Hipper’s fleet relied on submarines and small destroyers to clear the way ahead, hoping to avoid civilian vessels along the route and keep their movements hidden.
And so they sailed cautiously for an entire afternoon. By the time it had just passed half past four, in the North Sea at the turn from late autumn to early winter, the sky was gradually darkening, making the fleet all the safer and more concealed.
The North Sea lay at a very high latitude. The closer it got to winter, the more noticeably the days shortened; with the fierce winds and rough waves besides, it was all the more suited to furtive deeds.
As night fell once more, Lelouch, who had observed the whole process, found himself admiring Hipper’s command ability more and more. As expected of the man who, in history, had led a battlecruiser squadron on repeated successful raids and then withdrawn intact.
Hipper also relaxed his nerves a little. Returning to the captain’s cabin, he opened a bottle of wine and poured himself a small glass to ease his mood.
Before darkness had fallen, he had been wound tight the entire time, afraid that at some unknown moment they might suddenly be exposed.
“Would you like a glass as well? Once it’s dark, there’s nothing to fear. The hardest part of this battle is actually how to approach the enemy by surprise. Once the fighting truly begins, it will be easier.” Out of goodwill, Hipper waved the bottle in front of Lelouch.
Lelouch quickly took it and poured himself a glass.
He was very clear on his own position. With his status as a mere lieutenant, if he had not temporarily been acting as Duke Rupprecht’s confidential envoy, Hipper would never have allowed him to remain at his side and observe.
Watching him pour the wine, Hipper also said half in jest, “My wine isn’t free. In the duke’s secret letter, he praised you highly for being resourceful. Now that you’ve observed for an entire day, do you have any suggestions for the coming battle? At least give me one.”
Lelouch slowly took a sip, clearly thinking it over seriously. “As for the specifics of how to fight, I’m no professional, so I won’t offer blind advice. But seeing how cautious you have been all the way here, even an outsider like me knows that the hardest part is not how to engage the enemy, but how to arrive at the battlefield covertly and then withdraw safely afterward.
“Now that you have completed the first half yourself, why don’t we discuss how to withdraw safely? I wonder what your original thoughts were?”
Hearing this question, Hipper’s brow furrowed tightly once again. He suddenly tipped his head back and drained his wine completely, then let out a long breath.
“Fortune is found in danger. How can one win merit without taking risks? After the battle, theoretically there are only two routes. One is to disregard the terrain of the Dogger Bank and break out at full speed along the shortest direct course back to Wilhelmshaven. The second is to play it a little safer, sail slightly farther east, and withdraw along the twelve-nautical-mile line off the Dutch coast.
“I also know that David Beatty can at most be deceived by me into the vicinity of Yarmouth. Once he learns that we have attacked the Channel Fleet, he may react at once, turn around, and cut diagonally toward the Dutch coast, in which case he could intercept us. But he does not know the exact point at which I will return. He will have to search with a wide net and cannot concentrate his forces at one point, while I can concentrate my whole fleet. Perhaps we can even punch through and disengage at speed!”
Lelouch thought carefully for a moment, then shook his head. “Although a direct withdrawal has a chance of breaking through, it is still too risky. I would not dare say these plans are wrong, but I can provide you with a third option in case of unforeseen circumstances: if we cannot withdraw back to Wilhelmshaven, then after the battle we turn straight east and retreat to Belgium’s Antwerp Harbor! We simply won’t return to the homeland!”
Antwerp lay less than 150 kilometers east of Nieuport and Ostend; by withdrawing into the coastal estuary, they would arrive. Compared to the more than 500 kilometers required to return to Wilhelmshaven, it would save at least two-thirds of the voyage.
Hipper’s eyes lit up, but he quickly regained his caution and confirmed seriously, “Antwerp’s harbor is naturally large enough, but when the empire’s army occupied it earlier, were the port facilities not destroyed by the enemy?”
Lelouch said, “You can rest assured on that point. Our Sixth Army and the friendly forces of the Fourth Army both took part in the Battle of Antwerp. I know the situation. The empire seized the port on October 10th. At the time, before the Belgian army withdrew, they had neither the chance nor the courage to carry out a scorched-earth strategy. At least eighty percent of the port facilities were preserved.
“Now half a month has passed, and the empire has also allocated a small number of personnel to inspect and repair it. Berthing a fleet will not be a problem. The biggest issue is that there is no military shipyard there. If your warships are damaged too severely in the subsequent battle, emergency repairs in Antwerp will be rather difficult.
“If repairs are unnecessary, then once you reach Antwerp and enough time passes for the enemy to lower their guard, you can choose another winter night to return to the homeland. One night would be enough for you to cover half the distance. Moreover, while you remain in Antwerp, the enemy will fear that the empire may break through the Channel, and will certainly keep David Beatty tied down for a long time, forcing them to allocate more combat strength to the Channel Fleet.”
“The specifics will still depend on adapting to circumstances. But in any case, the information you provided counts as an additional route for consideration. This bottle of wine is yours.”
After pondering it again and again, Hipper finally gave that assessment, and even handed the bottle with only two small glasses poured from it to Lelouch.
……
The fleet continued sailing for several more hours, drawing closer and closer to the Belgian coast.
With nothing to do at night, Lelouch stayed in Derfflinger’s radio room. If anything came up, he helped Hipper with odd tasks; at the same time, he could learn a little about the navy’s wireless operations. When there was nothing to do, he slept soundly—he was, after all, a lieutenant from the communications troops, so it matched his specialty. The fleet’s communications officers also knew he was the general’s guest and treated him very politely.
During the fleet’s radio silence, the wireless sets were adjusted to receive-only mode. They could not transmit, but they could listen.
After an unknown length of time, the radio receiver suddenly stirred. Lelouch, who had been dozing, instantly woke and asked the officer on duty, “Is it a telegram from friendly forces? Decode it at once!”
“Yes, sir! Receiving now...” A communications second lieutenant on duty was already at work. A few minutes later, he finished translating and reading it.
“Sir, it is a plaintext telegram. Our army forces at Nieuport and Ostend have transmitted almost simultaneously. Both say they have come under naval bombardment by an unidentified enemy! And there are suspected twelve-inch heavy guns!”
Lelouch’s heart chilled, shocked yet eager to act.
That vindictive fatty Wharton truly would not let a grudge sit overnight. He had not had time to retaliate last night, so he had come to retaliate today!
Calculating the time, the enemy ships should have sailed out from Dover after nightfall. But if they had come from Plymouth, then they would have had to set out a day earlier.
But none of that mattered now. In short, judging from the result, at ten o’clock late on the night of October 29th, a fleet equipped with twelve-inch main guns had bombarded those two towns!
Lelouch said, “Notify the general immediately! Also calculate how long it will take us to reach the battlefield!”
“At full speed, approximately three to four more hours.”
The news was quickly delivered to Hipper. Hipper’s spirits also rose, and he ordered full speed ahead, while instructing the wireless operators to pay constant attention to the latest enemy situation.
Lelouch thought to himself: Hopefully the enemy will keep bombarding the ports and not run after firing for only a short while. But it does not matter even if they flee after finishing the bombardment. Our garrison ashore will certainly continue to transmit real-time updates. When the time comes, our course can be adjusted slightly westward, and we can intercept them on their return to Dover.
In theory, there was only one possibility for the enemy bombardment fleet to shake off pursuit: after completing its shelling, the Channel Fleet would turn directly into nearby Dunkirk Harbor of the Franks and hide there.
But the enemy should not anticipate the danger they were facing. With the Britannian Royal Navy’s usual pride, it would also be impossible for them to communicate and coordinate with the Franks in advance and request temporary use of a military port for refuge.
Wouldn’t that make them turtles hiding in their shells? The Franks would laugh their teeth out.
After all, do not be fooled by the fact that Britannia and the Franks were now allies. Historically, there had also been a thousand years of grudges between the two, and each looked down on the other.
……
At the same time, in the town of Nieuport.
Colonel List and the one battalion under his command whose combat strength was still fairly intact, together with two fresh regiments assigned to him by Major General Karl, were holding their ground along the ruins of the town and the dozen or so kilometers of coastal road from the town to Ostend.
That was right. They were organizing an elastic defense according to the ideas Lelouch had discussed with them when he left a day and a half earlier.
Because they had anticipated that the enemy might deploy heavy-gunned warships for bombardment, all of Colonel List’s deployment adjustments revolved around that threat.
Within thirty-six hours, they had employed many second-line troops and hastily dug over a dozen layers of trenches along the coastal road. Basically, there was a shallow trench every few hundred meters.
The trenches had no reinforcement measures whatsoever. They were simply dug directly into the mud, as long as they could block flying shrapnel and blast pressure. Because the soil along the coast was already loose, and the newly formed flooded zone nearby had further soaked the ground soft, shallow digging was very easy and did not take much labor.
These works had little defensive power against a strong enemy assault, but they could hinder the enemy, increase the difficulty of a rapid advance, and prevent warship bombardment from inflicting concentrated casualties on the defenders.
In each trench, Colonel List left only a small number of infantry to keep watch. As long as the enemy did not launch a dense charge, the defenders would not enter their main positions either, but would disperse instead, precisely in order to reduce the damage from shelling.
One of the main threads of human warfare was that, as the firepower of both sides grew stronger and stronger, combatants would invest fewer troops per unit length of defensive line to avoid being slaughtered for nothing by heavy firepower. As long as the enemy did not charge, I would not enter the position.
Historically, by the end of the Second World War, and even by the time of the Korean War, when facing the superior fire coverage of the United States, the opposing side often reduced its presence to the point where “in ordinary times, only one or two sentries from a platoon would enter the position, while everyone else hid in tunnels and did not come out.”
Although Colonel List could not yet achieve anything so exaggerated, he had at least temporarily learned to leave only one squad from each platoon in the position while dispersing the rest as much as possible.
Moreover, division commander Major General Karl had also prepared many small boats for him, enough to withdraw all personnel by water if necessary. If the enemy’s bombardment became too fierce and there was nowhere to hide in the positions ashore, they could row boats southward under cover of darkness at any time, avoid the bombardment zone, and then withdraw to the rear.
Thus, under these various anti-bombardment measures ahead of their time, and with ample psychological preparation in advance, the Britannian fleet’s bombardment did not inflict many casualties on the Germanian army.
The Britannians themselves thought the results were quite good. After nearly an hour of shelling, Vice Admiral Hastings, who was in command of the Channel Fleet’s operation, believed that Nieuport ought to have been completely turned into hell. Only then did he send a telegram to the French army ashore with swaggering confidence:
“Let those Franks charge up and collect the enemy corpses. They should count themselves lucky to have the battleships of the Royal Navy cleaning up the mess for them. This sort of victory is practically one picked up off the ground.”
After receiving the telegram, the French army immediately organized an infantry division to launch an assault.
Unfortunately, as soon as they charged forward, they quickly discovered that in the town of Nieuport, now completely reduced to ruins, tricky crossfire from machine guns was still sweeping out, cutting down several ranks of soldiers.
The French army cursed furiously and sent a wireless message greeting the friendly fleet’s incompetence.
Vice Admiral Hastings found his old face somewhat unable to bear it. When the battleships were shelling just now, exactly how deep a hole had those Germanian rats hidden in? Or had they dispersed and run away, only to return to their positions after our forces stopped shelling and the French charged? Wasn’t this too flexible?
How could he know how long Colonel List and Major General Karl had prepared for this, or how many deployments they had adjusted?
But with things having reached this point, he had no choice but to order another round of preparatory bombardment.
They shelled for another twenty minutes. This time, he also agreed with the French army that the French would charge immediately as soon as the bombardment stopped, and absolutely must not leave the enemy time to reenter the front-line positions.
The French army strictly followed this plan as well. This time, they finally charged into the town and cleared the two westernmost blocks.
But the matter was not over yet. Even though the French had moved as quickly as they possibly could, they had only seized the positions in two blocks. When they charged toward the third layer of streets, the Germanian troops who had just withdrawn from their positions during the Britannian naval bombardment had already slipped back. They rapidly reconstructed their fire points and once again began mowing down lives with sweeping fire.
Therefore, the French army could either launch a night assault in the dark and pay with lives, or else they could only stop again and let the Britannian ships add more bombardment. And each round of shelling could only help the French army seize two layers of blocks or three coastal trenches.
If they wanted to take Nieuport completely and push on to Ostend, this sort of sticky, dragging style of fighting would be enough to consume Vice Admiral Hastings’s fleet for a very long time. And even so, in terms of infantry casualties, the French army still suffered far more heavily than the Germanian army.
……
“Hastings truly has fine taste, to intermittently bombard a ruined little town and the simple trench zone along the coastal road east of the town for over three hours.
“The army brothers are indeed worthy of respect as well—you said the commander defending that town is named List? Merely a colonel and regimental commander? He is definitely a talent. After this battle, he will probably be promoted to general. To withstand naval gunfire while abandoning positions in an orderly manner, delaying and wearing down the enemy—it is far from easy.”
At half past one in the morning, three and a half hours after Vice Admiral Hastings had opened fire, General Hipper’s battlecruiser fleet finally approached the Britannian Channel Fleet.
Only after seeing through his binoculars the flashes of the enemy pre-dreadnoughts firing salvos from their twelve-inch main guns in the distance did Hipper sincerely marvel at how capable the army was. Even now, he could hardly believe that Hastings had remained almost in place, bombarding the same area for so long.
It was just that the positions on land had retreated three kilometers slightly farther back and were already about to withdraw completely from the town, but Hipper at sea did not know these details.
The opportunity the army had won for him was simply too good.
“Commander, shall we open fire immediately?” Colonel Hank, captain of Derfflinger, requested instructions.
Hipper waved a hand. “No hurry. Since this is a night battle, and since the enemy has exposed such a large flaw, of course we must quietly close in before firing. Otherwise, with the errors in night observation and aiming, our bombardment accuracy will be too low.
“However, have the destroyers pay attention to searching the vicinity for enemy destroyers or other torpedo craft. As soon as there is any risk of enemy auxiliary vessels closing in, open fire immediately.”