Go back to your hometown to burn paper, it's late to update, please forgive me!

******

The French have the character of a rooster, arrogant, reckless and stubborn, brave and tenacious, full of emotion. Pen ~ fun ~ www.biquge.info they can make a simple thing very complicated, or they can make a serious thing into a burlesque; they are sometimes nervous, sometimes cautious; they have left countless classics in history, half of them are brilliant victories, half of them tragic defeats. They are perhaps the most unruly and elusive people in the world, and people can ridicule their sluggish sense of smell, they can ridicule their self-contained traditions, but they can't criticize their intelligence, and the word "stupid" seems to have nothing to do with the French......

In the face of the British government's offer to expand the size of the expeditionary force in exchange for the French main fleet to fight north, the French have always been vague and noncommittal, no matter how clever the lobbyists sent from across the channel are, with a number of dreadnoughts and quasi-dreadnoughts, the French main fleet, which is far stronger than the German Northern Fleet on paper, is still anchored in the port of Brest and is ready to return to the Mediterranean at any time.

The French are not ignorant of the principle of interdependence, but the Faroe Islands are a distant and unfamiliar land in the far north for the French navy, and they are not sure to overcome the difficulties in weather, psychology, tactics, etc., and even if they win, they will inevitably pay a very heavy price, and such a victory will not have any obvious benefits for France's maritime strategy. Moreover, an avalanche of defeat could occur at any time on the Western Front, and if France was forced to make peace with Germany, the powerful French fleet could become an important weight at the negotiating table.

No matter which way you think about it, sending the main French fleet north is a loss-making business!

The French navy was immobile, and the British navy was unable to maintain the northern front, so it had to withdraw its marine forces from the Faroe Islands, but the tight blockade of the German fleet made the British retreat difficult. More than half of the British fast ships heading to the waters off Sood Island at night were attacked as they reached the offshore waters to meet the retreating forces. The German Navy used battle cruisers and armored cruisers as tactical support, organized large torpedo boats and high-speed torpedo boats into a number of rapid attack squads, and used the shark hunting tactics of striking and leaving, and returning with one blow; under the repeated rush and killing of German ships, the British ships that could not get the strong support of the main ships suffered heavy losses, and less than 1,000 marines successfully withdrew from Sood Island every day and night, and the retreat operation, which was scheduled to end within five days, failed to achieve half of the expected goal in the first week.

In the past week, the German units that had already gained a firm foothold on Sood Island changed from a "quick offensive" to a "steady advance," and the new forces that landed later replaced the combat units with heavy casualties, and some noncommissioned officers and veterans were transferred from the units that had been withdrawn for rest and recuperation, and in the form of words and deeds, they helped friendly and neighboring units better adapt to the battlefield environment in the form of words and deeds. The German landing force, which was heavily armed, took Kvalbard as the starting position for the attack, and advanced southward in an orderly manner, gradually encroaching on the British positions and compressing the remnants of the British army to the south of Sood Island. The British had fewer and fewer seaports and beaches to use, and it was becoming more and more difficult to evacuate by sea. As the situation deteriorated, the fighting spirit of the British officers and soldiers continued to wear out, and in the ensuing battles, it was already difficult to see the desperate determination of the Battle of Kvalbard......

Tórshavn.

With the arrival of the battlecruiser "Seydlitz", which had distinguished himself, the huge main pier suddenly became a busy construction site. Steam-powered dock cranes and gas-powered ship-equipped cranes work together to load tons of combat materials and maintenance parts onto ships, and navy officers and men in dark blue uniforms and miscellaneous personnel in field gray overalls each engage in a silent labor competition between the warship and the dock. In just five hours, 640 rounds of 305 caliber main artillery shells and cartridges, 2,800 rounds of 150 mm and 6,400 rounds of 105 mm secondary gun ammunition were loaded onto the ship. Three hours later, 500 tonnes of fresh water, 200 tonnes of food and 800 tonnes of heavy oil were loaded. As a result, this powerful warship, which was quite feared by the British Navy, quickly regained its vigorous vitality, and the only regret was that the main gun barrel, which was more seriously worn, could not be replaced in Tórshavn, and had to be returned to the home base for comprehensive refurbishment and maintenance, which had a certain impact on the continued operation of the "Seydlitz".

After the "Seydlitz" returned to the Sood Island front, it rotated the "De Fllinger" to Tórshavn for replenishment. During this period, light cruisers and large torpedo boats also sailed to Tórshavn for operational resupply. In order to facilitate the supply of ships, ammunition and fuel are piled up in various docks in Tórshavn, if the British army uses long-range aircraft to carry out a surprise bombing here, or a sneak attack with naval ships, even if it cannot change the operational situation on Sood Island, it can also relieve a lot of pressure on the British troops on the island, but unfortunately the British have neither the courage nor the vision to carry out such combat operations, and "connived" at the German fleet to fire thousands of shells at Sood Island every day, and among the British officers and soldiers killed in the battle of Sood Island, At least half of them died from German naval fire, which is undoubtedly a great irony for the once invincible British Navy.

Time passed, the British officers and soldiers who held on to Sood Island waited for reinforcements for a long time to no avail, the materials necessary to maintain the operation were increasingly scarce, there were few guns and ammunition left, food and medicine had run out, because the equipment for making fresh water was damaged in the German shelling, the soldiers had to use the most primitive sand percolation method to obtain bitter drinking water, and the mortality rate of the wounded who could not be evacuated and could not be properly treated was extremely high. On the 13th day of the German landing on Sood Island, the remaining 7,000 British officers and soldiers on the island finally raised the white flag, which was not only the largest surrender of the British army in this war, but also the only time that the British Marine Corps had been disarmed in a formed manner since the fall of Napoleon. After Sir Grierson evacuated Sood Island, Brigadier General Fergus, acting command, became the first British general to lead his troops to surrender to the Imperial German Army. This small white flag has set many records for the British Royal Marines and even the entire British army, and has become the greatest shame for the British Marine Corps in the past hundred years.

The battle of Sood Island ended with more than 30,000 casualties on both sides, but the battle in the Faroe Islands was not over, at this time there were still more than 2,000 British officers and soldiers stationed on Mulberry Island north of Sood Island, because the depth of the battle on Sood Island was small, the geographical terrain was not very favorable for defense, and the British Navy lost a large number of ships in the early rescue of the Sood Island garrison, and their situation was much worse than those colleagues who had surrendered. With little outside help, the road ahead of them was miserable: to hold out until they were wiped out by the Germans, or to put up symbolic resistance and then follow in the footsteps of their allies, or to simply abandon hopeless resistance.

After private discussions, the British commanders on Kuwado decided to defend the honor of the British Royal Marines and fight the Germans to the death, and only the wounded, who were completely incapacitated, could surrender to the Germans.

However, the Germans did not intend to use strong force to flatten the British defense line on Mulberry Island, and before using naval guns, they started psychological warfare, using airplanes to drop leaflets day and night, shaking the British officers and men's determination to resist in a way that was both soft and hard, and emotional and reasonable, and dismantled their psychological defense line. Dozens of large-caliber naval guns were used to carry out fierce artillery bombardment of British positions in various parts of Mulberry Island, and the momentum was so fierce that it almost sank the tiny Mulberry Island to the bottom of the sea.

In the face of unstoppable momentum, the British troops on Mulberry Island succumbed, but they threw all their artillery and guns into the sea between the German landings, in this way to preserve their pitiful pride.

On December 7, 1914, the Battle of the Faroe Islands, which lasted for nearly a month, ended in a complete German victory, and the outcome of the Battle of the North undoubtedly pushed Britain into the abyss of disaster. During the battle, the Russian army invaded the Silesian region under the rule of Austria-Hungary, and once again inflicted heavy losses on the army of Austrian Emperor Franz, the German army hurriedly transferred troops from the Western Front to the Eastern Front, and launched the famous Polish offensive under the command of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, and defeated the Russian army in two weeks in succession, and occupied Warsaw at the end of November, relieving the threat of the Russian army to the Austro-Hungarian hinterland, and the German troops rushing to the Serbian front also broke through the Serbian defense line that the Austria-Hungary army had not overcome for several months with amazing efficiency, The Serbian army was forced to abandon the capital Belgrade and retreat into the mountains. At this point, the Entente had suffered a complete defeat on all fronts, and the army and navy had suffered heavy strategic losses.

The day after the surrender of the British troops stationed on Mulberry Island, the French government, through the neutral United States government, expressed its peace to Germany, saying that France could immediately withdraw from the Triple Entente and cede all of France's colonies in the Pacific as war reparations. The German government did not accept France's prayer for peace, but disclosed the news in the international press, which immediately caused a huge sensation, and the French Briand cabinet, which had been in power for less than two months, collapsed, and General Gallien, who had outstanding performance in the three major battles of the Marne, Paris, and Rouen, was appointed to become a rare military prime minister in French history. Gallieni, who was in charge of the line of fire, vowed to fight the Germans to the end, and he voluntarily abandoned the northern part of the Plains, deployed defensive lines along the Loire River, and took advantage of the opportunity of the German army to "rush to the Atlantic" to reorganize his troops and build fortifications. However, although France retained half of the country south of the Loire, the vitality of the army was slightly restored, and the naval strength was basically intact, most of the country's industrial facilities and industrial resources were concentrated in the northern region, and after the loss of the northern and northwestern coastal areas, the strategic ties between Britain and France were severed, and the two countries could no longer cooperate as closely as they did in the early stage of the war to fight the enemy.

(End of chapter)