Chapter 425: Night Raid on Malta

While the Spanish Royal Army was launching a massive offensive against the fortress of Gibraltar, the Spanish Navy had also mobilized on a large scale, with its sights set directly on the main base of the British Mediterranean Fleet: the island of Malta in the central Mediterranean.

Malta is located south of the Italian island of Sicily, east of Tunisia, and west of Greece, situated exactly in the heart of the Mediterranean.

Britain chose this location as the primary base for its Mediterranean Fleet precisely because of its vital strategic position. The Mediterranean Fleet stationed at Malta could provide support to Gibraltar in the west and to the Suez Canal in the east.

If the Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal were the foundations of Britain's control over the Mediterranean situation, then the important naval base of Malta was the very bedrock upon which that control rested.

Precisely because they understood the importance of Malta, the Spanish Navy did not hesitate to choose the island as the primary target for their strike against the British Mediterranean Fleet.

Although it is called Malta, the complete territory consists of multiple islands; the island of Malta is merely the largest, alongside Gozo, Comino, Cominotto, and Filfla.

The British Navy was stationed on the largest island, Malta, which was the true target the Spanish Navy intended to strike.

The British Mediterranean Fleet possessed approximately 8 to 10 battleships, with the Formidable-class likely being the most numerous, numbering around 4 to 5.

In addition to the Formidable-class, the British Mediterranean Fleet likely also possessed Canopus-class and Duncan-class battleships, with about 2 of each type.

To ensure the success of the attack, Spain dispatched a rather luxurious fleet. This fleet was led by the brand-new flagship, the battleship Dreadnought, and was joined by the battleship Courageous, which was about to conclude its sea trials.

The Fury, which had only been launched in April, did not participate in this operation; after all, the Fury's primary task at present was to identify all issues during its sea trials and resolve them before it officially entered service.

Besides the 2 Dreadnought-class battleships, the Spanish Navy also deployed 4 Monarch-class battleships and 2 Matador-class battleships, while the cruiser force consisted of 5 armored cruisers and 12 light cruisers, accompanied by as many as 12 submarines.

It is no exaggeration to say that a fleet of such luxurious scale could contend with the navy of any country in the world.

If it were a surprise attack, even the entire Royal Navy of the British Empire would suffer a massive blow under the assault of such a fleet.

The firepower of the Dreadnought-class and Monarch-class battleships goes without saying, and the torpedo tubes carried by those 12 submarines were of an equally staggering caliber.

As long as the torpedoes could strike the British warships, whether they were battleships or armored cruisers, there was a good chance of a one-hit kill.

Spain did not harbor the delusion that a single strike could annihilate the entire British Mediterranean Fleet. For Spain, merely sinking or damaging a few battleships in this attack would meet the expectations for the operation.

Spain's primary targets were the two Duncan-class battleships; these two vessels were to be destroyed at all costs.

The British Duncan-class battleships were new warships built only within the last two years, and the two Duncan-class ships in the Mediterranean Fleet had only entered service in the first half of this year.

Once the two Duncan-class battleships were sunk, and a few Canopus-class and Formidable-class battleships were damaged, the British Mediterranean Fleet would essentially lose its combat effectiveness.

By then, even if British support fleets rushed to the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean Fleet would be unable to quickly commit to naval combat.

At that point, it would no longer be the British Navy chasing the Spanish Navy, but the Spanish Navy chasing the British Navy.

Once Britain lost its maritime superiority, Spain could not only surround Gibraltar from all sides without restraint but also launch offensives against important British overseas territories, such as Egypt and South Africa.

By then, the British would have to worry about how to end this war. After all, Spain's land power was extremely formidable; once Spanish troops landed in Egypt, South Africa, or India, it would not be the British Empire's finances that collapsed first, but its colonial system.

Because Malta and the Spanish mainland were separated by over a thousand kilometers, launching a surprise attack on the British fleet stationed at Malta required traveling that distance, consuming several days of time.

When the Spanish fleet arrived at Malta after traveling thousands of miles, the date had reached July 25, 1904.

At around 11: 0 PM, the Spanish fleet finally arrived at the port of Valletta on the island of Malta. Although summer nights in the Mediterranean stay bright longer, it usually gets dark by eight or nine o'clock, and by 11: 0, the sky was pitch black; without lights, nothing could be seen.

At this time, several days had passed since the two countries declared war, and the British Mediterranean Fleet had naturally learned of the outbreak of war.

To preserve the strength of the Mediterranean Fleet, the British Navy ordered the fleet to hunker down in the port, forbidding any unauthorized counterattacks against the Spanish fleet and waiting for the arrival of support from the Home Fleet before making further plans.

The Mediterranean Fleet had indeed done exactly that. Over the past few days, they had strengthened the defensive forces at the port of Valletta in Malta and increased patrols to prevent a surprise attack by the Spanish fleet.

When the Spanish fleet arrived in the vicinity of Valletta port, they naturally detected the relatively tight defensive forces deployed by the British.

If they had sailed into the port openly, they would certainly have been discovered by the British in advance, and the surprise attack would have turned into a head-on confrontation.

Although the combat power of this Spanish fleet was not inferior to the British Mediterranean Fleet, the port had coastal defense guns, and these shore batteries posed a significant threat to Spanish warships; naturally, Spain did not want to engage in a head-on war with the British Navy at the port.

Since a direct surprise attack on these British warships was impossible, they had to use submarines, which offered better stealth.

Fortunately, 12 submarines were participating in this surprise attack; at a ratio of two submarines per battleship, these 12 submarines could target at least 6 battleships.

As long as half of the attacks were successful—that is, sinking or heavily damaging three British battleships—the raid could be considered a complete success.

If they could achieve even greater results, the Spanish Navy could even take the initiative to go out and seek opportunities to annihilate the British fleet again as they arrived from the British mainland to support the Mediterranean.

The 12 submarines dispatched were all new, state-of-the-art vessels recently built by Spain, equipped with 381mm torpedo tubes, with each submarine carrying 6 torpedoes.

Because submarine technology in European countries was not yet mature, countries did not place much emphasis on underwater armor protection when building warships.

If hit by a 381mm caliber torpedo, even the newest British Duncan-class battleships would require their crews to pray to God for survival.

As for the warship itself, if it were hit head-on by such a torpedo, it would be fortunate not to be blown in two, and maintaining combat effectiveness would be fundamentally impossible.

After a few minutes of communication, the 12 submarines slowly submerged in the waters dozens of kilometers from the port and then proceeded toward the port in perfect coordination.

On such a pitch-black night, submarines submerged more than ten meters deep were impossible to detect. Even if the British doubled their patrol forces at the port, they would never be able to see the submarines in the water.

Although the port had searchlights to illuminate the sea, these lights clearly could not penetrate to a depth of over ten meters. This allowed the Spanish submarines to successfully approach the port, where they paired up to seek their respective targets.

One must admit that the British possessed vast resources. The Mediterranean Fleet currently docked at the port of Valletta was, in its overall scale, more powerful than the navies of many great powers.

In addition to the nine battleships, the port contained dozens of other types of warships, any one of which might have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to build.

Since they had not been discovered by the British, the submarines would naturally choose more valuable targets when launching their attacks.

According to the Spanish Navy's mission, the primary targets for this raid were the Duncan-class battleships, the secondary targets were the Formidable-class, and the last choice was the Canopus-class.

Other types of warships besides battleships were not within the scope of the Spanish attack. After all, besides these battleships, other warships were hard-pressed to play a direct role in naval combat.

Only armored cruisers and battlecruisers had a certain role in naval combat, but their utility was clearly inferior to that of battleships.

Since they could strike British battleships, they would certainly prioritize them.

It took nearly two and a half hours to approach the port and select their respective targets; after the time reached 1: 0 AM, the Spanish submarines finally launched their attack.

Bang!

With a dull thud in the ocean, a torpedo shot forward at extreme speed. It was difficult to aim accurately at night, and whether they hit their targets could only be determined by the explosions following the impact.

Boom! Boom-boom!

The good news was that the 12 submarines' surprise attack was quite effective. Before the British could react, three battleships had been hit, and they appeared to be heavily damaged.

The remaining submarines either missed entirely or struck non-lethal areas, leaving the combat effectiveness of those battleships unaffected.

With the sound of several explosions, the British finally realized something was wrong.

The port's searchlights were all switched on, alarms rang out at the British naval base, and naval soldiers rushed toward their ships.

These warships had skeleton crews on board, and under the operation of these soldiers, the ships activated their power systems, preparing to fight to the death against the Spanish Navy that had come to raid them.