London, a city that was a symbol of the British Empire and civilization during the Great Industrial Age, has witnessed tremendous changes in the empire and the world in the past year. Before September 1914, the empire led by George V not only had a large number of colonies and federal states, but also had a significant international status, and London, as the political and economic center of the empire, always received pilgrims from all over the world on a regular or irregular basis, at that time, the streets of London were bustling and noisy every day.

Perhaps from the moment the first bomb was dropped by the German Air Force on September 14, the city, which is home to the world's most precious wealth, the most splendid cultural heritage and the most advanced technology, was doomed to decline. After the British royal family and major government departments moved to Birmingham, London became a city of little attention, and until the end of the war, it did not recover from German bombing.

During the Anglo-German War in Britain, London was more often referred to as the seat of the British Home Garrison Command.

In the early morning of December 28, 1914, as soon as the sun was shining on people's windowsills, a group of regulars appeared in the sky south of London. Looking at the familiar black spots, most of the residents who remained in London did not choose to take refuge, having become accustomed to the appearance of German aviation units in recent months. In the beginning, the Germans would also send a certain number of airships and planes to carry out targeted bombing, shipyards, military ports (more than half of the British fleet's warships were once stationed here), military facilities (including military academies, military factories and related targets) were attacked by bombs and incendiary bombs, and the German bombing of London turned into symbolic small-scale bombing and harassment after the British authorities moved the remaining valuable things to the interior or Scotland.

As usual, there were not many German planes flying this time, only 5 large and 6 small 11 from a distance, the big ones were German bombers, and the small ones were escort attack planes, because London was only a hundred kilometers away from Calais, France, so the German fighters from Calais could fly here in less than an hour.

Before the German planes dropped their bombs, the air defense and fire forces in London were already on standby. After a while, the anti-aircraft fire of the city sounded one after another, compared with the situation in September, the British air defense in London increased dozens of anti-aircraft guns, these guns with a caliber between 40 and 76 mm were urgently developed by the British War Office, which also combined some research results of the French, but their anti-aircraft range was still only 3000-4000 meters, and even when attacking stationary targets in the air, the accuracy of their shells and the effect of the fuse were not flattering (not to disparage the British army, At the beginning of World War I, German anti-aircraft weapons were indeed far ahead of the participating countries, and when the Zeppelin air raid on London was initially helpless, the British began to shoot down German airships with fighter jets and mixed ammunition with incendiary white phosphorus bullets).

The German pilots on the symbolic bombing mission ignored the symbolic anti-aircraft fire of the British troops on the ground, and after dropping bombs from a high altitude on the city of London, they swaggered around the city twice before returning to the city satisfied, and the British ground air defense units were also relieved, and the senseless shooting soon stopped.

A few random bombs dropped by the Germans still set fire to two houses, and the citizens calmly joined the fire brigade to extinguish the fire, and the few injured were taken to the nearest hospital. In the face of the unrivalled air superiority of the Germans, the Londoners remained tenacious.

The British Home Garrison Command is located on a seemingly ordinary street in the North End of London, and the place where the Germans dropped the bomb today is only a block away from Haig's office.

He lost, completely lost!

Shortly after the German bombing, a convoy of cars silently drove into the city of London. In the middle of a Rolls-Royce sedan (the first Rolls-Royce was made in 1907) sits an elderly British Army general, whose sparse silver-white hair shows his hard life, the wrinkles on his face tell the vicissitudes of life he has experienced, and the grim expression reminds people of the difficult situation in Britain at this time.

After entering the city, the old general looked out the window intently, and the once bustling streets were now lifeless, and many buildings that depicted the glory of the British Empire were already dilapidated. Big Ben in London's Parliament Clock Tower is still in operation, but it was nearly destroyed in a bombing in October, and the walls of the clock tower still bear traces of shrapnel and fire; The London Bridge over the River Thames was built in 1894 and is connected by four towers. Two square 5-storey towers of granite and steel are built on the two main bridge bases, and four white marble pinnacles and 5 small minarets are built on the two square towers, which look like two crowns. The two main towers are each 42.67 meters high. The bridge is divided into two levels, the upper one supporting the twin towers, and the deck is a wide suspended walkway with glass windows on both sides, allowing pedestrians to enjoy the views of the River Thames. The lower deck can be opened and closed, and it is usually open to traffic, and the bridge truss can accommodate 10,000 tons of ships when it is opened. Whenever * passes, as long as the machine in the tower moves, the middle bridge deck will be split in two, slowly lifted upward, and after the ship passes, it slowly falls down again, resuming traffic. Two movable bridge decks, each weighing 1,000 tons.

The bridge, which symbolizes the highest bridge-building technology and national power of the British Empire, was intensively bombed by dozens of German aircraft, but fortunately, the Luftwaffe bombing accuracy was limited at this time, and the bridge was saved from a devastating attack.

Eventually, the convoy came to a halt in front of the British Home Garrison Command, where the soldiers stood guard in a much more spirited manner than the civilians in the streets, their chests always straightened, no matter how bad news the command received.

Fearlessness or ignorance, it's really just a word difference!

"General, General Hamilton and his party have arrived!" The adjutant's briefing woke Haig from his musings, and he had been standing in front of his window for a few moments.

Just an hour earlier, Haig had received orders from the King and the War Department that his duties would be placed by the Ian Brown. Admiral Hamilton took over. Haig was unwilling, but he also knew very well that his command mistakes had indeed reached the point of inexcusibility, and after the front line had suffered more than 100,000 casualties and no progress, George V had no reason not to relieve him of his command, which was another crushing defeat for the British armed forces after the navy, and the place of defeat was on British soil.

"Okay, I'll go over here!"

Haig said as he straightened his collar and removed his military hat from the hanger, his lieutenant had already packed his things for him - a few pieces of clothing and a few odds and ends, all of Haig's belongings here were now in the small box next to the hanger, and when the handover was complete, Haig could return to the War Office in Birmingham from his duties as commander-in-chief.

Walking through the long hallway, Haig met his successor, who was eight years older than him, in the lobby of the headquarters. In fact, as early as the outbreak of the war, there were discussions between the king and the War Office about who to appoint as commander-in-chief of the home defense. After General French became commander of the British Expeditionary Force and led his troops to France, the best candidates for the post of commander-in-chief of the Home Defence were Haig and Hamilton. Whether to choose the 61-year-old Hamilton or trust the 53-year-old Haig, who was in the majority at the time, but the veteran suffered a serious illness in mid-August, and it was this accident that propelled Haig to the position of home commander.

Looking at the slightly pale face of his successor, Haig did not gloat at all, it turned out that he was indeed no match for the German General Staff, in the chess game of landing and anti-landing on both sides, Haig was completely defeated, the German subversive plans and tactics made him scratch his head from beginning to end, and buried the only British air power at the most critical time. After that air battle, General Haig was in a state of deep remorse, and he realized that if those fighters were scattered and divided, the Germans would always have scruples, which would greatly limit the Luftwaffe's tactical options and playfulness.

"General Haig, long time no see!" Hamilton's tone was as calm as ever, but there was a distinctly weak feeling in his voice, after all, he was over sixty years old, and a serious illness had consumed most of his energy, and perhaps his body would never have a chance to return to the way it was before the illness.

"General, it's a pleasure to meet you! I will now hand over to you the 60 staff officers and 353 staff members of the command, this is General Benson, the chief of the general staff here, who will help you get used to everything here as soon as possible! Now the Germans are still reinforcing their positions, and there is not much time left for us. Please lead the great Imperial Army to drive all the Germans into the sea, and I wish you a brilliant victory, my most sincere wishes! Haig shook Hamilton's hand and said for a long time, and everyone but General Hamilton was quite surprised.

"I will!" Hamilton replied lightly that the veteran already had a lot of ideas in his mind on the way here. Known for his bravery, charisma, and intelligence, he was also a man of great literary qualities, an out-and-out attacker in strategy, and a general in tactics who advocated oppressive and bold attacks. (Historically, Hamilton held the position of Home Commander early in the war, and in 1915, with the support of Churchill, he commanded the Anglo-French-Australia-New Zealand forces in the Battle of Gallipoli against Turkey and the Dardanelles, which ended in defeat due to inadequate preparation, lack of proper equipment and support, complex terrain, and lack of cooperation among commanders, after which Hamilton never held a command position again)

A touch of sadness and sorrow permeated the simple handover ceremony, but no one shed tears or vented their grievances. A few minutes later, Haig walked away with his blankets rolled up, Hamilton took over the home defense, and the British Army's home operations took a different path.

"Order all the front-line units to immediately stop the offensive and move to the construction and reinforcement of fortifications on the spot! The logistics department stepped up the delivery of ammunition supplies to the front line, and it was necessary to pay attention to air defense during transportation! ”

The first thing Hamilton did when he walked into the office was to give his number one order. For the British, losing more than 100,000 men in two attacks in one morning was terrible, and even the Americans and the Japanese were laughing at them for being more extravagant than the Russians. Hamilton was now in the hands of a terrible deck of cards, with the exception of the nearly a million British Army, which had surrounded the Germans within 10 miles of the beach, and there was hardly a big boss in the deck, and the air and naval fleets had encountered a terrible Waterloo in a single day, and Hamilton and his men could no longer expect support from the air and sea.

After this, Hamilton simply integrated the staff he brought with him with the staff left behind by Haig, and the previous staff officers continued to perform their own duties, with Benson still serving as chief of staff and General Roy brought by Hamilton as deputy chief of staff.

"The Germans now have absolute superiority in the air and at sea, and I think they will use this advantage to continue to expand the size of the landing, and according to the information we have received, the German General Staff has prepared 2/3 of the army group and more than a million troops for this landing. The most important thing at this moment is to judge the next plan of the German army! ”

Facing the two chiefs of staff, Hamilton expressed his thinking, and turning to the defensive did not mean abandoning the attack, but planning a larger offensive on the premise of confined the Germans to the vicinity of the beach.

"Drive them down from Bonemouth, and they will land from elsewhere. Instead of that, let them gather more troops in Bonemouth, and then give them a fatal blow and beat them to the core! As a close confidant of Hamilton, General Roy was well aware of what the new commander-in-chief had in mind, which was a daring fishing operation.

"What if the Germans plan to open other landing sites next?" General Benson raised his concerns, as evidenced by the imminent landing of German troops in southeastern England, as evidenced by the build-up of the Hindenburg Army in northern France.

"Although this is also a great possibility, we have no remaining artillery and troops in our hands that can be used to strengthen the defenses of other coastal areas! Since the landing yesterday morning, the performance of our army and navy has become the laughing stock of the whole world, and perhaps the Germans think that they can defeat us with one army group that they have landed, and then leave the other planned army groups on the coast of France to watch the battle! General Roy's words clearly expressed dissatisfaction and ridicule at the command led by Haig, and for more than a day after the start of the German landing, the British troops behaved more like a group of peasants who had just laid down their hoes.

In the face of the new leader's cronies' unkind words, Benson behaved quite calmly, and the dispute did him no good, and he said in a flat tone: "General, you don't know that the Germans are old-fashioned, even if we plan to surrender the day after tomorrow, they will still send the follow-up troops to England tomorrow according to the plan!" ”

"Perhaps we underestimate the Germans and their Army General Staff, but Falkenhain and his generals did have a surprising plan, the Germans were old-fashioned, but they fought the battle well. As far as I know, the German 5th and 8th armies, whether in terms of equipment, the quality of officers and men, or their commanders, should be the main force of their landing operations, and now that the 8th Army has landed, the 5th Army remaining in northern France should be the key to the next move of the Germans! Hamilton did not want a pointless dispute between the backbones of the old and new staff committees, so he expressed his opinion, "Keep an eye on the movements of the German 5th Army, and the landing fleet of the Germans, to transport a large number of troops to England, and the Germans do not have a second fleet of sufficient size!" ”

Benson and Roy agreed with Hamilton's order, and just as a British version of the general was staged in the headquarters, the streets outside were again noisy, and the sound of gunfire was apparently coming from the ground, which sounded like the air defense forces deployed around London.

Hamilton walked over to the ledge where Hagrid had stood, and there was no commotion in the street, and the source of this uneasiness was the large gray zeppelins in sight.

Suddenly, the lower part of one of the airships smoked and began to descend slowly, and after a while several black dots fell from the airship and then a few small white flowers bloomed in the sky, and the airship fell lower and lower, and finally fell close to the River Thames. From Hamilton's view, the huge black shadow had just disappeared behind a building, and a huge flame suddenly rose, followed by several huge explosions, and a fire alarm rang in the city.

In a short time, seven embarrassed German airship crews were brought to Hamilton, and on the admiral's desk was a small book, which was a small but coveted copy of the British intelligence service.

"Take them down for interrogation, and give this to the Ministry of Intelligence!"

Although he did not have the time to interrogate these Germans in person, as soon as he took office, he saw his own anti-aircraft fire shoot down the opponent's airship and achieve a lot of gains, and the dark clouds in General Hamilton's heart suddenly dissipated a lot, and General Roy did not disappoint him, and in less than half an hour, the German prisoners spoke in front of Roy's various small means.

"General, they are members of the Luftwaffe airship unit, and they confess that this mission is to carry out reconnaissance and bombing, and that Hindenburg's troops have recently launched a landing operation, and they do not know the place of landing. However, judging by the tasks they have carried out in recent days, I think that the Germans are preparing to land in the near area, and the coast between Dover and London is possible! ”

"So we should move our troops to this area to strengthen our defenses?" Hamilton asked unhurriedly.

Roy was a little surprised, "General, it should be like this according to common sense!" Is there something wrong? ”

"Before the first landing of the Germans, we found some documents from the corpses of the German airborne troops, from which we judged that the landing place of the Germans was in Brighton!" As chief of staff who was involved in the decision-making at the time, Benson is still haunted by that incident, which was an unforgivable deception for him.

"So this is another German deception?" Roy's eyes widened.

"Quite possibly! It is also possible that the codebook is a trap, and the Germans can completely use some fake radio stations to deceive us! General Hamilton said cautiously, "Maybe this time their landing site is in Brighton, or maybe there is no second landing site at all!" ”