When Orn McNell, who was appointed interim president of the Republic of Ireland only 29 days, announced his resignation due to the defeat of Dublin and authorized the parliament to take over all state affairs, a coup that almost triggered an Irish civil war was decided. Just a few hours after McNell announced his resignation, the provisional parliament of the Republic of Ireland passed a resolution to abandon the democratic republic, change the state system to a constitutional monarchy, establish a new provisional constitution, and elect a royal member of the German Empire. His Royal Highness Joachim, the Prince of Prussia, was the candidate for the throne of the Kingdom of Ireland. The parliament announced that the independent armed forces of Ireland would be immediately under the command of Prince Joachim, and after expelling all British teams from Ireland, they would perform a coronation ceremony to officially become the king of Ireland.

The war was in full swing, and the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean were all reduced to the battlefield, and hundreds of millions of people were involved. In this war that determined the new pattern of the world, the incident in Ireland only attracted people's attention and did not bring about an uproar in the world. In the eyes of discerning people, this was a naked political transaction. The Irish exchanged the huge price of the throne to get the Germans' full support for their armed independence and the Irish people's dream of independence for hundreds of years. The Germans not only achieved the strategic goal of weakening Britain, but also expanded the sphere of influence of the Hohenzollern royal family. Both sides got their place and were very happy.

Despite the defeat in the maritime war, the flag of the British Empire is still flying in every corner of the world. The soldiers and supplies provided by the Commonwealth countries are still gathering at an astonishing speed. The British royal family, government troops and even most ordinary people cannot accept the great shame of sliding from their peak to the dark trough within half a year. The local crisis is undoubtedly the most direct damage to the foundation of the opposing country. Learning that the Irish man chose the German Prince Joachim as the candidate for the throne, the British government immediately responded the strongest. They announced to the outside world that any force supporting Irish independence will be regarded as an enemy by the United Kingdom, and the British team will implement an indiscriminate elimination of all those involved in armed rebellion in Ireland.

The rare appearance of the word "elimination" alone shows that the British were poked into a real pain this time.

The German submarine troops deployed in the Irish waters ushered in a feast. They found dozens of transport fleets of large and small between the British Isle and the Ireland. Although the British Navy dispatched a large number of escort ships, the smart and sophisticated German captains took advantage of every opportunity to attack. Within a week, as many as 35 British ships were buried in torpedoes, and these transport ships were either loaded with military soldiers or full of combat supplies, so at least five or six thousand British officers and soldiers were killed, and tens of thousands of tons of arms and equipment sank to the bottom of the sea.

The British Navy's actions at all costs were not nothing. They sent a large number of Commonwealth troops to the Ireland Island, which brought the British teams against the German-Iraq coalition to an unprecedented scale. Then, with the two major strongholds Dublin and Belfast as the starting point, they launched a fierce strategic counterattack. The Irish independence armed forces, supported by the German army, could not resist the British attack at all. The military towns in the northern and southeast of Ireland changed hands one by one, and the British army invested a large number of cavalry units, and the offensive advancement was very fast. A large number of Irish militants and German officers and soldiers who came to Ireland in the name of voluntary war were surrounded and eventually became British prisoners of war. The situation of the Irish War of Independence was unprecedentedly severe.

The Commonwealth Army burned, killed and looted all the way, and the brutal acts along the way were very different from their previous restraint in Ireland. At this time, Prince Joachim, who was omnipotent in the eyes of many people, did not inspect the army like the heroes who saved the country and nation in historical stories, inspiring the people's hearts. He seemed to have disappeared, and the light of hope for countless Irish people was dimming day by day...

On March 4, after the three counties of Wicklow, Wexford and Watford were successively captured by the British army, the Irish Port, a glorious place where the Irish Port started the armed war of independence and was twice elected as the glorious place of the Irish Provisional Government, and once again faced the attack of the British team. At this time, the two main forces of the Irish Volunteer Army, the 1st and 2nd Legions, were physically and mentally exhausted and morale were low after retreating. They thought they would resist the enemy's attack in Port Cork, but the order they received was to continue to retreat and retreat to McClum and Banden's line west of Port Cork.

The task of defending Cork Port was handed over to a joint corps composed of 13,000 German Marines and 7,000 Irish Independence Warriors. Faced with the attack of the 1st Cavalry Division of Canada, the coalition soldiers fought very calmly. They used heavy machine guns and field artillery to dismantle the charge of the Canadian cavalry. In just half a day, more than 3,000 well-trained Canadian cavalrymen were everywhere, while the coalition troops suffered less than 100 casualties.

Learning that the elite German main force appeared in Cork Port, two British local divisions, an Australian-New Zealand joint division and the 2nd Canadian Army, which originally pointed the attack at Limerick, gathered quickly as if attracted by magnets. Most of the British artillery fighting in Ireland used mules and horses to pull cannons, and the normal speed was slow. However, stimulated by the news that the Canadian 1st Cavalry Division was severely damaged, they traveled day and night, desperately rushing to arrive with amazing efficiency.

Cork front. Therefore, the German-Iraq coalition, which was defending Cork port, had to use 20,000 troops to fight against nearly 100,000 British troops. The strength of the two sides was very different. However, this coalition unit that won the Battle of Limerick not long ago was full of fighting spirit. Before the arrival of the British, they used standard fortifications in the Western Front trench warfare to build layers of defense using the water nets of the Lihe River Basin, and used minesweeping boats to clear the waterway, transported a large number of heavy weapons, including field artillery, by sea.

What made the German soldiers and their Irish allies feel the most at ease is that since the outbreak of the war, the god-level figure who has never lost so far has been personally commanding the troops to make defensive deployments in Cork Port.

On March 7, the British 9th Infantry Division, which was announced four months ago, launched a roundabout attack west of Cork Port with the support of the remnants of the 1st Cavalry Division in Canada, trying to form an encirclement of the defenders of Cork Port, but the British aggressive infantry and cavalry attack failed to scare the defenders. They only broke through the opponent's outpost position and were blocked by the fierce attack of the defenders' field artillery group. The British artillery immediately launched suppression and fire. The standard configuration of German artillery was also the standard weapon 77mm m96 Krupp artillery selected by Bulgarian and Ottoman Turkish troops. Although they were repeatedly defeated by the French army on the Western Front battlefield 189.

The Type 7 75mm rapid-fire gun was beaten, but its range and rate of fire had a significant advantage over the British team's 15-pound BLC field gun. Moreover, the artillery positions pre-built by the coalition forces had relatively complete bunkers. The British artillery only used woods or villages as cover and did not have the ability to resist the opponent's shelling. Moreover, the British reconnaissance school-fired aircraft never seized the air supremacy of Cork Port from the German Navy aviation. Instead, they were regarded as a living target for shooting training by enemy fighter pilots. British artillery was difficult to obtain air support, but the coalition gunners could bombard the British artillery positions with their eyes closed.

In the case of unfavorable artillery battle, the British team, which had several times the advantage in troop strength, quickly gave up their intention to encircle Cork Port. They launched an offensive simultaneously in the east and north directions. The jumping infantry propulsion and position infiltration tactics could vaguely see the Germans' charm on the Western Front. In the northern section of the outer defense line of Cork Port, the coalition forces lost several positions in the battle, and then strategically gave up several other places, which made the British commander think that he had made a breakthrough in this direction.

At the same time, the coalition forces deployed in the eastern section of Cork Port held the trenches and used two old-fashioned protective cruisers anchored in Cork Port to participate in the war, leaving the British army fighting fiercely for three or four hours in this direction and still gaining nothing. Therefore, the British army adjusted the center of offensive focus, and when the 11th local division was fully committed to the attack, they sent the Australian-New Zealand joint division to battle. By dusk, the 11th local division of the British army had arrived at the edge of the city and could see the harbor.

After nightfall, the only optimism of the British officers and soldiers was blown away by heavy shells falling from the sky. During the day, two German battle cruisers cruising more than a hundred nautical miles away quickly approached Cork Port and launched artillery bombardment on British positions under the guidance of the land observation post. The trenches seized by the British army from the coalition were enough to resist the bombardment of ordinary field artillery and medium caliber howitzers, but the 12-inch high explosion fired by the German battle patrol

The power of the ammunition was far above the land war artillery. Each shot brought violent shock of the earth and mountains. The British officers and soldiers wedged into the coalition defense line were immediately dizzy. The artillery fire of German warships began to extend to the rear of the British army. The German Marines rushed up with Mauser pistols, Mauser short rifles and Maderson light machine guns. They greeted each other with grenades, and took back the positions that the Commonwealth army had difficulty chewing in a few seconds.

The British army was not without precautions for the emergence of German warships. On the one hand, they deployed the army artillery to a position that was accessible to the harbor, and on the other hand, they ambushed submarines and lightning ships near Cork Bay. However, there is a duck-shaped water between Cork Port and Cork Bay. The upstream and downstream waterways are narrow, and it is easy to lay out cordons. The water surface in the middle is wide, so large ships such as battlecruisers can be allowed to linger and circulate. The German Navy also has detailed hydrological information on this water. With the help of the Irish people, he still has ease in the night operation.
Chapter completed!