In truth, Friedrich really did want to annihilate this British reinforcement fleet outright. As long as he destroyed the fleet before him, the British fleet in the Mediterranean would most likely choose to surrender as well.
Now that the Austrian Empire occupied Ceuta and Andalusia was also under its control, advancing by land and sea to take Gibraltar was not a problem.
Friedrich had set his sights on Gibraltar before, but Franz had stopped him. After all, at the time they had been considering how to end the war, whereas now it was exactly the opposite.
The British shamelessly wanted to cross the sea under Chencang in secret. If one were careless for even a moment, they might really find a gap to slip through, but Franz had never once given up monitoring Britain.
Every move on the British side was perfectly clear to the Austrian Empire. Warships wanted to cut straight through the war zone? Keep dreaming!
Although the entire Mediterranean was not a war zone, who asked Spain to happen to be blocking the entrance to the Mediterranean?
Shameless people could always find excuses. If one insisted on arguing superiority with the other side here, that would instead fall into the inferior position.
William Simmons was a brave vice admiral, but he was not brainless.
Before setting out, William Simmons had read all the materials concerning the naval battle in the Mediterranean and the Austrian Imperial Navy. At first, he felt that even if his fleet did not join up with the Mediterranean warships, it had a ninety-nine percent chance of defeating the Austrian Imperial Navy.
However, at this moment, especially after boarding the "Trieste," William Simmons felt that even if he joined up with the Mediterranean Fleet, his odds of victory were only fifty percent.
The Austrian