As the night darkened the world, crocodiles could see some lights on the sea near the Strait of Gibraltar, which were Spanish ships that had come to blockade the Strait and the British ports. Hundreds of years ago, this navy once roamed the oceans, and now, all they have left is a lack of material, lonely sense of honor.

A small victory belonging to the German naval aviation, which even the Germans did not celebrate, the Spanish government, army, and navy boasted about "Spain's first victory over Britain since entering the war", as if it were a great victory for the Spanish army themselves. Not only on the Madrid and Gibraltar fronts, but also on the flagship of the Spanish Mediterranean Fleet, Alfonso XII, a celebratory dinner was held.

Of course, the dinner was indispensable for the protagonist of this victory - the German representatives.

The Spanish battleship, built in 1901, had been boarded a day earlier by a delegation of the German Navy headed by Commodore Schleitt.

Since the other battleship in the Spanish fleet, the Royal Navy, was already over the age of the year, the Spanish government, after declaring war on Britain, requested Germany to purchase or commission the construction of a new battleship, and Alfonso XIII's navy wanted to get an English-made battleship, or a battleship built by a German shipyard that was no inferior to the Osterfrieland class. The German side did not immediately reply to this, but sent a naval delegation to observe the combat operations of the Spanish fleet, after which the German government would make a further assessment to decide whether to meet the requirements of the Spanish government.

In the ports and fortresses blockaded by the Spanish navy, after encountering a very disgraceful air during the day, the faces of the British seemed to be covered with a layer of gray, and the whole garrison fell silent after nightfall, and searchlights silently patrolled the territory that was still part of the British Empire for the time being.

In a conference room deep inside the fortress of Gibraltar, the dim light shone on a group of gloomy faces, and the whole room was filled with smoke and the smell of cigars everywhere.

Excellent Cuban cigars. But it can only soothe people's lost emotions a little.

"Gentlemen, the death of those four land-based fighter pilots today is glorious and proud, although the performance of their aircraft is far inferior to that of the other party, but the courage they showed is worthy of the title of the first man of the British Empire! In contrast, seaplane pilots who retreated without permission in air combat were cowardly and uncombative, and they should be court-merified! The owner of the cigar, General Roque, the supreme commander of the British forces in Gibraltar, stood on one side of the conference table, holding half a cigar in his left hand and a large fist in his right hand. Compared to his sometimes excited, sometimes gloomy demeanor. The large jewel-encrusted rings on his two hands are even more striking.

It was not difficult for the wealthy general to ask the officers to smoke cigars, but the officers were so familiar with his habits that whenever someone needed to carry a gun into battle, he would "generously" bring out a delicate cigar box. So seeing the general take out his cigar, the officers began to feel bad, and this time was no exception.

Accustomed to such empty rhetoric, the officers smoked the general's cigars and thought about their own thoughts. No one was interested in the proposal to take those pilots to court-martial, after all, there were only a few pilots here. It is impossible for the general to fly the plane himself.

"Why don't the Germans let us wait quietly until the war is over? And the Spaniards. They thought they were taking back Gibraltar for themselves? An army major murmured alone, the warm sunshine, the warm sea breeze. Before Spain declared war, they enjoyed a vacation here almost as a vacation.

In contrast to Germany in the other world, the German rulers did not intend to make this land a war-free paradise (the Third Reich was fully capable of capturing Gibraltar, but for various reasons, the offensive plan was repeatedly shelved until the end of the war, which became a minor mystery in World War II).

"Six months ago, if the Spaniards dared to sail a warship to our port, I would shine the shoes of every Spanish captain!" Another naval officer had the feeling that he was bullied by dogs in Pingyang, knowing that the strength of those Spanish warships outside the harbor was not even comparable to that of a detachment in the heyday of the British Empire.

"Gentlemen. There is no way to send reinforcements here at home, but we can't sit idly by! We must let the enemy know that we are not so easy to bully! The general pounded the table in indignation, and finally some of the officers below looked up at him, but more still lowered their heads.

Glancing at everyone present, the general was a little disappointed, and then he slapped the table with both hands and said loudly:

"We must fight back!"

In the early hours of the morning, the Spanish captains were basically asleep. In the VIP room of the flagship "Alfonso XII", General Schleet and the accompanying three staff officers of the German delegation also fell asleep. Seven accompanying guards were on duty outside the gate.

Negligence in a dangerous place, the Spaniards were doomed to pay a heavy price for it.

At the same time, several dark shadows quietly slipped out of the port of Gibraltar.

Looking at the lights in the distance, the British officers and sailors on the five torpedo boats were nervous and excited. During the day, the aviation forces (at this time the British Air Force had not yet been formed) not only lost, but also lost badly, which suffocated the British Imperial Navy, which had a glorious tradition.

"Prepare to attack!"

On the leading British ** ship, as the order to attack was issued, the sailors quickly made the final preparations before the attack. In front of them, the only two armored battleships of the Spanish Navy were unsuspected, and several Spanish destroyers guarded them like sheepdogs.

4000 yards! 3000 yards! 2500 yards! As the distance closed, the officers and men on the British torpedo boats almost held their breath, fearing that their slightest movement would alarm the Spaniards.

Silence, silence, the whole sea was eerily calm, and there was only the dull sound of engines and the whirring wind in people's ears.

The blockade of Gibraltar by the Spanish fleet had been almost a week, and the continued harmony and calm had paralyzed the nerves of the Spaniards and made them underestimate the resolve of the British.

Fortunately, there were still sentries on the Spanish warships on duty, and the sea breeze brought fresh air and the faint sound of engines.

Suddenly, the outermost Spanish destroyer turned on its forward searchlight, and the beam swept towards the British.

The Spanish sailors rubbed their eyes, they were sure that they were seeing a British ** ship.

A convoy of British torpedo boats is rapidly approaching!

"Enemy attack! Pull the alarm! The Spaniards shouted in panic.

The poignant sirens could not scare off the fearless Royal Navy, and the British torpedo boats fearlessly rushed forward. The waves crashed against the brave men, who did not fire their torpedoes until they were 1,500 yards from the Spanish fleet.

At this distance, the battleship at anchor had little chance of dodging.

The 10 torpedoes stabbed mercilessly into the chest of the matador like 10 sharp swords, and the seemingly solid armor was vulnerable to them.

When the British torpedo boats began to turn, there was sporadic artillery fire from the Spanish fleet, first with the small-caliber naval guns on the destroyers, then the secondary guns and machine guns on the side of the battleships also fired, and large and small shells fell near the British torpedo boats. Columns of water rose one after another, and the torpedo boats suddenly became lonely boats in the storm.

When a loud explosion was heard behind them, the British knew that life and death were no longer important, and the key was that they had once again defended the honor of the British Royal Navy.

With a battleship and a destroyer shot and exploding, the firepower of the Spanish fleet was reduced by half almost instantly. Their artillery fire eventually damaged a British torpedo boat, but this was to no avail.

About 10 nautical miles from the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar suddenly became a place of sorrow for the Spaniards, and nearly 1,000 officers and men struggled in pain at sea, and the night sky was lit up by raging fires.

On the hill of Gibraltar, General Burson and his soldiers watched with excitement as the Spanish battleship burned. Watch your torpedo boat team return victorious. They cheered. They were excited, but they still saw no hope of victory.

At 1:33 a.m. on March 4, 1915, the Spanish Navy armored battleship Alfonso XII disappeared from the sea in a huge explosion. Also buried was the destroyer "Ocala". In the battle, which lasted less than 10 minutes, 490 Spanish naval officers and men were killed, the highest of which was a rear admiral officer aboard the "Alfonso XIII", the first Spanish general to be killed since the Spanish-American War.

The biggest concern for the Spanish government was not the blow that the disaster would do to the morale of the Spanish army, but the German delegation, which had seven dead and three wounded. Although General Schleet in Germany only brushed shoulders with death, it was clear that the German government would not stop there.

Thus, with the personal intervention of Alfonso XIII, the slow but orderly assembly of the Spanish Army was suddenly disrupted. According to the King's Decree, Admiral Chaparo had to begin an offensive against Gibraltar within two days. At this time, he had only 17 infantry regiments and 2 artillery regiments in his hands. It was almost half the planned 25 infantry regiments and 5 artillery regiments, and more importantly, although the German-aided heavy artillery had already arrived at the front, the Spanish soldiers still needed time to learn to use them.

In such a helpless situation, the Spanish Army began their first offensive.

March 5, 1915, fine.

"Stand upright! Gun...... Upper shoulder! ”

In the loud voice of the command, a group of soldiers neatly carried their rifles to their shoulders, although the weapons looked a little old, the expressions on everyone's faces were so serious.

"The formation is very neat! As for weapons...... Mauser M1893! It is said to be a rifle with good performance! An officer in a gray uniform and a peaked helmet whispered to his companion. Although this rifle is called Mauser M1893, the manufacturer is not the famous German Mauser arms company. It was developed and produced in 1893 by a Spanish domestic arms company based on Mauser 1888.

"Well, that's right! It's the M1893, which is a little shorter than our M1898, with a caliber of 7 mm, and uses a 7*57 mm round-tipped cartridge (the Mauser 1898 rifle uses a 7.92 mm pointed cartridge). The officer next to him, who was also dressed, seemed to know something about Spanish rifles. In fact, the Spanish army was using the Mauser series of rifles before the M1893, when they were armed with 11mm Mauser M1871 rifles, as well as some Remington M1869 bolt-down rifles.

Then, another officer pointed not far away, "Look at that group of soldiers over there, it's the one with relatively new uniforms!" In their hands is the Mauser Model 1898, the standard rifle of our army! ”

When everyone looked closely, the rifles were familiar, but they were not all imported from Germany, and Spain had an arms factory that specialized in copying the Mauser rifles. The Mauser series rifles with superior performance are widely favored by countries all over the world, not only Spain, many countries have imported a large number of Mauser rifles, or imitated Mauser rifles, among which the imitation technology is better Belgium, their imitation Mauser M71, M71/84 and M1898 have a large market, while some rifles in the United States and Britain are based on Mauser rifles.

The Spaniards not only copied rifles, but the pistols of the officers were basically copied from other countries, and at present they mainly used the Russian Smith-Wesson No. 3 revolver, the Smith-Wesson 0.44-inch twin-action revolver, and the 0.45-inch revolver.

As for the machine guns and artillery of the Spanish Army, there were Vickers machine guns purchased from the British, self-copied Makoqin heavy machine guns and Madsen light machine guns, and some Harchiques machine guns from their close neighbors, the French Army; In addition to the small-caliber field guns produced in the country, the rest of the artillery basically belonged to the "multinational forces", including cannons produced by the British Royal Military Factory (Spain and Britain were relatively close at the beginning of the 20th century), heavy mortars and howitzers from the Austrian Skoda Arsenal, and even 75-mm rapid-fire guns of the French.

"It seems that when France surrendered, the Spaniards got a lot of weapons from the French army!" Looking at the legal weapons equipped by the Spanish Army, a German captain said metaphorically. It is no wonder that many French officers and soldiers sold their weapons to the Spanish army before the surrender, so most of them had to be disbanded on the spot after that, and the French government could not pay a single franc of retirement allowance.

In a short time, more than 20,000 Spanish soldiers from 10 regiments were all lined up. Next, a Spanish general ascended to the high platform on the side of the queue and began to give a speech. The speech was not very long, the tone appeared impassioned, and the morale of the soldiers was quickly boosted. When the general's speech was finished, the procession began to march south, and every Spanish soldier held his chest high.

As the rumbling cannons rang out, the Spanish soldiers, lined up in a neat line, began to advance towards the nearby hills of Gibraltar. In the sun, the bayonets of the forest shimmered brightly, and the mountain, dotted with many fortresses, was waiting for them wordlessly.

"Slaughter, or be slaughtered!"

Looking at this situation, a German ** official silently drew a cross on his chest.