Chapter Eighteen Alas, He Does Not Belong to Britain (5)

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  At 08:03, in the Skagerrak Strait southeast of North Sea, Admiral Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, received a telegram from David Beatty.

  Four battlecruisers, HMS Queen Mary, HMS Tiger, HMS Indefatigable and HMAS Australia were sunk, the fast battleship HMS Repulse was heavily damaged. The British Empire spent seven years and hundreds of tons of gold to build a fast fleet that lost half of its strength in just sixteen hours. Except for one Elizabeth-class battleship and one Lion-class battlecruiser, the large-scale fast fleet only had the Indefatigable class and Invincible class, which were old-fashioned battlecruisers that had been proven useless in the Battle of Dogger Bank and the Battle of the Falkland Islands.

  The sonorous military song of Scapa Bay in the Orkney Islands, the magnificent momentum when the fast fleet set out, the hot-blooded T-shaped crosshead, those wonderful heroic emotions were stripped from the body like lost body heat, leaving only the chilling chill after the ice and cold, the murmured fleeting life was like a dream, as if it had been separated from the world.

  "The losses of the Grand Fleet were..."

  The flagship Iron Duke, the voice of Fleet Chief of Staff Charles Madden reported, could not hear any other emotions, only a chill like having died once.

  "Ajax and Audacious sunk, Invincible badly damaged, forced to withdraw from combat!"

  "What is our harvest?"

  "Sinking an old German battleship..."

  As soon as Madden's voice fell, a hissing sound of inhaling cold air came from the command tower. No one had expected that a battle aimed at weakening and annihilating the German war cruiser fleet, cutting off the tentacles of the Grand Fleet stretching to the North Sea and the coast of the British Empire, saving the domestic crisis of the British Empire and the honor of the Royal Navy would fail like this. Without the bloodshed and defeat, the great fleet set out in a heroic and tragic epic, but ended in a humiliating defeat without even being able to put up a fight.

  Lost four battlecruisers, two battleships, another fast battleship and a battleship lost combat effectiveness. Apart from the unclear report of "possibly sinking German Moltke and Deutschland class battlecruiser" from the fast fleet, there was also an outdated pre-dreadnought battleship that could not be put on stage. The great fleet, which was famous for its grandeur, couldn't find more comforting white lies.

  "This war, this shameful war is going to break the backbone of the British Empire, isn't it? No, it's not the British Empire anymore, without its navy, is Britain still Britain?"

  Charles Madden, the forty-year-old Chief of Staff of the Grand Fleet, clutched a pale telegram, his empty eyes filled with the desolate stillness that had swept over the plague. There was no resentment, no hope, only thorough stillness!

  The British Empire rose on the high seas, relying on a fleet that spanned the globe to create an empire where the sun never set. In desolate Jutland, in the icy waters of the Skagerrak Strait, was the glory built by our ancestors' blood and sweat squandered?

  "No, old friend, not yet at the moment of despair; we still have six fast battleships, eighteen battle cruisers, in Devonport, in Plymouth, in Portsmouth, in Rosyth, and in Chatham, we have three Elizabeths, five Revenges, and three Royal Sovereigns, and the incomparable Hood and Nelson!"

  General Jericho slowly rose from his seat, adjusted his military uniform and cloak, and reached for the telegram paper that made every word tremble with despair.

  The telegram was torn to shreds in public, and the general seemed unaware that this was a violation of military discipline, an act that should be brought before a military tribunal. The dejected soldiers inside the command tower also seemed oblivious to their duty to remind their superiors and maintain discipline. And so, the slightly yellowed telegram turned into large scraps of paper, then small paper flowers, which were tossed high into the air and fluttered down to scatter across the floor of the command tower.

  "The battle is not yet over, even if we all go to the gallows after the war, but now we still have unfinished business!"

  Everyone's gaze followed the commander-in-chief's powerful, slightly raised arm, waiting for some solemn and stirring orders.

  "Agreed, fleet will return at full speed! Each ship in the Grand Fleet does not need to follow the flagship, turn left on the spot by division!" The old Jericho raised his arm and brought it down with force, issuing a command that belonged to an old soldier, symbolizing the last glory of the British Empire's maritime era: "We must preserve our strength for Britain, we must bring the boys home, this is the final order from the outgoing general, and this is our mission!"

  The Iron Duke's mainmast signal halyard hoisted the flag signal "Divisions separately, turn in succession to port, full speed astern", and a fine ripple appeared on the vast North Sea, as the long battle line gradually broke up into six groups.

  "Damn it, we've just re-established contact and the British are running away!" The splashes of water near the Grand Fleet disappeared, and through the smoke-filled binoculars, the lookout saw the British main fleet, painted in naval grey and white, gradually ceasing fire and making a perilous high-angle turn under the Empire's precise and ferocious barrage.

  Abandoning the unwavering battle line, adopting a more agile and time-saving dispersed turning maneuver, the deeper meaning behind it is self-evident.

  "Did we win?"

  The Frederick the Great, the lookout shrunk his head, trembling with fear, and slowly spit out a key word that could drive the whole world crazy and change the course of the European war. In the command tower, the quick-witted staff officers finally came to their senses, swallowing hard and moistening their dry throats due to tension.

  Throwing himself into the era of German naval supremacy, starting from the 1898 Anglo-German naval arms race, Admiral Reinhard Scheer's emotions were bound to be more complicated than those of younger men. He could better savor the weighty significance of "beating the Royal Navy".

  "Grand Fleet, engage!"

  Scheer's flagship will give vent to the outraged feelings of the German nation, which has been subjected to so much oppression on its road to resurgence, in a mighty roar that will be heard across the North Atlantic in the first half of the 20th century!

  The High Seas Fleet joined the pursuit, following the British movements as they began a large turn. Although the British had the advantage of the initial turn and inner track, the High Seas Fleet was not without counter-measures.

  In 1897, Hedeby Selim in his "On the Asymmetric Warfare of the Battleship Era" clearly proposed the concept of a "standard battleship" for the next generation of main warships, that is, "the highest possible speed of the main warship while also ensuring the uniformity of the fleet's standard speed".

  Although the trend of increasing speed in battleships has become irreversible, standard battleships are obviously more conducive to taking uniform tactical actions in naval battles. Tirpitz's views were widely borrowed and absorbed by German naval ship designers. In fact, after the British Dreadnought was launched in 1906, Tirpitz's early papers were also widely spread, and young people who had been wandering in East Africa could hardly imagine that he was revered as a god by poor and humble German designers at home.

  In October 1906, the design plans for the Nassau-class battleships were finalized. In order to provide space for increased speed in subsequent Imperial German battleships, designers sacrificed pursuit of a greater number of turrets and larger main armament caliber, managing to give the Nassau class a top speed of 21.5 knots that left Britain's first generation dreadnoughts in awe. Even as late as 1915, after forced drafting, the Nassau class could still manage an astonishing 22.3 knots.

  Thus, this number became the standard for Imperial battleships; even when more powerful steam engines appeared and increased tonnage made relatively spacious hulls available to accommodate more boilers, the maximum speed of the K?nig class remained at 21.5 knots.

  In contrast, the UK's latest Iron Duke-class battleships had a top speed of 21.6 knots, while the Queen Elizabeth, Revenge, Erin, Neptune and St Vincent classes all had a top speed of 21 knots; however, in the Navy, the "wooden bucket" theory is everywhere, as the old Bellerophon class could only maintain 20.3 knots, and even the Invincible, when overloaded, could only reach 21 knots.

  Under high-speed conditions, the hit rate drops to an unbearable level, and the fleet stops firing to save shells. After forced ventilation, the speed of the battleship gradually increases to the extreme, and the engine master and boiler soldier become the busiest people in the entire fleet, while the navigator and navigation staff can measure the bad pen head and high pile of waste paper on the drawing paper. The damage control personnel also rushed out, taking advantage of the pursuit interval to repair the warship as much as possible, in order to meet more cruel tests.

  The sickbay of the Ostfriesland, flagship of the First Battle Squadron, was a scene of utter chaos. The deck, covered with fireproof material, was crowded with wounded sailors, their cries and groans filling the air. Surgeon Reinhard-Hendrich, exhausted beyond endurance, sat listlessly on the smoke-blackened door-sill of the cabin, his hands trembling as he lit a cigarette for himself.

  "My God!" came the frantic shout from Fleet Deputy Chief of Staff Major Fritz-Sokol in the medical bay: "Lieutenant Reinhard-Hendrich, come quick and save him, Colonel Weigand is dying!"

  The medical officer greedily took a deep drag on his cigarette, then flicked the butt out to sea and plunged headfirst into the hellish infirmary.

  "The Chief of Staff's wound on his right arm has ruptured again, he has fallen into a coma!" Werner-Norman handed over the white gloves of the medical officer.

  Reinhardt-Hendrich's face changed, he put on gloves and carefully observed Weigand's pale cheeks and pupils, then took out a medical scissors from the assistant's tray and cut open the bandage.

  A bloody and gruesome scene unfolded before my eyes: Wiegner's right arm was deeply gashed from the outside to the inside, the wound reopened after disinfection and emergency sutures, a strong smell of blood and a hint of putridity wafted through the air.

  "When I operated on him before, General Reinhardt asked me to save his right hand, so I only did a simple disinfection and suture. Reinhardt-Hendrich's expression was somewhat heavy, hesitated: "But it is clear that the wound has become infected, the general has fallen into a coma, I had to..."

  "Amputation?!" Captain Fritz-Sokol's soulful words escaped the doctor's underlying tone, and he immediately flew into a rage, ignoring Dr. Werner-Norman's attempts to intervene, and viciously grabbed Dr. Reinhardt-Hendrich's collar: "Doctor, just as you hold a scalpel in your right hand, the importance of an arm to an outstanding naval staff officer is almost equal to his life! Doctor, this is murder!"

  Bernhard von Oden, one of the three swordsmen of Kiel High School, who was hailed as the next commander-in-chief of the Imperial Navy, has fallen. Even if he was posthumously promoted to Admiral by the Empire, the loss of naval talent cannot be replaced.

  Another of the three admirals, Erich Raeder, Chief of the Naval Staff's Operations Division, had his military career hanging in the balance because he had staged a coup against the Emperor's will, sending the precious existence fleet to sea; after the war, he would probably be transferred out of the Naval Staff and sent to a remote area.

  As for the last of the three Kirchbach admirals, the German strategic twin jewels, Tirpitz's most likely candidate to take over the command baton of the Imperial Navy, Heidekampf-Sileem, his situation was even more precarious than Raeder's, because he had long been on the emperor's blacklist, and regardless of victory or defeat, the Battle of the North Sea would be a powerful excuse for His Majesty to strike!

  Major Fritz-Sokol couldn't understand why the great Emperor would repeatedly make things difficult for the heroic and loyal heroes of the Empire, and even more so, he couldn't accept the miserable state of the Grand Fleet after the three swordsmen of Kiel, the dual geniuses of Imperial naval strategy, had fallen one by one.

  "Colonel, are there any other options?!" Dr. Wiegand had been unconscious for a while, and the anxious medical officer stared at him with wide eyes, asking bluntly.

  "Th...th..." Major Frits-Sokol loosened his grip, sobbing uncontrollably: "Then amputate it..."

  Fregattenkapit?n Fritz-Sokol had left the sickbay as if he had lost his soul, and now the battle trumpet sounded again on board of the battleship Ostfriesland. The deputy chief of staff quickened his pace unconsciously, heading for the command tower.

  "Hatred must be cut off, the battle will continue!"

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