Fox of France

The situation of the "Queen Elizabeth" in Halifax Port was similar to what the French expected. Although Halifax is the most important British naval base in North America, port facilities cannot be compared with the local ports. At most, cruiser-class warships are maintained here. Warships like the "Queen Elizabeth" are difficult to maintain here.

"A large part of the navy's power comes from the ports that support it. If there is no suitable port, if the port does not have the ability to maintain warships, then the navy's combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced. Once the navy's ships are damaged in battle, The combat power cannot be recovered effectively. So the seemingly powerful fleet becomes a kind of one-off fleet. In fact, apart from us and the French, the naval fleets of other countries in the world today basically all It can be counted as a one-off fleet. This is because once they participate in the battle, they will inevitably suffer damage, but their damage cannot be recovered, so the fleet has complete combat effectiveness only in the first battle. After an important battle, the entire fleet will lose its combat effectiveness. In fact, if it is far away from Europe, in North America, our British fleet will, to a large extent, become a'one-off fleet'... I heard that France The port facilities in New Orleans are quite luxurious, with facilities that can be used to maintain the "Inbrador-class" battleship. In this regard, the French are ahead of us. If our army and the French fleet are in North America In battle, our disadvantages are even more obvious. In addition, nowadays, the general backwardness of the coastal defense system is also a big problem, especially the gun turrets of military ports, because of the backward equipment, many times they do not have the ability to fight against enemy warships. ..." Nelson jotted down some of these words in his notebook, then sighed and put down his pen.

A few days ago, he received an order sent by a clipper from the country. The domestic command fleet will lead the fleet back home as soon as possible after sending the army to Canada. Although the letter did not clearly state the local situation. But Nelson can think of it with his heels. It must be those French people who are causing trouble for the United Kingdom.

Today the "Queen Elizabeth" has not been completely repaired. In fact, in Halifax Port, the "Queen Elizabeth" will never be repaired. The British still haven't figured out what happened to the explosion. But because the "Queen Elizabeth" was constructed with a compartment design. So although a hole was blown under the ship. But because the compartment was closed in time, the water intake was not too much. The ship only tilted slightly.

After arriving in Halifax, the British plugged the big hole that the bomb had exploded from outside, and then used a water pump to pump out the water in the cabin. As a result, the side tilt also disappeared.

However, due to the lack of equipment in Halifax, the temporary patch was not tight, and the water leakage was still quite serious, and the pump always needed to be turned on. And this patch is not strong enough. If you encounter high sea conditions, the probability of a problem with the patch is very high.

But this is also the limit that Halifax's maintenance force can do. So the "Queen Elizabeth" could only return home with illness.

The speed of the "Queen Elizabeth" was limited to less than six knots because of concerns that the speed was too high and the patch would be damaged, so the speed of the entire fleet was slowed down by the old maiden. Their speed dropped to the age of sailing.

When the British fleet arrived in Halifax, the "Free Trade" and "Common Market" leased to the U.S. Navy had already received radio intelligence from French cruisers tracking the British fleet. So they left the Cabot Strait and returned to New Orleans for maintenance.

The two ships even approached Halifax under the flag of the US military. When they passed by in Halifax last time, they already knew that the turrets of Halifax were still old artillery, so the turrets of Halifax were not to be feared at all. And steam-powered ships, there is an obvious weakness, that is, it takes a long time for the boiler to start-boiling water cannot be boiled in an instant, especially the boiler with a steam engine. If the British army is unprepared and the warship boiler is not pressurized, it means that they may have no power for nearly an hour. Under such circumstances, although the British fleet is far stronger than the two French supercruisers, the French can also use their fragile time to beat them severely as the US Navy.

Because both "Free Trade" and "Common Market" are steam-powered warships, there will be black smoke when sailing. The enemy could find them at a considerable distance by relying on the black smoke to prepare in advance, so the French chose to approach the port at dawn. However, as they approached the port, they were discovered by a patrol ship arranged by the British—Nelson had long been alert to such situations.

The British patrol ship fired fireworks into the sky while rushing towards the two super cruisers, trying to use their fearless attacks to win more time for the fleet in the port.

The outcome of the British patrol ship was no different from that of the American patrol ship that launched an attack on the British fleet outside of Savannah. The French cannon easily turned the British ship into a burning torch.

However, the sacrifice of the British patrol ships did gain time for their fleet. When the two "American ships" approached Halifax, some British ships had already left the port and began to line the battle line outside the port. There are more plumes of smoke rising inside the port-apparently, the plan to beat the British while they were burning the boiler had failed.

So the two U.S. ships were out of range of the British army, turned lightly, and then headed south.

As for the British fleet, it did not try to pursue it-none of their ships could catch up with these two "American ships."

A few days later, Nelson bid farewell to General Wellesley and took the fleet on a long journey back to England.

Just as the British fleet left, in the United States, a rumor spread like wildfire. The rumor claims that the US federal government has sent a special envoy to Europe. But the mission of this special envoy is not to win the support of European countries for the United States, but to make peace with the British government.

This rumor said that after a series of successive defeats, the US federal government has completely lost confidence in victory. They are preparing to cede land for compensation and unconditionally open the market to the United Kingdom, praying that the British king will dare to offend the United Kingdom. Forgiveness of the act.

In fact, with a little bit of brain, anyone who knows the situation of the British today will not believe such rumors. In the current state of Britain, the Americans are willing to ask for peace and end the conflict. The British are only afraid to choke their thighs with joy. Where else will Americans need to cede land and pay compensation?

But there is a prerequisite for making such a judgment. The precondition is that the person who makes the judgment must have a brain. However, among Americans, at least among Americans of that era, not many people have brains. Especially in the southern states.

This is actually normal. Planters, because of their old-fashioned production and lifestyles, make them relatively terrapins in general, and they know little about changes in the outside world. A direct consequence of a closed life is that the brain becomes dumb. Just like later generations of American red necks, when Wang Wang told them that they could inject disinfectant, they really believed that disinfectant could be injected.

The second is that the South suffered severely in this war. Yes, the original war seemed to be a northern matter. But what I never expected was that the British navy actually killed them from the south. They killed people and set fires along the coast along the way, causing heavy losses in the south.

Because the mines purchased urgently by the federal government played a very important role, the British army never succeeded in achieving a victory like Savannah. But when the mines were delivered, there were already many states in the south. It was devastated by the British.

Those guys in the south would not think that the north was attacked less because the mines they bought were in place. They felt that the reason the northern coastal cities received fewer attacks was because there were more northern troops. There are more troops in the North because the federal government has transferred all the troops from the southern states to the north. As a result, the southern states have no troops at all, and of course they can only be left to the British.

Now that the South has made such a big sacrifice, is the federal government actually betraying the country? ! This is simply uncle can bear it, aunt can not bear it!

As a result, a large number of media reporters surrounded Jefferson, asking him if he wanted to make peace with the British, and even wanted to cede territory and pay compensation to the British.

Of course Jefferson knew that at this time, as long as he showed any intention to compromise with the British, a political storm would immediately be ushered in. If nothing else, he really wanted to make peace with the British. Georgia is afraid It will immediately announce its separation from the Union.

So of course President Jefferson denied it immediately. He told reporters that although the British relied on despicable attacks on civilians, they temporarily gained the upper hand. But the American people who are blessed by God will surely win the final victory. As for the envoy he sent, he has never had any contact with the British. His actions in Europe are all to gain more support.

However, President Jefferson's statement did not reassure the American people, because all kinds of rumors are still emerging. This situation continued until the President’s special envoy Spear returned from Europe and brought back various open or secret treaties he signed with France, Spain, and the Irish.

Of course, those secret treaties cannot be made public, just like the Americans fighting in Spain today; but only those treaties that can be made public, such as the alliance with the Irish, also clearly show that the special envoy sent by the president is indeed Work to win the war, not to surrender.

This of course freed President Jefferson from the suspicion of "beautiful traitor". But in order to get rid of this suspicion, President Jefferson had to slightly exaggerate the support he received in the diplomatic field. For example, the Irish would launch a large-scale counterattack to completely win independence. And this exaggeration also convinced the American people that they would definitely win. As a result, the possibility of peace talks is smaller.

Of course, it is not all an exaggeration that the Irish will launch a large-scale counterattack. After experiencing the previous failures, the Irish have recently received a lot of assistance. They really need to conduct an offensive operation to improve their offensive operations. Strength, and boost morale.

However, this offensive was not a "large-scale", "decisive battle" level action propagated by the Americans. President Russell and their French friends don't think that the time to launch such an action is now ripe. This can be known from the fact that this operation was named the "learning plan".

In short, the target of the attack plan this time is actually quite limited, that is, to continuously attack the railroad across Ireland, and ultimately the railroad side cannot be sustained.

"The British railway is a noose around our necks. But this railway line is so long, they can't maintain enough troops at any point~www.readwn.com~ Now they have more. Our weaponry's ability to attack fortifications has been significantly strengthened. Although we do not have the ability to quickly take down the strongest core positions, we quickly rushed to destroy several small strongholds and destroy a section of railway before they could react. , And the ability to take advantage of the opportunity to carry out small-scale aid, we still have it.” President Russell said, “We launch such an attack on the railway line every day, killing a few, a dozen, dozens or even More British soldiers, if this continues, how long can this railway last?"

The reason why Russell has such confidence is largely due to another new weapon they got from the French-light infantry artillery.

This is a flat-fire artillery. A series of measures to reduce weight have been adopted in the design. For example, it has two barrels, a relatively short 60mm barrel (which makes its shells have limited muzzle velocity and relatively curved trajectories. ), and a longer barrel of 40 mm. And each component must be quickly disassembled and carried by soldiers.

Although the relatively short barrel makes the muzzle velocity of this gun not high enough, it is after all an authentic flat-fire gun. It is used to hit bunkers and the like. It has a longer range than recoilless guns and has higher accuracy and rate of fire. . Even if necessary, replaced with a 40mm long barrel, which can be used to ambush the British armored train at a relatively safe distance.