1637 The Polish Maelstrom Read online

  Table of Contents

  Maps

  Prologue: The Anaconda Project

  Part One Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part Two Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part Three Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Four Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part Five Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Part Six Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part Seven Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue: The Anaconda Prospect

  Cast of Characters

  Afterword

  Author’s Note

  1637

  THE POLISH

  MAELSTROM

  ERIC FLINT

  1637: The Polish Maelstrom

  Eric Flint

  NEW SOLO NOVEL BY ERIC FLINT IN THE BEST-SELLING RING OF FIRE SERIES!

  The Ottoman Empire has captured Vienna and is now laying siege to the Austrian government-in-exile established in the city of Linz. Both the United States of Europe and the Kingdom of Bohemia have come to Austria’s assistance, but everyone knows this is going to be a long and brutal struggle.

  In order to relieve the pressure on the Austrians, General Mike Stearns proposes to open a second front in the Levant. The USE’s emperor Gustavus Adolphus gives his approval to the plan, and Mike sets it in motion, with the very capable assistance of his wife Rebecca Abrabanel, now the USE’s Secretary of State.

  Meanwhile, Poland is coming to a boil. Gretchen Richter, the newly elected chancellor of Saxony, has seized control of Lower Silesia. Her small army is now approached to form an alliance with the Polish revolutionaries who have seized power in the Ruthenian province of Galicia—which, in the universe the time-displaced Americans of Grantville came from, would have constituted the western Ukraine.

  Now, the Bohemians send an army led by Morris Roth into Poland, ostensibly to aid the revolutionaries but also with the goal of expanding King Albrecht Wallenstein’s growing empire in eastern Europe. And—the icing on the cake—Mike Stearns sends the Hangman Regiment of his Third Division under the command of Jeff Higgins to reinforce Jeff’s wife Gretchen in Silesia.

  The maelstrom in Poland grows . . . and grows . . . and grows . . .

  Will it drag all its displaced Americans and their allies down with it?

  THE RING OF FIRE SERIES

  1632 by Eric Flint

  1633 by Eric Flint & David Weber

  1634: The Baltic War by Eric Flint & David Weber

  1634: The Galileo Affair by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis

  1634: The Bavarian Crisis by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce

  1634: The Ram Rebellion by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce et al.

  1635: The Cannon Law by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis

  1635: The Dreeson Incident by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce

  1635: The Eastern Front by Eric Flint

  1635: The Papal Stakes by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon

  1636: The Saxon Uprising by Eric Flint

  1636: The Kremlin Games by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett

  1636: The Devil’s Opera by Eric Flint & David Carrico

  1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon

  1636: The Viennese Waltz by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett

  1636: The Cardinal Virtues by Eric Flint & Walter Hunt

  1635: A Parcel of Rogues by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis

  1636: The Ottoman Onslaught by Eric Flint

  1636: Mission to the Mughals by Eric Flint & Griffin Barber

  1636: The Vatican Sanction by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon

  1637: The Volga Rules by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett

  1637: The Polish Maelstrom by Eric Flint

  1635: The Tangled Web by Virginia DeMarce

  1635: The Wars for the Rhine by Anette Pedersen

  1636: Seas of Fortune by Iver P. Cooper

  1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz by Kerryn Offord & Rick Boatright

  Time Spike by Eric Flint & Marilyn Kosmatka

  The Alexander Inheritance by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett

  Grantville Gazette volumes I-V, ed. by Eric Flint

  Grantville Gazette VI-VII, ed. by Eric Flint & Paula Goodlett

  Grantville Gazette VIII, ed. by Eric Flint & Walt Boyes

  Ring of Fire I-IV, ed. by Eric Flint

  1637

  THE POLISH

  MAELSTROM

  ERIC FLINT

  1637: THE POLISH MAELSTROM

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Eric Flint

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4814-8389-6

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-707-0

  Cover art by Tom Kidd

  Maps by Michael Knopp

  First printing, April 2019

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Flint, Eric, author.

  Title: 1637: the Polish maelstrom / Eric Flint.

  Other titles: Polish maelstrom

  Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen, 2019. | Series: Ring of fire ; 26

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018061008 | ISBN 9781481483896 (hardback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Europe—History—1517–1648—Fiction. | Time travel—Fiction.

  | BISAC: FICTION / Alternative History. | FICTION / Science Fiction /

  Adventure.

  Classification: LCC PS3556.L548 A618693 2019 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018061008

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  To Harry Meserve

  Prologue:

  The Anaconda Project

  November 1633

  Prague, capital of Bohemia

  “This is absurd,” said Morris Roth, as forcefully as he could. He had a bad feeling that wasn’t very forceful at all, given that he was wearing an absurd costume—he thought it was absurd, anyway, although it was just standard seventeenth-century courtier’s clothing. The entire situation was absurd.

  A bit desperately, he repeated the statement. “This is absu
rd.” After a couple of seconds, he remembered to add: “Your Majesty.”

  Fortunately, Wallenstein seemed to be in one of his whimsical moods, where the same possible slight that might have angered him at another time merely seemed to be a source of amusement. General Pappenheim—damn his black soul to whatever hideous afterlife there might be even if Morris didn’t actually believe in hell—was grinning outright.

  “Ah, Morris. So modest!” Pappenheim’s scarred face was distorted still further as the grin widened. “How can you claim such a complete absence of heroic qualities? You! The Don at the Bridge!”

  Morris glared at him. “It was just a job that needed doing, that’s all. So I did it. But what sort of lunat—ah…”

  Calling the king of Bohemia a “lunatic” to his face was probably not wise. Morris was nimble-witted enough even under the circumstances to veer in midstream.

  “…misadvised person would confuse me with a blasted general? Your Majesty, General Pappenheim, I am a jeweler.”

  “What sort of person?” asked Wallenstein, chuckling softly. “A lunatic, perhaps. The same sort of lunatic who recently proclaimed himself King of Bohemia despite—yes, I will say it myself—a claim to the throne that is so threadbare it would shame a pauper. But who cares? Since I am also the same lunatic who won the second battle of the White Mountain.”

  They were in the small salon in the palace that Wallenstein favored for intimate meetings. He planted his hands on the armrest of his rather modest chair and levered himself erect.

  “Levered” was the correct term, too. Wallenstein’s health, always delicate, had been getting worse of late. Morris knew from private remarks by Wallenstein’s up-time nurse Edith Wild that she was increasingly worried about it. Some of the new king of Bohemia’s frailty was due to the rigors of his past military life. But most of it wasn’t. Wallenstein, unfortunately, was superstitious and still placed great faith in the advice of his new astrologers—including their advice on his diet. Morris had once heard Edith mutter that she was this close—a thumb and fingertip indicated perhaps an eighth of an inch—to getting her revolver and gunning down the astrologers.

  It was not an inconceivable thought. Edith was quite ferocious, as she’d proved when she shot dead the assassination team sent to murder Wallenstein a few months earlier. The reason Wallenstein had new astrologers was because they’d replaced some of the old ones who’d been implicated in the plot.

  “A jeweler,” Morris repeated. Even to his ears, the words sounded like a whine.

  Pappenheim waved his hand airily. “And what of it? Every great general began his life as something else. Even a baker, perhaps.”

  Morris glared at him again. “‘Began his life.’ I am in my fifties, for the love of God.”

  “Don Morris, enough,” said Wallenstein firmly. “Your reluctance to assume the post of general in my army simply reinforces my conviction that I have made the right decision.”

  “Why, Your Majesty?” demanded Morris, just as firmly. One of Wallenstein’s saving graces was that the man didn’t object to subordinates challenging him, up to a point, provided they were polite about it. “My military experience is limited to that of an enlisted soldier in the American army of another universe. What we called a ‘grunt’—with exactly the connotations you’d expect from the term. I wasn’t even in a combat unit. I was essentially a quartermaster’s clerk, that’s all, keeping military supply records.”

  Smiling, Wallenstein looked at Pappenheim. For his part, Bohemia’s top general still had the same wolflike grin on his face.

  “Limited to that? Oh, surely not, Don Morris,” said Pappenheim cheerily. “You forget the Battle of the Bridge. Which you led—not even you will deny that much—and which has since entered the legends of the Jews all across eastern Europe.”

  Morris grit his teeth. “I said. It was just a job that needed to be done, and—”

  “Enough, Morris,” repeated Wallenstein.

  Morris fell silent. The fact that the king of Bohemia had dropped the honorific “Don”—which was an informal term, but significant nonetheless—made it clear that he considered the argument at an end. Whether Morris liked it or not, his new post as a general in the Bohemian army was a done deal.

  “Follow me,” said Wallenstein, heading toward one of the doors in the small chamber. Even though Wallenstein was only fifty years old, he moved like a man twenty years older. It was rather painful to watch.

  After following Wallenstein and Pappenheim through the door, Morris found himself in a chamber in the palace he’d never been in before. The chamber, also a small one, was completely dominated by a large table in the center of the room. The table itself was dominated by huge maps that covered its entire surface.

  Once Morris was close enough to see the map on the very top of the pile, he had to restrain himself from hissing.

  So. Here it was. He’d heard rumors of the thing, but never seen it.

  The map had no legend, but the title of it was plain enough even if invisible. The Future Empire of Wallenstein the Great would do quite nicely.

  Wallenstein and Pappenheim said nothing, for a while, giving Morris time to study the map.

  His first impression never changed. The map could also have been titled How Little Bohemia Became an Anaconda.

  Indeed, the “Bohemia” that the top map projected into the future did look like a constrictor, albeit a fat one. On the west, serving for the serpent’s head, lay Bohemia, Moravia and Upper Silesia. Then came a neck to the east, in the form of a new province that Wallenstein had labeled “Slovakia.” Presumably, he’d picked the name from one of the future history books he’d acquired. Which was all fine and dandy, except that in the here and now there was no country called “Slovakia.” What there was in its place was the northern part of the region of the Austrian empire known as Royal Hungary, the rump of Hungary that had been left to it by the Ottoman Turks after their victory over the kingdom of Hungary at the Battle of Mohács in 1526.

  So. War with Austria. Check.

  Of course, that was pretty much a given, with Wallenstein not only a rebel from Austria but allied to the USE. Hostilities between the USE and Austria had died down lately, since Gustav Adolf was preoccupied with his war against the League of Ostend. But nobody much doubted that they would flare up again, unless he lost the war against the alliance of France, Spain, England and Denmark. Assuming he won, everyone with any political knowledge and sense at all knew that Gustav Adolf would turn his attention to Saxony and Brandenburg, and the Austrians were likely to weigh in on the opposite side.

  Still, rebelling against Austria and establishing an independent Bohemia was one thing. Continuing on to seize from the Austrians territory that had never been part of Bohemia was something else again.

  It got worse. Or better, Morris supposed, depending on how you looked at it. He had to remind himself that, after all, this was the ultimate reason he’d come to Prague and decided to throw in with Wallenstein. The worst massacre that would ever fall upon Europe’s Jewish population prior to the Holocaust was “due to happen” in fifteen years, in the Chmielnicki Pogrom of 1648, unless something was done to upset the applecart.

  Morris had finally decided that the best chance for upsetting that applecart—a very intractable applecart, given the social and economic factors involved—was to ally with Wallenstein and rely on him to be the battering ram.

  He still thought that was the best alternative. What he hadn’t figured on was that Wallenstein would return him the favor and propose to make Morris the battering ram.

  But he’d leave that aside, for the moment. He went back to studying the map.

  East of “Slovakia,” the proposed new Greater Bohemia started getting fatter, like an anaconda that had just swallowed a pig. The big new belly of the new empire would consist of the southern part of the region that was often called Lesser Poland, a huge territory which comprised close to half of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the future his
tory Morris came from, most of that would eventually become part of Ukraine.

  War with Poland. Check.

  Being honest, Morris knew that was pretty much a given also, if he was to have any hope of forestalling the Chmielnicki Pogrom. The noble magnates who dominated the political life of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were bound to be hostile to any project which removed the corrosive social tensions in Lesser Poland. Much of their wealth and power came from those tensions.

  From there, the map got rather vague. The northern boundary of Wallenstein’s proposed empire was not clearly defined, running somewhere south of Lviv and Kiev until it reached the Dnieper River, at which point it expanded southward to the Black Sea, gobbling up Moldova, Bessarabia and the city of Odessa. The exact boundary on the southeast was not distinct, either, being indicated by a shaded area rather than clear borders, although it generally seemed to follow the Dniester River. Morris suspected that Wallenstein wanted, if possible, to avoid any outright clashes with the Ottoman Empire. He’d take what he could, but stop short of challenging the Turks directly.

  Marked in faint pencil lines further east was what amounted to a long tail that stretched into the southern regions of what Morris thought of as “Russia,” although in the seventeenth century the area—this was true of much of Lesser Poland, as well—was very much a borderland thinly inhabited by a wide mix of peoples.

  So. War with Russia and the Cossacks. Check. Tatars too, most likely.

  Morris let out a slow breath. Maybe war with the Muscovites and Tatars could be avoided. As for the Cossacks…