To the northeast of the port of Sevog on the island of Vogue, the undulating terrain resembles the surface of the sea in the wind and waves, with the mountains being the crests of the waves rising and the recesses of the mountains being the troughs of the falling. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoThere are more gentle slopes than cliffs, weeds and moss everywhere, few trees and shrubs, and a thin layer of dirt with hard rocks, which the soldiers could not have dug deep trenches as they did in France. The German troops, composed of marines and sailors, could only make clever use of the terrain to build firing bunkers on the face-contiguous ridges, and carve out passable paths at the back of the hills, so that once the positions on the ridges were attacked by enemy naval guns, the soldiers would hide behind the hills, wait for the enemy soldiers to rush up the hillside, and then quickly return to the front-line positions and condescendingly block the enemy.

At daybreak, the British former dreadnought "Britannia", which had been heavily damaged by a torpedo, ran aground on the shore not far from the port of Sewerg, and although its bilge was filled with seawater, the crew managed to save some ammunition, the wounded and ordinary crew evacuated the battleship and landed nearby, and the gunners continued to stay on the ship to provide artillery support to the marines. Under the direct guidance of the lookouts, the long-dormant twin main guns once again let out a deafening roar, and the 233 mm primary secondary guns placed in the single turret and the 152 mm secondary guns in the broadside gun frames also entered the battle. During the 20-minute shooting, the artillery fire of the "Britannia" almost ploughed the mountain beams across three or four thousand meters, and the superb artillery skills were vividly demonstrated here.

By the time the gunfire had stopped, the distant mountains were filled with gunsmoke and craters.

Seeing the dead silence of the German positions, hundreds of British Royal Marines in blue uniforms emerged from a natural ravine near the mountainside. They lined up the stragglers and rushed up the hill with bayonets in hand. Except for a few wrinkled ravines, there is hardly any shelter to be found on the open, gentle slopes, and the view is unobstructed whether you stand low and look high. Soon, the British soldiers running at the front were only a hundred meters away from the ridge of the mountain, they could clearly see the dilapidated German positions and the various remnants left by the shelling, victory seemed to beckon to them, but at this time, almost every British Marine who still maintained enough sensitivity in his ears heard the sound that made people's pupils dilate - the voice of the German.

In an instant, a German seaman's hat appeared on the mountain beam, accompanied by a few sharp whistles, the Madsen light machine gun, which had made the Allied soldiers suffer on the line from Amiens to Paris, began to make a cheerful neighing sound, and the clicking sound echoed the crisp sound of the Mauser rifle, coupled with a small number of heavy machine guns and machine guns, the fierce fire that split the head and cover the face suddenly hit the British soldiers on their backs. Although the German firepower was relatively concentrated in a few positions of this long defensive line, and the British marines who gritted their teeth and attacked should be able to find the weak position of the opponent to break through, there were more German naval caps on the ridges of the mountains one after another than they thought, and the grenades that the German soldiers were generally equipped with, they could be thrown in a curve without aiming with the naked eye, and with the help of the terrain to fall forty or fifty meters away, if they were lucky, a grenade could injure five or six well-trained, determined and composed British marines.

Two and three charges only increased the casualties.

Attracted by the fierce sound of gunfire, a grey painted seaplane flew low from the east with a loud roar, and its appearance immediately attracted a flurry of fire from the British soldiers, but the odds of hitting the plane with a rifle were about the same as winning the jackpot after all, the German reconnaissance plane turned several times defiantly, and then flew towards the port of Søvog, which the British army had taken in one fell swoop, and it soon found the stranded "Britannia" near the shore to the south, and stared at it with interest for a long time. During this time, the ship's 12-pounder cannon kept banging, but it still couldn't knock down the guy who was constantly making noise.

Vogue Island is close to Strammer Island, the main island of the Faroe Islands, and the waterway separating the two islands is more than three kilometres wide at its widest point, with an average width of about one kilometre in the north, but the currents are more turbulent and swimming is impossible and must be navigated by ships. Strammer Island is home to Vorstmannna, the second largest seaport after Tórshavn, and there is no port on Vogue Island, where ships used to dock to Sandwag or Sewvog, both of which are now in British hands. In the eyes of the British, the German troops on the island were in a situation of isolation, but the German navy had already prepared for it, and they scuttled or anchored the fishing boats and barges requisitioned from Vorstmanna on the side of Vogue Island, so as to build two temporary piers more than 30 meters long. While the main German forces stationed on Vogue Island braved British artillery fire to defend themselves against the British marines in their preset positions, ships flying black, white and red flags on flagpoles were sailing through the Vogue-Strammer waterway, transporting fighters and war materiel to Vogue Island and evacuating the wounded and some British prisoners of war to Strammer Island.

The British Navy, which lacked aerial reconnaissance capabilities, was at a loss for this.

Despite the naval superiority, the British counterattack in the Faroe Islands was not at all conservative. The successful landing on Vogue Island was followed by a number of light ships transporting Marines to land on Sood Island and Mulberry Island in the southern Faroe Islands. The Germans had taken over the islands two days earlier, taking the harbors, deploying defenses, and setting up guard posts throughout the islands, but until more reinforcements arrived, the Germans on the islands were limited enough to compete with the British marines who had landed an entire company and battalion. It was clearly stated by the Theater Command that the German commanders on the island, untroubled by decision-making, decisively gathered their forces, abandoned the port, and retreated to the central part of the island, where small material stockpiles were located, using the terrain to maneuver with the British.

All six German seaplanes stationed in the Faroe Islands were dispatched, and it took only a few hours to grasp the whereabouts and composition of the British fleet. With the exception of the Indefatigable class battlecruisers and the old Edward VII-class battleships with decent combat power, the rest of the ships were not worth mentioning in front of Funk's dreadnoughts and battlecruisers. With aerial reconnaissance paving the way, Natsuki ordered the Funk fleet to attack, and they sailed south from the east side of Knoll Island, but instead of heading straight to the waters south of Vogue Island, where the main force of the British fleet was located, they killed the waters off Pensang Island, and captured a number of British ships that were unloading landing troops and war supplies at the port of Sandor in the south of the island. Within a quarter of an hour, three old protective cruisers, two destroyers, and four freighters of the British Navy were sunk one by one by Funk's dreadnoughts, and more than 1,000 British marines who had already landed also suffered considerable losses in the shelling of the German fleet, and the port facilities and residential buildings were razed to the ground by artillery fire.

The Funk fleet avoided the mines laid by the British army outside Tórshavn, and bypassed Mulberry Island, making it impossible for the British submarines and torpedo boats ambushed in the Straits of Strammer-Mulberry Island to play a role, such cunning actions and the strong strength of the Funk fleet itself made the officers and men of the British Task Force 7th Fleet, which had accidentally lost its flagship, very alarmed, and now even if all the combat ships that arrived in the waters of the Faroe Islands were gathered together, they could not provoke the Funk fleet in an open naval battle, and the great British Navy retreated again in disarray, More than 4,000 marines who landed on the islands of Vogue, Mulberry and Sood were abandoned under the guns of the German fleet.

The situation has changed so rapidly that the officers and men on the battlefield have been overwhelmed.

By the early afternoon, Funk's fleet approached Vogue Island, and with the help of seaplane corrections, they turned the British Navy's battleship Britannia from an invulnerable threat to a non-threatening wreckage of war. The German troops stationed on Vogue Island received some reinforcements, and with the support of their own fleet, they launched a counterattack to recapture Sevorg. However, after the defense switched to the attack, the shortcomings of these German naval officers and men's lack of combat skills and combat experience were exposed, and before they could enter the Sawog, they were beaten in the open area, and more than 200 British marines lined up along the road, using Enfield rifles to fire intensively at a rate of 10 to 15 rounds per minute, and in the absence of light and heavy machine guns, they repelled twice as many German troops as themselves with their rifle formations, and the Germans were strewn with corpses.

Upon learning of the disparity in the outcome of the battle, the German Theater Command in Tórshavn immediately sent a telegram to the German command on Vogue Island, demanding that they immediately stop the attack on Sørvog and withdraw their troops to their previous defensive positions in an orderly manner.

After the "Britannia" was eliminated, the Funk fleet continued to cruise in the waters south of Vogue Island, and successively fired more than 200 rounds of 11-12 inch caliber high-explosive shells and more than 1,000 medium-caliber shells at the British troops who landed on the shore.

After nightfall, the British Task Force 7, which had evacuated the waters off Vogue Island, actually killed a horse pistol. Before the outbreak of the war, the German High Seas Fleet deliberately strengthened its night combat training in order to confront the stronger British Navy, and their night combat ability was also verified in the Battle of Jutland. The strength of the British Task Force 7 with the "Australia" as the core was already weaker than that of the Funk fleet, and it seemed that the night battle did not take advantage of anything other than avoiding the reconnaissance of German planes, but this time the "Australia" and the remaining two Edward VII-class ships could be followed by a full 22 mine-striking ships, including five destroyers and 17 small mine-striking ships with smaller tonnage than destroyers and weaker guns than destroyers.

(End of chapter)