Accompanied by Xia Shu personally, Edward and his entourage toured along the Shannon River, enjoying the scenery they had missed and communicating with each other to enhance understanding. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoDue to the recent stability of the situation, the atmosphere along the way is quite harmonious.

Arriving in Portamna, a small town in the middle reaches of the Shannon River, the group disembarked and took a ride to sample the region's famous delicacies, as well as inspect the irrigation and power generation facilities under construction. On the way back, passing by a military camp, seeing that there was military training, Edward **** suddenly proposed to go in to visit one or two, although this was not in the established itinerary, Natsuki had already taken precautions, so he agreed to come down with peace of mind.

Built on the edge of the woods, with its high stone walls and deep trenches, this barracks looked like a prison and served as a garrison and ammunition store during British rule. Now, stationed here is the 43rd Infantry Battalion of the Irish Army, a very ordinary active infantry unit, with a normal strength of 665 people, and the actual personnel in peacetime are usually 70% to 80% of the full number.

The exterior furnishings of the barracks are basically the same as when the British troops were stationed, but the decoration style has been adjusted accordingly. Compared with the barracks in the big cities, the hardware facilities here are a little rudimentary, with two motorcycles for communication and a truck for baggage and supplies being the only modern equipment. The officers and soldiers were flushed, their sideburns were dripping with sweat, and their uniforms and boots were stained with mud, but they were well-dressed and equipped with firearms, showing the basic qualities of a professional army.

The temporary parade did not take much work, and the soldiers displayed static military postures and marching columns, which were naturally much inferior to the battle formations in the parade in terms of ornamentation, but the full spirit, high morale, and self-confidence of the officers and men still attracted praise from the British.

"Are there any German military advisers here?" Edward **** inquired about Natsuki.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Kingdom of Ireland, the Irish army was basically led by German advisers and so-called volunteers, and over time, Ireland's own military academies produced a batch of professional officers and non-commissioned officers, and with the help of the German military education system, these local talents were forged in the later stage, but under the help of German military advisers and volunteers, they gradually became the real backbone of the Irish army. Today, there are fewer than 100 German advisers in the Irish Army, and the volunteers have either returned home or acquired Irish citizenship as members of German descent in the Irish Army.

Before coming here, Natsuki had learned about the composition of the 43rd Infantry Battalion, not counting the companies that had been temporarily transferred, 90 percent of the officers and soldiers were born and raised in the Irish, and the remaining 10 percent were Germans - they had all served in the German army before, some of them were of Irish blood, and some felt that they had greater opportunities for development in the Irish army, because of their excellent military qualities, rigorous and serious attitude, and the practice that had become a common practice in the Irish army, they were indeed well rewarded. Of the 20 officers, 12 were of German origin, and another 30 percent of the non-commissioned officers belonged to them.

Following the calculated train of thought, Natsuki replied: "Now there may be German military advisers in the division-level headquarters, and there are several in the General Staff, Your Highness is interested in talking to them?" ”

Edward shook his head without a sad expression, indicating that he was just asking casually.

After the queue drill, the battalion commander walked to Natsuki and Edward, and reported again in a loud voice.

"Excellent! Excellent! Edward said two words of Irish Gaelic somewhat unexpectedly.

The Irish officer was not flattered, but replied very decently: "Thank you for your appreciation, Your Highness the British ****!" ”

"Can you see your gun?" Edward asked.

The officer turned his head to look at Natsuki in some surprise, and received positive instructions from the eyes of the King of Ireland, and he took out a pistol with rough and rigid lines in the primary metal color from the holster at his waist.

Edward, as well as the British officers standing nearby, were amazed.

This is an American-made Browning M1911, the standard weapon of the American army.

Powerful, accurate, reliable and durable, and affordable, the M1911 was popular in the pre-war arms market, and because the U.S. Army failed to show its skills in the previous war, it was impossible to consider the battlefield performance of this semi-automatic pistol, but despite this, the M1911 still became the most manufactured pistol during the war - the U.S. Army ordered 50,000 pistols due to the massive expansion of the scale, and the British Army ordered 60,000 in three batches, and the two together far exceeded the Ruger 08, Wartime production of the Lebel revolver or the Webley revolver.

During the War of Independence, the Irish armed forces used firearms aided by the Germans, captured from the British, and French goods obtained through other means. After the establishment of the Kingdom of Ireland, its military strength was fully reorganized with the help of the Germans, and the active forces quickly eliminated the British and French-made, and switched to the use of weapons that matched the standard equipment of the German army. So, if the Irish officer had pulled out a Ruger 08 or a Mauser 1896, the British would have no surprise, but they were confronted with an American-made one, which immediately made them reverie.

"Guns are definitely good guns." Natsuki said to Edward **** in English, "You don't have to worry about falling behind for half a century." ”

The British **** said very smartly: "I didn't expect Your Majesty to be so confident in an American pistol, if it were me, I would definitely buy its production license." ”

Natsuki understood the other party's intentions, and deliberately made an indifferent expression: "Its production license is too expensive, and we only purchased one ammunition production line. ”

The British **** took this pistol and looked at it, handed it to the officer next to him, and asked: "Is it the original point 45-inch caliber?" ”

The officer looked at it for a moment: "Yes, that's right, 45 inches." ”

While returning the pistol to the Irish officer, Edward **** said to Natsuki in the tone of a professional: "The penetration of this caliber pistol bullet is enough, but the logistics supply on the battlefield will be a headache." ”

Xia Shu smiled, German-made rifles and machine guns are 7 point 92 mm caliber, most of the pistols are 9 mm caliber, and rifle cartridges and pistol cartridges have different length specifications, which cannot be used universally, before the submachine gun is generally equipped with the army, the choice of Luger 08 or Browning M1911 is the same for logistics needs. Browning M1911 and Luger 08 have their own merits, equal, but the cost of the former is less than half of the latter, the economic pressure of large-scale equipment is less, and it is suitable for various combat environments such as mountains, woods, trenches, etc., and more importantly, American arms dealers are very happy to sell large quantities of weapons and supporting ammunition production lines to Ireland, and the reason for this may not even be guessed by the British.

Apart from the newly issued Browning M1911, the British made no new discoveries in the 43rd Infantry Battalion in Ireland, as rumors and intelligence had described it - a mediocre but well-equipped force, bearing the national imprint of the Irish with unyielding national character, and hard-working and high-spirited. In this regard, Edward **** could not hide his envy. In Britain, unlike the navy, which has spanned the seas for hundreds of years, the army has neither an honorable royal title nor the tenacity of the army, and they have suffered far more defeats than the navy. In modern times, the British army was beaten by the American independents in North America, ravaged by Napoleon's French army in Europe, and even disgraced by the Boers in South Africa......

After the defeat of the Great War, the British royal family and government were determined to rely on the wealth accumulated over generations to rearm and turn the disadvantage, and naval construction was put in the first place, and the average cost of the capital ships that began construction in the United States in order to bypass the constraints of the London Armistice Agreement soared from 2.4 million pounds to 3.3 million pounds for the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, and the British government invested nearly 80 million pounds in the first two years after the war, which was equivalent to half of the total cost of the home fleet before the war, and two years after the war, The British government's tax revenues were significantly lower than before the war, and the proportion of naval spending in total government expenditure reached a staggering 40%, far exceeding the proportion of German military spending during the same period. The heavy financial burden forced the British government to reduce spending on other areas, and army construction was the first to bear the brunt.

Under Kitchener's leadership, the size of the British Army expanded to more than 1.4 million by the end of the war, and with the Commonwealth troops drawn from all over the world, the tiny island of Britain had amassed nearly 2 million professional and semi-professional soldiers, and the indisputable hard power provided support for Britain to negotiate favorable conditions in the armistice negotiations. After the end of the war, Britain basically followed the terms of the London Armistice Treaty, transported all the British Commonwealth troops home, and reduced the size of the home army to 300,000 people, but the newly discharged and demobilized millions of young men are still a force that can recruit and fight, according to Kitchener's proposal, Britain should follow the example of Germany to establish a military reserve system, these people who have received regular military training, age and physical conditions meet the requirements of the national into the reserve force, regularly assemble and train to maintain the status of parasoldiers, and a sufficient stock of weapons and ammunition available to them. Although this proposal could ensure the size and combat strength of the British Army to the greatest extent, it required a huge amount of military investment, and the British government finally adopted a compromise method to form a local militia of 300,000 with veterans, which were assembled twice a quarter to conduct military training and live-fire drills of a certain intensity.

Although the reserve force only had the expected 30% strength, and with Kitchener's efforts, the material conditions of the British army's active troops were still guaranteed as much as possible, but the morale of the army did not seem to have fully recovered from the defeat in the war, and the various new weapons and new tactical strategies that emerged during the war shattered the original training and command system, and officers and theoretical experts at all levels of the British Army devoted themselves to the exploration and study of this military change, resulting in a variety of views and schools. The negative impact is that it is difficult to form a complete and unified training, command, and combat system. On the other hand, the Irish army has gone through a process of starting from scratch, almost not constrained by traditional thinking, officers and non-commissioned officers have received formal German-style theoretical training, and the soldiers are basically trained in accordance with German-style drills, very single-mindedly borrowing and absorbing the strengths of the German army, and have actual combat experience in the war of independence, and have a lot of experience in guerrilla warfare, sports warfare and tough battles suitable for Ireland's geographical conditions. As far as the state of affairs in 1917 is concerned, the Irish Army was clearly better equipped than the British Army to defend the country.

(End of chapter)