One day in August, the Limerick River Harbour docks were crowded with people. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 Dressed in neat and simple clothes, people waved handkerchiefs and small flags to bid farewell to the Royal Irish Marksmen. This is the first unit of the Irish Army to be officially given the title of "Royal", and its predecessor was the brave and combative 1st Division of the Irish Volunteer Army, which became a regular infantry regiment with a strength of 3,200 men. The officers and soldiers who boarded the ships at the docks were given new 1915-style Irish Army field uniforms, in a style similar to the "continental model" of the German and French armies: stiff fabrics, straight styles, clean tops with few pockets, and a wide and tight breeches with all-brown booties. The new field uniform was made of gray-green and greenish color, so it was nicknamed "the elven archer who was good at forest action" by the Irish soldiers, and its appearance allowed the Irish army to completely get rid of the British military uniform that was passed down from the British garrison and the local security forces. Of course, because the new uniforms were made by local Irish factories, the degree of mechanization was not high, and the production speed was slow, and the refitting of the Irish troops could only be carried out step by step.

Both in uniform and in weapons, the Irish Expeditionary Force, which was about to set foot on the European continent, was given the highest priority.

As they did not need to go straight to the battlefield, the Irish soldiers who boarded the ship carried rifles in tarp sleeves, wore light and beautiful leaf-shaped cloth caps, and hung their steel helmets with clipped-ears on the back of their light infantry backpacks along with iron lunch boxes. Most of these native-born Irish people are leaving their country for the first time, but the sadness of being separated from their families is not strong on them, and many of them talk to their companions with relaxed and happy expressions. They didn't know what awaited them in front of them, maybe it was the glory of the war, maybe it was the catastrophic slaughter, and at this moment, they were only proud that they were able to embark on an expedition.

On the viewing platform set up on the pier, Natsuki dressed in military uniform, accompanied by Defense Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Army Pierce, and Commander of the German Dispatch Force in Ireland Grienz, inspected the first Irish expeditionary force sent to the European continent, and made an impassioned mobilization in Celtic, which is becoming more and more fluent.

“…… Our enemies are not terrible, they are reckless, savage, and lack tactical skill, and we need not compete with them in brute force, but the primary purpose is to gain the experience of modern warfare on the battlefield, and to bring this experience back to all Irish soldiers to defend our country. Never forget that Ireland's independence was bought with the blood and lives of many Irish warriors......"

The enemy Natsuki is talking about is the Russian army in distant Eastern Europe. After France and Britain withdrew from the war one after another, the Russians, who had stabbed their French allies in both sides, fell into a situation of fighting alone. Although it extended an olive branch to the Allies before Britain, the vast territory, abundant resources and the state of foreign power and middle cadres undoubtedly made the Allied countries greedy, the military strength of the German Empire was at its peak, and it was ambitious to seize Ukraine, which has the "granary of Eastern Europe", Ottoman Turkey has been coveting the rich land north of the Caucasus and the oil-rich Azerbaijan, and the military strength of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was beaten into a "crushing fracture" in the confrontation with the Russian army, As a result, the prestige of the Habsburgs fell to an all-time low, and the dualist monarchy hoped to sweep away the negative effects of defeat by expanding its territory.

Unlike the three great powers of Germany, Austria and Turkey, the newcomers of the Allied bloc, Bulgaria and Italy, although they had fulfilled their obligation to declare war on Russia, showed little interest in attacking Russia. Bulgaria has already satisfied its desire for territory in eastern Serbia, a small Balkan country with intricate historical ties to Russia, and is clearly unwilling to offend the bear for the sake of its immediate petty gains. For similar reasons, the Italians were reluctant to risk the Russians' grudge against each other for an enclave or two, and they were busy occupying the colonies ceded by France and Britain under the armistice and the international trade markets ceded by the decline of Britain and France, and were only responsible for waving their flags in the rear on the Eastern Front.

Not long ago, Ireland declared war on Russia as a member of the alliance camp and announced that it would send combat troops to the Eastern Front, but this did not cause an uproar around the world, and only the German press welcomed the Irish army led by the former "Hohenzollern genius" with enthusiastic rhetoric.

The Royal Irish Marksmen Regiment was one of the best equipped in the Irish Army, and was no less than that of the British Army, but on the European continent it was only classified as "light infantry". Since the battlefield on the Eastern Front calmed down, Russian soldiers, driven by officers, have been consolidating their fortifications day after day, as if the pattern of trench warfare had been moved from the Western Front to the Eastern Front. Based on the experience of the Western Front, heavy artillery and chariots were indispensable in order to break through the trenched defensive line, and these two sharp weapons were precisely what the Irish army lacked the most.

Despite being unexpected, Natsuki still had high expectations for these Irish soldiers who landed on the continent for the first time. The Royal Irish Marksmen Regiment would be followed by two infantry regiments and a field artillery battalion to the Eastern Front, and with the exception of a few German liaisons, these units were all Irish, from commanders, staff officers to company and platoon officers, which was fundamentally different from the situation during the Irish War of Independence. In Natsuki's own words, "Ireland will ultimately be defended by Irish soldiers."

After Ireland declared war on Russia, two powerful warships belonging to the Irish Navy, the former German Navy armored cruisers "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau", which had been renamed "Celtic" and "Long Live Freedom", together with a number of large torpedo boats sold by the Germans to Ireland, had already set off for the Faroe Islands. Together with German ships, they would patrol the Northern Passage and intercept any ships heading to northern Russia. In fact, since Irish seamen were not yet capable of handling medium and large ships, the two Scharnhorst-class cruises were still under the control of German naval officers and sailors, with about a third of the crews of Irish officers and sailors on board, who needed to learn day and night before they could gradually take over the sophisticated and complex war machines.

According to intelligence, Britain is still secretly aiding Russia after signing the armistice, which means that Irish Navy-flagged warships may engage British ships in the northern waters. In fact, the British, with their unique diplomatic experience, accurately grasped the weakness of the allied countries during the armistice negotiations, diverted the attention of the negotiators and the ruling top with a series of conditions that appealed to their appetites, and preserved Britain's military strength to the greatest extent possible by abandoning the car to protect the commander. The ships that were paid to the Allies were either obsolete battleships and cruisers, or dreadnoughts and battlecruisers that were structurally damaged and difficult to repair completely, and the resources that could really bring Britain back to the ranks of the great navies - the cutting-edge warships that lay on the slipway, or even those whose designs had been completed but had not yet begun, were mostly retained. In order to confuse the Germans, the British even demolished all five revenge-class battleships, known as the successors to the Queen Elizabeth class, but these dreadnoughts that had been under construction for a year were simplified versions of the Queen Elizabeth class, and there was a certain gap with the queens in terms of performance.

August is a good harvest season in Europe, and both on the European continent and in island countries, golden wheat fields can be seen everywhere. Despite the war for most of the year, Ireland was able to produce a favourable crop thanks to a favourable climate and the hard work of the women, and for the following year it was largely self-sufficient in food, meaning that the foreign exchange earnings from the sale of livestock products did not need to be used to import grain and vegetables. In contrast, France across the sea was not so lucky, the wheat planting season, the German and French troops were fighting fiercely in the Loire River valley, the richest in central France, the artillery roared, the planes roared, the army swept the fields and villages like locusts, the French civilians had to hide from the war, the sown area of the farmland was only two-thirds of the previous year, and the two million German officers and soldiers who poured into France forcibly requisitioned and consumed a large amount of grain stored by the French, even if the French government did not use food to pay part of the war reparations, The French people also had to tighten their belts to survive the winter of 1915. In addition to food shortages, the French had less meat and dairy products on their tables, and their livestock industry was also hit hard by the war, and before the armistice, the Germans had taken millions of cattle and sheep from France, including a large number of dairy cows, to alleviate and improve the extreme shortage of supplies in Germany during the war.

In order to secure a relaxed and friendly strategic environment for the nascent Kingdom of Ireland and to gain broad support in the future confrontation with the British, Natsuki, after consulting with his ministers, decided that he would personally lead a delegation on a goodwill tour of France. In the southern region under the actual control of the French government, Natsuki donated butter, cheese and flour to the French people in Toulouse, Castel, Nabada and other places on behalf of the Irish government, and provided a large number of medical supplies to the French military hospital free of charge. At first, the French official and public were cold and even rejected the arrival of the former German royal family, and the food and medicine alone were not enough to impress the French who were deeply traumatized by the war, but Natsuki's speeches on various occasions gradually made the French people from all walks of life let down their guard and hostility and accepted the greetings from the neighboring Ireland peacefully. By the time Natsuki left France with the delegation, he had already received several honorary citizenship titles in French towns and respects from a considerable number of French people.

(End of chapter)