Chapter 12: The Naval Political Storm (I)

  On 1 February 1915, Admiral Graf Spee's East Asia Squadron encountered the British light cruiser HMS Bristol on patrol off the narrow strait of Punta Arenas in the Magellan Straits. The East Asia Squadron sank the cruiser with ease but the encounter left a bad omen for the entire fleet.

  From the equatorial region of the western Pacific to the southernmost tip of South America, the thousands of miles of voyage made the warships of the East Asian Fleet in a state of disrepair. The seaweed and shellfish on the underwater part of the hull seriously affected the speed, and although the sailors were repeatedly organized to dive and clean up, the effect was minimal. The drawbacks of coal-fired boilers were also exposed during long-distance voyages, and the sediment attached to the water pipes and boiler bottoms kept coming back, unable to be thoroughly removed. Even in their best state, the East Asian Fleet's top speed was only 24-24.5 knots, and now it had dropped to 23 knots, a speed that could not shake off the British South American Squadron with its superior numbers and strength.

  Spee and von Lauterbach had to abandon their plan to attack Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, again employing a feint: the light cruiser Dresden was sent through the Drake Passage, which had been largely stripped of British warships, directly towards German East Africa. The main body of the squadron sailed along the coast of Argentina, making as if for Uruguay and Montevideo, then turned to port, avoiding the Falkland Islands, breaking out into the broad waters north of the Falklands, and making for German West Africa.

  The entire crew of the East Asian Squadron, facing the British intercept fleet with three battlecruisers and 24 x 12-inch main guns, had already made psychological preparations to dodge and hide. However, the situation was even more terrifying than the most pessimistic sailor's predictions. In fact, their whereabouts had been exposed long before the sinking of the Bristol light cruiser, and they had not been able to shake off the intelligence network composed of merchant ships, ocean-going fishing boats, and patrol vessels scattered along the east coast of South America by the Allies. On February 6, Admiral Muir's intercept fleet crossed over the Falkland Islands, sending out a search formation towards the Uruguayan waters, colliding head-on with the East Asian Squadron advancing eastward.

  The encounter was unexpected. To catch the Spee squadron in the vast ocean, Müller arranged his intercepting squadron in a search formation of over ten nautical miles wide. At 10:12, the armed merchant ship Orama, part of the intercepting squadron, first discovered the East Asian Squadron. The Orama sank quickly after being hit, but managed to send out a warning telegram before it went down.

  The Indomitable and Canberra, which was nearby the armed merchant cruiser Orama, came to reinforce. The Canberra, a County-class armoured cruiser with a standard displacement of 10,850 tons, had four 7.5-inch guns and six 6-inch guns, but its top speed of 22 knots made it unable to withstand the heavily armoured Scharnhorst-class battleships head-on.

  The 12-inch guns of the Queen Elizabeth class were indeed formidable, and the 160mm waterline belt armor and 180mm turret face armor of the Scharnhorst class would not withstand a hit from them. However, the 6-inch (152mm) waterline belt armor and 7-inch (178mm) turret face armor of the Queen Elizabeth class were also unable to withstand the 8 x 42-caliber 240mm main guns of the Scharnhorst class.

  Thousands of miles of transfer, countless low-intensity raids and the Battle of Coronel brought the East Asian Squadron's officers and warships to an astonishing level of cohesion. After several rounds of shelling, the Scharnhorst was only lightly damaged, while the stern of the Good Hope was hit by a shell, with thick smoke billowing out.

  At 10:43, the old battleship arrived on the battlefield, while the armored cruiser and Leipzig light cruiser had already crossed paths with the battlecruiser. The focused its attention on the two German ships behind it, and for a time, 12-inch shells rained down. Under Captain Oden's leadership, the bravely stood out, attempting to use its slightly thicker hull to cover the light cruiser Nurnberg as it broke through the encirclement. At this moment, disaster struck - was hit!

  One of the 12-inch armor-piercing shells penetrated Scharnhorst's weak waterline belt, tearing a gash several meters long in her starboard side; hundreds of tons of water poured in and Scharnhorst slowed immediately. Gneisenau attempted to render assistance but British interceptors New Zealand, Defence, the old battleship, and Cornwall arrived on the scene; both Kapit?n zur See Bernhard von Oden on Scharnhorst and Admiral Maximilian von Spee realized that their final hour had come.

  Scheer shouted that he would go down with the Scharnhorst and left command of the fleet to his trusted young officer Bernhard von Oven. As captain of the Scharnhorst, Oven was not about to let a grey-haired old naval officer take this glorious sacrifice from him, so he ordered his sailors to mutiny, had the stubborn old count dragged aboard the Nurnberg light cruiser and then commanded the heavily armoured battleship to concentrate its firepower on the Indomitable in an attempt to go down with her.

  Muller observed the determination of Scharnhorst and ordered the signalman to hoist the signal "Australia and New Zealand go around Scharnhorst, continue to pursue". The heavily damaged Scharnhorst was left to the slow-moving Defence and Veteran battleships. However, Scharnhorst, which had one foot in hell, hit Indomitable's mainmast with a 240mm shell.

  The long signal halyards were shot away, and a thick smoke very quickly billowed up from amidships on the Admiral Graf Spee. The torpedo boats lost their command and became disorganized, and the Australian cruiser, which had joined in at the last minute, took up the pursuit, only to discover that it was unsupported and had to abandon this effort. The New Zealand captain, judging by the half of the signal flag visible through the smoke, exercised his imagination freely and unintentionally trained his guns on the Admiral Scheer.

  Rear Admiral Muir's incompetence and timidity were exposed in this intercept operation. After the signal halyard was destroyed, Rear Admiral Muir's first thought was that the flagship was in danger, and he needed to find a new flagship instead of repairing or replacing the signal halyard or using wireless telegraphy to transmit information. Rear Admiral Muir boarded a launch and approached the battleship Old Glory, but was told "My ship has no flag equipment, not even a signal flag that can fully convey information". Having no other choice, Rear Admiral Muir had to go to the battlecruiser New Zealand, wasting enough time for the main force of the East Asian Fleet to escape from the pursuit range of the intercepting fleet.

  At 11:01, the New Zealand finally hoisted Admiral von Spee's flag, and the armoured cruiser Scharnhorst, surrounded by several battlecruisers, old battleships and armoured cruisers, could no longer hold on and capsized.

  Otto von Diederichs refused to surrender the German prisoners of war camp, he ordered all crew members to abandon ship and surrender, but instead locked himself in the captain's cabin. At 11:04 on February 6, 1915, the East Asian Squadron's Scharnhorst sank, with 567 crew members and Captain Otto von Diederichs, one of the three heroes of the German Kiel Naval Academy, dying heroically.

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  Auden is dead, that proud and unyielding aristocrat who adhered to the traditional nobility and pride but also valued emotions and righteousness, General Bernhard von Auden, has actually died!

  In 1897, Auden's good friend Sherman died in the distant and desolate German West Africa Yola River Valley. The grief-stricken Auden returned to his hometown of Bavaria, where he fulfilled Sherman's lifelong wish by building a winery that he had fantasized about as a child, and placed Sherman's tomb on a hillside surrounded by the sweet scent of grape wine, the fragrance of chrysanthemums, and the misty water vapor accumulated by cypress trees.

  Mourning the departed soul of Sherman, that was Auden's unshakeable reserve for over a decade, even in the war-torn years of 1914, devout Auden could not attend in person, but the withered paper flowers from the South Pacific and the tears of soldiers were enough to comfort everything. The passing of life is not the end of friendship, Bernhard von Auden interpreted this definition with persistence, but after Auden's death, who should carry on the friendship and memory with Sherman? Who should comfort Auden's spirit on February 6th, 1915, in the Falkland Islands?! In the end, Friedberg's winery had not yet opened to the market, the brutal imperial war had not yet been won, the Grand Fleet had not yet obtained the throne of the ocean, and the three swordsmen from Kiel Naval Academy had not yet achieved success, how could Auden leave at this critical moment?!

  Leaning against the cold bulkhead, softly sitting on the command deck of the Lützow cruiser, waving her hand to let a concerned fleet staff confirm the message, Wang Haitian narrowed his eyes and savored the turmoil in his heart.

  This was not the first time Wang Haitie had encountered death. In 1894, Heather's passing had left him bewildered, but that heart-wrenching pain was rooted in a past that could never be returned to, a future that could not be seen through, and a heavy sense of time and space. The Battle of Heligoland Bight and the Dogger Bank battle in 1914 had made Wang Haitie clench his teeth, but that piercing pain was based on the young faces wrapped in shrouds, the thick stack of casualty reports on his desk, an unbearable pain for a general. In 1915, Auden died, and that emotion was different from before, because Auden had been his enemy, but also his friend for twenty years. The reconciliation on the torpedo training ship in Guinea Bay in 1897, the stroll through the streets of Beijing with David Beatty in 1900, the vow to love until death on the eve of their wedding in 1902 - these fragmented scenes played like a desolate movie in Wang Haitie's mind, making it hard for him to breathe.

  She declined the courtesy of the staff officer and insisted on sitting on the icy deck of the command tower, refusing to put herself in the stifling confined space of the commander's cabin, trying to let the chill seep into her body to calm her chaotic mind.

  "I'm not only Auden's good friend, but also the commander of the blockade fleet!" Wang Haitian clenched his fists and said hoarsely with a dry mouth: "Deputy Commander, can Brunswick still be saved?"

  "Brunswick is too old, the watertight structure is not enough to withstand a torpedo..." Commander Su Xiong's mistake was evident as he hesitated, afraid to speak out the fact that would end his military career.

  In fact, since February 1st, Golchak and his mine-laying detachment almost every night would sneak out of Helsinki harbor to lay mines in the waters where German blockading fleets might appear. Golchak's adventure was successful, on February 6th at 12:21, the Fourth Battleship Squadron, approaching the coast of Saaremaa Island for a bombardment, accidentally entered a Russian minefield with only over 30 mines and the old battleship Braunschweig struck a mine and sank, killing 325 crew members.

  "In 1915, the year I had been expecting a great naval battle to begin, it started with such a painful defeat...” Wang Haitie finally loosened his fist, and with a faint sense of relief, emotions bursting out: "General Su Xiong, the political storm has begun!"

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  News of the Battle of the Falkland Islands has reached Schloss Charlottenburg. One Scharnhorst-class armored cruiser will not bring down the German Navy, but the incomplete East Asia Squadron and the withered naval stars of tomorrow still make the Emperor's heart feel low.

  "Your Majesty, the Baltic Fleet has encountered an incident..." Imperial Navy Minister Edward von Capelle knocked on the door and walked into the Emperor's study, saying slowly.

  "Ah?" Emperor Wilhelm's right hand, which was reviewing the document, jerked up, and a drop of ink splattered onto the snow-white paper, exceptionally bright and eye-catching. "Is it the main force ship?!"

  "No, just an old battleship." The Emperor's voice was trembling with emotion, his feelings for the High Seas Fleet evident. Kapelle, as Chief of the Naval Staff, wore a more studied look of pain and sorrow than the excitable Emperor: "Fourth Battleship Squadron's Brunswick, 12:21, Brunswick struck a mine and sank."

  "The blockade of the Dardanelles was unavoidable, just like the Battle of the Dardanelles, where the Allies destroyed most of the Ottoman forts with naval gunfire and landings, but also lost the old battleship Goliath and a light cruiser. The Emperor finally let out a sigh of relief and resumed reviewing the no longer pristine document."

  "Your Majesty, although the sinking of the Brunswick is an unfortunate event, we can use this opportunity to eliminate some uncontrolled elements within the Navy that are always trying to gain fame for your fleet...” The flattery on Kappe's face disappeared, replaced by a sly and sinister smile: "For example, Heide-Selheim!"