Chapter 8: The Otaku's Fleet (6)

  "Second update, connected water article, no need to ask for recommendation votes this time, just support the ultimate side guard's 'The New History of China in 1894' and Tang Ren Yu Ye's 'Stock God Revelation'"

  "The Battle of Dogger Bank was perhaps the most bizarre naval battle in history. Deception, suspicion, error and chaos - these elements ran through this battle from start to finish, making it even more terrifying than the Battle of the Mareth!"

  Before the war, German Navy genius Admiral Heidekamp had devised a plan for an ambush at Dogger Bank, in which he would lead two battlecruisers and one large armored cruiser to repeatedly raid British ships and threaten the British coastline. The minimum goal was to lure David Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron to Dogger Bank, where it would be annihilated by a combined force of Franz von Hipper's three battlecruisers from the 1st Scouting Group and Reinhard Scheer's eight battleships from the 3rd Battle Squadron. The ultimate goal was an all-out fleet engagement in the style of Jutland!

  Undoubtedly, this is a German-style plan with precise calculations and rigorous deliberation.

  To circumvent the "intermittent conservative" Emperor, the newly appointed and incompetent Navy Minister Edward von Capelle, the commander of the High Seas Fleet Ingenohl and the Chief of the Naval General Staff Henning von Holtzendorff jointly staged a brilliant play: by using a feint to force the Emperor to transfer his treasure to the distant Baltic Sea, away from the battlefield, and then using delaying tactics to keep the 1st Scouting Group and the 3rd Battle Squadron on the North Sea as much as possible. In order to attract British firepower without mobilizing the entire fleet, the Germans carried out a series of deceptive maneuvers, such as hiding the Derfflinger well, leaving the already-commissioned Lützow in the depths of the Baltic Sea, and Admiral Hipper leading an apparently vulnerable but actually formidable decoy squadron on a routine combat cruise to harass the British coastline.

  Almost simultaneously, Admiral David Beatty of the Royal Navy also developed an ambitious plan for a Dogger Bank ambush that was almost identical to his old friend's. He planned to use Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Sturdee's Invincible and Princess Royal to raid Heligoland Bight, draw out Hipper's First Scouting Group, and annihilate the German battlecruiser force without Derfflinger-class ships.

  In contrast to the rough and simple Heligoland Bight Raid plan, this time the British had put in some effort, such as detaching three Orion-class battleships to the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, and using Room 40 to gather intelligence on German movements.

  Two highly similar ambush plans, and both sides have made preparations for their respective plans. The Battle of Dogger Bank evolved into an out-and-out melee, which became inevitable.

  However, the unexpectedness and confusion do not stop there. Chinese naval warfare history experts have made a sharp analysis with strong oriental color on the Battle of Dogger Bank: 'Victory comes from intelligence, defeat also comes from intelligence.'

  Just as the British were nursing their grievances, Heidi Silem had already launched a preemptive strike.

  The German decoy fleet's raid was unprecedentedly successful, bombarding the ports of Harwich and Lowestoft, sinking three destroyers, a submarine moored at the dock, three auxiliary vessels, twenty-six civilian ships, damaging the light cruiser HMS Chatham, destroying five coastal lookout towers, three gun emplacements, two oil tanks, three military warehouses, causing the British hundreds of millions of pounds in property losses and over 600 casualties, so that the British had an inexplicable sense of panic about the High Seas Fleet. In short, the German decoy successfully drew the British fire, shaking Winston Churchill's position as First Lord of the Admiralty, making Admiral John Jellicoe, who insisted on long-range blockade, unable to extricate himself.

  However, the British did not give up. Due to the sinking of U-15 submarine, the Grand Fleet's cryptogram was leaked, and the Grand Fleet had an intelligence advantage. By deciphering the fragmented words in the telegram, David Beatty accurately predicted Heidekamp's Dogger Bank raid plan and intercepted Heidekamp's fleet ahead of time.

  The British had reason to feel confident. Intelligence from the Admiralty's Room 40 indicated that the newest German battlecruisers, of the Derfflinger class, were out of service with boiler problems and only one fast battleship remained in the High Seas Fleet, the Seydlitz, which was in dockyard hands at Jade Bay and not ready for action. The intercepts from Room 40 were the final straw, as the German Emperor had just dispatched his last remaining battlecruiser, the Seydlitz, and the Third Battle Squadron to the Baltic.

  The British were confident in their intelligence advantage, and they paid a great price for it: the Grand Fleet arrived at the scene ahead of time, sinking the Lützow with the eager Blücher, and then ran head-on into the Queen Mary, laughing as they accepted the gift.

  The Germans also fell into a mindset. Around 13:00, Heidekamp learned of the news that the First Battlecruiser Squadron was heading south, and he mistakenly believed that the First Battlecruiser Squadron had only five battlecruisers. Given the British poor shell fuses and weak defensive armor, Heidekamp decided to advance his plan, and even set the goal of the Dogger Bank Sea Battle as a giant gun duel between capital ships.

  "After a series of miscounts, miscalculations and mistakes, at 6:22 pm on the 14th, two battlecruiser fleets met unexpectedly, and a confused and unpredictable melee took place off Dogger Bank."

  "Excerpt from 'Sea Power - A Naval History' by E.B. Potter (USA)"

  ****

  "On 14 November 1914, a raiding force of two battlecruisers and an armoured cruiser from the Grand Fleet launched a surprise attack on the German ports of Harwich and Lowestoft, with the main fleet lying in wait off Dogger Bank. Admiral David Beatty and Admiral John Jellicoe led the Grand Fleet into action, thwarting the German plan at the cost of two sunk battlecruisers, annihilating the German raiding force and securing a glorious victory for the Royal Navy!"

  On the evening of November 15, The Times, a British old-brand newspaper, specially increased an extra edition. The headline on the front page published a passionate article "The Union Jack Still Flies". Grabbing the extra edition, the subjects of the great empire finally breathed a sigh of relief and rushed to the streets to celebrate their victory with abandon.

  "On November 14, 1914, the High Seas Fleet shamelessly ambushed the returning Sylph fleet. Under the efforts of Rear Admiral von Hipper and with the bold reinforcement of the main force of the Ocean Fleet under General Scheer, the German Navy thwarted the evil intentions of the British. We sank two British battle cruisers and one dreadnought at the cost of one battle cruiser and one large armored ship. Glory to Germany!"

  On November 15, the Berliner Tageblatt took down its scattered "victory" reports of the Battle of Flanders and devoted four pages to a detailed account of the Dogger Bank battle. The Tageblatt's inflammatory language set off a dismal rain on the streets of Berlin, causing beer sales in big and small pubs throughout Germany to skyrocket instantly.

  ****

  "On November 14, 1914, the long-dormant flames of war in the North Sea were rekindled, and the two most powerful fleets in the history of the world gathered off the Dogger Bank, but this naval battle was filled with unexpected and unimaginable events from the moment of mobilization."

  Even after the dust of the naval battle had settled, this mysterious and intriguing aspect was in no way diminished. After the battle, both Germany and Britain announced their victory at the earliest opportunity, claiming to have foiled each other's ambush plans.

  The era we live in allows us to find clues from declassified archives and memoirs of participants, sorting out the threads from these chaotic leads to make a fair evaluation of this confusing sea battle. However, in 1914, an era when information was not yet widespread, the whole world was indeed shocked by the conflicting claims of the British and German governments.

  "Two ambushes, but who ambushed whom?" Time magazine exclaimed at the end of 1914 when summarizing major events of that year and referring to the Battle of Dogger Bank.

  The Battle of Jutland saw the deployment of 19 battleships (Behemoth and Emperor of India having just completed their final trials, Ajax having had her power upgrade terminated prematurely, leaving only 16 battleships), 7 pre-dreadnoughts and 5 battlecruisers from the Grand Fleet, while the High Seas Fleet deployed 15 battleships, 5 battlecruisers and one large armoured cruiser. Given the state of the two fleets, once the big gun duel began, it was likely that the superior quality of the High Seas Fleet would severely damage the Grand Fleet.

  However, Admiral Scheer chose to err on the side of caution and did not engage the battered and fleeing British fleet. The Germans had opened a gap of three miles due to timing and speed, forming a "T" formation, with Admiral Jellicoe's Grand Fleet still intact but the admiral was responsible for the fate of the Grand Fleet and the survival of the British Isles, under unimaginable pressure, forcing him to choose caution.

  Under the premise that the main fleet did not act, the participants in the battle were always only David Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, Heidekamp's decoy squadron and Franz von Hipper's 1st Scouting Group, so this naval battle was also called the Battle of Jutland.

  The Battle of Jutland, the British lost the new battlecruiser Queen Mary, the old-fashioned battlecruiser Invincible, the super-dreadnought battleship Iron Duke, and the light cruisers Lion, Princess Royal, and Tiger were slightly damaged. The Germans lost an old but still powerful battlecruiser Von der Tann, a pseudo-battlecruiser Lützow, and the battlecruiser Moltke was heavily damaged. In terms of the outcome of the battle, the Germans barely achieved a tactical victory, but this battle did not achieve the highest goal of severely damaging the Grand Fleet, nor even the lowest goal of annihilating the First Battlecruiser Squadron. The High Seas Fleet still failed to break through the blockade of the Grand Fleet, so we say that the High Seas Fleet strategically failed.

  The impact of the Battle of Dogger Bank was immense.

  The Americans drew lessons from the Battle of Dogger Bank, and quickly put the fast battleship on the agenda; The Russians listened to the bloody naval battle, but could only reminisce about their not-so-glorious past; The resource-poor Japanese were more interested in night warfare, close combat, and chaotic warfare. In 1917, Fujimoto Kiyokazu, who went to Britain as a shipbuilding supervisor to inspect shipbuilding technology, solemnly wrote down the words "asymmetric warfare" in his notebook.

  To reassure the British public, the Admiralty classified Invincible as lightly damaged and announced her loss in mid-December. Rear Admiral Arbuthnot was court-martialled in secret for his handling of the battle and forced into retirement. Construction on the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, designed to make 25 knots (29 mph; 47 km/h), was accelerated and three R-class battleships were cancelled. A new class of battlecruiser, the Renown class, was ordered at the end of 1914.

  Although the high-ranking officers of the High Seas Fleet knew they had missed their best chance to defeat the Grand Fleet, everyone had to put on a brave face to boost morale. The consequences of the battle for Germany went far beyond this, and the emperor's reaction after the Battle of Dogger Bank was even more severe than after the victory at Heligoland Bight, with Ingenohl and Eckermann both being relieved of their duties amidst endless regret. After careful consideration, the emperor appointed Pohl as Chief of the Admiralty Staff, putting a heavy lock on the High Seas Fleet.

  However, all this could not hold back the fleet of the open sea, which was about to run wild. The warlike Reinhard Scheer was promoted to full admiral and took command of the High Seas Fleet, Germany's best tactical commander Franz von Hipper became commander of the Third Battle Squadron and deputy commander of the Navy, and the strategically far-sighted Heidekamp was promoted to vice-admiral and took over as commander of the First Reconnaissance Group.

  From "The War at Sea 1914-1944" by John Winton (UK)