1635: The Eastern Front (27 page)

For all his frequent claims of being a rural bumpkin, Ableidinger was just as politically astute as anyone else in the room. "What you're suggesting, in short, is that the Crown Loyalists are at an impasse. Tied up in knots, as I believe the up-timers say." He smiled. "None of whom, of course, are in the room to correct my possible misquotation."

"That has always been the logic of the situation," said Rebecca. "But it is nice to see that the landgravine has apparently been able to get the prime minister to finally see it."

"To put it another way," said Strigel, "you think there will be no major changes in the political equation until something gets resolved on the military front."

"Precisely."

Rebecca's normal serenity seemed perhaps a bit frayed at the edges. Her hands were now clasped on the table in front of her.

"I understand that congratulations are in order," said Constantin. "With regard to your husband's exploits at Zwenkau."

"Hardly that." She unclasped her hands long enough to make a little wiggling gesture with the fingers of her right. "Michael tells me he did very little except to avoid doing anything stupid."

Ableidinger studied her, for a moment. He didn't miss the speed at which the hands got reclasped. "Perhaps so. But I suspect being a successful general is not as simple as it seems."

Berlin

"We are agreed, then," Gustav Adolf concluded. Standing at the head of the long row of tables that had been set up for the conference, he nodded to Mike Stearns, who was seated four chairs down on the king's left side. "As soon as we defeat the Poles and Brandenburgers in a major battle, General Stearns will take his division to Bohemia. Wallenstein has been requesting our support for months. He fears the Austrians will soon invade."

Gustav Adolf smiled, a bit crookedly. "Personally, I think his fears are excessive. On the other hand, by stationing the Third Division in Bohemia we will certainly forestall any possibility the Austrians might send troops to aid that bastard Wladyslaw."

The last phrase was spoken with real venom. There was a long-standing grudge between the two branches of the Vasa family. The one that ruled Poland felt—with some justification—that it had been swindled out of its rightful claim to the throne of Sweden. For their part, the Vasas who ruled Sweden resented the accusation with the bitterness felt by all usurpers who have convinced themselves they are the rightful heirs. It was a large part of the reason Mike had found Gustav Adolf so unrelenting on the subject of restarting a war with Poland.

As the Swedish king moved on to recapitulate some of the other major decisions made at the conference, Mike pondered the decision that affected him directly.

He was sure that the decision had been dictated by political considerations more than military ones. The Achilles heel of the new USE regime was the allegiance of the military. A very large portion of the soldiers in the army, possibly even a majority, had been recruited by organizers from the Committees of Correspondence. And while the navy and air force had much less of a CoC influence in the ranks, a disproportionate role was played in their leadership by up-timers. In fact, the commanding officers of both services were Americans.

That meant that if the Wettin regime tried to force through the reactionary program demanded by most of its factions, it ran the risk of provoking an open rebellion which, in turn, might very well trigger off a mutiny in the armed forces. The only reliable military units that would leave Wettin would be the king's own Swedish troops—most of whom were actually mercenaries, and most of those from the Germanies—and the forces fielded by some of the provincial rulers. Hesse-Kassel, for instance, had a rather powerful army.

But Hesse-Kassel was here in Berlin, not in Magdeburg—and so were most of his soldiers. In fact, he was sitting across from Mike at this very table, two seats up. Wilhelm V had left just enough troops at home to provide his wife Amalie Elizabeth with a minimal military force.

From the standpoint of the Crown Loyalists and their Swedish allies centered around Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, the situation was close to intolerable. But so long as the Swedish king himself refused to support any drastic measures, they did not have many options.

They did have a few, though. Mike couldn't prove it, but he was certain that his future assignment to Bohemia was a bone that Gustav Adolf had thrown Oxenstierna and Wettin. He'd remove one-third of the USE's unreliable army from the equation by sending it off to Prague—or České Budějovice in the south, more likely—and the one-third commanded by the most notorious leader of the opposition, at that.

"—quiet situation in the Oberpfalz, we will transfer Ernst Wettin and Johan Báner to Saxony to take charge of the province until its final disposition can be decided. They are an experienced and proven team."

And there was another politically-motivated decision. It was true, in and of itself, that Ernst Wettin as political administrator and Johan Báner as the commander of the military had done a good job of stabilizing the Oberpfalz and beating back the Bavarians. But while no one would have any objections to the prime minister's younger brother being appointed the political administrator of Saxony, the same was not true of Báner.

Ernst Wettin was a judicious, fair-minded and reasonable man, by all accounts Mike had ever heard including from Ed Piazza. The Swedish general, on the other hand—also by all accounts he'd heard, including from Americans who'd dealt with the man—was a pigheaded, narrow-minded militarist whose openly-stated opinion on how to deal with the CoCs was to execute the lot of them.

Sending
him
to Saxony, given the inevitable turmoil that would soon ensue in the province, was not much different from pouring gasoline on an open flame.

Gustav Adolf was perfectly aware of Báner's characteristics and limitations. Báner was the kind of general whom any sensible ruler placed in positions where his undoubted military skills would be of use but which were not politically sensitive. Again, Mike was sure Gustav Adolf was tossing Wettin and Oxenstierna a bone.

Mostly Oxenstierna, actually. All the Wettin brothers except the renegade Bernhard were pretty close. By now, Mike was sure Ernst had privately made clear to Wilhelm his opinion of Báner. It was no secret that Ernst Wettin and the Swedish general had frequently clashed in the Oberpfalz.

Amberg, capital of the Oberpfalz

Ernst Wettin set down the letter he'd just received from his older brother Wilhelm. It might be more accurate to say it slipped from his loose and nerveless fingers onto the desk.

"Saxony?" he groaned aloud. "Me and Báner—
to Saxony
? Have they gone mad?"

Chapter 22

Chemnitz, in southwestern Saxony

John George's face was almost literally red. The elector of Saxony's eyes were bulging, too. Half in disbelief, half in fury.

"What?"

That was the third time he'd said that since Captain Lovrenc Bravnicar had returned and given his report. The young Slovene officer had been told the Saxon ruler could be difficult, but this was his first personal experience dealing him.

"What?"
He shrieked the word this time. All traces of disbelief had vanished. The elector's mood was now one of pure rage.

Bravnicar would have had some sympathy for him, under most circumstances. Treachery was indeed a just cause for anger. But what did John George expect if he employed a mercenary like General Heinrich Holk?

What had happened was now clear. The captain had pieced the story together from many sources. As soon as word reached the Vogtland and the Erzbebirge of the Saxon defeat at Zwenkau, Heinrich Holk had mobilized his army and marched to the northeast. The presumption was that he intended to skirt Bohemia and enter Poland, and then offer his services to King Wladyslaw.

Why should anyone be surprised? As a military leader, Heinrich Holk had only two skills: Recognizing a lost cause immediately, and changing sides faster than a snake could molt its skin.

John George's wife stuck her head out of the carriage. "What is wrong?"

"Holk has betrayed us," her husband snarled.

Clearly, she didn't understand the implications. She just shook her head and said: "I never liked that man anyway. When can we get out of this wretched carriage?"

Their son Moritz stuck his head out alongside hers. "Yes, Papa, please. Horses would be so much better."

John George looked back at Bravnicar. For a fleeting moment, the captain wished he had a talent for treason himself. Without Holk's troops, escorting the elector through the Vogtland was going to be dangerous. All Bravnicar had at his disposal were a little over a hundred Slovene cavalrymen, a handful of Croat scouts, less than a hundred and fifty infantry soldiers—and those mostly dregs taken from other units—and exactly one artillery piece and a crew of gunners to service it. A splendid thing, in its own way. A nicely made Italian heavy culverin, which could fire five-inch balls or twenty pounds of canister.

It also weighed two and half tons and, with the forces at his disposal, was impossible to move through this mountainous terrain.

"Perhaps . . . Sir, I strongly recommend that you make peace with the king of Sweden. As best you can. If we try to pass through the Vogtland without Holk's troops as an escort . . ."

It was no use. The elector of Saxony spent the new few minutes berating the Slovene captain for presumption, stupidity, ignorance, insubordination, bumptiousness, insolence, effrontery and, most of all, cowardice. By the time he finished, Captain Bravnicar's face was very pale and the knuckles of the hand gripping his sword were prominent and bone-white.

That was quite foolish behavior on the part of the elector. There were any number of mercenary captains who'd have cut him down on the spot and tried to sell his head to Gustav Adolf. Their troops certainly wouldn't object. Mercenary soldiers were loyal to whoever paid them, and only rarely did their pay come directly from their employer. Usually it was passed through the mercenary commanders, and it was those officers to whom the soldiery gave whatever loyalty they had.

Fortunately for John George, the young captain he'd so thoroughly offended was a scion of one of the many noble families in the Balkans who took personal honor very seriously. Often stupidly, too; but always seriously.

So, he simply gave the elector a stiff little bow and said: "As you wish. I do recommend you follow the advice of your wife and son. From here south, carriages are impossible."

They left Chemnitz two hours later, early in the afternoon. They should be able to reach Zwickau by nightfall, now that they'd shed the carriage. After that, it was only fifty miles or so to Hof. Three or four days travel, given the nature of their party and assuming the weather held.

They'd have to bypass Hof in order to avoid possible USE patrols. And, throughout, they'd just have to hope that Gustav Adolf kept all his airplanes in the north carrying out reconnaissance missions against the Poles and Brandenburgers. But once they got into the Bohemian Forest, they should be able to stay hidden within its dense woods until they reached Bavarian territory.

The real problem, however, was that first fifty mile stretch between Zwickau and Hof. That took them right through the heart of the Upper Vogtland.

The region was controlled by Kresse and his bandits, except when large army patrols passed through the area. At such times, Kresse would withdraw into hiding until the patrol passed.

In all, Captain Bravnicar had about two hundred and fifty men. Kresse wouldn't normally attack a force that large. But these were not normal circumstances. Kresse had excellent intelligence. Everyone knew the Saxons had been defeated by the USE and thanks to his tirade, plenty of people in Zwickau now knew that John George was here. Kresse would have no trouble figuring out that the middling-large combined cavalry and infantry force passing through the Upper Vogtland had John George in its midst.

Would he attack then? Two years ago, probably not. Today, after the depredations committed by Holk's mercenaries in these mountains . . .

Almost certainly.

Magdeburg

"It's a trick," said Achterhof.

Gretchen Richter rolled her eyes. "A trick, Gunther? By whom? Rebecca?"

"And to what purpose?" added Spartacus.

When his paranoid streak was aroused, Gunther Achterhof was as stubborn as the proverbial mule. "No, of course it's not Rebecca. Just means she's been tricked herself. By who? That snake of a landgravine, that's who."

He swiveled in his seat to face Spartacus, who was perched on a stool in a corner of the large kitchen. "To what purpose? You need to ask? It's obvious. To lull us into carelessness and relaxation by making us think we face no immediate danger."

Everyone in the kitchen stared at Achterhof. Not just Gretchen and Spartacus, but the six other CoC leaders present as well. The expressions of all eight people were identical.

After a few seconds, Eduard Gottschalk leaned back against the far wall and said, "Well, of course. How could we not see their scheme? They will trick us into disbanding our militias, dismantling our spy network, and turning all our energies to organizing public festivals."

"We'll get rid of all the associations, too," added Hubert Amsel, who was seated next to Gretchen at the table. He waved his hand. "Insurance cooperatives, sports leagues, the lot—all of them! Into the trash bin. Who needs them, now that we have swooned at the feet of the Hessian lady?"

Achterhof's jaws tightened. "It's not funny."

The young woman standing next to Gottschalk took a step toward the center of the kitchen. "No, but you are. Gunther, this is carrying caution to the point of madness."

Galiena Kirsch pointed her finger at one of the kitchen windows. It was closed, even in midsummer, at Achterhof's insistence. To eliminate the risk of eavesdroppers, he said, and never mind that there were over a dozen CoC security people guarding the apartment building on every side. As a result, of course, the kitchen was stiflingly hot. It would be years before up-time air conditioning became a feature of seventeenth-century life, outside of perhaps a few palaces—and those, small ones.