One day in late October, a Portuguese trawler suddenly spotted a fleet of Portuguese trawlers in the south-western waters of the Cape Verde Islands. It consisted of two large warships and four non-combatant ships www.biquge.info and the six ships were like well-trained soldiers marching in very neat columns. During the war, the origin and identity of such a fleet are very curious, not to mention the two battleships with many gun barrels, showing their grandeur.

The Age of Discovery has long been a distant history, and Portugal, which had colonies all over the world in its heyday, is now only an old empire, but not a European power. Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Austria fought, Serbia, Belgium, and Turkey were inevitably involved in the war, and the Commonwealth countries all participated in the war. So the Portuguese fishermen on board watched with trepidation as the fleet moved from far to near. The two large battleships were painted uniformly off-white from the mast and chimney to the bridge and hull, and a small section of black was exposed at the waterline, while their flagpoles fluttered proudly...... Germany's Iron Cross Black Eagle Flag!

In addition to the ships operating in the colony's inland lakes, there were three German fleets deployed overseas at this time: the Mediterranean Squadron operating in the Ottoman Turkish waters, the Spee Squadron operating in the Pacific Ocean, and the Raiding Fleet breaking through the British blockade into the Atlantic during the Second Battle of Flanders. The pair of beautiful sister ships in front of us are the "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" under the command of Count Spee, and from the Qingdao base in the Far East, they have rounded more than half the world and sailed more than 20,000 nautical miles, which is an out-and-out strategic voyage. Contrary to history, however, the Spee's fleet was neither famous in Coronel nor spared a crash in Falkland, and the two expensive armored cruisers barely fired a single shot along the way, but instead scattered four light cruisers attacked Allied ports and ships everywhere, and only turned the South Pacific upside down.

"Nuremberg", "Dresden", "Leipzig", "Emden", these four German cruisers broke the engagement, the Allied islands in the South Pacific and South American waters greatly affected the shipping routes of the Allies, the prestige of the British Empire also suffered a lot of blows, but these were after all the pawns that fought and ran. After the von der Tann slipped into the Dardanelles and before the Blücher burst into the Atlantic, Earl Spee's two armored cruisers were the main danger of the British Admiralty in non-native waters. In an island nation like the United Kingdom, which is not self-sufficient, most of the raw materials need to be brought in from overseas, from the warships on the slipways to the food on the tables of the residents, so the sea trade routes are the lifeblood of the country, especially in times of war. The two Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers were left alone, and if they appeared in important waters and attacked Allied ships, the detrimental effect would probably be greater than a major German offensive on the Western Front.

After three encounters in the waters of Jutland and Flanders, the British Navy had a new assessment of the combat performance of German ships. The main battleships of the German Navy were better than the British ships of the same class except for the slightly smaller caliber of the main guns, and the Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers were built only slightly earlier than the dreadnoughts and battlecruisers. As a result, the British Navy's technical department provided a rather pessimistic report to the decision-makers of the Admiralty and the Naval Staff: no armored cruiser of the British Navy of the first rank could match the German Scharnhorst class head-on, and it was necessary to develop a local numerical superiority or give full play to the tactical effect in order to defeat the opponent.

Despite their constant activity in waters far from the German mainland, Count Spee and his assistants were well acquainted with the fierce encounters taking place in the North Sea - during their brief stay in the port of Chile, they received a very detailed report of the battle through the German embassy in Chile, and later received a series of secret telegrams from the naval staff. All the officers and men of the Speeze detachment were thrilled by the brilliant victory of the High Seas Fleet and were also envious of their colleagues in the main fleet. Now the British Navy's battle cruisers have sunk and sunk, and most of the remaining forces have retreated to England to defend their homeland, allowing the attack ship formations composed of "Blucher" and "Glaudenz" to wreak havoc in the North Atlantic, which makes the officers and men under the command of Earl Spee more eager to try and try to hit the head of the reservoir dog with a few sticks.

Of course, Count Spee knew that with the current state of the British Navy, it was impossible to send a powerful battle fleet to round up his detachment, but even so, he did not dare to take it lightly, especially in the middle of the Atlantic, his detachment could run into the armored cruiser group of the British Mediterranean Squadron at any time. "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" had first-class optical rangefinders and mainstream naval gun configurations, and were equipped with excellent firing control commanders before the outbreak of war, and the strength of a single ship was indeed superior to that of any Allied armored cruiser, but after a long journey, the condition of the battleship was far from ideal. The bottom of the ship is overgrown with shellfish, and the boiler pipes are constantly having small problems, and I am afraid that I can only run at a maximum speed of 23 knots despite my best efforts; In order to maintain the combat condition of the crew, artillery drills were often carried out during the voyage, and some equipment broke down due to mechanical wear and tear or there were technical hidden dangers. In addition, if the fleet is fighting in a sea area far away from its own naval base, the damage that occurs can only be repaired by the crew, and it is fine to deal with a battle, but if it exchanges fire with the enemy one after another, the situation is very unoptimistic.

So when his subordinates asked what to do with the Portuguese-flagged fishing boat, the earl's answer was very decisive: follow the old rules.

The old rule was not to kill everything, and the Scharnhorst soon sent a small group of marines to board the unexpected fishing boat in a transport boat, and found that there were no radios or firearms on board, and determined that the ship and crew belonged to neutral Portugal. As usual, the German marines destroyed the boilers and engines on the fishing boats, leaving them to return to port with the auxiliary power of the sails, while giving the Portuguese fishermen some tea and porcelain brought back from the East as compensation.

In fact, the Cape Verde Islands are Portugal's overseas possessions, 400 nautical miles from French West Africa, 1,000 nautical miles from Gibraltar, and nearly 2,000 nautical miles from the Portuguese mainland. Coupled with the fact that the Portuguese government had no intention of getting involved in the war, the European continent was in full swing, and the inhabitants of the country were still living a leisurely life.

Bidding farewell to the stunned Portuguese fishermen, Count Spee's fleet continued north, accompanied by two coal ships and two supply ships. Although international neutrality laws allowed belligerent ships to stay in neutral ports for a day and replenish non-military supplies such as fuel, fresh water, and food, Britain's intelligence network was so vast that once German ships docked, news would quickly reach London, and ship-to-ship supplies at sea, although timeless and difficult, would save them from being exposed.

"Sir, I just received the third telegram from the Navy Staff, and when you add it up with the previous two, you can see the complete content of the telegram." The communications officer on board the "Scharnhorst" reported to Count Spee.

The Count took over the deciphered telegram, and only part of the contents of the telegram was transmitted at a time, which was a technical means adopted to prevent the enemy from intercepting the contents of the telegram and deciphering the contents, because the long-distance radio communication was easy to lose the signal, which also added a lot of trouble to his own communication.

After carefully reading the contents of the cable, Earl Spee told Felix Schultz, the captain of the Scharnhorst: "We have a tight timetable - the General Staff has asked us to arrive in the waters northwest of Ireland by 5 November. ”

Colonel Schultz calculated: "That is to say, for the next week, we will have to maintain an average speed of more than 14 knots, and if there is a breakdown and delay for half a day, we will have to run at full strength for the rest of the journey." At the moment, we and the 'Gneisenau' have only enough fuel for two days, and even if the two coal ships are emptied, there will still be a gap of two or three hundred tons of coal. ”

Count Spee nodded, then looked to the northeast: "If we refuel in the Cape Verde Islands, if it goes well, we can refill the fuel tomorrow morning and start again, and we can also replenish fresh water and food by the way, so that we don't have to stop to refuel on the next voyage." However, it is quite possible that the Portuguese will give a message to the British, and if the British armored cruiser happens to be anchored in Gibraltar, it is likely that they will intercept us on the route. ”

"Two paths." Colonel Schulz responded, "Either explain to the staff the predicament we are encountering and ask them to postpone the plan so that we can rush to the next sea supply point as soon as possible, or take some risk and enter a port in Cape Verde to refuel and quickly destroy the port's communications equipment so that the Portuguese will not be able to communicate with the outside world for a short time." ”

Count Spee thought for a moment: "The schedule set by the General Staff is directly related to the operational deployment of the High Seas Fleet, and adjusting it for our reasons may disrupt the entire plan. ”

The Count's implication was clear, even if the Portuguese government protested on the grounds of violating neutrality, it would not hesitate to use some impolite means as long as it was in the interest of Germany to win the war.

Colonel Schulz asked the adjutant to obtain the charts, and with his and Count Spee's great seafaring experience, they quickly selected a target on the bridge - the port of Mindelo on the island of San Vicente, where the deep-water dock could accommodate ships of 10,000 tons, machinery and equipment for loading and unloading cargo, and more than 200 kilometers from Praia, the capital of the Cape Verde archipelago. With the fleet's position at this point, going to São Vicente didn't add much range, the only trouble was the large size of the port area, which meant that finding and destroying the port's communications facilities was as easy as digging for them.

(End of chapter)