In the Baltic Sea breeze in August, three battleships flying the German Navy flag made white water marks on the sea and slowly moved north. They were followed by four pitch-black submarines, one of which had a very young captain standing on the conning tower with eyes as blue as the sea looking into the distance.

At the outbreak of war in 1914, the Allied navy had 762 surface ships and 74 submarines of various types; Germany and Austria-Hungary had 433 surface ships and 85 submarines. Due to the large number of naval theaters, the German Admiral Tirpitz felt that his forces were insufficient, so he put the main forces of the navy in the North Sea region in order to try to break the British naval blockade and at the same time contain the Russian navy in the Baltic Sea with a small number of troops.

While the main forces of the German navy were all on standby in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel, Tirpitz gave Chentian's Baltic detachment the right to move freely in the Baltic region.

The task of the Russian Baltic Fleet was to defend the Gulf of Finland and Petrograd, and at the beginning of the war they were busy deploying their forces in the Gulf of Finland, strengthening their defenses and waiting for the opportunity to meet the German navy's heavy breakthrough into the bay.

Carl von Dönitz, 23 years old, joined the German Navy in 1910 and served on the cruiser "Brest". In February 1912, he received a strange order to report to the Baltic Fleet, and he began his submarine career.

As Chen Tian expected, Dönitz was a natural submarine commander, this person was simply born for submarines, and in just 3 months, he had already figured out the performance and technology of submarines, and showed a unique talent in submarine tactics. As a result, Chief Engineer, First Mate, and First Officer, Dönitz rose through the ranks at an astonishing rate, and in May 1914 he finally became the captain of the U-039, the youngest submarine captain in the history of the German Navy.

On 23 August, Dönitz and his U-039 formed a small task force with another light cruiser, 2 destroyers, and 3 submarines, and they set out from the port of Königsberg for the Gulf of Finland in the northeastern corner of the Baltic Sea, preparing to attack merchant ships and Russian Navy patrol ships there.

On the morning of the next day, the task force entered the operational zone, Dönitz and the submarine forces remained behind to pick up, and the cruiser "Magdery" and two other destroyers began to accelerate, and as soon as the target was detected they would make contact by radio.

"Inform U-014, U-019, U-028 to spread out according to rectangular tactics, U-014 occupies the northwest corner, U-019 goes to the southwest corner, U-028 goes to the southeast corner, we are in the northeast corner, ready to dive at any time!" The young Dönitz was appointed as the temporary commander of this submarine formation, and in other German naval forces, with no qualifications, no experience, and no combat achievements, it was simply impossible to become a captain, but fortunately he was in the Baltic Fleet, a very young fleet. With the exception of the light cruisers "Magdery" and "Augsburg", which were transferred by the Admiralty for more than 10 years, the others were all new warships that had just been launched, and in addition to recruiting a group of skilled sailors, the other sailors of this fleet were all naval recruits who had only served for a few years, and the commanders of the ships were all young officers who had graduated from the naval class of the Königsberg Military Academy and the German Naval Academy after 1910. Although the youth makes this army vibrant, but the lack of experience also has quite hidden dangers, which Chen Tian is very clear. However, in recent years, the German navy has added too many new battleships, and other naval fleets have not been able to allocate many experienced officers, and it is also believed that the Baltic detachment will only be suppressed by the Russian navy in the harbor, and they prefer to join the high seas fleet that is about to fight the British. As a result, new age-related naval records are constantly appearing in the Baltic Fleet - the youngest chief engineer, the youngest first officer, the youngest captain, the youngest commander of the detachment, mainly capable and motivated people, are able to find their place here. After several years of rigorous training, everyone was pleased to find that the fleet already had a large number of vigorous and well-trained sailors and officers, and all these people lacked at present was actual combat experience.

"Captain, the boats have signaled that they have reached their assigned position, and our deployment has been reported to the captain of the 'Magdri', Major Russ!" The correspondent's report pulled Dönitz back from his memories.

"Well, that's good! Let's wait quietly and tell the boats to keep an eye on the sea! "This is the first time that Dönitz has participated in a real combat operation, and the first time for the Baltic detachment.

The Magdri was originally a light cruiser of the German North Sea Fleet, but five years ago, at the request of Chentian, Admiral Tirpitz transferred this battleship from the North Sea Fleet to the Baltic Fleet. The former captain and most of the sailors of the "Magdrie" have returned to the North Sea Fleet, and Rear Admiral Russ graduated from the Königsberg Military Academy three years ago with the distinction of second in the naval class, and has served as first officer of a destroyer, then a deputy captain of a destroyer, and was promoted to captain of this cruiser just four months ago. Russ also feels like a dream about his promotion speed, his childhood wish is to be able to command his battleship to defeat the British Navy, although now the battleship he commands has some deviations from his dream, and the opponent has become the Russian Navy, but he is only 27 years old, and the future is still full of hope.

"Major, the reconnaissance plane has sent back a report that there is a small Russian tugboat 20 nautical miles ahead!" The officers marked the charts in the command room one by one, and in one hour, the reconnaissance planes found a total of two small fishing boats and one tugboat, all of which were targets that were plugged between their teeth.

"Keep scouting!" Russ silently looked at the calm sea in the distance, the air was fresh and transparent, and only a few plumes of smoke floated on his side. "Magdri" was received by the Baltic detachment and underwent a large-scale refit, the turret in the aft part of the ship was dismantled and replaced with a storage of a water reconnaissance aircraft. At present, they are carrying a "Exocet III" water reconnaissance plane, with two wings and two seats, equipped with a transmitter, and a range of 200 nautical miles.

After a long wait, the reconnaissance plane finally sent back an exciting report - a Russian patrol ship, a destroyer with a displacement of about 1,500 tons, and two gunboats of 300 tons were spotted 30 nautical miles to the east.

"Great, tell the ships to move at full speed!" Major Russ waved his fist, this time his mission was to make a tentative attack, if he encountered a large Russian ship, he would lure the other party into a submarine ambush circle, but what he had just found was only a few small fish and shrimp, he decided to rush over and easily destroy them, he would become the first German captain to sink an enemy ship, just thinking about the shining medal, but forgetting about Dönitz and his submarine force.

Half an hour later, the reconnaissance plane, which had basically run out of fuel, slowly descended next to the "Magdrie", and it took Russ a quarter of an hour to retract the plane. Fearing that the missing fighter plane would allow the Russian warships to slip away, Russ did not let the reconnaissance plane take off again for reconnaissance.

Soon, a few wisps of clear smoke appeared in the eastern sky, and Russ commanded the "Magdrie" and two other destroyers to line up in a horizontal line and sail quickly towards the Russian ship at a speed of 20 knots. At this time, several Russian ships also discovered Russ's fleet, which were the naval patrol ships "Warrior", "Zhishen" and "Cossack" of the Russian Baltic Fleet, with a displacement of 1450 tons, 390 tons and 380 tons, respectively, and the Russians were far inferior in tonnage and firepower, and they soon began to turn.

"Great, order 'Göttingen' and 'Shure' to keep moving!" Seeing this, Russ couldn't help but get excited.

By the time Russ's fleet was 8,000 yards from the Russians, the Russians had turned and begun to retreat eastward at full speed, and the destroyer USS Warrior, which was moving faster, left behind two other slow gunboats to flee the battlefield alone.

"Captain, Göttingen's flag is asking for instructions on whether to fire the cannon or not!" 8,000 yards was basically within the range of Russ's fleet, but Russ was faced with a choice between encircling and destroying the two Russian gunboats pulling behind or pursuing the Russian destroyers in front with all his might.

"Full speed ahead and shoot at the Russian gunboats with the bow cannon!" In the end, instead of attacking the enemy with a volley of gunwales, Russ kept course and aimed the bow at the enemy ship, pursuing them with all his might while shelling the opponent. The standard displacement of the "Magdri" is 4,100 tons, the main gun is 10 Krupp 40 times diameter 105 mm rapid-fire naval guns, two bow guns, arranged on single gun mounts on both sides, protected by light gun shields, the other 8 are arranged on two gun mounts and protected by gun embowels or shields, in addition to some 37 mm small-caliber guns and some machine guns as auxiliary fire, and two 450 mm torpedo tubes under the waterline, 'Göttingen' and ' The Shure is a standard-class destroyer built by the Königsberg shipyard, with a displacement of 1,080 tons, a top speed of 26 knots, and three 40x-diameter 105 mm rapid-fire naval guns, the most powerful weapons on this standard-class destroyer are two 533 mm torpedo tubes with a range of 1,500 yards.

Russ's cruisers and destroyers opened fire, and then columns of water rose around the Russian ships. The accuracy of the fire at high speed was not high, and the dozens of shells fired by Russ's fleet in a matter of minutes were all lost, at which point the Russian gunboats also began to return fire with their two 76mm guns in the stern, but for the German battleships in high speed, the Russians also had an alarmingly low hit rate. It was not until a distance of 4,000 yards that a shell from the "Göttingen" hit the middle of the Russian gunboat "Cossacks", blowing out a huge hole in the superstructure of the "Cossack", and thick smoke billowed out of the large hole.

"Great, finally hit one!" Before Russ could rejoice, a shell from another Russian gunboat hit the control tower of the "Magdrie", fortunately the armor of the patrol control tower reached 100 mm, only Russ and several other officers were slightly injured, and the blood quickly stained a large part of Russ's military uniform.

"Right rudder, kill it with the gunner's cannon!" Russ roared, and the rushing medics wrapped a thick loop of gauze around his head.

Under the leadership of the "Magdrie", the German fleet began to turn forward, and the power of the ship's gunwide cannons was finally released, and the two Russian gunboats soon burst into flames, and with several loud noises, they sank into the dark green waters of the Gulf of Finland.

Just when the German ship was entangled with these two Russian ships, another Russian destroyer had disappeared in the distance, and Russ had his head wrapped like a rice dumpling, helplessly looking at the Russian sailors who were desperately struggling on the sea.

"Take in the prisoners of war, and then return home!"

The news of the victory of the Russ fleet soon spread back to Germany, and many veterans of the Navy broke through their glasses, because the Baltic fleet, which they jokingly called the "Doll Fleet", actually achieved the first victory of German surface ships, a complete victory!