I Became a Tycoon During World War I - Chapter 276

Chapter 276: The Battlefield of Politicians

In the meeting room on the third floor of the Admiralty building in London, the Secretary of War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and a number of younger naval officers, including General Winter, were engaged in an intense discussion over the Battle of the Dardanelles.

"We should halt this operation plan!" General Winter expressed his opinion during the meeting. "This plan may have had a chance of success at the beginning, but now it has failed. We must admit this outcome. Trying to pour more troops and supplies into a battle that has almost no hope of winning is more like gambling than warfare!"

The younger officers supported Charles' point of view. They had always believed that relying solely on the navy to force a country to surrender was unrealistic—this age had passed.

Even if the powerful Allied fleets could break into the Sea of Marmara, even if the fleet could place its guns beneath the walls of Constantinople, would the Ottoman Empire surrender?

The younger officers' response to this was: "All they need to do is withdraw their troops a few dozen kilometers away, and then you can do whatever you want—why would they surrender?"

The First Lord of the Admiralty asked, with a serious expression, "Why isn’t war a gamble? Is it because of a minor setback that we should pronounce it dead? No, we should not give up just yet!"

"Sir!" General Winter stared incredulously at the First Lord of the Admiralty. "We have lost three battleships in one day, and three more are heavily damaged and out of combat. And you think this is just a ‘minor setback’?"

That was already a third of their strength; they could even have formed the navy of a small nation with those ships.

The First Lord of the Admiralty smiled lightly, stood up calmly, and responded, "Gentlemen, first let’s take a look at the casualties in this battle."

The First Lord of the Admiralty picked up a document in his hand, raised it towards everyone, then turned around and said, "You may have already received the battle report—there were only 728 casualties in the entire battle!"

He threw the document onto the table and pointed at it emphatically. "728 casualties—this is insignificant. The army suffers thousands or even tens of thousands of casualties in one day. Are we, the navy, really going to be frightened by this level of loss?"

The First Lord did not offer further analysis, and the attendees were tacitly quiet, not discussing it, but everyone knew: most of the 728 casualties came from the Bouvet.

It sank in just over two minutes with a deafening explosion, and the vast majority of its crew were unable to escape in time. Over six hundred men went down with the ship.

But the Bouvet was a French vessel, and the casualties were mostly French, with only a little over a hundred British sailors wounded or killed.

That was indeed "insignificant."

The First Lord’s words were immediately challenged by General Winter: "We are not the army, sir! We have lost six capital ships…"

"Three, General Winter," the First Lord corrected him. "The other ships were only damaged."

The First Lord then added passionately, "The damaged ships can be largely repaired in about a month or six weeks at the Malta dockyards, and then they’ll return to the battlefield."

"As for the sunk battleships, they were destined to become scrap metal under any circumstances. Even if they hadn’t sunk, they would have been retired soon and sent to the shipyards for dismantling!"

This statement was met with fierce opposition from the naval officers, who angrily responded:

"Mines can’t tell old ships from new ones, sir!"

"The reason the old ships are lost is because they always lead the way, and the new ships follow in their wake. If the old ships are destroyed, isn’t it the new ships’ turn next?"

"If you think this way, why don’t you board the Queen Elizabeth and fight the battle yourself?"

…

The First Lord’s words lacked common sense. While the ships sunk were indeed old by British standards, they were still quite advanced on the global scale.

Moreover, when dealing with mines, it didn’t matter whether a ship was old or new.

General Winter thought these remarks insulted the navy’s honor. He stood up abruptly and glared at the First Lord of the Admiralty.

"Sir, you must know this—these old ships are sacred."

"When many of the sailors were still young officers, the first thing they were taught when they stepped onto the deck was, ‘Abandoning a ship is a disgrace; they will stay with the ship.’"

"Even when they became old sailors or captains, they still remembered this sentence and kept it deeply ingrained in their hearts."

"But you treat them with disdain, even considering them expendable, junk to be dismantled even if they’re not sunk…"

The First Lord interrupted General Winter: "I understand, General."

"But for a leader, in war, a warship has no emotional value."

"A warship is merely a tool, a machine used in warfare, and it can be sacrificed for the common cause and the fundamental policy of the nation when necessary! I believe that is worthwhile!"

General Winter and the other naval officers didn’t know how to rebut this. What the First Lord said seemed like the truth. Instead, it was they, the naval officers, who had humanized and personified the war machine.

This was the result of politicians directing military operations—they didn’t consider the feelings, morale, or the realities of the battlefield. They only considered their own political interests and reputation.

The key was that politicians often had better rhetoric skills. They could dominate the battlefield of the meeting room and silence the military with their eloquence, despite the fact that the facts had already shown that the politicians were wrong.

In the end, the Royal Navy agreed to continue the battle under the persuasion of the First Lord, though they refused to accept the absurd claim that "the navy alone can win."

This suited the First Lord just fine; he had already convinced the Secretary of War to join the plan.

Their idea was: "The navy was on the brink of victory; now, if we add the army’s cooperation, we can end this war honorably with little effort."

At that point, they would be the architects of a great victory, the ones who created the turning point of the First World War and brought it to an end. This would bring them unimaginable political benefits.

But General Winter, pessimistic, sent a telegram to Charles:

"I feel we are sinking deeper into the quagmire, moving from one disaster to an even greater one."

"But I am powerless to stop it; I can only place my hope in you."

"If anyone can save them, I believe it is you. Please be prepared!"

This message reminded Charles.

Before this, Charles had also hoped to stop the battle or guide it in a favorable direction through intelligence, but it seemed to have had little effect.

If stopping it was impossible, could they at least prepare in advance?

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