The British Navy was defeated in naval battles one after another, the British Army was bogged down in the Western Front, Britain's economy and industry were hit hard by the German naval blockade, and Britain's international prestige plummeted. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info Because the British military in Ireland was still very strong, Natsuki and his Irish allies decided to adopt a wise detour strategy, and the new batch of German troops and combat equipment that arrived in Ireland were all landed in Galway Harbour. Immediately afterward, Natsuki sent a secret letter to General William Grienz, commander of the German Expeditionary Force in Ireland, asking him to withdraw German combat units from all over Ireland as soon as possible on the pretext of gathering forces to capture Limerick.

Historically, battles that have lasted for months are not uncommon. The Battle of Limerick began in late November 1914, during which the German-Irish forces encircled Limerick Harbour, but with the arrival of the new British Army's 4th Division and the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division, the Allied forces were forced to retreat and hold off the Commonwealth counterattack south of Limerick. In December, the German Marines were engaged in the Faroe Islands campaign, sending only a small increase in the number of troops sent to Ireland, and in the absence of naval supremacy, the Irish independence forces were unwilling to amass heavy forces in Limerick, and the two sides entered a tug-of-war. According to the original plan of the German Navy, this group of German troops accompanied by Natsuki will land on the southern shore of Shannon Bay, more than 100 kilometers away from Galway, and cooperate with the Allied forces fighting here to launch an offensive, and the combat ships of the German Expeditionary Fleet will also go up the river to plan for the Allied forces to attack the port of Limerick again.

Now, the situation has changed a lot. The more than 8,000 German marines who landed in Galway were not in a hurry to rush to the front, but were not in a hurry to set up camp and rest and stand by. Irish Solidarity and the Free Army of Ireland were immediately rewarded with a mountain of military supplies loaded onto their trucks, and the armed men of the Solidarity and the Free Army "became rich overnight", and the troops of less than 10,000 men were issued 200 revolvers, 100 Madsen light machine guns, and 20 Maxim heavy machine guns, and with sufficient ammunition and auxiliary equipment, the humble motley army was transformed into an elite division armed to the teeth.

After receiving the coveted weapons, ammunition, and rations, the enthusiastic Unity and Free Army soldiers were not sent to the battlefield, but were trained in combat day after day under the guidance of German officers and soldiers......

In the area under the de facto control of the Irish armed forces, all the German marines did not hesitate to carry out General Grienz's orders, and although the Irish soldiers were told that the German withdrawal was to concentrate their forces on attacking Limerick, the news of the German withdrawal soon spread among the soldiers: the Germans supported Irish independence on the condition that their little prince Joachim ascend to the Irish throne!

Since the German army did not withdraw from the front line with great fanfare, the British army did not make any major moves until the end of the month, and according to the information spied by intelligence officers in the British-controlled area, many British troops boarded ships and left Ireland during this time, apparently to return to the British island to strengthen the defenses, and it seems that the rumors that the German army will land in southern England and northern Scotland have made the British military and civilians panic.

In the face of the German army's move, the heads of the Republic of Ireland who were directing the country in Cork Harbour were annoyed and frightened. Now, while they had cut off the Germans' shortcut to victory in the Irish War of Independence, they had put themselves in a dilemma. Without the German artillery and assault men, the Irish Independence Army's ability to attack the fortifications was weakened by half, but at this point, the leaders of the Republican Brotherhood who had risen to power had no way back, and they gathered the main forces of the southern counties of Ireland in one place with the intention of recapturing Dublin, which had fallen to the British.

Dublin has been the capital of Ireland since the Middle Ages and is the largest and most vibrant city on the island. Since the Irish War of Independence, the two armies have fought Dublin many times, two of the larger battles, and the German and Irish forces briefly occupied Dublin, but because the waters around Dublin were completely under the control of the British Navy, the coalition forces were quickly repulsed by the British Commonwealth forces, and this defeat also caused frustration among all the Irish who supported independence. In the minds of the Irish, ten Cork is not worth one Dublin.

In early February, the Third Battle of Dublin began. Fortunately, the main force of the British navy had been annihilated, and the remaining combat ships were fighting off the enemy on the eastern and southeastern coasts, and the artillery suppression from the sea was much less, and intelligence showed that there were less than 10,000 British troops stationed in Dublin, and the Irish Independence Forces had almost a ten-to-one advantage.

At the beginning of the battle, the elite troops of the Irish Volunteers launched an attack on the British defensive positions on the outskirts of Dublin in three directions, after a brief artillery bombardment. In the past, the Irish had learned the infantry assault tactics that the Germans were good at, which made them very handy against the weaker British forces. In just one day, the Irish forces cut Dublin off from the outside world by land, and broke through the British perimeter to the city of Dublin.

That night, some people in Dublin set fire to the British army. The Irish forces outside the city thought the time was ripe and launched sieges from the west and south. The ancient walls of Dublin have long since lost their military significance, but on this night, the ruins that stand in the city bear witness to a shocking bloody battle.

On the Western Front in 1914, the German machine-gun unit set a terrifying record of shooting and killing more than 20,000 French soldiers in one morning. In Dublin, across the sea, a similar scene has been recorded in the history of human warfare: the British deployed more than 60 machine guns at forks in the road, on high ground and in fortified buildings, each with a machine gun crew of 10 to 12 men, a large amount of ammunition stockpiled, and a well-trained rifleman near the machine gun position. The moonlight of this night also became the "murderous accomplice" of the Commonwealth army, illuminating the way forward for the Irish warriors, and quietly leading them into the arms of death.

The siege of the Irish lasted four hours, from about 11 p.m. to more than 3 a.m. Nearly every Irish warrior who went on the offensive confidently thought they would welcome a new day of sunrise in Dublin Harbour, but their dreams were shattered by the British, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and even some Irish.

How can flesh and blood withstand a dense rain of bullets?

After paying the terrible price of more than 6,000 killed and more than 8,000 wounded, the frenzied attack of the Irish armed forces finally came to an abrupt end at dawn, and the corpses scattered all over the fields, roads, and canals shocked everyone like never before. The Commonwealth troops defending Dublin also suffered considerable losses in the night battles, but their casualties were much less than those of the Irish, whether it was the machine gunner who pulled the trigger to numbness, or the rifleman who repeatedly reloaded to the point of forgetfulness, did not fire another shot during the day, but watched with great mixed feelings as the opponent carried away the dying wounded and the stiff corpse.

In the following days, the Irish independent forces adjusted their tactics to steadily attack, gradually compress and break down the British defense line with steady offensive and positional infiltration. The elite troops of the Irish Volunteer Army, the level of equipment is not much different from that of the Commonwealth Army, and the combat experience is a little richer than the latter. The hills, castles, houses, and woodlands that had left countless Irish soldiers dead in front of them gradually became burial places for Commonwealth soldiers, and the situation on the battlefield was quietly changing, and it would not be long before the Irish could reach the victory they longed for.

At this moment, two old British battleships, surrounded by several destroyers and torpedo boats, sailed into Dublin Harbor, like gray-haired, rickety old men, wielding rusty iron swords with great difficulty, which looked ridiculous, but helpless the Irish independent armed forces, who lacked both artillery and knew how to use artillery.

Soon after, a large number of British Marines sailed across the 100-kilometre-wide stretch of sea between the Lyne Peninsula in Wales and Dublin. These marines are no longer dragons on the sea, but on the coastal land, they are as strong as tigers and are unstoppable. Counterattacked by this fresh force, the Irish Independence Forces were defeated, and the thousands of fighters sent to block the land route north of Dublin were in turn surrounded by the British......

The day after the arrival of the British Royal Marines in Dublin, the German-Irish coalition launched a massive attack on Limerick. It is the capital of the province of Munster, the largest city on the west coast of Ireland, and an important hub on the Shannon River.

On the first morning of the battle, two German armored cruisers, the "Scharnhorst" and the "Gneisenau", under the direct cover of a number of minesweepers and torpedo boats, forced their way into the waters of the lower Shannon River, bombed the two British protective cruisers that had been entrenched in the area for a long time into slag, and then went upstream, clearing the British torpedo boats hidden in the river bay, shelling British positions along the way, and instigating the steady advance of ground forces towards Limerick.

(End of chapter)