The Rise of the Third Reich

When Colonel Wink personally led the advance force to Dublin by train, Major Witsch and Lieutenant Skorzeny were also on their way to Dublin. Because they were defeated by the British... they were caught off guard by the British 29th Armored Brigade and the Cavalry Regiment (Mechanized Infantry Regiment) of the 3rd Infantry Division.

On the one hand, the British used their main force to attack and force the crossing from the front, attracting the pitifully small forces of Major Wizhi and Lieutenant Skorzeny. At the same time, they organized commandos to force the crossing from the lower reaches of the Boyne River near the seaport. The water there is relatively wide and there is no ready-made ferry terminal. It was originally not suitable for army troops to cross the river.

However, Montgomery mobilized several several hundred-ton landing ships and sailed into the river mouth. Using the landing ships as ferries, he ferried more than a dozen Crusader tanks and more than a thousand soldiers to the south bank of the Boyne River. The carefully arranged defense line of Major Witsch and Lieutenant Skorzeny was completely ineffective.

After all, the British have ruled Ireland for hundreds of years. Compared with the Germans, they are the ones who are truly familiar with every plant and plant in Ireland!

However, the Irish still sided with the German Nazis, and received help from many Irish during the retreat of Major Witzhi, Lieutenant Skorzeny and others.

Moreover, the guerrillas of the Irish Republican Army had been quickly organized - the Irish originally used guerrilla warfare to fight the British. They were vulnerable to regular warfare, but they still had the ability to fight guerrilla warfare.

During the retreat, Major Witsch and Lieutenant Skorzeny encountered at least 1,000 armed civilians. Many Irish soldiers who followed the German retreat also took off their uniforms to fight guerrillas. Major Witsch and Lieutenant Skorzeny asked their men to leave the grenades, mines and Panzerfaust anti-tank grenade launchers they carried with the guerrillas.

I don’t know if it was the Irish guerrilla warfare that delayed the British army, but the retreat of Major Witzhi and Lieutenant Skorzeny went smoothly. They retreated to Dublin around 5 a.m. on May 4. On the outskirts of Dublin, they saw many men and women working hard - digging trenches and anti-tank trenches. There are also many men wearing civilian clothes carrying old rifles and setting up roadblocks on the highway.

Obviously, the Irish are determined to defend their capital, Dublin!

…

"Comrade Golikov, we have just won two very important battles, repelled the German attack on Northern Ireland, and captured Dundalk and Drogheda in the Irish Free State. Now the first The leading troops of the 12th Army have approached Dublin, the capital of the Irish Free State."

The Red Army observation group sent by Stalin arrived in London on the morning of May 4, accompanied by the one-eyed General Wavell who had been transferred back to the mainland from India not long ago - General Wavell had spent two years studying in Russia before World War I. Russian, later an intelligence officer in the Russian Section of the British War Office, served in Russia during World War I and did not leave Russia until May 1917, after the outbreak of the revolution. Therefore, he could directly communicate in Russian with Lieutenant General Golikov, Deputy Chief of General Staff of the Soviet Red Army and Director of the General Intelligence Bureau.

The British also knew the purpose of Golikov's visit and knew that he came to inspect the Irish battlefield. So as soon as Golikov arrived in London, Admiral Wavell immediately accompanied him to the Irish front.

In fact, now is indeed a good time for people to visit the Irish front line, because the British army's operations in Ireland are relatively smooth. The German army was temporarily at a disadvantage because it arrived in too few numbers and was not a heavily armed force. So the Soviets would see the defeat of the German army and the victory of the British army.

"Did they reach Dublin so soon?" Sitting on a C-47 transport plane heading to Belfast, Golikov was very surprised by the rapid progress of the British army. He asked bluntly: "Could it be that the Germans were in Ireland has very few troops?"

According to intelligence provided by the British, about 150,000 German troops have arrived in Ireland! Golikov felt that if the Germans really arrived in so many numbers, the British army would never be able to achieve the current progress.

"Of course not," General Wavell shook his head. "They airborne two divisions in Dublin at once, and at least 120,000 others have arrived at Cork Port. It is estimated that their total strength on the island of Ireland is close to 150,000 . However, their 150,000 troops have not yet been deployed. Many heavy equipment are still waiting to be unloaded at the port, and the air force has no time to deploy. Now they are engaged in island landing operations. This is not a blitzkrieg on the plains. The Germans are not good at it, so we were caught off guard..."

Admiral Wavell's expression suddenly became very solemn, "But the Germans have now established a foothold in Ireland. Even if we can capture Dublin, we will not be able to capture Cork Bay. And as long as Cork Bay is in the hands of the Germans, they can With maritime superiority, it is very difficult to continue to increase troops in Ireland!"

The admiral's words were half-true and half-false, and very confusing. Although Golikov does not believe it all, he also believes that it has certain reference value.

"But we will still fight with our best strength," Wavell added, "because if we are defeated in Ireland, the entire mainland will be completely blocked. At that time, the government and the king will have to withdraw to Canada... It will be very difficult to counterattack.”

The old general looked at Golikov with his remaining right eye and said: "By then, your Soviet Union will become the only country in Europe that resists Nazi tyranny!"

The Soviet Union would become the only country in Europe that did not obey Germany... Golikov knew that this was what Stalin feared most. Moreover, Stalin did not believe that Germany would coexist peacefully with the Soviet Union after "peace with Britain and the United States". In Stalin's view, Germany would inevitably launch an invasion of the Soviet Union after conquering the entire Europe except the Soviet Union, so the Soviet Union must strike first before Germany completes its conquest of the British mainland.

But Stalin was a more cautious leader. He wanted to go to war but was afraid of losing. Because he knew that it would be difficult for a ruler who failed in a foreign war to survive in Russia, Stalin chose to attack weak enemies in the past three years and achieved several relatively small victories. He took over the right-bank Ukraine, Western Belarus, the Karelian Peninsula and Afghanistan.

Of course, Afghanistan has not been finally settled. There are still many feudal remnants that are resisting with the support of imperialism. In particular, the Churchill suicide bomb vests provided by British imperialism have caused considerable losses to the Red Army soldiers and the progressive forces in Afghanistan. Stalin was furious for this several times, and even threatened that sooner or later Churchill would wear this suicide vest himself!

However, despite his harsh words, when Churchill could no longer bear it, Stalin was reluctant to let Churchill and the British Empire perish together.

Golikov, who knew Stalin's contradictory thoughts very well, now really wanted to see a turning point in the world war in Ireland.

…

The so-called turning point may really come, because the ground forces of the invincible German Wehrmacht seem to be about to suffer the first battle-level defeat since the beginning of the world war.

When Major Witzig and Lieutenant Skorzeny arrived in Dublin with the remaining men, they knew that Dublin could not be defended.

Because the defense system of Dublin, which was about to be attacked by the superior British forces, did not exist in the eyes of him, a military expert. Those temporary trenches were shallow and short, and could not withstand artillery fire. The so-called anti-tank trenches could not resist tanks at all. The so-called roadblocks set up on the highway looked a bit like inspection warfare. They might be used to catch a bad guy, but it was completely a fantasy to use them to deal with the attack of the regular army.

What made them speechless was that the street fighting in Dublin was also very inadequate. Most of the solid buildings in the city were not deployed for street fighting, the main roads were not effectively blocked, and the barricades were built in accordance with the requirements of street fighting in the mechanized era.

Obviously, the Irish government fell into a certain degree of chaos immediately after declaring independence and resisting the British invasion, and they certainly did not seriously consider resisting the British invasion before the German army entered.

However, the resistance enthusiasm of the citizens of Dublin seemed to be quite high. After entering the city, Major Witzig and Lieutenant Skorzeny saw long queues in front of all the recruitment points on their way to the Allied Forces Headquarters in Phoenix Park. And on every street you can see old people, women and children building barricades with old furniture and sandbags - this kind of barricade may have worked in the European Revolution of 1848 or the Paris Commune uprising in 1871, but it is completely useless now.

People were very friendly to the German officers sitting in the Volkswagen W82 bucket car (equivalent to a jeep), and citizens stopped their work and saluted Wenk's convoy along the way.

"If there is enough time, maybe we can recruit a few Waffen SS divisions in Ireland, train and equip them well, so that they will become elite." Lieutenant Skorzeny looked at the Irish who were in high spirits but were about to suffer, and felt very sorry and helpless.

Major Witzig and Lieutenant Skorzeny met Lieutenant General Sussman, who looked a little worried, in an annex building of the Irish Presidential Palace. Major Witzig reported to him: "Commander, the British are coming more fiercely than expected, and their combat methods and equipment have improved, which is very similar to ours. What we encountered in Dundalk and Drogheda was a mechanized force that we could not resist at all." Lieutenant General Sussman did not blame his subordinates who lost the battle. He just smiled slightly and said to them in a comforting tone: "I know, it doesn't matter, our reinforcements will arrive soon. The 1st Marine Division sent 4 tank companies, 1 assault gun battalion and 1 anti-tank gun battalion. So we have to launch a counterattack this morning."