Great Christian Fleet

The Great Christian Fleet is the term used for a group of Tagmatine battleships that undertook a circumnavigation of the Eurth in 1907. The so-called fleet consisted of fourteen battleships and numerous supporting vessels and the name was given by to it by the Tagmatine press, with the idea that the ships were the representatives of the nation that followed the true version of Christianity on Eurth, the Enlightened Aroman Church. The Imperial Navy was ordered to undetake this mission by Basil III, as part of a general expansion of the Tagmatine navy and an attempt to increase the prestige of both it and the Greater Holy Empire itself. The mission of the fleet was to make courtesy visits to the other continents of Eurth, as well as advertising the fact that growing Tagmatine naval power was something for the other Eurth powers to take notice of. Previously, the Imperial Navy not been capable of doing more than defending the approaches to its own shores, let alone policing the routes to and from few overseas territories the Greater Holy Empire possessed.

The Great Christian Fleet crosses the Adlantic Ocean.

Although the fourteen battleships were all less than ten years old, they were already considered to be obsolete due to the launching of the LS Intrépide, the first of the Intrepid-type all-big-gun battleships. The Intrépide was first launched by Lysia in 1906. Nonetheless, the Great Christian Fleet was able to raise the idea of Tagmatium as one of the naval powers of Eurth, as well as give the crews of the ships and the Tagmatine navy as a whole experience in operating far from its shores and home waters. This was especially true when it came to the logistics and and planning of such an operation, especially potential fleet actions. These skills would rarely be needed, however, as Tagmatium was never involved in large scale wars with nations from the other continents of Eurth.