War News
1 June 1908 - The Minister of the Imperial Chinese Navy has today announced that the first class armored cruisers
Hai An and
Nan Chen, supported by the four torpedo boats of the
Lei Chung class, have successfully destroyed "several" French coastal installations in the concession territory of Kwang-Chou-Wan by naval bombardment during a coastal raid on 26 May as the first step of a campaign to drive the forces of the French Empire from sovereign Chinese territory. The French ship
Tage, a
Sfax class second-class cruiser, and an escorting destroyer were reportedly sunk trying to flee into port, despite covering fire from a heavy French coastal battery.
According to the Ministry, the action began shortly after 1300 when
Hai An,
Nan Chen, and accompanying torpedo boats encountered a French merchant vessel, which upon being ordered to stand to and await a boarding party immediately began to flee, drawing the Chinese task group towards the patrolling French cruiser
Tage and its accompanying destroyers.
Nan Chen and
Hai An immediately turned towards
Tage and commenced a pursuit, sinking the escorting destroyer
Fauconneau just beyond the mouth of the harbor and pursuing
Tage deep into the restricted waters of a small bay, where it was eventually disabled and finally sunk. The Chinese cruisers then steamed out of the bay and down the coast, destroying a French 8" coastal battery and a coastal installation of undisclosed nature before withdrawing up the coast towards the port of Yeungkong as darkness fell.
27 June 1908 - Her Imperial Majesty the Dowager Empress has today announced that the war with the French Empire is over. Victory is ours, for in only three months of fighting the French Empire has been brought to the peace table and forced to give up that which is rightfully ours - Kwang-Chou-Wan has been restored to its rightful place as part of the sovereign Chinese state. The French Empire has further agreed to pay reparations for wrongfully declaring war after the revelation of its state-sponsored industrial espionage activities and the harm they inflicted upon Chinese industry, though it adamantly refused to pay reparations for its past depredations and unscrupulous trade practices which have inflicted so much damage upon our great nation. The French Empire was also compelled to cede Madagascar to the German Empire.
Even as the victory celebrations commenced, the Naval Minister made one final war-related announcement - a mere three days before the end of the war, the third class cruiser
Cheng Ho, on patrol in the Mediterranean Sea, encountered the French first class cruiser
Gueydon and successfully thwarted its attack on a Chinese merchant ship making its way to Taranto, Italy after passing through the Suez Canal. The French negotiation team's naval attache, when approached for comment, ridiculed the Naval Minister's statement, saying that it is 'extremely generous' to hail the flight of a third class cruiser before a superior opponent as a victory and claimed to doubt that the encounter ever occurred, seeing as neither ship involved in the action reportedly suffered any damage.
(Well, that was a short war - just three months, April to June, despite me picking the 'continued operations will buy us better terms' option when a peace event came up. As expected, France was blockaded by Germany for the duration of the war and our raiders didn't sink anything, but despite our low war score due to this and the lack of any major engagements we received four points with which to take possessions at the peace table. Two went into recovering Kwang-Chou-Wan while the other two went towards reparations, though we're still the poorest power, about 500,000 base resources behind France and about 1,000,000 base resources behind Japan.)
Domestic News
July 1908:
- The 12 destroyers of the
Sui Ching class and the minesweepers
Chen Yuan No. 7, 11, 12, and 13 are taken in for reconstruction following the end of the war.
-
Fei Ting, the fourth and final
Yuan Kai class cruiser, commissions a month too late for the war.
- A spokesman for the Ministry of the Navy confirmed that the
Cheng Ho-class third class cruiser
Yung Pao was lost while on patrol in the Mediterranean during the war and said that arrangements for the repatriation of survivors from French POW facilities had been made; when asked to identify the date and cause of loss, the spokesman suggested that the reports in French and neutral papers claiming that the French submarine
Frimaire torpedoed and sank a cruiser in the early hours of the first of May somewhere between Tunisia and Malta were likely accurate, but stated that the Ministry of the Navy had no further information on the sinking at the present time.
August 1908:
- Unexplained delays and troubles with the delivery of equipment affect the reconstruction of several of the
Sui Ching class cruisers as well as the construction of many of the 18 new minesweepers authorized as part of the War Emergency Program which saw the cancellation of the battleship
Cheng Kung only five months after it was laid down.
- The third class cruiser
Cheng Ho, which conducted trade interdiction patrols in the Mediterranean during the war, is dispatched from its war station to the South Pacific to protect the interests and rights of Chinese fishermen in fisheries in that region.
Tse Tien and
Chin Ou, both of the
Yu Yuan class, pass through the Suez Canal and make port calls at Port Said and Alexandria.
September 1908:
-
Tian Dan is commissioned into the Navy.
- Nine of the
Sui Ching destroyers complete their reconstructions, as do the minesweepers
Chen Yuan No. 11, 12, and 13.
- The State Secretary for Naval Affairs approaches the Minister of the Navy with a proposal to fund the construction of eight new cruisers. The Minister agrees to the proposal so as to secure more funding for the Navy, but rumors circulate that the Navy has no intention of laying down any additional cruisers at this time and is instead planning to spend the funds on a new battleship program. Nevertheless, no new construction programs have as yet been announced.
December 1908:
-
Tian Dan finishes working up.
January 1909:
- In a long and overly technical speech, the State Secretary for Naval Affairs mentioned that investigations were being initiated into the misappropriation of up to ¥1M in Navy funds during the war before quickly announcing the initiation of the first state-funded dockyard expansion program for the Chinese Navy since the 1904-05 program.
March 1909:
-
Ting Yuan No. 8, the last of the minesweepers of the War Emergency Program, commissions.
- The Minister of the Navy announces a new battleship design competition, reigniting speculation in high government circles that the Navy has no intention of laying down the eight new cruisers that it agreed to build in exchange for increased funding.
Foreign News
1908 (from April):
- With the demise of the Hague Naval Armaments Limitation Treaty as a result of the outbreak of war, the French Government announces the laying down of the
Brennus, a new 23,000t battleship rumored to be an improvement on the German
Deutschland treaty battleship, though details of both designs are as yet unknown. In response, the British Government announced the laying down of a pair of 23,000t battleships of the
Irresistable class while Germany announced that it would lay down two 21,500t armored cruisers of an improved type (in case it's not clear, these are battlecruisers).
- Post-war economic troubles in France are rumored to have lead to a suspension of work on the
Brennus in September.
1909 (through March):
- Germany announces the laying down of
Goeben, which experts suspect to be a slightly-enlarged
Moltke-class
armored cruiser.