Suddenly encountering the Third Task Force, in desperation, Cunningham chose the most dangerous route of return, that is, the route that Tan Renhao found later, bypassed the island of Madagascar, ran all the way, and fled back to Cape Town, and the French Expeditionary Fleet, which had been separated from the British Expeditionary Fleet and had gone south in advance, did not arrive a few hours earlier than Cunningham. At this point, all of Cunningham's sneak attacks failed, and the situation in front of him was even more difficult.

First of all, it was Goldfoy who doubted the expedition, or more precisely, the expedition of the French fleet. At this time, France had been completely defeated, and a group of generals and government officials in exile in England led by Charles de Gaulle formed the French government-in-exile, and repeatedly called on French soldiers around the world to continue fighting. Goldfoy responded to de Gaulle's call (de Gaulle even hinted that Goefoy could be appointed commander of the navy of the French government-in-exile, and that after the restoration of France, Godfoy would receive more benefits), led the expeditionary fleet to continue the battle, and did not return home to surrender to Germany, and severed relations with the French surrender government.

These are Godelfoy's own affairs. But the question is, now that France no longer exists, and France's small overseas colonies have been controlled by British and American troops, is there any point in the French expeditionary fleet continuing its expeditions? The problem may not be serious for Godfoy, whose family has already been brought to Britain, but the problem is that there are tens of thousands of officers and men in the French expeditionary fleet, and most of the relatives of these officers and soldiers are in France, although the German occupation forces have not persecuted the families of the officers and men of the French expeditionary force, but for every officer and soldier of the expeditionary force. As they continue to fight for their country, they must also consider the safety of their loved ones.

This is a matter of military morale, France has been defeated. The mainland has fallen, and the government has announced its surrender. And most of the French army had already surrendered to the Germans. For the French servicemen, the war is over, their mission is over, and now they should lay down their arms and return to their homes. And other things are not something that the military can handle. This is also the reason why Godford resolutely did not agree to venture north with Cunningham, the expeditionary fleet is not his fleet alone, but the fleet of tens of thousands of French officers and soldiers, even if Godford insists on alone, he will not be able to control all the warships! In the face of strong opposition from his subordinates, in order to calm the mood of the officers and men of the fleet, Godford could not listen to Cunningham in everything, and had to show his own opinion. …． 1

In addition to the mood of the officers and men, the situation of the battleships in the fleet was also an important factor. The French battleships were even worse than the British ones in terms of performance. Moreover, Cape Town's infrastructure has been completely destroyed, relying on the maintenance equipment carried by the battleships themselves, as well as by the supply ships to bring in ground maintenance equipment. Small problems can be dealt with, but big problems are difficult to deal with. To make matters worse, the British Navy was responsible for the logistical support at that time, and the French Navy provided very limited logistical support vessels.

Cunningham in order to prevent the French expeditionary fleet from returning home. Not only did they take control of the oil depots in the port, but they also deliberately did not provide adequate maintenance support to the French expeditionary fleet. As a result, the ships in the French expeditionary fleet were in extremely bad condition, and after nearly a month of continuous activity in the storm zone, any warship would have problems.

Again, these two problems existed in the British expeditionary fleet. In addition to Cunningham, many officers and men in the British expeditionary fleet already had questions about this expedition. And the British battleships, especially the "King George V" class battleships, have more or less gone wrong, and even Cunningham is uncertain whether they can continue to hold on.

After the defeat of France, Britain was directly exposed to the threat of Germany, although the German navy was far from being strong enough to defeat the British home fleet and threaten the British mainland, and it was difficult for the Luftwaffe to immediately seize air supremacy in the British mainland, but with the war on the European continent gradually extinguished, Germany would be able to hit Britain sooner or later. What's more serious is that the Tang Empire has repeatedly increased the size of its expeditionary corps, and even deployed thousands of heavy bombers on the European battlefield, one of the main tasks of these bombers is to bomb the British mainland, which has caused large-scale damage in the British mainland and caused a lot of panic among the British military and civilians. If this situation continues, the British mainland is already very dangerous. Therefore, most of the officers and men of the British expeditionary believed that the expedition should be over in the event of a threat to the homeland, and that it was time to return to the homeland, and that the defense of the homeland would always be the most important task.

In the fleet, the first problem was the three "King George V" class battleships. The battleships of this class were designed according to treaty standards, and in order to strengthen the armor and control the displacement, while reducing the density of firepower, the battleship adopted a low freeboard shape, which was considered the worst seaworthiness of the first class battleship in the British Navy, much worse than the later "Lion" class, and the "avant-garde" class still under construction. Even a lot worse than some old warships. In addition, there were a large number of cruisers, destroyers were damaged in the storm, and a large number of battleships needed maintenance and repair.

At that time, the closest port to Cape Town that could provide maintenance infrastructure for warships was the port of Lagos on the Gold Coast, which was the most important British stronghold on the African continent, but it only had the ability to provide maintenance for destroyers, light cruisers and other warships of less than 10,000 tons, and the repair of battleships had to be carried out in the British mainland, and only the most basic maintenance could be done in Lagos. Therefore, if the fleet wants to return to combat effectiveness, it will have to return to Lagos, and the maintenance time will definitely be more than a few months.

The problem arose, the weather had already begun to improve, and it would be possible to reach the level of allowing the aircraft carrier to operate as soon as mid-April. If the fleet returned to Lagos at this time, then Cape Town would be completely exposed to the blows of the Tang Empire's fleet, and it would be almost impossible to rely only on ground forces to hold a port like Cape Town, which had no defensive advantage, otherwise, the Tang Empire's marines would not have been defeated so quickly. However, if the fleet does not return to Lagos, it will not be able to fully regain its combat effectiveness. Plus the French expeditionary fleet has begun to waver.

And there were different voices within the British expeditionary fleet, and for a while, even Cunningham was a little helpless.

After the Anglo-French expeditionary fleet returned to Cape Town successively. The conflict between Cunningham and Goldford first erupted. Godfoy strongly recommended ending the expeditionary operation and the fleet to play Lagos. And basic ground maintenance is done over there. As for whether or not to fight back, it is not too late to decide after the fleet has returned to state. But Cunningham knew very well that Goldford's purpose was to keep the last bit of blood of the French navy, and the French expeditionary fleet, after arriving in Lagos, would definitely move France to the Caribbean ports. Indirectly withdraw from the war and no longer participate in any combat operations. Goldford didn't say this directly, but the situation was in front of him, the British expeditionary fleet had already lost two battleships, and the condition of the other battleships was not much better, the Tang Imperial fleet could be difficult at any time, and it was normal for the French to think of escaping.

Cunningham himself was the first to think of returning to Lagos, but when he returned to Cape Town, he received orders from the British Admiralty that the fleet should remain in Cape Town, and that the French expeditionary fleet should remain as well. But this is mentioned in the order. Only let the fleet stay, but there is no mention of what to do with letting the fleet stay. Cunningham had a bit of a headache, and he knew the Admiralty's reasons for keeping the fleet in Cape Town. The U.S. Navy was actively planning a counterattack in the Pacific, and at this time, the benefits of dragging the Tang Empire's 1st and 3rd Task Forces in the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean were very great, so the Admiralty would stop the expeditionary fleet from retreating. It was necessary to hold off the main fleet of the Don Empire in Cape Town and try to delay time.

In desperation, Cunningham could only choose to stay, while closely monitoring the weather changes, on the other hand, he managed to get the activity of the Tang Empire's fleet in Moroni, and even ordered the submarines that were sheltered in Cape Town to force themselves out to sea to collect intelligence. At the same time, he had not forgotten to stabilize Godfoy so that the French expeditionary fleet would not have to rush back to Lagos. The most important thing was to stabilize the French expeditionary fleet, and in order to achieve this goal, Cunningham could use all kinds of means.

Cunningham first explained to Godford the importance of staying in an ordinary capacity, and even put the expeditionary operation on the strategic level, as long as the United States wins the counterattack in the Pacific, then the tide of the war will be completely reversed, and only with the help of the United States, France can hope to recover, and whether the United States can get the opportunity for a strategic reversal in the Pacific Ocean has a huge relationship with whether the British and French expeditionary fleets can hold back the two main task forces of the Tang Empire. Cunningham spent a lot of time, energy, and a lot of saliva to finally get Godford to listen to this truth, but it was still far from enough.

Cunningham then secretly threatened Godfoy, suggesting that if the French expeditionary fleet insisted on going its way, then the British army would completely control Lagos, not provide fuel for the French expeditionary fleet, and would forcibly call up French warships to continue the battle, and Godford would have to take all the blame for this. With the previous "Ballista operation", Cunningham's very subtle threat was still very effective, at least Goldford knew very well that as long as the British troops in Lagos did not cooperate, he would never reach the ports of the Caribbean.

Finally, in order to calm the mood of the officers and men of the French Expeditionary Fleet, Cunningham offered to say that the personnel of the British Expeditionary Force could assist in the maintenance of the French warships, and that they would be the first to be maintained, and that the French warships would be given the highest priority, and that the maintainable locations could only be in Cape Town, and not in any other port.

The two sides quickly reached an agreement, and most of the French warships at that time needed to be maintained, otherwise they would not even be able to reach Lagos. And this is exactly Cunningham's strategy, using maintenance to hold back the French, he knows that as soon as the weather begins to improve, then the Tang Imperial fleet will go south, and then as long as the French expeditionary fleet has not left Cape Town, then the French expeditionary fleet will have to participate in the battle.

Cunningham's estimate was not wrong, the Tang Imperial fleet did go south when the weather began to improve, but he didn't expect that when the weather was not completely good enough for the aircraft carrier to fight, the Tang Imperial fleet would be killed, and on April 12, that is, when the weather conditions in Durban were just a little better, the Tang Imperial bombers bombed Durban, followed by Mdanchane, Port Elizabeth, and the Tang Imperial fleet approached Cape Town step by step.

In the past month or so, the warships in the British and French expeditionary fleets have been maintained to a certain extent, and most of the minor problems have been solved, but the condition of the fleet is still not very ideal, several capital ships have not been able to reach the best condition, and even the power systems of some warships have problems. But time waits for no one, the Tang Imperial fleet is obviously coming towards Cape Town this time, and it is definitely going to solve the Anglo-French joint expeditionary fleet, in desperation, Cunningham can only let the fleet leave the port of Cape Town, to avoid the fleet being blocked in the port, and being suddenly attacked by the Tang Empire's bombers. On the same night that Mdanchane was bombed, the combined Anglo-French expeditionary fleet left Cape Town.

The problem was not resolved, and the conflict between Cunningham and Goldford erupted over whether the fleet should head north to Lagos or remain near Cape Town in search of fighters. Godford insisted on returning to Lagos, while Cunningham thought he should stay. As a result, the fleet did not go far and stopped in the Bay of St. Helena. And at this time, the two sides almost fought first, and Cunningham's tough side was also shown, he directly ordered the French expeditionary fleet to be blocked in the bay, and without his order, the French could not be allowed to leave, and if the French fleet was to escape, then force it back with cannonballs!

Then, the news of the bombing of Port Elizabeth came back, and the next day, the news that the Tang Imperial reconnaissance plane appeared over Cape Town also came back. The situation is already in crisis. At this point, even Cunningham was about to sit still, hiding in the Bay of St. Helena would not solve the problem, especially when the news came that the fleet of the Tang Empire suddenly disappeared from the sea and Cape Town was not bombed, Cunningham knew that he no longer had a choice.