18th December. 11:30 PM. The SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand
Admiral Willenik receives the reports of Admiral Haus and realizes the danger which threatens its Squadron. He immediately orders to his ship to sail east and then north in order to join Haus while still fighting against the now identified enemy. Salvos are exchanged with little result until, finally, some hits occur: a 305 mm shell fired from the HMS Inflexible hits the rear turret of the SMS Maria Theresia presenting its rear while sailing east during its manoeuver, destroying it in the process and starting a fire which can been seen several kilometres away. On the British side, the HMS Indefatigable armoured belt is pierced by a 305mm shell from SMS Zrinyi. As the hit is above the waterline, nothing vital has been damaged but 5 men have died on the spot while a dozen suffer serious injuries and a minor fire and some lights can be seen through the hole.
18th December. 11:32 PM. The HMS Indefatigable.
Admiral Milne is informed of the hit but doesn’t consider it as a serious thing. On the other hand, he now sees the large silhouette of a ship from which flames are erupting. Orders are soon delivered to concentrate the fire from the 3 battlecruisers and 3 armoured cruisers (including the French cruiser Waldeck-Rousseau) against what is temporarily depicted as a “large enemy vessel, likely a small battleship”. While sailing towards their targets, the six ships continue to pound the Austrian cruiser, which is practically unable to retaliate and is in a matter of minutes reduced to a slow-sinking burning wreck.
But in the meantime, Willenik maintains its fire while retreating, concentrating everything he had at its disposal against the now concentrated succession of flashes. The HMS Inflexible is hit once, disabling two of its 101 mm guns and starting a minor fire, as are the HMS Black Prince and Waldeck-Rousseau.
But while the Entente ships, now sailing at a speed of 18 knots in order to slightly increase the current distance with Willenik’s battleships (a safety measure in order to protect the armoured cruisers while still benefiting from their firepower), a series of detonations and explosions can be heard north of their position.
18th December. 11: 40 PM. The light cruiser HMS Dublin
The British light cruiser HMS Dublin, escorted by her two sisters (HMS Chatham and Gloucester) and 16 destroyers, spot are large formation of unidentified destroyers sailing right towards her: the captains of the 16 KUK Navy destroyers, mainly Huszar 400 tons ships led by 3 Tatra 800 tons destroyers, are now fully aware that the longer Willenik is pursued by the British ships, the more likely he won’t be able to escape.
Forcing their boilers and reaching 28 knots, the Austrian destroyers are now launching what can been depicted as “naval cavalry charge”, aiming at breaking through the British line at all cost and reaching the capital ships.
On the British side, the 16 destroyers are forming forming a battle line, thus partially crossing their opponent’s T. At 11:45 PM, 32 torpedoes are hastily launched while the distance between the two forces has been reduced to less than 3000 metres. But as the Austrian destroyers are only presenting their bow to the enemy, many torpedoes miss them and continue their course while the sailors can see a trail of bubbles sometimes nearly brushing the flanks of their vessels. Two ships are hit though: the SMS Warasdiner (a 350 ton destroyer initially built for the Chinese government), which sank in a tremendous explosion with the entire loss of its crew (75 men), while the Scharfschutze is hit near the bow but somewhat maintains its course at a considerably reduced speed course in spite of progressively sinking: the commander has just enough time to order to launch a torpedo when the other destroyers do so before ordering to abandon the ship.
This salvo of 15 torpedoes proves to be more effective than its British counterparts as the British destroyers, forming a battle line, present their flanks to the enemy. The HMS Rattlesnake and Grasshopper are hit and sunk with heavy losses while the HMS Foxhound is torpedoed itself but managed to continue to fight while its compartments are flowed one after another.
What follows is a duel of an extreme violence, mixing torpedoes and gunfire at a reduced to extremely close range, as both sides are aware of the importance of their respective missions. In these conditions. Friendly fire occurs on both sides as well as the British and Austro-Hungarians sometimes confound the silhouettes of the Tatra and Beagle class destroyers.
At midnight, already 4 Austrian and 5 British destroyers are sunk or sinking with the others often often suffered minor to significant damages. However, the intensity of the fighting doesn’t decline.
At 00:05 PM, on now December the 19th, the SMS Triglav, so far relatively intact in spite of some hits on her bridge and superstructure, manages to sail near the HMS Chatham, which almost ignore her enemy in the middle of the still brutal struggle, believing in fact for a few seconds that it’s a damaged Beagle destroyer leaving the fight. At barely 500 metres, and when the British light cruiser’s captain realizes its mistake, the SMS Triglav has already launched four torpedoes. All hit and tear apart the hull of the Chatham which breaks in half and sinks within seconds with her nearly entire crew.
But SMS Triglav’s triumph is brief has the HMS Gloucester now pounds her at close range, devastating her bridge and then performing numerous hits under her waterline. Ten minutes later, the Triglav is sinking herself while the Gloucester ignores the survivors in order to join the melee.
At 00:30, the fighting progressively dies down as both sides have suffered heavy to grievous casualties: the Austrians have lost 6 destroyers (including one Tatra) while the Royal Navy has lost one light cruiser and 5 destroyers. With now 10 destroyers of mostly medium displacement, the Austro-Hungarians doubt that they can break through the British lines which can still rely on 2 cruisers and 10 large destroyers. Furthermore, it seems that the struggle between the British and Austrian battleships have become more and more distant.
At 00:40, both sides retreat as no one is able to realistically pursue its adversary. At this moment, the British and Austrian crews hear a succession of more numerous and louder explosions coming from the southeast.
