Comrade, your ingredients are too complicated.

The port of Toulon in November 1942 was like a floating scrap metal graveyard.

The proud French Navy, once ranked fourth in the world, is now huddled in a corner of the Mediterranean, silently waiting for the end of its fate.

The deck of the battleship Strasbourg was covered with dust, the gun barrels were hastily wrapped with oilcloth, and the entire ship looked like a forgotten war machine.

Its sister ship, the Dunkirk, still bore the scars on its side from being hit by a British shell two years earlier.

Those welded steel plates are like an ugly scar, silently telling of the betrayal of former allies.

The old Provence and Paris had lost their ability to sail long distances. The boilers of the two veterans were cold, and the empty footsteps echoed in the cabin like the whispers of ghosts.

The heavy cruiser Algerie, once the pride of the French Navy, now had broken glass on its bridge and its radar antenna hanging askew, like a seabird with broken wings.

The light cruisers and destroyers were not in much better condition either. Many of them had their side paint peeling off and their names were almost unrecognizable.

On the dock, sailors in wrinkled uniforms were wandering around in groups of three or four. Some were drinking, some were gambling, and more were just sitting there, looking at the distant horizon.

The officers had long stopped issuing serious orders, and their occasional lectures seemed pale and powerless.

No one talked about victory or honor anymore. They just lived numbly, like a group of prisoners trapped in a steel cage.

"Coward! Are you deaf? The voice just now was heard on the radio two years ago. This is the second time he has called on us to go out to sea and fight!"

"Before, you refused to leave the port and hid behind military orders like a turtle. I tolerated it! After all, I also hate the British."

"But what about now? What reason do you have to stop us? Our compatriots in North Africa have escaped from the control of the traitors. They even have their own independent military industry! They have rebuilt the glory of the first army in Europe with the blood of Germans and Italians!"

"Stop quibbling! You, Jean Delaborde, are Pétain's dog, a guard dog who recognizes the enemy as his father and guards the house for the Nazis!"

The air in the fleet commander's office was as solid as lead. The dawn sunlight shone through the blinds, drawing a glaring dividing line on the oak floor, just like the two distinct factions of officers in the room.

Among them, the commander of the cruiser division and the captains of Strasbourg and Casabianca stood firmly together. They were not extreme Vichy factions and were more inclined to preserve the fleet rather than blindly obey political orders.

Now that Darlan has been assassinated, Algeria has revolted, and the Free French have won a victory in North Africa, the three men have foreseen the future of their own fleet.

If we don't run away now, are we going to have to wait for the Germans to attack us, or for the entire fleet to sink itself?

After being scolded by his subordinates, Admiral Jean Delaborde's face was instantly distorted. His wrinkled old face turned purple and red, and even the veins on his temples bulged.

"How dare you! You come to my office now. Do you want to imitate the Japanese and start a collective mutiny?"

"It is the duty of a soldier to obey orders! The order I received is to stay in Toulon Harbor honestly! Unless you let the Grand Marshal give the order personally, no one can leave today!"

"This is my last warning! Get out now. I can still pretend that what happened today never happened because we have worked together for many years. Otherwise, I will immediately notify the Gestapo to arrest you!"

In the original timeline, Jean Delaborde was an extreme Vichy faction. Even at the last moment, he was still fantasizing that he could achieve so-called equal cooperation by currying favor with the Germans.

Little did they know that for Raeder and Dönitz, these surrendered generals were not even qualified to sit at the table for dinner. Seeing that their fleet commander was a stubborn lackey, the eyes of the rebel officers suddenly became as sharp as knives. With the crisp sound of metal sliding, three pistols were pulled out of the holsters at the same time and fired at the same time.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

After three shots, Jean Delaborde became a corpse with his eyes open. The captain of the Strasbourg blew away the gunpowder smoke from the muzzle of his rifle and said in a teasing tone:

"Major General Lacroix, why are you talking to a traitor? According to Article 17 of the French Naval Regulations, when a fleet commander betrays France, his subordinates have the right to relieve him of his command."

After saying this, three pairs of sharp eyes like blades pierced the fleet chief of staff at the same time.

Vice Admiral Marquez's Adam's apple rolled up and down, and cold sweat slid down his temples onto his crisp stand-up collar, on which was pinned the Vichy government emblem bestowed by Pétain himself.

Thinking of the miserable state of his old partner, he slowly raised his trembling hands, and under the gaze of six burning eyes, he took out a brass key from the inner pocket of his uniform.

"Gentlemen, perhaps you would like to take a look at this?"

The key was slowly inserted into the bottom drawer of the desk, where a document wrapped in waterproof oilcloth lay quietly, with frayed edges.

When the tarpaulin was unrolled, a nautical chart with a training plan was revealed. The chart clearly marked multiple routes for breaking out from the west side of Toulon Port and turning to Algiers through the Corsica waters.

Each alternative route was carefully marked with tide times and German Air Force patrol patterns.

"This training plan," Marquez pressed his middle finger heavily on the coordinates of Algiers, leaving a sweaty fingerprint, "I revised it seventeen times, just waiting for the day when someone dared to come to my office and shoot."

······
Four hours later, the entire Toulon fleet lit its boilers and prepared to set sail.

Under the watchful eyes of a group of young sailors, the old Paris and Provence stepped forward, sailing side by side at a slow speed of 6 knots, slowly heading towards the minefield in the south of the port.

Due to the hasty time for the German army to deploy its defenses and the fact that the Vichy Navy had previously strictly abided by the armistice agreement, the minelaying outside the port of Toulon seemed quite perfunctory.

Especially on the west side of the port, the density of the minefield there is only 5-8 mines per kilometer, and the distribution is extremely irregular.

But for surface ships during World War II, sometimes a mine could take the lives of all the crew members on the ship. Even a tough guy like Tirpitz didn't dare to force his way into the minefield.

"Woo!"

The rusty whistle tore through the silence of dawn. The Paris and Provence, two veterans who had witnessed the smoke of World War I, were like two rusty knights' lances, dragging their broken bodies covered in smoke, and stabbed into the death minefield without hesitation.

Their leaky boilers roiled with their last few tons of low-quality coal, and the faded naval ensigns on the bridges fluttered in the smoke.

This was not a breakout, but a funeral written in steel and fire. All of this was done just to tear open a bloody trail on the German death blockade for the young people behind them.

"Set sail, set sail, let us rush out of the Mediterranean, cross the Atlantic, and head for a brand new battlefield!" (End of this chapter)