Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 23 The wonderful combination of land and sea.
Hipper's fleet, led by submarines and small destroyers, sought to avoid civilian ships along the way and maintain secrecy.

They sailed cautiously for an entire afternoon. It was just past 4:30 p.m., and in the late autumn and early winter of the North Sea, the sky was gradually darkening, which made the fleet safer and more concealed.

The Beihai area is located at a very high latitude, and the days become significantly shorter in winter. Coupled with high winds and rough seas, it is an ideal place to do some sneaky things.

As night fell again, Lelouch, who had been observing the entire process, became increasingly impressed with Hipper's command abilities. He truly lived up to his reputation as a man who had led battlecruiser fleets to successfully raid enemy bases and escape unscathed on numerous occasions throughout history.

Hipper relaxed a little, returned to the captain's cabin, opened a bottle of wine, and poured himself a small glass to soothe his nerves.

He was extremely tense before it got dark, fearing that he might be exposed at any moment.

"Would you like a drink too? It's getting dark, so you won't be afraid. The hardest part of this battle is actually how to suddenly get close to the enemy. Once the fighting starts, it'll be easier." Hipper, being kind, waved the bottle in front of Lelouch.

Lelouch quickly took it and poured himself a glass.

He was very clear about his position. As a lieutenant, Hipper would not have kept him by his side to observe if he hadn't temporarily served as Duke Rupprecht's secret envoy.

As Hipper watched him pour the wine, he casually remarked, "My wine isn't for nothing. The Duke praised your wisdom in a secret letter. Now that you've been observing all day, do you have any suggestions for the upcoming battle? At least one."

Lelouch took a slow sip, clearly deep in thought: "I'm not an expert on how to fight, so I won't offer any advice. But seeing how cautious you've been all this way, even I, an outsider, know that the hardest part isn't how to engage in battle, but how to secretly reach the battlefield and then safely withdraw afterward."

Now that you've completed the first half, why don't we discuss how to safely evacuate? —What were your original plans?

Upon hearing this question, Hipper frowned again, then suddenly tilted his head back and downed his drink completely before letting out a long sigh.

"Fortune favors the bold; how can one achieve merit without taking risks? After the battle, theoretically there are only two paths: one is to disregard the terrain of Dogger Sandbar and break through at full speed along the shortest route back to Port William. The other is to play it safe and sail slightly eastward, withdrawing along the 12-nautical-mile line of the Netherlands coastline."

I know that David Beatty will at most be tricked into going to the vicinity of Yarmouth. Once he learns of our attack on the Channel Fleet, he'll react immediately, turn around, and head diagonally towards the Netherlands coast, potentially intercepting us. But he doesn't know my exact return route; he'll have to conduct a wide-ranging search and can't concentrate his forces at one point, while I can concentrate my entire army and might even be able to break through and escape quickly!

Lelouch thought about it carefully, then shook his head: "Although a direct retreat would offer a chance to break through, it's still too risky. I wouldn't say these plans are wrong, but I can offer you a third option, just in case: if we can't retreat back to Wilhelmshaven, then after the battle, we'll head directly east and retreat back to the port of Antwerp in Billy King! We won't go back to the mainland!"

Antwerp is less than 150 kilometers east of Neoport and Ostend, and can be reached by retreating into the coastal fjords. Compared to the more than 500-kilometer voyage back to Wilhelmshaven, this would save at least two-thirds of the distance.

Hipper's eyes lit up, but he quickly regained his caution and asked seriously, "Antwerp's port is certainly large enough, but when the Imperial Army occupied it before, were the port facilities not destroyed by the enemy?"

Lelouch: "Don't worry about that. Our 6th Army and our allies from the 4th Division all participated in the Battle of Antwerp, so I know the situation. The Empire captured the port on October 10th. At that time, the Belgian army didn't have the opportunity or dare to implement a scorched earth strategy before they withdrew, so at least 10% of the port facilities were preserved."

More than half a month has passed, and the Empire has allocated a small number of personnel for repairs, so berthing a fleet is not a problem. The biggest problem is the lack of military shipyards there. If your warships are severely damaged in subsequent battles, it will be quite difficult to repair them in Antwerp.

If no repairs are needed, once you reach Antwerp, the enemy will lower their guard, and you can choose a winter night to return home. One night is enough time to cover half the distance. Moreover, while you remain in Antwerp, the enemy, fearing an Imperial breakthrough through the straits, will certainly keep Davy Beatty occupied for a long time, allowing them to allocate more forces to the Channel Fleet.

"It depends on the specific situation, but in any case, the information you provided provides another alternative. This bottle of wine is yours."

After much deliberation, Hipper gave this final assessment and handed Lelouch the empty wine bottle, which contained only two small glasses.

……

The fleet sailed for several more hours, getting closer and closer to the coast of Billy King.

Lelouch, having nothing to do at night, stayed in the communications room of the Derfflinger. He'd help Hipper with odd jobs when needed, and also learn about naval radio operations; otherwise, he'd sleep soundly—he was a lieutenant in the communications unit, so it was his specialty. The fleet's communications officers knew he was the admiral's guest and treated him with great courtesy.

During fleet radio silence periods, radios are switched to receive-only mode; they cannot transmit, but can be listened to.

After an unknown amount of time, the radio receiver suddenly picked up a sound, and Lelouch, who had been dozing off, immediately woke up and asked the officer on duty, "Is it a telegram from friendly forces? Quickly decode it!"

"Yes, sir! Receiving..." A communications lieutenant on duty was already at work, and the translation was completed a few minutes later.

"Sir, it's a clear text telegram. Our army units in Neoport and Ostend sent telegrams almost simultaneously, both reporting that they were bombarded by unidentified enemy naval guns! And it's suspected that there are 12-inch cannons among them!"

Lelouch felt a chill run down his spine, a mixture of surprise and eagerness.

Walton, that vindictive fat man, really doesn't hold grudges overnight. He didn't have time to retaliate last night, but he's already doing it today!

Judging by the timing, the enemy ships must have set sail from Dover after nightfall. But if they came from Plymouth, they would have had to depart a day earlier.

But none of that matters anymore. In short, look at the result: at 10 p.m. on October 29, a fleet with 12-inch main guns bombarded those two towns!

Lelouch: "Notify the general immediately! And while we're at it, calculate how long it will take us to get to the battlefield!"

"At full speed, it will take about three to four hours."

The news quickly reached Hipper, who was greatly encouraged and ordered a full-speed advance, while also keeping a close watch on the radio to receive the latest enemy information.

Lelouch thought to himself: I hope the enemy will keep bombarding the port and not just run away after a short while. But it doesn't matter. Even if the enemy runs away after bombarding, our garrison on the shore will definitely send telegrams to update us. At that time, we can shift our course slightly westward and intercept the enemy on their way back to Dover.

Theoretically, there is only one possibility for the enemy's artillery fleet to escape pursuit: that is, after the bombardment, the Straits Fleet should turn directly into the neighboring Frankish port of Dunkirk to take refuge.

But the enemy probably wouldn't have anticipated the danger they faced, and given the Britannian Royal Navy's consistent pride, it was unlikely they would have communicated and coordinated with the Franks beforehand to request temporary use of the naval port for refuge.

Wouldn't that make us cowards? The Franks would laugh their heads off. Don't be fooled by the fact that Buffalo and Frankish are allies now; historically, they have a thousand-year-old feud and despise each other.

……

Meanwhile, in the town of Neoport.

Colonel Lister and his relatively intact battalion, along with two additional regiments of fresh troops assigned to him by Major General Karl, are holding their ground along the ruins of the town and the dozen or so kilometers of coastal road leading from the town to Ostend.

That's right, they were organizing a flexible defense based on the ideas that Lelouch had shared with them a day and a half ago when he left.

Because the enemy might deploy heavy artillery and warships to bombard them, Colonel Lister made all his deployment adjustments around this threat.

Within 36 hours, they mobilized a significant number of second-line troops and hastily dug more than a dozen layers of trenches along the coastal highway, with a shallow trench roughly every few hundred meters.

The trenches were dug directly into the muddy ground without any reinforcement; they only needed to stop shrapnel and blast damage. Because the soil along the coast is already loose, and a recent flood had further softened the ground, shallow digging was very easy and required little work.

These fortifications offered little defense against a strong enemy attack, but they could hinder the enemy's advance, making it more difficult for them to advance rapidly, and preventing warships from concentrating their firepower on the defenders.

In each trench, Colonel Lister left only a small number of infantrymen to keep watch. As long as the enemy did not launch a concentrated attack, the defenders would not enter the main positions, but would disperse to reduce the damage from artillery fire.

A key principle of human warfare is that as the firepower of both sides increases, the number of troops deployed per unit length of defensive line decreases to avoid being needlessly killed by heavy firepower. I will not enter the position unless the enemy charges.

Historically, towards the end of World War II, and even during the Korean War, when faced with the superior firepower of the United States, the opposing side would often reduce its forces to "only one or two sentries in a platoon entering the position, while the rest would hide in the tunnels and not come out."

Although Colonel Lister could not do something as extreme as that, he had at least temporarily learned to leave only one squad in the position and spread out the rest as much as possible.

Furthermore, Major General Karl, the division commander, had prepared many small boats for him, enough to evacuate all personnel by water if necessary. If the enemy shelled heavily and there was nowhere to hide on the shore, he could row southwards in the dark at any time, move away from the shelling zone, and then retreat to the rear.

Thus, thanks to these advanced anti-shelling maneuvers and thorough prior psychological preparation, the Bretonnia fleet's bombardment did not cause many German casualties.

The Britannians, feeling their efforts were effective, bombarded the town of Neoport for nearly an hour. Then, Vice Admiral Hastings, in charge of the Channel Fleet operations, concluded that Neoport must be a complete hellscape, and finally brazenly sent a telegram to the French forces on shore:

"Let those Franks rush up and clean up the enemy's corpses. They're lucky to have Royal Navy battleships to help them clean up the mess. This victory is practically a freebie."

Upon receiving the telegram, the French army immediately organized a division of ground troops to launch an attack.

Unfortunately, as they charged forward, they soon discovered that even in the completely ruined town of Neoport, there was still cunning crossfire from machine guns, which felled several rows of soldiers.

The French were furious and cursed, then radioed their friendly fleet for its incompetence.

Lieutenant General Hastings was a little embarrassed: How deep were these Demacian rats hiding when the battleships were shelling them? Or did they evacuate and only return to their positions when our forces stopped shelling and the French troops rushed up? That's too agile!

Little did he know how long Colonel Lister and Major General Karl had been preparing for this, and how many adjustments they had made to their plans.

But since things had come to this point, he had no choice but to order another round of shelling.

They bombarded for another twenty minutes, and this time he had arranged with the French army to charge immediately as soon as the artillery stopped, and not to give the enemy any time to re-enter the front line.

The French army followed the instructions strictly, and this time they finally stormed into the town and cleared the two westernmost blocks.

But the story wasn't over yet. Even with the French forces moving at breakneck speed, they only managed to capture two city blocks. As they advanced towards the third block, the German troops, who had just withdrawn from their positions after deploying naval artillery, returned and quickly rebuilt their firing positions, resuming their mopping-up operations and reaping lives once more.

Therefore, the French army either had to launch a fierce attack in the dark, throwing lives into the trenches, or they had to stop again and let the French ships replenish their bombardment, with each round of bombardment only helping the French army capture two blocks or three coastal trenches.

To completely capture Neoport and push towards Ostend, this piecemeal approach would take Vice Admiral Hastings' fleet a long time to exhaust. Even so, French infantry casualties would still far exceed those of the Germans.

……

"Hastington was really in high spirits, actually shelling a ruined town and the makeshift trench area on the coastal highway to the east of the town for more than three hours on and off."

The army brothers are indeed worthy of respect—you said the commander defending that town was named Lister? Just a colonel? He's absolutely a talent; he'll probably be promoted to general after this battle. To be able to orderly abandon positions under naval gunfire, delaying and wearing down the enemy, is truly remarkable.”

Three and a half hours after Vice Admiral Hastings opened fire at 1:30 a.m., General Hipper's battlecruiser fleet finally approached the Britannia Strait Fleet.

It wasn't until Hipper saw the flashes of fire from the enemy's forward dreadnoughts firing their 12-inch main guns in the distance through his binoculars that he truly admired the army's effectiveness. To this day, he still can't believe that Hastings had been bombarding the same spot for so long with almost no movement.

The land positions had only retreated three kilometers, and they were about to completely withdraw from the town, but Hipper at sea was unaware of these details.

The opportunity the army secured for him was truly excellent.

"Commander, shall we open fire immediately?" Captain Hank of the USS Derfflinger asked.

Hipper waved his hand: "No rush. Since it's a night battle and the enemy has revealed such a big opening, we should quietly approach before firing. Otherwise, given the error in nighttime observation and aiming, the accuracy of the artillery fire will be too low."

However, destroyers should also be instructed to search the vicinity for any enemy destroyers or other torpedo boats. If there is any risk of being approached by enemy auxiliary vessels, they should open fire immediately.

(End of this chapter)