Chapter 293: An Unsafe Christmas Eve

ps: Make up for yesterday's, ask for votes at the end of the month......

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December 24, 2757 (1916).

Today is the traditional Christmas Eve in Western countries. However, for the British, this year's Christmas Eve is not destined to be peaceful.

The reason is simple, because the damn Hanskew called.

On December 21, the German High Seas Fleet, which had been dormant for more than two months, went out again. This time, of course, not for a decisive battle with the British Royal Navy, but for landing!

Yes, for the landing in Britain!

Before the war in Europe, the German General Staff had drawn up a plan to land on the British Isles, but this plan seemed very unrealistic at first, so it was only used as a plan, and it was always left in the archives of the General Staff. It was not until after the Battle of Jutland, when the British Home Fleet was completely annihilated, and there was a fundamental reversal of British and German naval power, that the bigwigs of the German General Staff remembered that there was such a plan.

At this time, the chief of the German General Staff was Field Marshal Hindenburg, who had only succeeded Moltke Jr., who had left his post due to illness only last month. During Moltke's tenure as Chief of the General Staff, the German army won a victory on all fronts, pushing Tsarist Russia in the east, Britain and France in the west, and also killing the British home fleet, and allowing Italy and Turkey, two small partners, to join the Allied camp.

The new official has taken office with three fires, and this point is not divided between ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign. Field Marshal Hindenburg was also an ambitious man, he did not want to be overshadowed by the aura of his predecessor, and it was not easy to achieve higher merit than Moltke Jr. So, after learning of this landing plan, he quickly sent someone to dig through the pile of old papers to find it, and then made some modifications in light of the current situation, and the current landing plan was put on the desk of Wilhelm II.

The plan was to cross the Strait of Doover under the cover of the navy and air force, using Calais in France as the www.biquge.info of the Billy Pavilion, and land at Dover in the south of the British Isles. This plan was a great idea for Wilhelm II, because to the west of Dover was the famous ancient battlefield of Hastings.

Hastings is famous for a battle in Normandy in October 1066, when King Harold of England and William I, Duke of Normandy, fought a decisive battle for the throne of England, known as the Battle of Hastings. After this battle, the fate of England changed forever, the former king of England Harold was killed in battle, and William I of France was successfully crowned King of England, he was "William the Conqueror". The Battle of Hastings was the last successful military invasion of Britain in history, and no one has succeeded in conquering Britain since.

Wilhelm II, who was familiar with European allusions, thought of this, and danced in ecstasy with the blue sky above his head. He suddenly had a second illness, danced in the study, and shouted happily: "I am also called William Diren! That William was a duke before, and I am still the emperor! It seems that Britain is destined to be conquered by me! This British island is destined to be conquered by William!"

So, with a stroke of his pen, he immediately approved the plan, and enthusiastically named the plan "Operation Hastings".

As for the embarrassment of Hindenburg and others when they saw this middle-class name, they didn't mention it, anyway, the German army began to prepare according to this plan.

When the naval warships were docked for maintenance, Hindenburg immediately requisitioned a large number of domestic ships, scattered them for various reasons, and established a combat readiness warehouse in Calais to stock up on supplies. and the expansion of Calais and nearby airports. At the same time, he also had the Air Force constantly dispatch planes to bomb important places in Britain in order to confuse the British army.

At this time, Britain is at the time of the big head, the cabinet has just changed, the personnel changes are very large, and the new officials are still familiar with affairs. Without the deterrence of the home fleet, the activity of German submarines and raiders became more rampant, and the deterioration of the situation in the Mediterranean Sea also limited Britain's attention.

In addition to these reasons, it may also have something to do with the fact that Britain has not been invaded by an enemy country since the 11th century. In short, the British were careless and did not expect such a bold action from Germany at all. They thought they could rest easy as they dropped a few mines on the important coasts.

Even after the high seas fleet went out again, they did not realize that it was the Germans preparing to land. Rather, they believed that the Germans might carry out artillery bombardments on London or other important seaside cities, and they immediately mobilized a large number of torpedo boats to strengthen the defenses of the capital London and Scapa Bay, the home port of the Royal Navy. And Germany, in order to confuse Britain, did let three battle cruisers with a group of ships hang out of the sea off London

It wasn't until the main force of the High Seas Fleet appeared in the Strait of Dover and began shelling the Dover area, and it was discovered that a large number of German troops had boarded ships in the ports of Calais and Dunkirk, that Opium Cattle realized that something was wrong.

After the home fleet was hung up, the British scattered their troops in various ports in order to prevent the German army from attacking and harassing them, and in addition to the great Irish uprising at the beginning of the year, many troops remained in Ireland. Where can I catch up for a while?

The Strait of Dover is the narrowest stretch of the English Channel, with the closest distance between the two sides being only 34 kilometres, and Dover can be reached by ferry from Calais in just over an hour. As for the mines off the coast of Dover, the Germans, who had been prepared for a long time, had already sent divers to quietly clear them before the attack. At that time, the mines used for blockade were all anchor mines, but they did not have much technical content.

At 7 a.m. on December 23, the German Air Force and Navy launched a large-scale sortie and simultaneously launched an attack on the coast of Dover, completely suppressing the British Navy and Air Force and mastering air and sea supremacy in the area of the Strait of Dover. There was originally a British division stationed near Dover, but it suffered heavy losses in the early air raids, as did the coastal batteries, and at this time it was powerless to resist the general attack of the German army.

Subsequently, a reinforced battalion-sized German Einsatzgruppen landed in the port of Dover on the only three German landing ships, and took control of the dock area of the port under the cover of the navy and air force. Subsequently, a large number of ships carrying German troops and equipment approached and used the equipment on the dock to quickly unload personnel and materials.

In order to provide sufficient fire support to the landing force, the German army set up a special fire support fleet to support the land forces close to the shore. Near-shore support was still very risky, with mines, torpedo boats, and heavy shore defense artillery all posing deadly dangers, and the German Navy was reluctant to risk it with its own cutting-edge dreadnoughts. So this fleet is composed of two Brandenburg-class and five Frederick III-class and other seven former dreadnoughts, anyway, these are old goods about 20 years old, and it won't be too distressing if they are broken. Therefore, they received an order that if they encountered a situation that might sink, they would directly rush to the beach and run aground, and stop on the shore to be used as a fixed turret.

Although the seven former dreadnoughts are only 240 mm class main guns, they have long been outdated in this world where the competition for building ships is far more fierce than the original time and space, but it depends on who they are compared with. If you compare naval battles with the current cutting-edge warships, it is naturally just a joke, but if you use it for land battles, it will be completely different. In terms of army establishment, the 240-mm main gun is already a heavy artillery among heavy artillery.

The seven former dreadnoughts, which were originally used for waste, played an unimaginable role in the landing operation, and they were equipped with 28 240 mm guns, 70 150 mm guns, 12 105 mm guns, 76 88 mm guns, and 24 37 mm guns to provide strong fire support for the German Army, and they were still flexible and mobile artillery positions. The British defenses were beaten badly by them, such as a cannon fire from the USS Frederick III, which even wiped out a battalion of British troops.

By five o'clock in the afternoon, the Germans had taken full control of the harbor city of Dover, and a whole division of German troops had successfully landed. A steady stream of ships loaded with German soldiers and supplies used the docks to bring in reinforcements. Most importantly, they took advantage of the evening to send three hundred heavy artillery pieces and more than a hundred tanks, as well as two divisions of infantry.

The Germans, who had successfully landed, did not attack directly on London, but consolidated their positions and expanded the control zone to both sides of the coast.

The next day, today, at 10:30 a.m. on December 24, the German 166th Division, which was expanding its control area, encountered two British divisions in Hastings who had arrived to reinforce it.

So more than 800 years after the First Battle of Hastings, the Second Battle of Hastings broke out again. The outcome of this battle was exactly the same as the first, with the invasion from the mainland winning and the British home army suffering a crushing defeat.

Although the British had a numerical advantage in this battle, the Germans were able to get naval and air support. The main battlefield of this battle was on the seashore, and the British army was bombarded by heavy artillery of five former dreadnoughts while fighting the Germans on the opposite side, and at the same time bombarded from the air. The British army did not drive the Gundam again, where could they still carry it, and by three o'clock in the afternoon, it completely collapsed.

These two divisions were the only mobile units that could quickly reinforce the London defensive circle, and their defeat meant that Britain would no longer have large-scale mobile units in a short period of time, and it also meant that there were only two divisions of the London Guard.

By the evening of the 24th, the German landing force had increased to five divisions, one of which was an armored division. At the same time, their forward airport in Dover has also been built. At six o'clock in the afternoon, a group of fighters was stationed at Dover airfield.

By this time, even a fool could see that the next target of the German army was London.

At this time, because of the massive popularity of radio, the British government couldn't block the news even if it wanted to. Erdezi will not help Niu Niu to keep secrets, and William II wants the whole world to know that "I have another battle of Hastings, and I am the new generation of William the Conqueror!" At the beginning of the landing, in order to keep it secret and confuse the outside world, Germany was still very low-key, and did not mention it on the radio at all. But after today's victory in the Battle of Hastings, the landing field has been completely secured, and the German propaganda department immediately went full swing and hyped it up.

As soon as the news broke, people in Britain were panicked. Especially the people of London, I'm afraid they won't be able to sleep tonight.