Fox of France

In fact, not only the British, but also the Irish, did not expect God to be so helpful in the past two days, and the attack seemed to be quite smooth. So at least those guys from the second division couldn't help thinking about making a fake show, and couldn't help thinking, why don't we just take Athlone down for real! Even O'Hara, the second division commander, was thinking about it, and it was Jerry's intention to beat Tom.

But if you want to beat Tom, you want to beat Tom. If you really want to beat Tom, it's not that easy. Among other things, the higher ups don't have much ammunition for them. In particular, the shells of the "Gustav recoilless gun", which played an important role, consumed one third of them last night. Therefore, if he really wants to beat Tom, he must first ask the military committee to allocate more shells to him.

"This is not possible. The Military Council has already made a decision. This is a strategic decision. How can we change it casually? Besides, we made good progress earlier because the weather is particularly suitable, but you see, there is no heavy fog today, so, The counterattack of the British was also easily defeated by you...Well, speaking of it, our luck is really good, but we can’t put all our treasures on luck when we fight, don’t you think?” Then Mr. O’Hara suggested , was vetoed by Chairman Russell.

However, Commander O'Hara still had to pour some shells, because to complete the feint attack mission and force the British to send troops to rescue Athlone before the reinforcements were fully in place, they really needed to impose more force on Athlone's British. big pressure.

It's just that the weather no longer helped the Irish, and the fog did not appear again, but the Irish still made progress beyond the expectations of the British with new weapons and high morale.

But the British still did not immediately send troops from Dublin and Galway to relieve Athlone. It seems that the British feel that they can continue to support. Therefore, in order to increase the pressure on the British, even Chairman Russell had to tilt resources towards O'Hara.

But the British adapted fairly quickly to the Irish attack, and they quickly adapted to the Irish "recoilless guns", weapons that, while powerful, had limited range. Although the French claimed that this thing has a direct shooting range of 400 meters, if accuracy is to be ensured, shooters often need to take the risk of approaching to about 200 meters before firing. In order to save precious shells, gunners often take the risk of approaching a hundred meters before firing. At such a distance, the British's volleys of guns can already pose a considerable threat to the shooter.

The British specially concentrated some soldiers with good marksmanship, and let them be responsible for fighting the Irish "recoilless gunners". This also caused the Irish gunners to deplete even faster than the shells. The absence of heavy fog also made demining more difficult. Although the French also provided the Irish with the means of rocket demining, they were also constrained by the problem of money. They had very few of these things in their hands (this thing is much more expensive than mine detectors), and using mine detectors, mine clearance speed Very slowly, even at night, because of the existence of the British searchlights, it is very difficult to clear mines in the British forward positions.

This made the subsequent offensive more difficult, and the British still waited leisurely for the arrival of domestic reinforcements. According to the situation of the British ships entering the port every day sent back by the intelligence personnel of the Federation in Dublin, it can be inferred that the British reinforcements from the mainland are constantly arriving, and the number may have exceeded 20,000, and new troops are still coming. were sent to Dublin. It is estimated that in a few days, the total number of newly arrived British troops will rise to 50,000, plus the original troops, the reinforcements that can be sent from Dublin alone may reach 70,000 to 80,000. Such a force could no longer be stopped by the blocking forces of the Irish Independence Army, and the British did not send reinforcements to Galway, which shows that the British did not intend to send troops from Galway to rescue Athlone. Therefore, the plan to block Dublin's reinforcements in the east and eat Galway's reinforcements in the west with a time difference is no longer possible to succeed.

That being the case, the Irish simply changed their plan and added the 1st Division to the siege of Athlone. But this did not play a so-called decisive role, because the range of Athlone Fortress is limited and cannot accommodate so many attacking troops. Therefore, the attacks in the next few days made limited progress, but the casualties increased instead.

The 50,000 reinforcements requested by the Duke of Norfolk were basically in place. He even had time to let them rest for a while, and then sent an army of 70,000 people to rescue Athlone.

Although the Duke of Norfolk was not in a hurry when sending out the army, once the reinforcements set off, he kept urging them to speed up. He knew that as soon as the reinforcements were dispatched, the rebels would get the news. If he didn't act quickly enough, those rebels would all run away. If they can't be caught under the city of Athlone, then the subsequent war will be a quagmire again.

However, after departure, the action of the British army was not as fast as the Duke of Norfolk hoped, because the train pulling the army was ambushed shortly after departure.

The ambush did not cause too much damage to the British army, and the British army repelled the rebels without much effort. The main thing that really caused them trouble was the destruction of the railway by the rebels. Although the British were prepared for the destruction of the railway, and the military trains also carried various things to repair the railway, this still slowed down their speed. But even so, because the Irish must act now.

After receiving the news of the attack of the British reinforcements, the First Division was sent out to perform blocking tasks to ensure that other troops, especially those county brigades and district squads, could retreat smoothly. Prior to this, the First Division used a series of small British strongholds they captured between Dublin and Athlone, and transformed them to establish a relatively warehouse defense line. Now the First Division is relying on this line of defense to resist the reinforcements of the British.

This line of defense was built hastily, the British army had sufficient reinforcements, and its heavy firepower far exceeded that of the Irish. But in order to cover the retreat of other troops, the First Division had to rely on this place to resist the British army. Although the Irish First Division is well-trained and has high morale, they only blocked the British army for two days after paying huge sacrifices. The line of defense was penetrated by the British army.

At this time, most of the Irish troops participating in the war had completed their retreat, but the retreat of the blocking troops of the First Division became very difficult, and the British kept biting behind them. Finally, when the first division used its familiarity with the terrain to get rid of the pursuers, the blocking force of the first division had almost been reduced by half.