Start 1861: I just inherited the Dutch throne

Chapter 1132 A century of resistance, Ireland revolted

I have to say, there is a saying that is really right. The people who know you best are either your friends or your enemies.

The northern part of the island of Ireland in the 21st century is the British-occupied Northern Ireland and is a place ruled by the British. The southern part is the territory where Ireland has successfully restored its country.

The history of the two countries has continued to evolve over the past 200 years, but the contradictions have never disappeared. It should be said that Britain's ambitions towards Ireland have never ceased.

Ireland is adjacent to the United Kingdom and England. It was not a British territory in the past. As a neighbor, Ireland was weaker than the United Kingdom. Therefore, England suppressed Ireland for hundreds of years, and finally completely conquered Ireland and incorporated it into its territory.

In 1801, Great Britain formally annexed Ireland and changed its name to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

However, as a Catholic region, Ireland strongly opposed the change to Protestantism under the pressure of London, so London was very dissatisfied. In the end, due to natural and man-made disasters, the English rulers watched Ireland starve to death due to poor potato harvests and food crises in the following decades. Millions of Irish people.

Originally, Ireland resisted the two sides becoming one family, but was forced to compromise due to force suppression. After the merger, the Irish people continued to resist, and then the British rulers in London continued to suppress it.

The British began to suffer losses from the United States of America in North America in 1776, and accidentally allowed the United States to develop a little manufacturing industry. Then the United States rushed to become independent and truly defeated the United Kingdom, leaving the fertile land of the United States. It was supposed to be Britain's breadbasket, but instead it became Britain's enemy, and even turned against France against itself.

With this lesson learned from the past, the United Kingdom naturally had a foresight. In order to prevent Ireland from repeating the mistakes that the United States made the most unhappy in the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom carried out a thorough de-industrialization of Ireland. Ireland was so industrialized that it could not even produce a horseshoe. Come out, let alone firearms. Without guns, it is naturally impossible to resist British rule. The British are indeed smart and worthy of being the big brother in the colonial world.

This made the Irish people even more angry.

In 1845, just after the first Crow War between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty, famine broke out in Ireland. The British did not take it seriously, as if it had nothing to do with them. Queen Victoria only made a symbolic donation of 2000 pounds. Show yourself fraternity.

But this fraternity is too thin. During this food crisis, the number of people who died and fled Ireland in just three years accounted for a quarter of the total population of Ireland. This made the Irish and England even more vulnerable. People formed a bloody feud.

As a result, an uprising broke out in Ireland in 1848. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Dublin and other cities to protest against the unscrupulous British rule. Unfortunately, Ireland could not even make firearms. Such an uprising was doomed. It failed and was quickly suppressed by British troops armed with advanced flintlock muskets.

Queen Victoria, who has been on the throne for 11 years, has become very sophisticated in her political methods. Moreover, because of the victory of the First Crow War in the Far East, Britain was so proud that Queen Victoria's reputation soared to the sky in Britain and even Europe, which made Queen Victoria just take the strong approach of suppressing Ireland. No one in the UK or even Europe really questions her.

But since then, the Irish in Ireland and around the world have broken with Britain.

The top leaders of the failed uprising were either executed by the British government, or they went to France on the eastern side of the English Channel and the United States of America on the western side of the Atlantic to continue the trouble.

In short, although big riots are rare, small riots are indeed uninterrupted and occur every year around the world, especially among the millions of Irish people in the United States of America who have a difficult relationship with the United Kingdom. This is because of their improved social status in the United States of America. There was even a figure like President Lincoln in 1860, which made Ireland become a staunch anti-British force with the help of the United States.

In 1864, Britain went to war with the Boers, who had a majority of Dutch origin, in South Africa. A total of nearly 20 people were dispatched, but the losses were as high as 6. The Boers, with a total population of only 50, suffered equally heavy losses. To , you must know that these are regular Dutch troops.

This result shocked the UK and Europe. The pride of the British was shattered.

However, some people were happy and excited, and that was the Irish. The Irish once again "made trouble" on the island of Ireland. Unfortunately, they could not withstand the suppression of the British army in the end, and even became the target of venting for the failure of this war.

As a result, another Irishman fled. However, a large number of people fled this time. As traditional, they went to France and the United States. At the same time, they began to break the tradition. Nearly a quarter of the population migrated to the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Among them, the Australian continent where the Netherlands moved its new capital also occupied two-thirds of this population.

Britain completely fell out with the Netherlands in 1876. Britain's maritime dominance was seized, and economically it also lost its status as the world's largest economic power brought about by the first steam industrial revolution.

The competition for influence between Britain and the Netherlands was so depleted that Britain ultimately lost the proxy war between the two countries in Chile, and Britain's prestige plummeted.

The Irish are in trouble again.

However, the British army, with countless suppression experiences, quickly eliminated these "troublemakers" in their eyes.

The Irish, who were numb but uncompromising, began to secretly accumulate power again, especially on the issue of purchasing guns. The Irish in the United States contributed the most effort and money.

On August 1882, 8, France also completely fell out with Britain this time, and it was the kind of war that started over the Suez Canal.

France even expressed solidarity with the Irish at the diplomatic level, which flattered the Irish.

After hundreds of years, finally a foreign government understood the painful fate of the Irish and stood up to support them.

What's more, it supports the Second French Empire, which is also a Catholic power.

Unable to bear it any longer, the Irishman acted again with a trembling heart.

The riot was particularly serious this time. The Irish formed a volunteer army, but they learned wisely, especially under the guidance of "instructors" from the Irish countries of France, the Netherlands, and the United States who returned to Ireland. They did not follow the British front-line army. Instead, they bought weapons from these three countries and the Russian Empire, carried out assassinations and guerrilla attacks, and attacked British officials and police in Ireland every day.

The Irish guerrillas killed the British police and officials who ruled Ireland. The British then retaliated by killing Irish people. The two sides began to torture and extract confessions from those caught by the other side, and then shot them on the spot. Anyway, various methods were used in an endless stream. , appalling.

This practice continued until the end of August 1882.

(End of this chapter)