear that the French had accepted their sincerity. Having dealt with the French, then the next thing is to see how to get rid of the Germans.

"Information obtained from Italy, patrol ships of the Italian Navy twice encountered the Grand Fleet through the Strait of Otranto on two occasions late at night on September 30 and October 5." Milne tapped twice on the chart with his whip: "And on the 4th of October, several of our merchant ships were intercepted by German ships off the coast from Benghazi to Beida, and the telegram was very short, so there should not be enough time to send a complete message, but the telegram confirmed that the size of the German fleet was not small. ”

"Betta? The Germans are moving very slowly. La Perel looked at the charts and muttered, "And it's still moving along the southern coastline, which is much slower than we expected." ”

"Yes, the Germans sailed at no more than 9 knots. Although there is a slight error with our judgment, it is not a big problem. Milne knew what La Perel was worried about: "Even if the Germans are slow, they will definitely enter the waters off Egypt now, and even if the Germans know about our actions, it will take about three days for the fleet to speed up and catch up with them now, and Vice Admiral Carden's Mediterranean fleet has already set sail to cruise between Alexandria and Karpathos, and if they find a German track, they will bite it, and they will slow down the return of the Germans as much as possible." ”

"The intercepted merchant ships did not mention the ship type and fleet size of the Germans? Even if it's sunk close to the shoreline, it should be able to return to land, and then there won't be any more information? ”

"It should not have been sunk, but there are telegrams from several merchant ships mentioning that the Germans had given a warning to stop all operations and did not open fire directly, so I think it is possible that the Germans detained all these ships." Milne shook his head and said, "Whether it's a warning and then a sinking or a direct sinking, there will always be people who jump into the sea to escape, unless the Germans kill all the crew, someone will definitely return to shore, I don't think the Germans will do that." Compared to their submarine counterparts, I believe that the surface ship forces of the Germans were able to maintain some chivalrous demeanor.

Detaining ships, destroying all communications equipment, and escorting them with a fleet is something that a pirate ship can't do, but a fleet can do it. Not only does this ensure that the location is revealed, but the captured ship and the supplies on it are also good trophies. Bringing these merchant ships with them would slow down the fleet's movements, but for the Germans now, they were not worried about fighting the Mediterranean fleet in Carden, so they had nothing to fear. ”

"Hopefully, the surface ship forces of the Germans will retain a little grace, as you say, and may God bless those poor crews. After winning this war, we must judge the bitches who only know how to hide under the water, and hang them on the gallows with our own hands! La Perel said viciously.

Immediately after declaring war on Great Britain, Germany issued a proclamation to launch a submarine war against Great Britain and Ireland, and declared the outer waters of Great Britain and Ireland, the entire English Channel, and the entire eastern Mediterranean as war zones, and any enemy ships entering this area would not only be directly destroyed with warning.

As soon as the announcement was made, German submarines began to attack merchant ships in a frenzy. Fortunately in the Atlantic, the Germans, fearful of the attitude of neutral countries, were somewhat restrained and did not attack passenger liners flying the flag of neutral countries. Therefore, although 11 of the 42 German submarines of 13W tons have been sunk since the beginning of the war, 11 of them are neutral ships, but because these ships are freighters and the number of deaths is relatively small, although the neutral countries have issued a condemnation, the Germans have apologized and compensated, so the reaction of the neutral countries is not very violent.

But the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean was quite different, the Germans attacked every ship they saw with impunity, whether it was flying the flag of a neutral nation or not, and six of the 22 5W-ton ships sunk were passenger ships, causing a large number of casualties. More than 800 people, most of them French, were killed on board the 1.2W-ton passenger liner Athos, which sank on September 17 on the Yokohama-Marseille route, so it's no wonder that La Perrell gritted his teeth.

The German submarines did not float without warning, and the direct use of torpedoes also rendered the actions of armed civilian ships useless. This was one of the important reasons why Britain and France could not tolerate Greece joining the alliance and Crete becoming a German naval base. Because the submarines carried a limited number of torpedoes, the use of only torpedo attacks would greatly affect the results of the sortie of the German submarine forces, and they would have to spend a lot of time running back and forth. If they use Crete as a base, then the time they spend on the road will be greatly reduced, and with the blockade of surface ships, the Eastern Mediterranean will really become a completely off-limiting situation.

"We'll have a chance to hang them, but for now our focus is on taking out the surface fleet of the Germans first, and we don't have a lot of time." Milne drew a circle on the chart with his whip: "Although the intelligence says that the Germans are training in the Ionian Sea, we cannot guarantee that the Germans will not go south, and we cannot leave Malta and go north along the waters off the Apennine Peninsula, and the Italians will discover us." So we have to search for the German fleet in the Mediterranean, and then go north along the Peloponnese from the west of Crete into the Ionian Sea, so that even if the Greeks find us, the danger is much smaller, but then we will waste a lot of time in a big circle, the Germans will return in 4 days at most, and considering the possibility of their dreadnoughts coming back, we must find and destroy the German dreadnoughts in 3 days as much as possible, and then go and deal with their dreadnoughts. ”

"I wish the Germans were on the Ionian Sea, so that we could sink the Germans in front of the Italians and Greeks, so that the Italians and Greeks would see the form and understand that there is no chance of victory against us!" La Perel said: "I agree with you, we have to go as soon as possible, I can't wait. ”

"We'll leave after the destroyers are refilled, and we need to disperse the light ships as soon as possible to expand the search area." Milne nodded: "After the departure of the battlefleet, sail along the Malta-Crete line, our light ships are responsible for the search in the north, and your country is responsible for the south, so that we can reach the Germans as soon as possible in any direction." ”

After a pause, Milne said fiercely: "The rest is to find the German fleet and destroy it completely!" ”