The Rise of the Third Reich

On the morning of May 3, 1942, the British, who had just suffered a defeat on the Celtic Sea, now reaped the fruits of victory in Dundalk, near Northern Ireland, in the Irish Free State.

This is the first defeat that Germany's Nazi Superman has suffered in a land battle in this war! It was also the first victory achieved by the famous British general Montgomery in World War II.

Amid the rumbling artillery fire of the British army, Montgomery, who had just been promoted to Army Group Commander, left his former enemy headquarters in Newry-Morne, Northern Ireland, in an AEC armored command vehicle and headed towards Dundalk, a city in the northeastern part of Ireland. Drive away.

Although supported by more than a dozen German 38t tanks and hundreds of heavily armed German troops, the Irish defense line in Dundalk still failed to hold out until dawn and was attacked by the British 11th Armored Division and the 3rd Infantry Division. collapsed. The Irish and their German friends, together abandoning the city of Dundalk and their vast stores of arms and ammunition, retreated in panic along the Dundalk-Dublin road just after dawn.

Now the road south from Newry-Morne is crowded with tanks, armored vehicles, trucks dragging artillery and filled with soldiers, as well as many soldiers moving in on foot and horse-drawn artillery - the British Army is When the World War began, it was all motorized. After the war began, it acquired a large number of American trucks and armored vehicles, and also produced many of its own. There were enough vehicles to allow Montgomery's troops to maneuver their way in.

But now there is a shortage of fuel, and most of the infantry has changed from motorized to mules and horses... In fact, even mules and horses are not enough. Most of the infantry of the soldiers move in on foot, and their baggage mainly relies on Railway transportation seemed to return to the First World War overnight.

However, this does not affect the high morale of the officers and soldiers. Although the prospects of the war are very bleak, most British soldiers are still quite optimistic.

Even Montgomery, who is sitting in an AEC armored command vehicle that looks a bit like a coffin, can feel this atmosphere of blind optimism, and understand it. Soldiers who have received two or three years of rigorous training but have never experienced the baptism of war will feel that they are very powerful. Moreover, they had just won the first battle and now set foot on Irish soil. As long as they can win small victories one after another, morale and experience will continue to accumulate, and the combat effectiveness of the troops will become stronger and stronger - after all, the training and weapons the officers and soldiers of the 12th Group receive are no worse than those of the Germans. The battle should not be lost.

At this time, a group of dejected Irish prisoners of war were escorted along the road and passed by the British infantry walking south. Suddenly some British soldiers began to curse.

"Irish Pig!"

"Inferior Irish!"

"Deserve it!"

"go to hell!"

Hearing these words, Montgomery couldn't help but frowned. He was also half Irish!

However, he did not blame his soldiers for their foul-mouthed soldiers, because it was indeed the Irish who made the mistake. They degenerated, gave up their pride as subjects of the British Empire, and knelt before the despicable and cruel German Nazis. This is inexcusable and they will pay the price.

And the price is that the entire island of Ireland was reduced to ruins during the war! It would become a battlefield for bloody battles between German and British troops, just like northern France and Belgium during World War I. If the British army can severely attack the Nazi army in Ireland, no, as long as the British army can fight a cruel and long war of attrition with the German army in Ireland and plunge the Germans into a quagmire, Britain will win!

Because there is still a huge worry behind Germany - the Soviet Union!

The GC-tsar must be craning his neck to look at the Irish battlefield now, right?

…

When Montgomery thought of Stalin, the great man of communism was holding a carved pipe in his hand and standing against a huge military map of Ireland that hung on the wall of his office in the Kremlin.

On the map, prominent Nazi swastikas are affixed to Dublin and Cork Bay, while a small Union Jack flag is affixed next to Belfast in Northern Ireland. A giant blue arrow stretches from Belfast to Dundalk in the Irish Free State.

At the same time, there is a long black arrow on the sea south of the island of Ireland, extending from Brest in northeastern France to the Bay of Cork in Ireland. This was the lifeline for the Germans to transport supplies and troops to the island of Ireland. If it was cut off by the British Royal Navy, Germany would lose the Battle of Ireland.

Unfortunately, the British Royal Navy's Home Fleet was defeated again in the great battle of the Celtic Sea in the early morning of May 3. According to reports from internationalist fighters who have penetrated into the Royal Navy, the British were defeated by a secret German weapon and lost one battleship and three heavy cruisers. Now even the anchorage of the Home Fleet has been moved more than 100 kilometers north. .

It seems that now the British cannot count on their navy and can only rely on their army to resist the German invading army.

"Comrade Pavlov, Comrade Zhukov, what do you think of the Battle of Ireland? Who will win? How long will it last?"

Stalin whispered questions to Pavlov, the commander of the Western Military District of the Red Army, who was standing behind him, wearing a straight military uniform and bearing the rank of general, and Zhukov, who had just returned to Moscow from the Far East to serve as the chief of general staff of the Red Army.

General Pavlov, the commander of the Western Military District, answered the question first. He was promoted to the commander of the Western Military District after the Battle of Poland and commanded the most powerful military district of the Soviet Red Army (the front during the war) to confront Germany. Naturally, he spent a lot of energy on research. The German army is the easiest to say about the situation of the German army's combat effectiveness.

Pavlov said: "Comrade General Secretary, I think the Irish battlefield will turn into a huge meat grinder! After all, Ireland is an island that is not connected to the European continent. It is very close to the British Isles, but relatively far from the European continent. Far away. The British can transport troops to the island of Ireland quickly, but the transport of German reinforcements and logistics will be much more difficult."

He paused and said in a very positive tone: "So I think that the British Army will not admit defeat on the island of Ireland until they have exhausted most of their strength, because that means the end of the history of the British Empire!"

"Comrade Pavlov, do you mean that the Germans will pay a heavy price on the island of Ireland, but in the end they will win?"

"Yes." Pavlov nodded firmly and said, "If we don't go to war with Germany, the Germans will win. Maybe hundreds of thousands of Germans will die, but in the end they will win."

"Why?" Stalin asked.

"Because the British reactionary ruling class has no determination to shed the last drop of blood to defend the motherland!"

Pavlov frowned and said: "In fact, some members of the British ruling class are not mortal enemies of the German ruling class, but relatives! They all belong to the decadent and declining European aristocratic circle, and now they are just competing for dominance. , rather than a life-and-death struggle in which one class overthrows another.

According to the intelligence we have, the highest levels of the British ruling class are already preparing for escape and compromise. Princess Elizabeth, the heir to the British throne, will become the leader of the compromise faction and marry her cousin, the son of Kaiser Wilhelm III, thus allowing the Hohenzollern dynasty to take over the British island. And her sister, Princess Margaret, has now arrived in Canada and will become the monarch of Canada in the future and the leader of the escape faction... So among the current British top ruling class, only the escape faction and the capitulation faction really want to resist to the end. There are no people. This situation determined that Britain would eventually lose the decisive battle in Ireland unless the Soviet Red Army entered the war in time. "

Stalin nodded. He thought Pavlov's analysis was very reasonable. Then he half turned around and looked at Zhukov. Both Zhukov and Pavlov were generals who were highly regarded by Stalin. However, Zhukov and Pavlov had completely different qualities. General Pavlov was more like a strategist and could view military issues from a considerable height, which Stalin admired very much. , and it is also easy to communicate with Pavlov.

Zhukov is a relatively pure soldier. He does not study military affairs from a high strategic level and starts with political issues. For Zhukov, military is military, and it can be analyzed in terms of the number of troops, training, morale, logistics, weapons and equipment, etc.

"Comrade General Secretary, the current situation is that the Germans have successfully landed on the island of Ireland." Zhukov said, "Then they only need to transport troops, supplies and equipment to the island of Ireland step by step, establish air force and naval bases, and deploy sufficient threats Aircraft from the Firth of Lorne, the Firth of Clyde and the Port of Liverpool, and then a steady advance could win without too many casualties.

However, it still takes a lot of time. Delay tactics and waiting for changes are the only things the British can do. "

"So do you think the British can bring about a change?" Stalin took a puff of cigarette and looked at his two favorite generals.

This question is not easy to answer. Zhukov frowned nervously and seemed to be thinking hard. Although Pavlov was leading troops in the Western Military District, he was very clear about Stalin's thoughts. He immediately replied: "The key to whether they can succeed or not lies in the British themselves. If they are brave enough and resist resolutely on the island of Ireland, they will be strong enough." If more German troops are attracted to Ireland from the European continent, the possibility of changes will be great."

Stalin nodded and looked at Zhukov who said nothing. Zhukov frowned and said: "Comrade General Secretary, we must find ways to understand the most accurate situation on the Irish battlefield, otherwise we will not be able to figure out how many troops the Germans have invested in Ireland. Therefore, I hope to lead a high-level military representative The regiment went to England and went to the Irish battlefield to see the situation there firsthand.”

Stalin shook his head and said: "No, it is not appropriate for you to go. You are the chief of the general staff and need to be responsible for the overall situation. It is better to let Comrade Golikov, the intelligence chief, go."