The Pacific Ocean was a vast, empty expanse of blue, a serene backdrop for the greatest concentration of naval firepower the world had ever seen. Sixteen battleships, their hulls painted a brilliant, peacetime white, steamed in four perfect, majestic columns. Their gilded bow scrolls depicting eagles and shields caught the tropical sun, and the smoke pouring from their cage masts created a man-made cloud that trailed for miles behind them. The Great White Fleet was the fist of a young, muscular, and supremely confident nation, and it was cutting a path across the ocean with the implacable force of destiny itself.
On the flag bridge of the lead vessel, the battleship USS Connecticut, Admiral Robley "Fighting Bob" Evans stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his jaw set like a granite block. He was a man of the old school, a warrior forged in the fire and chaos of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. He believed in big guns, thick armor, and the indomitable fighting spirit of the American sailor. This strange, new mission, ordered directly by his president, was a departure from all sensible naval doctrine, but an order was an order.
A fast, grey Royal Navy destroyer had intercepted them mid-ocean, a frantic rendezvous under the cover of darkness. It had deposited a single, ramrod-straight figure onto his bridge: Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, a man whose face was etched with the strain of a collapsing empire. Now, the two men stood over a chart table, the salt-laced wind whipping at the charts of the Philippine archipelago, their designated rendezvous point.
"My remaining assets are consolidating at Subic Bay, Admiral," Cradock said, his voice crisp and precise, but with an undercurrent of exhaustion. "Two armored cruisers, four light cruisers, and a flotilla of destroyers. It's not much, but they know these waters. They will be at your full disposal."
Evans grunted, a noncommittal sound. He looked at the meager list of British ships, then glanced out at the awesome spectacle of his own fleet. It was like a lion being offered the assistance of a few weary jackals. He found the British reports, which he had read a dozen times, to be the hysterical ramblings of a beaten and terrified navy. Ghost submarines. Mountain-erasing weapons. Sorcery. It was the kind of thing one read in a penny dreadful, not in an official Admiralty dispatch.
His professional, rational mind had already supplied the logical answers. The Qing, with their new German friends, had likely fielded a few primitive, unreliable submersibles. Dangerous, yes, but no match for a fleet on high alert. The destruction of Fort Invincible? A very big, very cleverly placed mine, or a new chemical explosive. Tragic for the army, but irrelevant to a naval engagement. His president had given him a clear, concise order: link up with the British remnants, find and neutralize the Qing naval threat, and establish a sea lane for American convoys to begin supplying the beleaguered forces in India. It was a straightforward task.
"Your intelligence is appreciated, Admiral," Evans said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. He exuded an aura of gruff, unshakable confidence that had been earned in the thunder of cannon fire. "My fleet represents the greatest concentration of naval firepower ever assembled. Sixteen battleships, each carrying a main battery that can throw a ton of high-explosive steel over ten miles. We will find their fleet, we will bring it to battle, and we will sink it to the last rivet. We will establish a close blockade of the Chinese coast, from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and we will strangle them into submission."
Cradock looked at the American admiral, at the sheer, overwhelming confidence radiating from him, and felt a flicker of hope warring with a deep, chilling dread. "You must understand, Admiral," he insisted, leaning closer. "Their submarines are not primitive toys. They are based on the latest German U-boat designs. They are commanded by fanatics who will not hesitate to die. But they are not the true threat. The true threat is the Emperor himself. We have no defense, no countermeasure, for his other… capabilities."
Evans finally looked up from the chart, his blue eyes as hard and clear as ice. "Sir, with all due respect to your fallen men, my president did not send me halfway around the world to hunt for phantoms. You cannot sink a battleship with sorcery. You sink it with bigger guns and better gunnery. And on that score, we are unmatched." He tapped a thick finger on the Luzon Strait, the main passage from the Pacific into the South China Sea. "We will enter here. We will sweep the sea. And if their fleet has the courage to meet us, we will send it to the bottom of the ocean. It is as simple as that."
Cradock saw that it was useless to argue. The American was a creature of pure, conventional power. He could not, would not, comprehend a threat that existed outside the known rules of warfare until it was too late. He could only pray that the sixteen battleships steaming behind them were enough to change the terrible equation.
In the damp, chilly basement of the British Embassy in Washington, an alliance of the doomed was being formalized. The British Ambassador, Sir Mortimer Durand, his earlier panic now cooled into a grim, fatalistic resolve, raised a glass of brandy. Opposite him sat his counterparts: the aristocratic, world-weary French Ambassador, Jules Jusserand, and the stoic, heavily bearded Russian Ambassador, Count Cassini. The air was thick with the smell of cigar smoke and the bitter tang of desperation. America had entered the game, and now it was time for the old world to make its final, suicidal play.
"To the Triple Entente," Durand said, his voice a low rasp. "And to the damnation of the Berlin-Beijing Axis."
The three glasses clinked together, the sound dull and without cheer. They were not toasting a future victory; they were toasting a shared, desperate sacrifice. On the table between them lay a map of the world, upon which their final, global strategy was laid bare.
"France will honor its commitment," Jusserand said, his voice elegant even in these grim circumstances. "Our entire offensive capability will be thrown against the German lines in Alsace-Lorraine. It will be a bloodbath. We know this. Our generals predict casualties that will make Napoleon's campaigns look like a skirmish. But its purpose is not to conquer, but to bleed. We will force the Kaiser to commit every man, every gun, every shell to his western front. He will have nothing left to send to his pet dragon in the east."
It was a promise to immolate a generation of French youth on a pyre of German machine guns, all to create a diversion.
Count Cassini spoke next, his voice a deep, mournful bass. "His Imperial Majesty, the Tsar, has authorized a full implementation of the strategy of '12. Our armies in the east are broken. We cannot stop Meng Tian's legions if they turn west. Therefore, we will not try." He traced a long, retreating line on the map, from the Urals deep into the heart of Russia. "We will withdraw. We will burn the fields. We will destroy the railways. We will poison the wells. We will give the Chinese marshal a thousand miles of frozen, barren wasteland. We will trade our holy land for time, and let General Winter be our final ally. Russia will suffer. The people will starve. But we will deny the Dragon Emperor the quick victory he needs."
It was a vow to visit a biblical famine and desolation upon his own people, to cripple his nation for a century, all in a desperate gamble to overstretch an enemy's supply lines.
Finally, Durand spoke, outlining his part of the strategy. "And we, along with the Americans, will handle the beast's head. The Royal Navy will provide the forward bases—Hong Kong, Singapore, Subic Bay. We will provide the intelligence, the knowledge of the local waters. The American Great White Fleet will provide the hammer. They will force a decisive battle and blockade the Chinese coast. They will cut the link between the Kaiser and the Emperor. We will strangle their war machine in its cradle."
He looked at the faces of his fellow ambassadors. He saw no triumph, no hope of a return to the old world they knew. He saw only the grim resolve of men who had accepted their own doom. They were sacrificing millions of their own soldiers, crippling their own economies, and burning their own lands. They were throwing the entire, magnificent, corrupt, and glittering edifice of the "Old World" onto a funeral pyre, in a final, desperate gamble to stop the dawn of the new one. They were no longer fighting for victory. They were fighting for survival.