"The first sweep of the British inflicted great losses on us, mainly because we underestimated the brutality of the struggle and were carried away by previous victories, for which the leadership, including me, had an inescapable responsibility.

In fact, we have not seen this set of the British before. In the Toulon training camp, when he was conducting campaign training on the map, Comrade Joseph used similar means to inflict great losses on us when he played the role of the British army.

After this experience, many people, including me, still took this practice lightly, so much so that in the first sweep of the enemy army, the people and the revolutionary ranks suffered huge losses, which cannot but be said to be a crime...... "- Russell, "Memoirs of the Revolutionary War"

After the Duke of Norfolk's army was mobilized, the Irish Federation was indeed a little illprepared at first. The terrain of central Ireland is predominantly plain, with very few hills. Because of long-term development, there are no large areas of forest in these places. This makes it particularly difficult to move the masses.

In Toulon at the beginning, Joseph proposed some solutions for them, such as digging tunnels and the like. However, the plan to dig tunnels has not been well implemented. This is because Ireland is rainy, the upright soil layer is not very good, and the groundwater level is high. And only on those hills that are a little higher. Barely able to dig a not-so-complicated hiding hole.

But it's not like the masses really have nowhere to hide. Also because of the heavy rainfall, the plains of Ireland are full of large and small marshes. These swamps are quite dangerous, full of bottomless quagmire, and those who are not familiar with these places can basically say goodbye to this beautiful world by stepping on the wrong place.

But if you make careful preparations in advance, it is not impossible to enter the swamp to take refuge. Of course, this requires a lot of risk on the part of the preparer, and it requires very careful preparation, both in terms of personnel and materials.

Therefore, after the battle training at Toulon was over, and while reviewing the problem, Joseph also proposed to use the swamp to house the evacuees. And after discussion, everyone also agreed that this method is quite feasible. But before this sweep, almost no one had seriously prepared for it.

So when the noose of the sweep began to tighten, the Irish began to suffer heavy losses.

Company Commander Twhiton had once again seen the Irish village that had left him with nightmarish memories of the last time he had fled in disarray. Only this time, he no longer came here with a team of cavalry, and beside him, there were troops of thousands of people, cavalry, infantry, artillery.

"The artillery is aimed at the target, ready to fire with arson shells!" Such an order sounded in the ears of the company commander of Tahuiton. Yes, arson shell shooting. Having learned the relevant lessons, the British did not intend to enter the village at all. First of all, the arson bomb was used to burn the entire village, and in the fire, most of the various arrangements in the village failed.

There was no such thing as a white phosphorus incendiary bomb, napalm or thermite incendiary bomb in this day and age – with the exception of one research institute, of course. The so-called arson bomb is actually an iron ball that first burns red, and then uses a cannon to shoot it at the target, thus causing a fire.

Of course, the effect of this arson bomb is far less than that of the mad things of later generations, and if the building of the other party is not mainly a wooden building, but a masonry structure, or even a rammed earth structure, this arson bomb will hardly have any effect. So this thing has always been used by the Navy, and (the ship on the other side must be made of wood) and the Army almost never fights with it. But the houses of the Irish peasants were really made of wood, so these arson bombs were quite suitable for use here.

With the shelling, smoke began to rise from the village over there. Soon, orange-red flames were coming out, and the spacing between the houses in such villages was so small that the flames could easily burn from one house to another, and the whole village was soon on fire.

No one or any other animal escaped from the burning village, and it appears that the villagers have been evacuated.

Near the village, there is a forest that is not particularly large. This is also the source of firewood that the farmers in the village burn every day. If the people of the village have run away to hide, then this woods should be the most likely hiding place. The last time Company Commander Tahuiton came here, he only had a group of cavalry by his side, and there was actually nothing he could do about this wood. If he had dared to enter the woods that time, he would have died more.

But this time it's a different story. In front of an army of thousands of people, such a forest is really a little small. What's more, the woods in Ireland are not the same as some in the south, they are relatively empty, and they are less easy to hide.

The company commander of Tahuiton received orders that his cavalry was responsible for keeping watch near the woods, ready to attack the Irish who had escaped from the woods, while other infantry, in skirmishers, spread out and entered the woods.

Soon there were shouts, gunshots, and the sound of small melons exploding in the woods, and apparently there was an exchange of fire in the woods. Soon the company commander Twhiton noticed a group of men running out of the woods. Fleeing aimlessly in all directions.

"It's an Irish traitor! Catch up, kill them all, and leave no one behind! Company Commander Tahuiton ordered, and at the same time he urged the war horse under his crotch, pulled out the revolver on his waist, and chased after him.

Many of the escapees from the forest were women and children, but the British cavalry did not care about this, they chased after them, fired with revolvers, rammed with horses, and chopped with sabers, and soon wiped out the hundreds of "rebels".

By this time, the battle in the woods was over. The British army fought fiercely in the woods with "well-trained Irish rebels". They paid a lot of casualties, but they also killed many rebels. Among them, there were nearly twenty "elite rebels" armed with revolvers and rifles. As for the "trained male rebels" armed with dangerous weapons such as dung forks, there are more than 100 of them.

By the end of the battle, the village had largely burned out of everything that could be burned, and the fire had gradually been extinguished. At the commander's command, the soldiers cut off the heads of all the rebels, male and female, young and old, and stuck sharpened branches in the ruins of the village to deter those who dared to rebel against the rule of the British Empire.

The village actually retreated and hid. Because of the speed of the British army's movements, when Company Commander Tahuiton and the others reached the second village, the villagers there had not even had time to escape from the village.

Tahuiton's cavalry company intercepted the villagers before they could escape, preventing them from escaping. The British troops who arrived later left the Irish women and children behind, and tied up the men and locked them up in the only larger building in the village, a Catholic church.

These women and children will be used to find their way into the next village. If they don't die in such a thing, then deal with them one last when they have completed the campaign objective and retreated. And the men who were imprisoned in the church, when the British left, poured fire oil on all sides of the church and lit a fire.

This scene is playing out in many other Irish villages, according to the statistics of the Irish Federation afterwards, in the British noose operation, a total of 171 villages were burned, more than 10,000 people were killed, and the Irish Independence Army fought back against the British, protecting the villagers, more than 1,000 people died, and the founder and chairman of the Federation, Thorn, also died because of the traitor's betrayal. It can be said that in this battle, the Irish suffered a very heavy blow, and even, if it were not for the timely support of the French Big Brother, the beacon of freedom and democracy throughout Europe, the history of the Irish would have been one more heroic tragedy.

Taking advantage of the severe weakening of the Irish Union, the Duke of Norfolk quickly implemented his system with a steely hand. In the cities, a new document system was introduced, and anyone who did not leave the house with a "good citizen certificate" was severely punished. The first whipping, the second hard labor, and if there is a third, it is the gallows calling.

A new armor protection system was also introduced. Because of the setback of the revolution, some less determined opportunists also began to defect to the enemy. Many of those who leaned towards the Federation, or simply the agents of the Federation, were sent to the gallows, and the rest were basically cut off. In the words of the successor President, Mr. Russell, "almost all of our work in the city has been lost. ”

"How long will the flag of Irish independence be flown again?" This question has weighed heavily on the minds of the fighters of every federation.

At this most critical juncture, the remaining senior executives of the Federation held an emergency meeting on a brand new French high-speed communications ship called the "Independence". It is said that a secret French friend also attended the meeting. At the meeting, the French friend gave some advice to these Irish warriors who insisted on fighting, and told them that they had not lost and that the French people would support them more than they had now. This includes not only weapons, but also military advisers.

It was also on this boat that the United Irish Federation re-elected a new governing body and laid out plans for the next phase.

"In this sweep, we suffered huge losses. The comrades of the Federation were bleeding and the Irish people were piled up like a mountain of corpses. However, revolutionaries cannot be killed! We buried the bodies of our comrades, wiped the blood from our bodies, picked up our knives, raised our guns, and began the unyielding, successive battles" - Russell, "Memoirs of the Revolutionary War"