In the drizzling rain, British Rear Admiral John Kelly and his officers stood quietly on the pier of the military port of Gibraltar, waiting for the French fleet to enter the port. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The Port of Gibraltar is small in size, but it is a natural deep-water port. At the height of the British Empire, there was a naval fleet that no country dared to underestimate all year round, symbolizing the absolute dominance of the maritime hegemon in the Mediterranean region, and no one dared to peep into it. Time flies, the world is unpredictable, and the port of Gibraltar now seems empty, and after the capital ships have been withdrawn to the mainland, the British Mediterranean Fleet has only two armoured cruisers and a few humble old cruisers and destroyers, which defend the glory of the House of Windsor alone and lonely, and it flickers and dims like a candle in the wind, ready to be extinguished at any time......

Due to the unfavorable interception and containment of the German Mediterranean detachment at the beginning of the war, the German battle cruiser "von der Tann" slipped into the Dardanelles, resulting in the Ottoman Turkish Empire's war position being controlled by the Germans, which greatly infringed on Britain's military and political interests in the Near East, and Admiral Milne, who was formerly the commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, and Admiral Truebridge, commander of the armored cruiser formation, both became scapegoats. The former was recalled to the UK and retired from the Navy, while the latter was prosecuted by the Court of Inquiry, and even if he was found not guilty, his future in the British Navy was at an end. Now that Britain itself was under an unprecedented threat from Germany, the British Navy had no choice but to abandon the car and defend the commander, shrink its overseas deployment, completely hand over the military defense of the Mediterranean to the French allies, and only symbolically retain some ships in Gibraltar and Malta.

It was under these circumstances that John Kelly was able to become the new commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, the lowest rank in this important post for centuries.

Kelly's two armored cruisers, the USS Defense and the USS Samurai, were moored in the port of Gibraltar at this time. They belonged to the last two classes of armored cruisers built by the British Navy, with a standard displacement of about 14,000 tons, comparable to most of the former dreadnoughts of the time, and their firepower was designed with twin 234 mm primary guns and a single 191 mm secondary main gun, which was considered the top powerful in the ranks of armored cruisers. Many of the armored cruisers built by the British Navy in recent years have strong data on paper, and their tactical role is second only to dreadnoughts and battle cruisers, but once it comes to the North Sea battlefield, which is the most fierce confrontation between the British and German navies, they can only serve as high-level cannon fodder. Precisely because of a fuller and more accurate understanding of the main battleships of the Germans, the British Navy withdrew the remaining armored cruisers from the North Sea front and organized them into mobile detachments to operate in the English Channel, Irish waters, and the Mediterranean.

The French fleet, which sailed into the port of Gibraltar with both the British St. George flag and the French tricolor flag flying on the mast, did not arrive to take over Gibraltar, but to launch a joint combat operation with the British Mediterranean Fleet at the invitation of the British Navy.

Among the 10 French ships that came from afar, the most striking were the two behemoths with six chimneys, the last armored cruisers designed and built by the French Navy, the Edgar-Günay class. Its tonnage and speed were similar to that of Kelly's armored cruisers, and with 14 191 mm guns and 20 65 mm secondary guns, it was a cut above the German Scharnhorst class with eight 210 mm guns. In a head-to-head affair, the Germans could win with their slightly superior gun range, armor defense, and power output, and the French could also have a chance to outmaneuver with a storm of gunfire.

The two Edgar-Günet-class armored cruisers were followed to the port of Gibraltar by eight French destroyers with a displacement of less than 1,000 tons. The French destroyers of this period were not poorly equipped but had a mediocre design, the naval guns were inferior to the British destroyers, the speed and torpedo combat power were inferior to the German large torpedo boats, and the endurance and seaworthiness were lackluster. Even so, for the embarrassed British Mediterranean Fleet, the arrival of these French destroyers would at least play a useful tactical role.

After the lead French armored cruiser landed, Kelly and his officers moved to the gangway. I saw a tall French rear admiral walking down the gangway and looking condescendingly at the British naval officers in front of him.

Among the British officers who came to greet him, one of the lieutenants standing in the back whispered to his companion: "This arrogant Frenchman is Victor Bapttisdine-Senes, Rear Admiral of the French Navy, Commander of the Second Cruiser. ”

"Then we'll all have to follow his orders before this interception is over?" Another British naval officer looked at the guy who was shaking Kelly's hand with a look of disdain in his eyes.

"No way, they have more warships than we have - the total number of warships lost by the French Navy since the beginning of the war is only in the single digits. Except for a disparity victory in the Adriatic in the first month of the war, they had not fought much, like us, who had been fighting the Germans in the North Sea from the very beginning. ”

The British officer was right, and the French navy had not lost a single capital ship at the beginning of the war. With 4 Lone class dreadnoughts and 17 former dreadnoughts, their combat sequence looks quite strong, but on the one hand, they need to be on guard against the Austro-Hungarian fleet sailing out of the Adriatic Sea, attacking the Mediterranean routes of the Entente, and even threatening the southern ports of France, on the other hand, the overly idealistic design style and lagging technical concepts have led the French Navy to build a bunch of "the latest obsolete ships", whether it is the Emperor Charlemagne-class in service at the turn of the century, or Henry IV, who was designed and built in the early 20th century. All of them have been criticized and discredited. They were barely able to suppress the inferior Austro-Hungarian navy, and had to make the long journey to the North Sea to save the British, but the French had neither the confidence nor the courage to continue their inactive war journey in the Mediterranean.

While the junior British officers were whispering, the two rear admirals had finished their brief greetings, and the two turned and walked towards the car parked not far away—Senes walked ahead with his head held high, and Kelly followed by him, a scene that aptly reflected the strategic position of Britain and France in the Mediterranean at this time.

At the land command of the British Mediterranean Fleet, the commanders and key staff members of the two fleets sat together to discuss the next step in the operation. The objective of this joint operation was very clear, that is, to intercept the German Pacific Detachment heading north from West African waters. In fact, on the very day that Count Spee left the Cape Verde Islands, the British Navy received information from spy agents that it was basically confirmed that Spee's fleet consisted of only two armored cruisers and a few auxiliary vessels, and that the British Mediterranean Fleet stationed in Gibraltar had a favorable position and had the opportunity to intercept the German fleet on the way. However, the Speese fleet, refueled and refueled, did not sail along the coastline of West Africa, it seemed to be a ghost fleet, suddenly appearing and then disappearing, and the British had no way of knowing its whereabouts, and could only roughly guess its trajectory.

With the position and speed of Spee's fleet, the two old British battleships stationed in Malta were completely useless, and with only Kelly's two armored cruisers and a small number of light ships, it was difficult to ensure victory, and the British navy had to turn to the French allies and promised the French to command the operation. The French gladly agreed, and sent the Sennes fleet, which was cruising in the western Mediterranean, to Gibraltar. In this way, the Allied fleet had four of the best armored cruisers, and once the German fleet was captured, even if Count von Spee's amazing talent was concerned, he would probably have to find a way to escape. At that time, even if the prey slipped away by relying on the speed advantage, the Entente could make a big deal of propaganda to boost the morale of the front-line soldiers.

Compared with the foreign detachments led by the German battlecruisers "Blucher" and "Von der Tann", Count Spee's armored cruisers were the softest persimmons.

In order to find out the whereabouts of Spee's fleet, Kelly had sent three old protective cruisers and three destroyers to the Atlantic to search for the French fleet before it arrived in Gibraltar, and he had also taken the unusual measure of sending men on board Allied and neutral ships that had entered the Atlantic through the Strait of Gibraltar and followed them to the Azores. In this way, in the event of a suspicious ship, it is not easy to be fooled by the opponent's simple camouflage, and the enemy can be informed by the radio on which it is put on. If they did not meet the German fleet, the officers sailed back to Gibraltar in the Azores.

In the early morning of the fourth day of Spee's departure from the Cape Verde Islands, almost at the midpoint of the route from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Azores, an Italian cargo ship spotted the German fleet on the sea, but the drama was that the Italian captain refused to allow the British officer to use the ship's radio to send a telegram, because it was a clear violation of the international neutrality law, and if the telegram was intercepted and deciphered by the Germans, the Italian ship and its people and cargo would not be protected by the neutrality law.

The anxious British officers drew their guns and faced each other, and after some arguments, the Italians finally relented, but demanded that the British officers must send the report in a cryptic language, so as not to leave a pretext for the Germans.

The British officer promised to write down on a piece of paper the content and frequency band of the message to be sent: "This ship, the 'Goddess of Fes', is on its scheduled voyage to the Azores, and it may rain today." ”

The Italian captain looked at it several times before handing it over to the ship's operator.

It was not long before the telegraph operator of the "Scharnhorst" overheard a clear code wireless telegram sent at close range, and after deciphering it, the seemingly inexplicable message was delivered to Count Spee.

"It's finally coming." Count Speeze realized that this was a warning telegram from the British, but instead of immediately ordering the fleet to enter a combat state, he broke the radio silence and reported his position, course, and speed to the German naval staff with a coded telegram.

"If there are no surprises, we will arrive in the Irish Sea at a limited time, and it is worth noting that the British may be waiting for us to go there. The ship and its wingmen have sufficient fuel, but due to the condition of the ship, they cannot obtain the maximum speed. ”

(End of chapter)