Chapter 144: Driven to the Wall

At half past seven, when Raeder returned to the main battle line, the combat had already concluded.

At the very end, only six British battleships managed to use the cover of night and lay smoke screens to break away from the battlefield. Moreover, only five of them—the Iron Duke, the Canada, the Bold, the Ajax, and the Conqueror—made it back to the port of Portsmouth. The Thunder sustained catastrophic damage during her return voyage and was forced to scuttle herself at around four o'clock the following morning, less than a thousand kilometers away from Portsmouth.

In fact, the Thunder was entirely capable of reaching Portsmouth.

At the time, the captain of the Thunder, along with the captain of the light cruiser Chester which was assigned to screen and assist her, mistook a fast merchant ship that had entered the North Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar and was heading for Britain for a German warship, assuming that the High Seas Fleet was in hot pursuit. More importantly, the Thunder's damages were far more severe than those of the other five battleships, limiting her maximum speed to a mere fourteen knots—two knots slower than the rest. When encountered with that fast freighter, the Thunder had already fallen more than ten nautical miles behind and lost contact with the other British vessels. To prevent the warship from falling into enemy hands, the captain of the Thunder ultimately decided to scuttle her.

Clearly, the captain of the Thunder had vastly overestimated the High Seas Fleet.

By the time the battle ended, the condition of the High Seas Fleet was little better.

Although not a single warship had sunk by the time Raeder arrived, the Germans had fought with such ferocious aggression that five additional battleships were on the verge of sinking. Ultimately, these five battleships—the Nassau, the Rheinland, the Posen, the Thuringen, and the Altenburg—all failed to return to Wilhelmshaven. Among them, the Nassau, the Rheinland, and the Altenburg abandoned damage control efforts in the early hours of the next morning and sank about one hundred and eighty kilometers from the combat zone, while the Posen and the Thuringen were torpedoed and sunk by a British submarine during their retreat.

Additionally, the light cruiser Graudenz, which had been screening these two battleships, was also sunk by a British submarine.

Aside from these, the remaining ten battleships all suffered varying degrees of damage.

In other words, by the conclusion of the main battle line engagement, the High Seas Fleet had not only lost its capacity for pursuit but had also practically lost its combat capability altogether.

Naturally, Raeder's own situation was hardly any better.

More importantly, even if the three battlecruisers under Raeder's command were still combat-ready and capable of high speeds, night had already fallen by the time he returned, and the British warships had retreated a full fifteen minutes prior. Consequently, Raeder was entirely unfamiliar with the tactical situation on the battlefield.

To cover the retreat of the damaged warships from the combat zone, Raeder abandoned the idea of pursuing the British vessels.

Soon enough, Feng Chengqian also dispatched a telegram ordering him to escort the capital ships back to safe waters.

In short, by the time Raeder hurried back, the battle was already over.

Without a doubt, this was the largest naval battle in scale since the advent of the steam age, and the most ferocious maritime showdown between capital ships such as battleships and battlecruisers. Similarly, it was the most devastating defeat suffered by the British Royal Navy in over two centuries.

On the morning of May 14, after the damage to the majority of the warships had been brought under control, Feng Chengqian issued new orders.

Nine of the most heavily damaged capital ships, including the Bayern, were refueled by their uninjured comrades and ordered to return to Wilhelmshaven under the escort of twenty light cruisers and commerce raiders. Due to insufficient fuel reserves, the remaining nine capital ships were forced to head for the Azores to refuel. To this end, Feng Chengqian dispatched eight light cruisers ahead of the main body to the Azores to guard against potential ambushes by new enemy fleets.

It must be said that Feng Chengqian's move was extremely risky.

Given the prevailing circumstances, he should have designated the Faroe Islands region as the refueling point. Moreover, if the fuel of all eighteen capital ships had been pooled and divided equally, the High Seas Fleet undoubtedly could have reached the Faroe Islands. Relatively speaking, the Faroe Islands were far safer, because regardless of what happened, Hamilton's new fleet could not possibly arrive there before the High Seas Fleet. Conversely, by heading for the Azores, there was a high probability that Hamilton would beat them to the punch.

One must bear in mind that Hamilton had a full eight battleships at his disposal.

Although none of these eight battleships possessed particularly high speeds, the High Seas Fleet was in no condition to steam quickly either. An encounter with the new fleet in the Azores would certainly put the High Seas Fleet at a severe disadvantage.

Indeed, one could even argue that had Hamilton shown sufficient initiative, the entire High Seas Fleet faced the threat of total annihilation.

In truth, Hamilton was indeed extremely proactive.

Throughout the fourteenth, Hamilton maintained his course without alteration, continuing his advance toward the Azores.

The problem, however, was that Jellicoe had been taken prisoner, leaving the Grand Fleet completely headless. On the evening of the fourteenth, Churchill was urgently summoned to the Prime Minister's residence at Downing Street by Lloyd George, returning to office as the First Lord of the Admiralty with a mandate to pick up the pieces. Immediately afterward, Churchill dispatched a telegram to Hamilton instructing him to alter his course toward Casablanca, proceed to the fortress of Gibraltar, and return to Portsmouth when the opportune moment arose.

Strictly speaking, even as the First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill lacked the authority to issue operational commands directly to the fleet.

Within the British bureaucratic apparatus, the First Lord of the Admiralty was a civilian official primarily responsible for naval budgets, personnel transfers, and administrative affairs, possessing no direct operational command over military forces.

Yet at that juncture, there was simply no one else capable of replacing Churchill.

Consequently, in the early hours of May 15, Hamilton altered his course, abandoning his advance toward the Azores and instead veering hundreds of kilometers south toward Casablanca in Morocco.

One can only conclude that Churchill was severely out of touch with the battlefield reality at the time.

He knew only that the Grand Fleet had suffered a catastrophic defeat, with nine capital ships—including the flagship—sunk (the Thunder's scuttling had not yet occurred), while the fleet commander Jellicoe was either dead or captured. The Grand Fleet had completely collapsed, yet Churchill had no clear picture of the condition of the High Seas Fleet. Under these circumstances, Churchill assumed that even if the High Seas Fleet had sustained heavy damage, it could not have been entirely stripped of its combat effectiveness.

Furthermore, Churchill committed another error: he underestimated the combat power of the new fleet.

In his view, the eight battleships purchased from the United States were not substandard, but the core issue was that these vessels were manned by crews recruited in America. These American sailors lacked combat experience and exposure to actual warfare; possessing powerful warships did not necessarily guarantee they could achieve anything meaningful.

Naturally, the paramount factor was political.

Having suffered a catastrophic defeat with the Grand Fleet, Britain could no longer tolerate any further losses. Should anything befall the new fleet—even if it managed to defeat the High Seas Fleet in a fiercely contested battle—the British public would find it unacceptable. Politically speaking, ensuring the safe arrival of the new fleet at Portsmouth superseded all other priorities.

If nothing else, the appearance of the new fleet would convince the entire British public that the United States had officially become Britain's ally.

Without a doubt, this was a matter of supreme importance for boosting the morale of both the military and the civilian population.

Precisely for this reason, Churchill arranged for the Grand Fleet to bypass the Azores and enter the Mediterranean to weather the storm. It was not until May 27 that the new fleet finally returned to Portsmouth.

By that time, the High Seas Fleet had already arrived back in Wilhelmshaven.

On May 19, the High Seas Fleet reached the Azores and rendezvoused with the supply vessels that had arrived ahead of time. Because the islands nominally belonged to Portugal, the High Seas Fleet refrained from taking any overly aggressive actions, and Feng Chengqian even sent a gift to the Portuguese garrison commander.

The following day, the High Seas Fleet set off on the final leg of its voyage home.

On May 22, upon confirming that the High Seas Fleet had departed the Azores—and learning from the Portuguese authorities that fewer than ten capital ships had reached the islands, all bearing severe damage—Churchill finally realized that he had squandered the prime opportunity to annihilate the High Seas Fleet.

Churchill was not one to admit fault, nor was there any practical necessity for him to do so.

That very day, Churchill dispatched a telegram to Hamilton ordering the Grand Fleet to return to Portsmouth.

It was evident that upon leaving the Azores, the High Seas Fleet would inevitably return to its home waters, and Hamilton's new fleet had no mathematical possibility of intercepting them.

In truth, up to that point, the British Royal Navy still possessed a window of opportunity to eliminate the High Seas Fleet.

To be precise, had Hamilton sortied on the afternoon of May 22, steamed north at maximum speed, and entered the North Sea via the English Channel, he could have reached the waters west of the Jutland Peninsula by the morning of May 26—whereas the High Seas Fleet would not arrive until that very evening.

Regrettably, both Churchill and Hamilton let this opportunity slip through their fingers.

Based on their calculations, the High Seas Fleet was expected to reach Wilhelmshaven on May 25. Simply put, they miscalculated the speed of the German fleet. Having departed the Azores, the High Seas Fleet was unable to maintain its cruising speed and instead limped home at a conservative twelve knots.

Consequently, under the cover of night on May 26, the High Seas Fleet successfully returned to Wilhelmshaven.

Three days prior, seven of the nine capital ships that had returned ahead of schedule had already docked in Wilhelmshaven.

With this, the Battle of the English Channel (fought at the western entrance of the English Channel)—a clash that shocked the entire globe and arguably altered the trajectory of the entire war—was officially brought to a close.

If the Battle of Norway had dealt a severe blow to the British Royal Navy, the Battle of the English Channel effectively crippled it.

In the wake of this naval engagement, the British Royal Navy was left with a mere five capital ships. Even when including the eight purchased from the United States, its strength stood at only thirteen capital ships, whereas the German High Seas Fleet still boasted sixteen capital ships. Factoring in the soon-to-be-commissioned battleships Baden, Derfflinger, and Lutzow, the German strength would rise to nineteen, vastly outnumbering the British Royal Navy in both scale and quality.

Nevertheless, the outcome of this battle was not entirely unfavorable to Britain.

At the very least, for the months to come, the High Seas Fleet had lost its capacity for offensive operations at sea, enabling the British Royal Navy to leverage its eight American-built battleships to reclaim command of the North Sea and even mount a blockade against the German Empire, thereby reversing the passive stance it had endured for months.

Naturally, this could also be viewed as the final, desperate flare of life from a dying British Royal Navy.