Chapter 424: The Great Siege of Gibraltar (20)

On the night of July 21, 1904, under the angry gaze of British Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour, the Spanish Ambassador to London, William, officially submitted the declaration of war to the British government.

In the declaration of war, the Spanish government denounced the British fleet's behavior of taking the initiative to open fire on the Spanish Navy as a savage attack without declaring war, and Spain would use powerful means to retaliate against the British government.

Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour never expected that the Spanish would actually "rake with a rake" (a Chinese idiom meaning to blame the victim). In the Spanish declaration of war, the responsibility for this war was to be attributed entirely to the British government.

It was the British Navy that took the initiative to open fire on the Spanish Navy that led to the conflict between the two sides; Spain became the role of the avenger, and Britain, the victim, became the culprit instead.

Prime Minister Balfour almost spat out a mouthful of old blood, but finally endured it hard. He was shocked by the shamelessness of the Spanish diplomatic representative and angry at the shameless behavior of the Spanish government.

He swore that he must make the Spanish government pay the price for this, even if the British government had to pay a large amount of casualties and funds for this, he would definitely not hesitate.

Shortly after the Spanish Ambassador to Britain submitted the declaration of war to the British government, the British Ambassador to Spain also submitted the declaration of war to the Spanish government.

The content of the declaration of war was roughly the same as Spain's; Britain was also condemning Spain's behavior of sneaking an attack on its fleet without declaring war, and stated that the British government would definitely take revenge and make Spain pay a bloody price.

Regardless of the reaction of the two governments upon receiving each other's declaration of war, the news of Britain and Spain declaring war on each other shocked the whole of Europe at an extremely fast speed.

Before the two sides submitted the declaration of war to each other, no country would feel that a war could break out between Britain and Spain.

Even if these two countries already had a certain conflict because of the civil war in Portugal, this was a war between two superpowers, and it broke out so easily?

The dignitaries of European countries should be glad that they were not Black people, otherwise their expressions at this time would be the classic "Black person question mark face."

They would rather believe that a war broke out between Germany and France or Britain and France than believe that the one who broke out in war with Britain was actually Spain.

But the facts were placed before their eyes; even if they felt shocked by this, they had to accept the fact that Britain and Spain were already in a state of war.

After both sides announced that they had entered a state of war, this war instantly attracted the attention of the whole of Europe and even the whole world.

A large number of media rushed to London and Madrid; they couldn't wait to interview the two governments, hoping to know the truth about the outbreak of the war, so that they could earn a big news story.

Facing the interviews of these newspaper reporters, the Spanish side produced some photographic evidence. In these photos, one could vaguely identify several Spanish warships that were hit, as well as the content of Spain rescuing soldiers who fell into the sea.

Holding these photos, Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs William said angrily: "A few hours ago, the fleet sent by the British shamelessly attacked our Navy.

This attack caused two of our battleships to be injured, one cruiser was directly sunk, and hundreds of naval soldiers had to jump into the sea to save their lives.

Although we carried out timely rescue for these soldiers who fell into the sea, more than a dozen soldiers have already been buried at the bottom of the sea. Spain absolutely cannot tolerate such provocation; no matter what kind of powerful enemy it faces, the Spanish army will bravely pick up weapons to protect itself, protect Spain, and protect all Spanish people.

We will recover Gibraltar in this war; the British have no right to occupy Spain's territory, and they will pay a bloody price for their previous aggression!

Before we achieve our goal, we do not accept any form of peace talks. From now on, Britain's existence outside of Europe, manipulating the situation on the European continent, no longer exists.

This country, which constantly stirs up the relations of other countries and tries to establish a balance of power, is the culprit for the constant turmoil in the European situation in recent decades.

In order to avenge the sacrificed naval soldiers, and for the future peace and stability of Spain and Europe, we should, and must, defeat Britain.

You can convey my original words to British Prime Minister Mr. Balfour; such clowns as them won't be able to jump around for much longer. God always stands on the side of the righteous, and the British will welcome their doomsday."

At the same moment of submitting the declaration of war, Spain decisively mobilized all the troops stationed nationwide and partially mobilized the reserve troops.

Gao Da did not intend to start a national general mobilization in Spain because the strength of the British Army was not enough to make Spain go all out.

Currently, the number of Royal Army troops stationed in Spain was about 175,000, plus 15,000 Imperial Guards, the total number of troops barely exceeded 190,000.

Plus the partially mobilized reserves, the number of land troops Spain could mobilize would exceed 300,000, which was more than enough for defense.

Not looking down on the British Army, in the situation of needing to cross the sea and land, 1 million British troops might not necessarily be able to break through the defense of 300,000 Spanish troops.

In this war between Britain and Spain, the result of the land war was actually not important. Whoever could win the naval war next would be able to win the advantage of this war.

Gao Da was still very confident in his Navy; after all, just a few dreadnoughts already gave Spain the capital to be invincible.

Unless the British could also obtain data on dreadnoughts in advance like himself, and then use the power of the whole country to spend a large amount of funds and time to develop dreadnoughts.

As long as they couldn't do it, they couldn't resist Spain's dreadnoughts. In front of the *Dreadnought*-class battleship, the various battleships before were like scrap iron.

Although it was not completely without combat effectiveness, in general situations, the role of one *Dreadnought*-class battleship was enough to rival several ordinary battleships.

Although both sides were clear that the naval war was the most important battlefield, currently in a short period of time, there would be no large-scale naval war.

The British were not fools either. Before the arrival of the support fleet, the Mediterranean Fleet trapped in the Mediterranean could not act without authorization.

Although the Mediterranean Fleet was also a very powerful naval fleet, whether it was the number of battleships or cruisers, there was a certain gap with Spain's Home Fleet.

If the two sides met, the Mediterranean Fleet was most likely not the opponent of the Spanish Home Fleet. The British did not want the Mediterranean Fleet to suffer heavy losses before the true naval decisive battle broke out; appropriately preserving strength was the most important thing at present.

Precisely because of this, the first battle after both sides issued the declaration of war broke out in Gibraltar on land.

Because the Spanish side was well-prepared, shortly after the official declaration of war, the Spanish Army had already marched toward Gibraltar in a mighty manner.

In order to capture Gibraltar in time, Spain dispatched three infantry divisions and one artillery division, with a total number already close to 40,000.

And the defenders of Gibraltar were only a few thousand, and the gap in the number of people between the two sides had almost reached ten times.

But this did not mean that Spain could easily capture Gibraltar, because Gibraltar and the Iberian Peninsula were only connected by a very small area, and the width did not even reach 1 kilometer.

Such a width greatly limited the scale of the army Spain could put into the battlefield, and the troops that could truly be put into combat were only a few thousand.

The good news was that the length of Gibraltar was only 7 kilometers, and except for the place in the north connecting to the Iberian Peninsula, other areas were surrounded by the sea.

There were no Spanish people living in the whole of Gibraltar, and the Spanish army naturally would not be polite about this. Spain would not use manpower to capture such a strong fortress; before the soldiers were put into the battlefield, it was certain that they would use artillery to ravage the fortress first.

From the early morning of July 22 to 8 o'clock in the morning, an entire artillery division of more than 200 guns vented wantonly north of Gibraltar, pouring out tens of thousands of shells.

Most of these shells fell accurately on the fortress and the British army's residential area behind it, causing great chaos to the British army on Gibraltar.

The one responsible for serving as the commander of this attack was Kaman Esposito, who could also be considered an old acquaintance of Gao Da.

Gao Da met him at the Royal Military Academy of Turin in Italy, came to Spain with Gao Da, and had been conscientiously and steadily accumulating his merits.

As the scale of the Spanish Royal Army grew larger and larger, old veterans like Kaman Esposito also gained more opportunities to show themselves.

During Spain's second expansion, Kaman Esposito was appointed as the commander of the 3rd Artillery Division and awarded the rank of Major General.

Two years ago, Gao Da just promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant General and promoted him to Deputy Commander of the Royal Army.

This attack on Gibraltar was a test Gao Da gave him. If he could successfully complete it, whether it was being promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Army or Deputy Minister of National Defense, Chief of Staff, etc., there was a lot of hope.

If he couldn't complete it, he could only retire from the position of Deputy Commander of the Army. After all, these positions in the Ministry of National Defense were "one radish, one hole" (a Chinese idiom meaning every position is filled), even if Kaman Esposito was his absolute confidant, if his ability was not enough, Gao Da would not let him serve as a high-level official in the Ministry of National Defense.

After experiencing 8 hours of shelling, Kaman Esposito ordered the Army to launch an attack to test the situation of the British soldiers in Gibraltar.

At first, the British soldiers in the fortress had not reacted; they were already numb to the long-term bombardment of the Spanish artillery, and even got used to the explosion sounds constantly ringing in their ears.

When these explosion sounds suddenly stopped, the vast majority of British soldiers were stunned; they didn't know what had happened on the battlefield, and didn't even know what state they were currently in, completely "blown stupid" (stunned).

When a few British soldiers discovered that the Spanish soldiers in the distance were constantly approaching, their exclamations woke up the others who were in a daze.

"The Spanish have launched an attack! Counterattack! Counterattack! Don't let them get close to our fortress, drive them back!" At this time, the British commander hurriedly gave the order, and the messenger constantly conveyed the commander's order to the ears of every soldier. ===== CHAPTER 425 =====