On this foggy morning, the battle in the southern waters of the Norwegian Sea actually lasted only 13 minutes, and the British protective cruiser "Hawak" was gloriously sunk, more than 400 officers and men below Captain Longman were killed, and only 70 were rescued by German ships. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoThe German fleet did not lose ships in this battle, the dreadnought "Westphalia" was damaged in mines, and three large torpedo boats were damaged by artillery fire.

Immediately after sinking the Hawak, the German fleet sent six large torpedo boats to the northwest to search for the remaining British ships, and the mighty King-class battleship "Frontier Governor" was also followed by two torpedo boats. As time passed, the fog at sea became thicker and thinner, and the German torpedo boat G173 saw the traces of enemy ships on the sea more than 40 nautical miles from the battle site, so it radioed the situation to the friendly ship and chased after it at full speed. Before the G173 could get close to the British cargo ship, a British destroyer suddenly emerged from the fog and fired two torpedoes at close range almost hit the large German torpedo boat.

With its nimble reflexes, the G-173 immediately returned the color with a torpedo. The British destroyer in front of you is the "Roman Gate God" with the protective cruiser "Havac" to escort the British cargo ship, it belongs to the first destroyer that was built before 1895, the age of the ship is close to 20 years, its maximum design speed is 27 knots, equipped with 4-inch naval guns and 18-inch torpedo tubes, the performance is only slightly better than the German Navy's 1898-class large torpedo boats, in the face of the 1906 class of large torpedo boats will be fully downwind, and there are shortcomings such as short endurance and poor seaworthiness, Before the outbreak of the war, all of them had been included in the coastal alert fleet, but the British Navy's light ship group suffered heavy losses in the First Battle of Flanders, and a large number of old ships on the verge of retirement returned to the front line of battle.

The G173 series of large torpedo boats of the 1906 class built by the German Navy in the later period of the German Navy has been slightly optimized according to the use of the ships in service, the seaworthiness has been improved, and the naval gun firepower has also been upgraded, from the original 35 times the diameter of the 88 mm gun to the 35 times the diameter of the 105 mm gun. Seeing that the British destroyer also avoided the torpedo with flexible mobility, the G173 began to rain shells on the opposing side. In a rough and windy situation, the German gunners played very accurately and scored ahead of their opponents.

After receiving a shot, the "Roman Gate God" turned around and ran, and in a blink of an eye, it escaped back into the fog. The G173 pursued in the direction of the British cargo ship it had seen earlier, and after half an hour of no discovery, the Germans realized that the British cargo ship had changed course, and radioed the friendly ships to them in hot pursuit.

The German large torpedo boats were racing at a speed of about 30 knots, and the British cargo ships loaded with iron ore were only in their early 10s, and after a while, their tracks were discovered by another German torpedo boat. Like a loyal and brave sheepdog, the Roma was doing everything in its power to deal with the wolves approaching the sheep, but the Germans were on guard, and the torpedo boat avoided the torpedoes of the Roma Gate and turned around and smoked the British destroyer with a fierce cannon fire. Before the power system was fatally damaged, the "Roman Gate God" once again took refuge in the fog, while the British cargo ship "Dunbarton", which was dragged at the end, was not so lucky, and it soon became the first prey of the G41. The German Navy's large torpedo boat of the 1913 class was armed with four 105-mm guns of 45 times the diameter, and the fog at sea forced it to chase it to a position more than 400 meters away from the "Dunbaton" in order to fire accurately and effectively - the German gunners calmly aimed at the waterline of the British cargo ship, and the first few shells made a splash, followed by one fatal blow after another. In less than a cigarette, the "Dunbaton", with a registered displacement of 8,000 tons, had already tilted significantly, and the speed of its roll became faster and faster, and the crew abandoned ship one after another to escape.

Just when "Dunbaton" was on the verge of capsizing, the "Roman Gate God" made a last effort, it rushed to the G41 at full speed, braving the enemy's artillery fire until it reached a position of more than 100 meters before firing torpedoes, which were also the last two torpedoes carried on the ship. To the great regret of the British, what they tried to kill was a large torpedo boat of the 1913 class, known as the "Sailfish" in the German Navy, with its beautiful hull line and powerful power equipment, its sprint speed could reach up to 37 knots, and it was the fastest German surface ship except for high-speed warships. I saw the G41 delicately flash to the left, Qiang Qiang avoided the opponent's desperate attack, and then later, the two light ships were once close enough to spit saliva on the other deck, and the machine guns on both sides were sparing no effort to strafe at each other, leaving a series of bullet holes for each other. Immediately afterwards, another large German torpedo boat was killed, and its appearance made the British officers and men on the "Roman Gate God" completely desperate. Under the flanking of two German ships, the British destroyer was shot one after another, and within a few minutes it became a "fire ship". Seeing that it had completely lost its combat effectiveness, the Germans took the initiative to stop firing, and the G41 stayed in place to monitor, and by the way, rushed to repair the hull part damaged by the "Roman Gate God", and the German torpedo boat that arrived later pursued the British cargo ship at full speed.

Around the same time, at Buckingham Palace in London, British Admiralty Winston Churchill was meeting King George V. George V, who had just passed his fifties, was originally strong and energetic, but at this time it was as if he had changed his face, his eyes were full of exhaustion, and even though his hair was brushed black, his almost white beard still showed his mental and psychological torture.

"No, we must not give up Ireland, not at this time."

Before he could finish Churchill's full explanation, George V interrupted him, and his tone was very agitated.

Churchill hurriedly calmed the British king's emotions: "I fully understand your feelings, Your Majesty, once the German army lands in Ireland and gains a foothold, the morale of the British army and people will definitely be dealt a very heavy blow, but this is also a last resort strategy." You suppose that if we send both our fleet and our marines to Ireland, and the German naval forces assembled on the Belgian coast may attack the British Isle at any time, the consequences of a single German soldier standing on English soil will be worse than the loss of the whole of Ireland, and if we win the naval battle between the main fleets of both sides, not only will the threat to the island be eliminated, but the problems of Ireland will be solved. ”

Unlike in the past, Churchill did not show full confidence when he said this, but more in despair to see a way out, this kind of mentality resonated with George V, but he was also afraid of the great disappointment of successive defeats, the former kingly spirit was gone, and he sat in front of Churchill as if he was a hesitant and hesitant man.

"We do not know whether the French army will be determined to continue fighting after the fall of Paris, but we must prepare for the worst. Once the Germans occupy France, it doesn't matter whether Ireland is the pedal or not, superior naval power will help their land forces cross the English Channel, and our only hope is to defeat the German navy. If the German navy had always maintained a sound strategy, we would have no chance of winning in one fell swoop, and this time they had come to the door themselves, and if we could not seize such an opportunity, as long as the French were determined to make peace, we would have had the only way to make peace with the Germans. Churchill knew that George V's most disgusting thing now was "peace", and he was unwilling to bow to his arrogant cousin, which was tantamount to surrendering the hegemony of the British Empire that had lasted for hundreds of years, and even if an expedient peace was obtained, the country was very likely to decline rapidly, and he, as the king of England, had an inescapable responsibility for such a historic defeat.

George V fell silent for a long time after repeated persuasion by Churchill, and the first thing he said was to ask if the British Home Fleet was still capable of thwarting a strong enemy.

The Admiral wasted no time in expressing his confidence: "We have a number of first-class capital ships that have returned to the battle sequence, such as the Iron Duke, the newly built battlecruiser 'Tiger', and the best officers and crews in the world, and we have every chance of defeating the German fleet when it is most tired and lax." ”

George V, still not having the courage to make a decision at once, ordered the chamberlain to summon the Prime Minister and the War Secretary. While they waited for their arrival, the King of England and his Admiral drank tea quietly, and neither of them said a word.

Twenty minutes later, Prime Minister Asquith and War Secretary Kitchener arrived.

As the top official in the British government and wartime cabinet, Asquith was responsible for a series of military defeats suffered by Britain since the outbreak of the war, and with the defeat of the Allied forces in Paris, the crisis of confidence faced by the Liberal leader, who had spent six years as prime minister, was at a critical level. Considering that the Liberal cabinet will resign at the same time as Asquith, and it will be difficult to form a cabinet from the Conservative Party or the Labour Party alone, George V has not yet approved Asquith's resignation, but in the current situation, unless a decisive victory can be won immediately, a change of wartime cabinet is inevitable.

When Asquith and Kitchener arrived, Churchill gave them a succinct account of the current situation, and told them that the Germans' insidious and cunning tactics were a two-pronged approach, and that Britain would face enormous military and political pressure whether it was to deploy troops to Ireland or to hold on to the British Isles.

Asquith was silent, but Kitchener was hearty: "The enemy will fight with both fists, and we will deal with it with both palms." There are 4,600 Canadian soldiers on the transatlantic ship right now, and our original plan was to transport them to Le Havre so that they could help the French army defend the northern coast, but now that Paris has fallen, the morale of the French has fallen to freezing point, and we have to think about our own back -- I suggest that these soldiers of the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division go directly to Ireland, and at the same time send two divisions of new army troops to land in Ireland, even if 10,000 German soldiers appear in Ireland, We also have the ability to compete with that. ”

(End of chapter)