Off the coast of London, a brutal bloodbath was still raging. To stop the alliance landing, the British forces were drawing out every last ounce of their potential. Behind them lay London itself. There was nowhere left to retreat. If they did not fight to the death now, the British Empire would fall. After a century as the dominant global power, British pride had long reached its peak. How could they tolerate defeat? Even when facing the combined might of the entire European continent, the British refused to bow their heads. The alliance were fighting just as fiercely, with reasons of their own. Over the years, Britain had made far too many enemies. Now it was time to settle old scores and repay old grudges. The morale of the alliance was no weaker in the slightest. The air battle was unfolding at full intensity, with aircraft constantly plunging from the sky like dumplings. Inside the command center of the flagship Imperator, Admiral Aldo von Donati, Commander of the Fleet, gazed out at the sea with cold indifference. The Royal Navy was still on its way. The true naval battle had yet to begin. For now, the fleet’s tasks were limited to minesweeping and hunting submarines, neither of which posed much of a challenge. As for the fighting in the sky, the navy could not meaningfully take part. Even though it was equipped with the most advanced anti-aircraft firepower of the era, the reality remained the same. Low accuracy was only a minor issue. The real problem was that aircraft moved far too fast, and with both air forces tangled together, opening fire recklessly carried just as much risk of shooting down friendly planes as enemy ones. At present, the alliance air force clearly held the upper hand, and there was no need to resort to such indiscriminate, all-or-nothing tactics. In the distance, another formation of British aircraft appeared on the horizon. With the battle having dragged on for so long, both sides had already rotated through multiple waves of planes. Given that they were on the losing end of the air battle, British reinforcements were only to be expected. The Alliance immediately detached a formation to intercept. Closer and closer they drew, and just as the two sides were about to clash, half of the British formation suddenly split off, breaking away from the main group and charging straight toward the Allied fleet. All the aircraft involved were high-speed fighters. Slow, lumbering bombers would have been nothing more than flying coffins in such a fight. Even if they somehow managed to slip through and drop a few bombs, it would still have been a one-way trip and a losing deal. As the fighters closed in on the fleet, the Allied air force, though unable to discern the enemy’s intent, moved at once to intercept. Unfortunately, they were still a step too late. The British fighters had already latched onto them. In the next instant, the British formation that had broken away dove headlong toward the ships below. One destroyer was unlucky enough to be struck by three aircraft. Amid a thunderous explosion, the warship was torn apart, shattered into pieces, and sent—crew and ship alike—to meet God. This was only the beginning. As the British launched wave after wave of suicide attacks, thunderous explosions kept erupting across the allied fleet below. Even with the fleet’s anti-aircraft firepower fully unleashed, it still felt woefully inadequate against enemies who no longer cared about their own lives. Unless a plane was hit squarely in a vital spot and blown apart in midair, even a damaged aircraft would often continue straight down in a deadly dive. Watching a battleship sink under a suicide attack with his own eyes, Admiral Aldo felt his heart bleed. He could never have imagined that the British would fight this desperately. This did not feel like the British Empire he knew. In truth, against such suicide tactics, even prior preparation did little to change the outcome. The only small mercy was the enemy’s low hit rate. More often than not, multiple aircraft would crash into the same target. In total, more than a hundred planes dove in, yet they only managed to take down three warships and two transport vessels. After all, it was a suicide assault. It came fast and ended just as quickly. From start to finish, the entire attack lasted barely over ten minutes. Staring at the wreckage-strewn battlefield, Admiral Aldo suppressed his grief and gave the order, “Rescue the men in the water immediately, then prepare to withdraw.” This had been nothing more than a feint. There was no need to fight the enemy to the bitter end. A glance at the accompanying transport ships was enough to tell the story. There were hardly any troops aboard. Forcing a landing on London without first crippling the enemy’s main naval and air forces would have been nothing short of suicidal. The moment he finished speaking, a military aide rushed in. “Commander, an enemy fleet has been spotted to the west. They are advancing toward us at full speed. The current distance is approximately twenty nautical miles.” After hesitating for several seconds, Admiral Aldo spoke again, “Issue the order. Damaged warships, along with the transport and supply vessels, are to withdraw immediately. The remaining ships will stay behind to rescue our men in the water. Send a transmission to headquarters, explaining our situation and requesting air support. All main combat ships, prepare for battle!” It was not that the fleet’s alertness had been lacking. The real reason was simple. This area was only a hundred or so nautical miles from the continent. Even if the enemy was detected, there would normally be more than enough time to withdraw. After all, the performance of the major navies’ warships was broadly comparable. With a twenty-nautical-mile gap, under normal circumstances the enemy would have no chance of catching up over a distance of more than a hundred nautical miles. Unfortunately, plans rarely keep pace with reality. No one had anticipated that the enemy would resort to suicide attacks, much less that the losses would be this severe. Now, rescuing the men in the water took time. While the fleet was delayed by these efforts, the enemy’s faster warships were closing the distance. If the fleet had not been damaged, Aldo would never have backed down. Fight if they want to fight. Who was afraid of whom? At worst, both sides would end up bloodied, withdraw, and lick their wounds. But three warships had just been lost, with several more damaged. Worse still, one of the ships sunk had been a super battleship. The fleet’s overall strength had already taken a serious hit. That said, being at a disadvantage did not mean there was no chance to fight. If the gap in strength had truly been overwhelming, Admiral Aldo would have long since ordered a retreat, abandoning the men in the water without hesitation. On the battlefield, countless bones are piled beneath a general’s achievements. Sacrifice is always part of war, and when necessary, anyone can be cast aside. But it had clearly not come to that yet. The era was changing. The age of big guns and massive warships had reached its moment of glory in the Battle of the English Channel. Now came the transition. The future belonged to the air force. Whoever ruled the skies would rule the next era. … London had no time to celebrate the success of the ambush before grim news arrived. Grier had fallen. “Retake Grier at all costs, and do it as fast as possible!” Prime Minister Campbell roared the order. By all logic, a small town with no military or economic value could be lost without consequence. For the defense of Britain, it should have made no difference at all. Even if the enemy occupied it, the lack of a proper harbor meant that a large-scale landing would be impossible. But politics had never been about logic. With his extensive experience in political infighting, Campbell was certain of one thing. The moment the Austrians secured Grier, they would immediately announce their successful landing to the world. Ordinary people would not care whether Grier had any real military value. In their eyes, the moment a foothold was established anywhere on the British Isles, it meant one thing only. The landing had succeeded. From there, everyone would draw their own conclusions, and those conclusions would all point in the same direction. The British Empire was about to collapse. Once public opinion boiled over, Britain would truly be facing trouble on all fronts, beset by both internal unrest and external threats. Foreign Secretary Adam added gravely, “The enemy planned this long ago. The news has probably already spread. What comes next is verification by other governments. We must retake Grier before they finish confirming the reports. Otherwise…” He did not need to finish the sentence. Everyone present understood how dire the consequences would be. Once the allied landing was confirmed, Britain’s allies would scramble to abandon ship. They were all rational actors, well aware of the logic of cutting losses. The earlier you cut, the less you bleed. Sharing hardship and standing together to the bitter end belonged to stage plays and storybooks. In real-world politics, such sentiments had never been in fashion. Verification? That was far too generous an assessment of human judgment. Even in the information-saturated twenty-first century, a single rumor could still mislead countless people. In this era, it was even worse. And this was not even a rumor. The allied forces really had completed a landing. What was done could not be undone. Even if the British Army pushed the enemy back into the sea, the political impact would remain. Politicians would fill in the blanks themselves: “If the Continental Alliance managed to land once, they could land a second time. As the defending side, if you cannot launch a decisive counterattack, total collapse is only a matter of time.” The Oceanic Alliance had already been on the brink of disintegration. After this shock, short of God Himself stepping in, nothing could truly hold it together. The pressure now fell squarely on their shoulders. The Secretary of War and the Chief of Military Affairs exchanged a glance, then accepted the bitter reality of this disastrous task. … The British government was shrouded in gloom, but the atmosphere at the Vienna Palace was hardly any better. The landing plan had succeeded, yet the fleet had paid a heavy price during the feint. The loss of a super battleship alone made Franz wince in pain, and for everyone else, the blow was even harder to swallow. Even so, in Franz’s view, the sacrifice had been worth it. Trading the sinking of a single super battleship for a successful landing was an absolute bargain. Tactics and strategy had never been equal in weight. A successful landing meant that the opportunity to break apart the Oceanic Alliance had finally appeared. Without the protection of its allies, the British Empire was nothing more than a tiger with no claws. Its fangs might still be sharp, but it had lost the ability to hunt. Starvation and collapse would only be a matter of time. After a brief moment of thought, Franz decisively abandoned any idea of assigning blame. Who could have predicted that the British would throw out the rulebook and act like this? It was completely— “There is no need to worry too much,” Franz continued calmly. “Suicide squads are easy enough to find, but pilots are extremely difficult to train. Pilots willing to serve as suicide attackers are even rarer. This kind of suicide attack using aircraft is doomed to be unsustainable. At most, this will be a single wave. Even if there are follow-ups, they will never reach any real scale. What is the situation in Grier? How long can our landing forces hold out there?” It was not that Franz underestimated the British. Britain simply did not have a cultural tradition of martyrdom. Being able to scrape together even one squad of suicide pilots was already breaking records. Expecting more was unrealistic. If it were truly that easy, the number of aircraft involved in today’s attack would not have been so small. If the British could suddenly muster three to five thousand suicide pilots, a single wave would be enough to cripple the combined fleet. That was clearly impossible. Perhaps Japan might pull something like that off, but even then it would take time to carry out the necessary ideological conditioning. After all, such fearless resolve existed only among a minority. Minister of War von Fessler spoke up, “Grier’s terrain is complex and naturally unsuited for large-scale formations. This gives us a major advantage in the defensive battles to come. At present, we have committed one airborne regiment and one infantry regiment to Grier. Whether we reinforce further will depend on how the situation develops. Unless the enemy can simultaneously seal off both the sea and the air, they will never take Grier from us.” This was precisely the strength of a first-rate army. Once a foothold was driven in, as long as supply lines remained open, it was extremely difficult to uproot. Moreover, Grier had been carefully selected by the military as the landing site. A counterattack had been anticipated from the very beginning, which was why Grier, a place hostile to the deployment of large formations, had been chosen in the first place. When numerical superiority could not be brought to bear, the contest came down to raw combat power. If even this position could not be held, the Holy Roman Army would have no face left to stand on the world stage.
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