Room 40's Greatest Triumph

no worries guys i always feel bad i am only managing an update once a month at the moment, hopefully with some time of for the xmas break (and a fuck ton of leave to take) i can get things sped up a bit
 
a/n: i've been bad at this, my apologies

1st to 31st May 1917

German Home Front
Admiral Behncke was faced with a problem now, one that he had not occurred to him when he first took command of the fleet following the disaster almost a year ago. Germany was short of ships; Prince Henry commanding the Baltic fleet only had a force of 4 Pre Dreadnought battleships a pair of armoured cruisers and 6 light cruisers to contain the Russian Baltic Fleet that still had 4 Dreadnoughts and at least 2 pre dreadnoughts together with 3 armoured cruisers and numerous light cruisers and destroyers.

In the North Sea he had 13 Dreadnoughts and a single Battlecruiser facing the entire grand fleet of an estimated 25 dreadnoughts and 5 battlecruisers.

The situation in Russia did at least mean that the chances of a co-ordinated action was low it was still a concern. To solve this problem for the time being the 2 remaining Helgoland class battleships were dispatched to join the Baltic fleet for the time being together with 15 brand new U-Boats and 5 Mine layers with orders to lay a new series of mine fields off Helsinki. These orders were given on the 3rd of the month.

Meanwhile he also gave authorisation for two mine laying cruisers of the Brummer class supported by the 4 cruisers of the Königsberg II class and more importantly, the Hindenburg would be sent with them to act as insurance.

On the 19th of May Hidenburg sailed in the company of the 6 light cruisers under the command of Rear Admiral Boedicker, their mission, to lay mines to the north east of the Orkney isles and to intercept any ships sailing to Norway, their orders were delivered by hand as this was not considered a major operation but a key factor was not to engage an equal or superior force.

Battle of the Long Forties
On the 21st May 1917 Hidenburg’s squadron sighted a convoy of 15 merchant ships bound for Oslo escorted by the old armoured cruiser HMS Drake, and 3 Destroyers. Drake’s captain immediately knew that he was outnumbered, outgunned and could be outrun. He ordered the merchantmen to scatter at their best possible speed while Drake and the destroyers covered their escape as best possible.

More importantly they began transmitting signals about the German squadron’s presence to Rosyth.

Drake’s attempted to cover off the attack from the Hidenburg was not successful the Battlecruiser was just too fast and within half an hour the old armoured cruiser was ablaze from eight 12” guns, the destroyers had been battered by the light guns of the Brummer class cruisers and the secondary guns of the Hidenburg, although HMS Mary Rose did escape with minor damage having fired 3 torpedoes at the Battlecruiser. Although all missed.

In the end in the hour after the battle 10 of the 15 merchant ships were sunk by the 7 German warships, although by this time the 2nd Battlecruiser squadron was steaming out of Rosyth at 22kts escorted by 3rd Light Cruiser squadron and First Destroyer flotilla.

Having encountered and sunk the majority of a convoy Rear Admiral Boedicker ordered his forces to return home at 21kts as he was already in an exposed position, he ordered his mine laying cruisers to drop mines at their current location and in 150 miles south on their return home.

These mines would sink 8 further merchant ships over the next month but also more importantly for the German ships they sank one of the destroyers of First Destroyer flotilla forcing the 2nd Battlecruiser squadron to return home before they made contact with Hidenburg’s squadron.

The operation would have a boost on the morale of the High Seas Fleet.
The operation also caused concern amongst Room 40 as they had no indication as to the operation, had the German’s discovered their codes had been broken?

Russian Home Front/Eastern Front/Baltic

In Russia the revolution continues with various soviet’s declaring themselves the sole authority in many cities, however as great may day celebrations began throughout Russia, the provisional government assured the allies that they would continue to fight in the war against the Central Powers.

A few days later the news of the provisional governments statement to the allies is leaked to the Petrograd soviet’s and the resulting protests force the foreign minister to resign, the same day that Trotsky arrives back in Russia. Lenin warns against the dual power model and although the Bolsheviks argue against the continuation of dual power, the Petrograd soviet will continue working with the provisional government for now. Although the Bolsheviks do begin setting up militia from recently discharged servicemen.

On the Eastern front the Russian army is now massing for an attack on the German lines to try and drive them back from Riga, the offensive would be launched in early July late June if perpetrations could be completed.

Meanwhile in Helsinki the Baltic Fleet Committee that had been established following the Tsar’s abdication met for the first time, but to the surprise of the 3 Bolshevik members the 33 board committee that met in mid may, voted overwhelmingly to conduct an offensive operation against the German fleet, The Black Sea Fleet had voted against such an operation earlier that month.

This operation would be timed to assist in the planned offensive against the Germans at Riga, although for the time being the a British submarine did sink a old German Armoured cruiser in the Gulf of Riga.


Middle Eastern Front
The British by now had expended a significant part of their strength in the taking of Gaza the previous month the next part of the plan to break to the ottoman lines would be to take Beershaba howeve, they needed more men to break the lines. The next push would begin next month for now the british remained on the defensive, the ottomans however, could not bring in reinforcements due to the ongoing arab revolt.

Off Turkey meanwhile the HMS Lord Nelson and HMS Agamemnon were the guardships of the Dardanelles preventing any ottoman breakout into the Mediterranean although on a routine patrol HMS Lord Nelson struck a mine that had broken loose from a minefield and was badly damaged, although she was able to make it back to base by going slow astern and is repaired by using a cofferdam.


Italian & Balkans Fronts
Italy launched another offensive at Isonzo on May 19th in correspondence to the austro-hungarian planned offensive at the same time in the same location, the result of the next 3 weeks of the 400,000 italians and the 300,000 Austro-Hungarian troops that were in place there would be 175,000 and 110,000 on each side.

In Balkans the allied powers continued to press the central powers lines, to in the north of Greece. And with heavy losses they pushed the central powers lines back, but it would not be enough to break through their lines. Although in Paris a conference begins between France and Britain to discuss the removal of the German supporting king of Greece especially following the resignation of the greek premier also on the table was a discussion about the ongoing situation in Russia.

Western Front
Upon the western front a final attempt would be made by the French in order to break through the German lines the at Aisne the resulting massacre over the next the next week lead to wide spread mutinies against within the French army, a total of 54 divisions would suffer mutinies over the next month, the commander of the French army Nivelle would be sacked and replaced by Foch.

At Arras the British continued their assault against the Germans in order to keep pressure off of the French as their moral problems continued to cause problems. By the middle of the month though, the British assault began to wane as resources were re-deployed for the planned assault around Yepes.

The plans for operation Normandy however, were now near enough clarified the British would land a division initially 2 miles to the east of Neiuport in order to attempt to bypass the German front lines at the coast and take them at the same time. Another 3 divisions would land further to the east around ostende, they would be supported by a gunfire support from the 3rd Battle division of the grand fleet as well as 4 additional pre dreadnoughts and the channel monitors, late additions to this planned bombardment force would be the Harwich force as well as Beatty and the battlecruiser division who would be added as a covering force on Jellicoe’s orders.

Home Fronts
In April the total shipping lost was some 400,000 tons to the u-boat, although the fresh supplies now coming in from the USA was a welcome boon there was still a major shortage of wheat in the UK, there was currently only 11 weeks supply left at the beginning of april. The decision to introduce the convoy system was a highly important one.

Room 40 reported that Germany had in the North sea 55 U-Boats with the bulk being with the High Seas Fleet, They also had 8 in the Baltic and 18 in the Mediterranean and 2 in the Black Sea. Room 40 also reported that the Germans would have enough fresh construction to sustain these numbers for the foreseeable future; the newly promoted rear admiral Hall also noted that if the Germans had devoted to u-boat construction instead of repairing and reinforcing the grand fleet they could have had a third more u-boats than they currently had.
 
voodoomaster

Great to see the upgrade.:D Some problems for the allies but at least they are introducing convoys earlier which will help. The Long 40's battle will hurt and the RN will want revenge but another such attempt could be nasty for either side depending on the circumstances.

Steve
 

sharlin

Banned
Great updates and well worth the wait, as said the Long 40s hurt and its a nice slap in the face so the RN could (and probably would) be forced to assign more ships to escort the next convoy which could still bring a detached unit of the RN close to higher German numbers or..vice versa the Germans could stumble into a higher number of RN warships.
 
thanks for the support guys, it means alot even though i am slow and i apologies for that.
The butterflies have been a pain in the backside that is for sure as by removing the a third of the High Seas Fleet has had profound effects on both the Central Powers and the Allies.

for the next update which i may even get out this weekend
Things will get bloodier on the East and Western Fronts.
The Admiralty will bring in an expert on Submarine Warfare to help plan the naval side of operation Normandy.
Beatty gets impatient.


Although please do remember this is more of a naval timeline so the army might get a tad neglected this is not meant as an insult to those who died on the fronts i just find the navy more interesting to me. so if i do make an error on the fronts please do correct me.
 
sorry for the long delay guys its been a long long jan to march.
1st to 30st June 1917

Russian & Eastern Front

In Russia there was growing calls from the soviets for more power to them and away from the provisional government and the Bolsheviks continue to add to their militia from recently discharged servicemen. Both Lenin and Trotsky are being watched by the provisional government for any hint of them stirring up a rebellion against the dual power model.

On the Eastern front meanwhile, the Germans who had since the end of the winter been camped outside the city of Riga by only some 10 miles were beginning to mass for an assault upon the city to take it, the planned offensive would start at the end of the month and would be supported by a naval bombardment by the German’s Baltic fleet.

To the south the Russians were massing for their own offensive led by General Brusilov having had the decision to attack forced upon him by Kerensky the minister of war, whom thought that the most democratic army in the world now thanks to the Soviet order number one would be successful. The offensive itself would be dual pronged, the majority to the south against the Austro-Hungarian armies and a smaller offensive to push the Germans back from Riga.

On the 27th of June though the Baltic Fleet Committee voted by 27 to 6 in favour of a bombardment operation against the Germans on the Gulf of Riga islands much to the anger of the Bolsheviks’ and on the 28th the Baltic Fleet Consisting of the Battleships of Gangut and Poltava a Destroyer Flotilla and the armoured cruiser Rurik sailed. The force would have been larger but the Petropavlovsk was in refit and the Sevastopol had several boiler rooms sabotaged by the angry Bolshevik representative of the committee preventing the ship from joining the sortie.

Middle Eastern Front
The British launched an assault on Beershaba at the end of the month having hoarded as much water as possible during the warming of the summer months. The assault began on the 16th of June with a heavy bombardment of the areas of the Beershaba after half a day the British forces advanced with the aid of their cavalry and took the town and advanced up to the ruins of the railway line.

The Ottomans did not have the resources the mount a counter attack until the end of the month as they needed to first store water ready for their counter attack. Unfortunately by the time they had assembled their resources the British had already advanced to Rahat.

Now though, the advance would stall for the next two months due to the summer and the shortages of water for both sides although the British would begin to bring sources forward from the Nile the planned advance to Jerusalem would not begin until the end of September.

Italian & Balkans Fronts
On June 10th King Constantine of Greece was forced from the throne by the Entente High Commissioner and his second son Alexander was installed in his place. And finally after years of a schism between the political and royal entities of the Greek state and the greek army was finally mobilized although it would be sometime before the divisions between those loyal to the king and those loyal to the prime minster.

This put an end to the Germans holding the Bulgarians back from advancing to Salonica however, with 10 British and French divisions now in Greece it would soon be impossible for the Bulgarian army to force the Balkan front.

On the Italian front the offensive at Isonzo heavily casualties would continue to be suffered although the heavy losses reported by the austro-hungarian forces back to Germany meant that several divisions that had previously been held in reserve in Germany were to be sent down to Italy.

Western Front
On the Western front the French began another push at Aisne although this advance did not amount to much due to a mixture of poor morale and poor weather conditions at the beginning of the month. The British however, would have a bit more success.

On the 6th June following a massive thunderstorm the British began their bombardment with aircraft dropping bombs to disguise the sound of tanks advancing to starting positions. This followed by the detonation of mines across the messines ridge that caused such huge explosions that china was heard to rattle in Downing Street. The shock of the explosions put the germans on the back foot and all objectives were taken and the ridge was in british hands by the 11th. And the German counter attacks were pushed back with little issue. The overwhelming success of the British operations finally pushed the war cabinet and the entente command to approve operation Normandy which would begin provisionally in august.

But first a fresh push was needed and the push would continue at Yepes as the Germans were on the back foot, although they would not be as successful at Yepes as soon it would start to rain.


Home Fronts & North Sea
The first transatlantic convoys had left the Americas at the end of May and having been escorted by 8 destroyers and an old armoured cruiser the 41 ships all arrived in the uk with the loss of only one merchant man. Regular convoys had now been set up and by the 10th of June they were fully active across the Atlantic. It was from these convoys that American Destroyers were arriving into Cork to add to the Destroyer pool in the UK.

In May though, the convoy system was beginning to show with again 400,000 odd tons and some 400 ships sunk throughout the month.

Admiral Beatty however, was frustrated the battle of the Long Forties had left him the laughing stock of the fleet as his ships were not able to stop a single German Battlecruiser. His wife was furious as well and was actively working against Jellicoe amongst the elite of London, especially when Beatty lost a Destroyer Flotilla to convoy duties due to the weakening of the Battlecruiser force. He now had a newly completed HMS Pegasus and given the problems he had been having with Zeppelin’s watching his ships on exercise he was keen to try and stop them. Beatty managed to convince Jellicoe to allow him to have HMS Campania. Using the fighters for defence and the bombers to attack some Zeppelin sheds off of Tonder using 3 bombers from each carrier, supported by the First Battlecruiser Squadron.
 
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