Chapter 270: Sending the Lusha Ambassador and Count Kitchener on Their Way |
June 30, early morning.
The Port of Rosyth, in the eastern suburbs of Scotland's capital, Edinburgh.
A Rolls-Royce slowly came to a halt on the pier. A massive, heavily built man, standing 1.9 meters tall, stepped out of the vehicle on thick, stout legs. Hauling his bulky frame forward, he made his way toward the gangway of the light cruiser Danae.
Beside him, a bearded septuagenarian with slicked-back hair and a severely receding hairline reached out to bid the large man farewell.
"Lord Benckendorff, I hope you will put this agreement to careful use once you return to your country. You must maintain absolute secrecy. Ensure that only the upper echelons of the Lusha Empire lay eyes on it."
The old man speaking was none other than Britannia's Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour—the very culprit who, in the Earth timeline, sowed the seeds for a century of chaos and blood feuds among the peoples of the Middle East.
The large man on the receiving end of this reminder, Count Alexander Konstantinovich Benckendorff, could only mask his impatience with feigned sincerity. "Rest assured, Lord Balfour. We of the Lusha nation have always been an honest and trustworthy people. It was agreed to be a secret pact, and so it shall never be leaked."
Truth be told, if Count Benckendorff had made this promise in the Earth timeline, he would have kept it. In that history, the Sykes-Picot Agreement was never leaked right up until Nicholas II was finally ousted from power.
It wasn't until Comrade Ulyanov took over that the secret pact was exposed as "evidence of collusion between imperialist powers." That disclosure revealed to the world the shameless perfidy of the Britons, proving their promises to the people of the Middle East were nothing but hot air.
Such selective disclosure couldn't even be considered despicable, because by that time, the Lushans had no way of securing their promised chips anyway, having already withdrawn from the Entente. It was entirely understandable to omit what they could no longer obtain.
In the current timeline, however, Lusha's situation was far more critical than it had been at this point in history. The Tsar was at his wit's end, which was why he had repeatedly urged to expedite the signing and have the secret pact brought back to stabilize domestic morale. This would let the highest civil and military officials know that if they just kept fighting this current war, a final victory would secure the Lusha Empire a warm-water port facing the open ocean.
It was exactly because the Lushans were in such a dire crisis that they ignored the treacherous, shifting tides around the North Sea and the fact that Britannia had just sent three battleships and a host of auxiliary vessels to the Mediterranean a week ago, stubbornly insisting on returning home to formally sign the pact immediately.
After making his final confirmations, Foreign Secretary Balfour explained, "The Royal Navy's escort forces are currently stretched quite thin, so we can only have you board the Danae, accompanied by one C-class light cruiser and six high-speed destroyers.
"Once you set sail, the squadron commander will take you on a north-northwest heading. After passing north of the Shetland Islands, you will rendezvous with a merchant convoy arriving from Canada, which is passing through the shipping lane between the Faroe Islands and the Shetland Islands.
"At that point, your fleet will nominally provide an escort for the merchant convoy, but in truth, it will merely be a cover. The majority of your ships will sail to the north of the convoy. If enemy vessels approach the merchants and pose a threat, your escort fleet will detach and evade into the northern shipping lanes. So you can rest absolutely assured; the journey is perfectly safe."
Hearing that he was being given such a meager escort, Count Benckendorff was mildly displeased. "Is this escort fleet truly just two light cruisers and six destroyers in total? Why so few?"
"It can't be helped," Balfour replied. "The Eastern Mediterranean front is under heavy pressure. Not only did the Royal Navy just transfer three battleships there, but we also had to allocate a significant number of our cutting-edge C-class light cruisers and dozens of destroyers.
"Therefore, the Home Fleet can currently only spare a handful of high-speed light cruisers in excellent condition for this task. The rest have other assignments."
"Is this because of the grand naval battle of Malta ten days ago?" Benckendorff asked. "Didn't they say both sides suffered heavy losses in that battle, and that as long as the Royal Navy brought over three battleships and a few light cruisers and destroyers, they could easily regain control of the situation?
"Although Italy still has three battleships, I heard that after the Malta naval battle ended, the Italians formally handed over their remaining warships to Demania and had all Italian naval personnel withdraw from combat. Italy is now under a ceasefire. If their sailors refuse to fight, the Demanians won't be able to operate those Italian-made ships and achieve any combat effectiveness in the short term, will they?"
The matter Count Benckendorff mentioned had indeed just occurred in the last few days.
The Taranto-Malta naval battle had raged for three days from start to finish, officially concluding on June 22. On June 25, the Italian Navy, thoroughly sick of the mess, formally passed the hot potato, announcing they were tossing all their warships to the Demanians as one of the war reparations in the ceasefire negotiations.
But since Italy had withdrawn from the war and surrendered its ships, there was no reason to make Italian sailors continue risking their lives. Thus, they only handed over empty vessels. After sailing the warships to the port of Venice for the handover, the Italian sailors returned home.
The Demanians couldn't complain, as this was completely in accordance with international law. They were forced to train new sailors of their own to operate the Italian ships, but that required a period of adjustment; it would be impossible to achieve real combat effectiveness in less than six months.
Count Benckendorff had read about this in the newspapers a few days prior, which led him to believe that Britannia's short-term pressure in the Mediterranean should be somewhat alleviated.
Lord Balfour acknowledged the news but proceeded to share a highly classified military update with Benckendorff. "What you say is true, of course, but there is more to it. In the last two days, another mid-intensity naval battle erupted in the Eastern Mediterranean, making our need to completely sever enemy shipping lanes in the region even more urgent.
"On June 24, just two days after the Malta naval battle ended, the Osmans took advantage of our force vacuum in the Eastern Mediterranean. They organized a merchant convoy and, under the escort of a few obsolete protected cruisers and coastal defense gunboats, shipped another batch of supplies to Beirut.
"Originally, in mid-June, there was a young Demanian officer in the Levant named Rommel. Relying on the 'munich express' operation, he smuggled a detachment of troops and some combat supplies into Alexandretta, then pushed south along the coastline, capturing Beirut and Damascus.
"It was only after the Empire tightened its naval blockade that Rommel was cut off from further supplies. The provisions he'd previously smuggled in had to be partially diverted via railway to Mosul and Baghdad, leaving him with practically nothing for his own use. That was the only reason his advance stalled at Beirut and he didn't push further south.
"But once this new batch of supplies landed on the 24th, Rommel launched a fresh southern offensive. In just a few days, he pushed 150 kilometers south, driving all the way to Haifa!
"Then, on June 28—the day before yesterday, the day you left London—the Osmans and the Orians joined forces and organized yet another naval shipment to deliver supplies to Rommel. And then Rommel pushed even further south, making it all the way to Jerusalem!
"However, that transport on the 28th was desperately intercepted by our side, destroying a portion of the enemy's shipping capacity. After all, the Levant is Francia's territory. To prevent their lands from being entirely lost, the Franks didn't dare hold back their strength any longer.
"Having confirmed that the main force of the Austrian Navy had suffered severe damage in the Battle of Malta and returned to port for repairs, they knew the Orians only had three Radetzky-class Pre-dreadnought battleships, along with a handful of armored cruisers and obsolete protected cruisers.
"The Franks felt that their naval force previously hiding in Malta could defeat this remnant of the Austrian fleet. So, they pushed east toward Alexandria and Cyprus to intercept and destroy the Orian escort convoy, ultimately resulting in heavy casualties on both sides..."
Lord Balfour then gave a rough description of the naval battle between Francia and Austria that took place on June 28.
It was an engagement fought in the waters between Beirut and Cyprus.
The Franks had marshaled six of their strongest Pre-dreadnoughts, the Danton-class, against the Austrians' three Radetzky-class Pre-dreadnoughts and three Maria Theresia-class armored cruisers. Both sides also fielded a number of auxiliary vessels.
Initially, the Franks believed they held the advantage.
The Danton-class and the Radetzky-class were both Pre-dreadnoughts built as late as 1907, laid down only after the advent of the dreadnought itself, so they were considered the 'peak of the Pre-dreadnought era.'
But in comparison, the Danton-class was slightly closer to that peak.
Both classes of ships boasted four 45-caliber 305mm main guns, but the Danton-class featured twelve 240mm secondary batteries, whereas the Radetzky-class only had eight. The Danton-class's displacement of 18,000 tons also outweighed the Radetzky-class's 16,000 tons.
Yet the moment the battle began, the Franks realized they had been played.
The Austrian Admiral Horthy had hidden a trump card! He had forcibly dragged the dreadnought Prinz Eugen—which had suffered moderate damage during the Malta naval battle—straight back onto the battlefield!
As mentioned before, of the Austrians' four Viribus Unitis-class battleships, one had been sunk in Malta, two were severely damaged, and one was moderately damaged. The moderately damaged Prinz Eugen was, relatively speaking, the most capable of continued combat.
Following the end of the Malta naval battle on June 22, the Prinz Eugen's speed hadn't been impacted by its moderate damage. It rushed back to port for three days of emergency repairs, where its firepower and fire control systems received quick fixes. The rest of the armor and structural damage had to be ignored as the ship was forcibly dragged off to the Cyprus battlefield.
The Frankish Pre-dreadnought fleet was subjected to a crushing technological mismatch by Horthy's Prinz Eugen, leaving them in dire straits.
Pre-dreadnoughts were slightly slower than dreadnoughts, and as luck would have it, the Danton-class shared the same fatal flaw as the Courbet-class dreadnoughts: the maximum elevation of their main guns was strictly capped at 12 degrees!
Furthermore, the Danton-class's main gun barrels were shorter than those of the Courbet-class—45 calibers compared to 50 calibers. This restricted the maximum range of the Danton-class to a mere 14,000 meters, 1,500 meters shorter than even the Courbet-class!
Slow speed and short range meant only one outcome: the Franks were kited yet again by the only mobile dreadnought Austria had left.
In the June 28 naval battle off Cyprus, the Prinz Eugen was like a god of war descending upon a flock of sheep. Acting as the vanguard, it sank three of the Franks' Danton-class ships! Of course, the Austrians' three Radetzky-class vessels also played a massive role, supplementing the firepower and tanking a portion of the damage.
Fortunately, over that past week, the Franks had dispatched several torpedo boat flotillas from the Northern Atlantic Fleet to urgently reinforce the Mediterranean Fleet. Thus, during this engagement, to avoid having their entire force kited to death, they decisively launched yet another suicidal torpedo charge!
In the end, the Franks paid the price of having more than two entire torpedo boat flotillas blown to pieces by the Austrian screening ships. At the cost of twenty-six sunken torpedo boats, they scored one torpedo hit each on the battleship Prinz Eugen and the armored cruiser Maria Theresia.
The Viribus Unitis-class's underwater protection—so flimsy it was virtually indistinguishable from a Pre-dreadnought's—finally exacted its toll.
Having taken a single torpedo, the Prinz Eugen sank after achieving its great merit, dragging three Pre-dreadnoughts down with it as a cushion for its grave.
Only after sinking the Prinz Eugen did the Frankish forces escape being kited to death, allowing the remnants of their fleet to successfully retreat.
Ultimately, the Cyprus naval battle concluded with the Franks losing three Danton-class Pre-dreadnoughts, two protected cruisers, three destroyers, and twenty-six torpedo boats. In exchange, they sank the Austrian battleship Prinz Eugen and the armored cruiser Maria Theresia, while also inflicting artillery damage on all three of the Austrians' Radetzky-class Pre-dreadnoughts, which would require between three and nine months of port repairs respectively. The Austrians also lost four protected cruisers and two destroyers, mostly destroyed while intercepting the Frankish torpedo boat swarm's charge.
In terms of casualty ratios, the Austrians couldn't be considered absolute winners in the Cyprus naval battle. After all, losing one battleship and one armored cruiser wasn't necessarily a better deal than trading for three Pre-dreadnoughts, though the catastrophic losses to the Frankish torpedo boat squadrons tipped the scales heavily into the red for Francia.
But regardless of how the exchange ratio was calculated, the Austrians' valiant sortie was a strategic victory. They had successfully broken the Entente's naval blockade once more, delivering a massive haul of supplies to Beirut.
This gave the Alliance forces an even greater advantage in the subsequent land battles. With supplies in hand, Rommel pushed forward nearly another 200 kilometers over the following days, capturing Jaffa and Jerusalem!
In front of Rommel, the colonial troops and tribal militias in the Middle East were complete garbage. What constrained Rommel was never the sheer number of enemies, but rather whether his own side's supplies could be transported in by sea. As long as the supplies arrived, Rommel could win battles on land anytime, anywhere.
In other words, the battleship Prinz Eugen, which had been moderately damaged even before entering the fight, used its heroic sinking to secure Jerusalem for its faction. Factoring in this battle result, the Prinz Eugen undoubtedly died a worthy death.
Meanwhile, having suffered from "trailing sword" kiting tactics twice in a single week, the Franks were so furious their lungs were practically exploding.
From that point on, if any Frankish naval designer ever dared to suggest "restricting the maximum elevation of the main guns in order to save on displacement, armor, and seaworthiness," they would absolutely be dragged out by enraged naval personnel and subjected to a ten-minute firing squad.
Any Frankish battleship built hereafter had to boast a 45-degree main gun elevation before it was allowed out of the shipyard; this had become an ironclad rule.
Strictly speaking, the Cyprus naval battle had nothing to do with the Lusha ambassador. Foreign Secretary Balfour only briefed him on this recently classified military intelligence to explain why the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean had grown so dire that the Royal Navy had to deploy more auxiliary ships there, thus resulting in fewer cruisers available for routine escorts in the North Sea.
During the Gallipoli landings last year, the Britannia Navy was once battered down to a mere thirty-two high-speed light cruisers (for details, see the free summary chapter following Chapter 140; the timeline was as of August 1915, when the most advanced light cruisers were still only the Arethusa-class, and the C-class had not yet entered service).
Subsequent battles incurred further losses, reducing those thirty-two ships to just twenty-nine (up to the Arethusa-class). Fortunately, light cruisers were relatively fast to build, and starting in late 1915, Britannia's C-class light cruisers began entering service in bulk.
As of now, twenty-one light cruisers across six batches from C1 to C6 had been commissioned, including four C1 Caroline-class, two C2 Calliope-class, four C3 Cambrian-class, two C4 Centaur-class, four C5 Caledon-class, and five C6 Ceres-class ships.
Thus, the total number of light cruisers in the Royal Navy had rebounded once again to a solid fifty vessels.
Originally, the vast majority of these fifty light cruisers could have been used in the waters near the homeland or assigned to other duties. But the Austrians' recent disruption in the Eastern Mediterranean had inflicted disastrous losses on Francia's patrol and torpedo boat fleets, forcing the Britons to fill the gap.
Ultimately, all eight of the C5 Caledon-class and C3 Cambrian-class light cruisers were dragged to the Mediterranean, accompanied by twenty-four destroyers. All of this was done to prevent Rommel from receiving any further supplies by sea.
If Rommel managed to secure even one or two more shipments, the Suez Canal itself might be put in jeopardy.
After eight cutting-edge light cruisers were drafted away, of the remaining forty-two, thirty-two were available for operations near the homeland, while ten were assigned to various escort duties. Now, with two more pulled away to escort Ambassador Benckendorff back home, the ratio of light cruisers to battleships in the Home Fleet had plummeted to 1.5 to 1, whereas the standard safety requirement was two auxiliary light cruisers for every battleship.
Nineteen battleships could only be supported by thirty light cruisers; this ratio had already breached the danger line.
"So, that is the situation," Balfour concluded. "It's not that we are unwilling to send more cruisers to escort you; it's simply that we are having a hard time ourselves right now. But rest assured, we place absolute importance on your return journey. To demonstrate our sincerity in fulfilling the terms of our negotiations in the future, we have also invited the former Governor-General of Egypt, Count Kitchener, to travel alongside you.
"Count Kitchener is an important minister of the Empire and the very soul of the army. We would never take his escort lightly."
With these words, Foreign Secretary Balfour finally fed Ambassador Benckendorff these grandiose assurances.
It was only at this moment that Benckendorff realized Count Kitchener would be accompanying him on this trip.
"Why is he coming as well? How did I not know about this beforehand? Your secrecy is entirely too good." Ambassador Benckendorff was deeply surprised.
Balfour explained, "It was a very recent, impromptu decision. Following the Malta naval battle, Governor-General Kitchener was recalled. He hasn't performed well in Egypt and the Middle Eastern theater, and he's facing immense domestic pressure. Many believe he should face questioning just like the other cabinet ministers of former Prime Minister Asquith.
"As the former highest direct authority over Middle Eastern affairs, having Governor-General Kitchener personally explain the situation to His Majesty the Tsar and oversee the cooperation and distribution of interests between our two nations in the Middle East should surely earn His Majesty's trust, wouldn't you agree?"
As a side note, in the Earth timeline, Britannia's Minister of War, Count Kitchener, was killed in action on June 5, 1916 (the fifth day after the Battle of Jutland ended) when the cruiser he was taking from London to Murmansk for a state visit was sunk by a Demanian submarine's torpedo.
During that historical trip, Kitchener's destination was also Lusha, and his objective was likewise to coordinate the divvying up of spoils in the Middle East between Britannia and Lusha, and to foster better cooperation between their respective armies.
Therefore, this event did not require any manipulation by Lelouch to bring about; Kitchener was always fated to go.
Perhaps due to Lelouch's butterfly effect, this old fellow Kitchener even managed to live an extra month. It was now June 30, 1916, and he had yet to die.
Now, with these two urgent matters compounding one another until they could be delayed no longer, the Britannia Royal Navy was forced to send Count Kitchener and Count Benckendorff on their way, even stretched as thin as they were.
Shortly after Balfour finished offering his reassurances and explanations, another Rolls-Royce slowly drove in from the city of Edinburgh and parked on the pier.
Then, another famously bearded face stepped out of the vehicle, greeted Balfour and Ambassador Benckendorff, and subsequently boarded the light cruiser Danae while chatting with the ambassador.
"Relax, the escort forces this time are absolutely elite. With me here, would the Royal Navy dare skimp on the details?" Count Kitchener comforted Benckendorff with utter fearlessness.
