Finally, the French Admiralty had sent a telegram to Georgeleg's desk to allow the fleet to retreat, at least a day and a half after receiving the telegram that Italy had joined the side of the Central Powers. A day and a half on land may not change much, but against a fleet capable of sailing at speeds of up to 20 knots, 36 hours means 720 nautical miles! Even at the most conservative speed of the Italian fleet 15 knots, there are already 540 nautical miles! And just as Georges Legge led the French fleet back to sail, the two sides finally met in the waters near Malta!

At 8:15 a.m. on September 28, the light cruiser of the vanguard fleet of the Italian fleet appeared in the field of view of the French armored cruiser Edgar Quint. The small sword-like battleship loomed over the sea level, and although this figure was a little faint in the gun mirror due to the sunlight, it was enough for the avant-garde fleets of both sides to determine the identity of the other party!

Almost simultaneously, two radio waves sent news of the enemy's arrival to the flagships of both sides. "For France! The Mediterranean will belong to great France now, and will still belong to great France! Soon, Georges Leger's militant language was delivered to every French capital ship via flags and telegrams! It makes sense that the French are called proud Gallic roosters, and if there are always two personalities in the blood of the French, one romantic and the other proud! The French have never looked down on any country, except England, with whom they have been fighting for centuries! As for Germany? Although France is not as powerful, the French still think that Germany is an upstart in their bones. And what about Italy? The French would say without the help of Napoleon III. Italy is still a torn apart country!

"Long live the Roman Empire! Let the voice of the Italian Navy overwhelm everything! We will recreate the splendor of the Roman Empire! "There's no way, there's really nothing to say about Italy's history in the Middle Ages and modern times, and it seems that there are two cattle in modern times. One is called Cavour and the other is called Garibaldi. Compared with France, Italy does not have much brilliance, so it can only ask the ancestors for help! However, the Italians were lucky, and the Austro-Hungarians had little confidence, whether it was the huge Habsburg dynasty born by marriage or the latter's victory in the Battle of Lisa, it seems that it is not suitable for now. The former walks politics, while the latter? You can't say that you can recreate the glory of the Battle of Lisa, right? Are you sure the Italians can tolerate it? And so. "Fight for the Empire" became the only mobilization order of Austria-Hungary!

The light cruisers of the Italians quickly turned away, and Edgar Quinn's formidable firepower was not something he could afford to provoke, and the French did not pursue. After all, the avant-garde fleet has already appeared, will the main fleet be far away? I went up on my own, and in the face of a battleship was actually not much different from a light cruiser! Now that the opponent has been discovered, then the two sides can directly prepare to open the film. The fleets of both sides began to shrink the auxiliary warships that were divided around the perimeter. Light cruiser fleets and armored cruiser formations began to assemble. And the main fleet is also making the last preparations.

If someone could overlook the entire battlefield at this time. At this time, according to the deployment of George Leger, the French fleet began to unfold a battle formation, and the most central part was naturally the main fleet under its own command, with 3 Gulong-class battleships in front and two Danton-class battleships in the middle. The last was to bring 3 Brestani-class battleships to the formation, and the French made such a deployment. In the process of formulating the plan, George Legge was ready to talk about it at any time. It is true that one's own former dreadnought fleet can suppress the opponent's former dreadnought, but no one can say how long it can suppress it. It could be an hour, or it could be 3 hours.

So George Leg plans to obviously break out of the encirclement of the weak ship and then rely on the excellent performance of the super dreadnought to suppress the position, but the arrow in front of it can't be too weak, if it's too weak, it can't put pressure on the opponent, and if the opponent's dreadnought attacks his own dreadnought fleet without any scruples, don't look at the 12 former dreadnought battleships and patrol looks very powerful, and the total tonnage is as high as more than 200,000 tons, but it is really not enough to see in the face of the Italian elite fleet, so the lone class is in front to protect the Danton class, The strongest Brestany class is behind!

In front of the left side of the main fleet, there was another larger fleet, giving people a sense of dominance, a huge formation of 12 battleships, 6 battleships, 6 armored cruisers and auxiliary warships began to slowly approach the Italian fleet, this fleet is George Leger's former dreadnought fleet, or melee fleet, they will rush to a distance of about 10KM under the cover of the main fleet and torpedo boats, and use the main guns and secondary main guns to sweep the opponent fiercely. As for the third fleet, there are the remaining 4 patrol and auxiliary warships, which are located in the rear of the main fleet and are put in as reserves.

In the face of the slowly unfolding French fleet, the Italian and Austrian navies are also making the most difficult adjustments. Compared to the French fleet, the Ito-Austrian fleet was clearly divided into two large parts. Although Tycho's fleet adjusted at the end of the day, although it was impossible to distinguish the opponent's model from a long distance, at this time Tycho had already concluded through reconnaissance that the French had sent their former dreadnought fleet to the front, and for this reason, Tycho also arranged his 6 dreadnoughts and 7 armored cruisers in the right front of the fleet, preparing to block the opponent's dreadnought attack at the first time! And the 11 dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts of the Italian and Austro-Hungarian fleets pulled out a whole line of battle, ready to fight at any time.

"Today is a really good day, we have at least eight hours to decide the fate of Europe and ourselves, we can win the war, or we can sink to the bottom of the sea with the flag high." Tycho looked at the smoke like a black cloud in the distance, and said with some emotion.

"It will go down in history today, win or lose! We participated in a battle that was even larger than the Sino-Russian naval battle of that year, although it cannot be said to be the last, but it is definitely unprecedented! "There are a full 30 battleships on both sides participating, and the number of auxiliary warships of all kinds is even larger, and the collision between the powerful fleets with a total displacement of up to 800,000 tons, with the passage of time minute by minute, the fleets of both sides are like ancient titans stepping on the battlefield, the spears and round shields in their hands onto the battlefield!

“16KM？ It's time to get started! Tycho said when he heard the distance between the two sides reported by his subordinates. As the gun is ready to light up, the gunner in the turret lifts a heavy shell and a cartridge from the ammunition depot, then fills the turret with a mechanical servo, then locks it and adjusts the pitch angle. The rangefinders of each battleship locked onto a distant target, and under the command of the fire control room, the turrets slowly turned to the target.

"Finally, determine the order of the firefight! Starting with Caraccino, the super dreadnoughts attack one target for every two ships, and each of the three Cavour-type dreadnoughts hits one target, and we must get the results as soon as possible! At this time, Tycho was still very happy, for the simple reason that the French had given the Italian fleet a huge advantage, and he was facing only five dreadnoughts, and two of them were antique. The three most powerful Brestany-class battleships were dealt with by Austria-Hungary, which was perfect for Italy! The French were enemies, but was Austria-Hungary not a potential competitor?

"Fire!" Dozens of turrets repeated the order to fire, dozens of artillery roars instantly resounded across the battlefield, accompanied by the Caraccino fired the first round and a half salvo, in half a minute, dozens of guns in the Italian-Austrian Navy spewed out orange fireballs, like thunder resounded throughout the battlefield, like the war drums and roar before the giants battle, and the French Navy was not to be outdone, when the shells of the Italian-Austrian Navy were still flying in the air, 8 French battleships also spit out tongues of fire!

The dreadnought spewed deadly flames from a long distance, and soon huge columns of water rose around the fleet, forming huge water curtains to cover the battleship. After the first round of fire, neither side achieved a broken shot, this distance is still a little far, this battle is destined to be a fierce battle, whether it is the Italo-Austrian fleet bent on gaining hegemony in the Mediterranean or the French fleet that wants to evacuate, it is impossible to achieve its own goal without inflicting heavy damage on the opponent.

"Let's get closer, we need to get results as soon as possible!" The roar of the naval guns made Tycho forget anything other than the war at this time, and the Italians finally showed their blood, perhaps the desire for victory, or the full confidence in their ships, the Italians turned their course half to the right, and the French were not afraid, and the two sides approached further, and with the passage of time, the distance between the two sides was from 16KM to 13KM, and at this time, the Italian navy made the first hit in this naval battle!

"The Lone Puller has been shot!" Following the direction pointed out, Tycho could clearly see through the telescope that the Lonehorn's No. 2 turret was covered in smoke and flames. A 14-inch shell smashed into the front of the 320mm thick turret at an angle of 20. At this distance, the 14-inch naval gun produced by Austria-Hungary has been difficult to penetrate such a thickness of armor, but this gun still brought great losses to the other side, the fragments of the shell burst into a gun on the turret, and the frontal armor also caused the armor back plate to crack, although it failed to penetrate, but the inside of the turret still experienced a baptism of steel, large and small shrapnel in the narrow and closed turret constantly jumped and rebounded from time to time to sweep down a French officer and soldier, The strong smell of blood and the wails of wounded soldiers instantly filled the entire turret, and the operation of the turret was temporarily suspended.

The second is more ~~~. (To be continued......)