1636: The Ottoman Onslaught Read online

  “There, we are on firmer footing. They have been using it in their salvage operations in Ingolstadt, trying to raise those two ten-inch guns we tossed into the river before we evacuated.”

  “It’s still very close—closer than the Albatross, most likely.”

  Von Haslang smiled. “Yes, it is—but they’ve altered it rather drastically in order to lighten it as much possible so they can get the most lift from the envelope. Instead of four engines, it now only has two—and our spies tell me that they keep as little fuel on board as possible for the salvage operation.”

  He pointed to the still-visible but now very distant airship. “I can’t promise you anything, General. But the odds are quite good that the Pelican is the only airship we will need to worry about for the next few days.”

  Piccolomini grunted again. “Better odds, you’re suggesting, that what we face against Stearns’ forces if we don’t take the risk.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After wiping his brow, Piccolomini had kept his hat still in his fist. Now he placed it back on his head. “We’ll do it, then.” He turned his horse toward von Haslang’s immediate superior, General Caspar von Schnetter—who had been a mere colonel a week earlier. He was another of the Bavarian officers who’d enjoyed a promotion.

  “You will lead the attack on the enemy’s flank, von Schnetter,” said Piccolomini. “Remember—speed is critical. We won’t launch the attack unless the diversion succeeds in drawing off the enemy’s flying artillery—but they don’t call them ‘flying’ for no reason. If you dawdle, Stearns will be able to get them back on his right flank soon enough to face you. And those batteries have a fearsome reputation against cavalry, which is all you’ll have at first.”

  “I understand, sir,” said von Schnetter.

  “Make sure you do, General.” Piccolomini’s tone was forceful. “I have heard all too many officers since I arrived in Bavaria spout the opinion that Stearns is simply lucky rather than capable. Maybe so—but only a fool would operate on that assumption. He’s won every battle he’s fought so far, which in my experience indicates that something more than mere luck is involved.”

  Piccolomini looked up at the sky, scowling. It was not a clear day; a good third of the sky was covered with clouds. But those clouds foresaged nothing more than an occasional sprinkling.

  “I wondered why Koniecpolski chose to attack Gustavus Adolphus in the middle of a storm,” he said. “Now I understand the reason. Damn and blast those airships—and the airplanes may be even worse. Your enemy can see everything you’re doing.”

  Thankfully, Gustavus Adolphus seemed to be keeping his few airplanes in the Polish theater. Proving once again—as if the passing millennia had not already given proof enough—that rulers were prone to being pigheaded. If they’d had to face airplanes as well down here in Bavaria…

  Rudelzhausen, Bavaria

  About ten miles north of Zolling

  Ulbrecht Duerr’s finger touched a place on the map spread out across the table in the center of the small tavern’s main room. “Here, upstream of where the Amper makes that big bend southwest of Moosburg, a bit east of Zolling. That’s the place where Captain Finck says a crossing of the Amper would be easiest.”

  “Anywhere else?” Mike Stearns asked. “And how recent is the information?”

  “The information concerning the spot near Zolling is now a day old. There hasn’t been any rainfall worth talking about lately and the weather seems to be staying good, so nothing will have changed as far as the condition of the river is concerned.” Duerr shrugged. “Of course, there is no way to know if Bavarian forces have moved into the area since Finck was there.”

  He now tapped a spot on the map that was just north of Moosburg. “This does us little good, of course, but Finck reports there’s a place here on the Isar where the river could be easily forded. Cavalry and flying artillery could cross directly, he says, with no preparation at all. For infantry—certainly heavier artillery—you’d want to lay down a corduroy road. But no bridge would have to be thrown up.”

  “That spot’s east of the confluence between the Amper and the Isar. We’d wind up on the wrong bank of the Isar and have to find a place to cross back over again.”

  Duerr nodded. “True.” He glanced up at the ceiling of the room they were in, as if he could see through it to the sky beyond. “The Pelican can be back by nightfall and can lay over until tomorrow. We’ve made a landing place for it. When we move out in the morning we’ll have excellent reconnaissance until they have to return.”

  Mike shook his head. “I don’t want to wait, Ulbrecht. I want to keep pushing on, since we still have most of the day left.” His own finger tapped a place on the map. “By sundown—well, allowing for enough time to bivouac—I want to be here. This village called Attenkirchen.”

  Christopher Long tugged at the point of his beard, which was another of the Van Dykes so popular at the time. Mike, who favored a full beard cut short, had never been able to see the logic of the things. Maintaining a proper Van Dyke required almost as much work as being clean-shaven. Why bother?

  “I recommend against that, sir. Attenkirchen is a good six—maybe seven—miles south of here. We can certainly make it there by nightfall, in this weather. But we’ll be too far away to maintain the security of the Pelican’s landing site—and it will be much too late in the day to set up a new one.”

  Duerr chimed right in. “Which means the Pelican will have to continue operating out of Regensburg, and we’re getting close to the limit of its operating range unless we provide it with a new secure base.”

  Mike tried not to let his impatience make him irritable. The more time that passed, the more convinced he became that Bavaria was a distraction, a side show. Yes, Duke Maximilian of Bavaria had a lot to answer for. But the cold, hard fact remained that by now Bavaria had been stripped of most of its former power. That power had always been heavily dependent on Bavaria’s alliance with Austria—which Maximilian had shredded with his maniacal response to the flight of the Austrian archduchess who had been supposed to marry him.

  And, meanwhile, the Turkish armies were marching through the Balkans toward Vienna. That, in Mike’s opinion, was where their attention ought to be focused. Instead, practically all of the military power of the nation was tied up fighting either the Poles or the Bavarians, neither of whom posed an existential threat to the United States of Europe. Whereas the Ottomans might, if they could take Vienna.

  And the problem there—again! you’d think people would have learned by now—was the damned American history books. Suleiman the Magnificent had failed to take Vienna in 1529, and the up-time history books said the Ottomans would fail again when they tried—would try; might try; could have would have tried; the grammar got insane—again in 1683.

  Half a century from now, in another universe—as if that provided any guidance for what should be done today, in this universe, under these conditions.

  As bad an influence as the American history books could be, Mike sometimes thought that the influence of American technology was even worse. As witness the reliance his officers were placing more and more on the reconnaissance provided to them by the Pelican.

  Yes, the airship made a superb observation platform. Much better than airplanes, really. A plane had to spot something while speeding through the air with only one or two pairs of eyes; an airship could effectively hover in place, allowing several observers to take their time examining the landscape below through binoculars and telescopes.

  But the damn things had such limits! They burned so much fuel just keeping the envelopes filled with hot air that they could only stay in position for a short time, unless an advance base was created for them. And the problem there was that the craft were so huge and unwieldy that it took time to build a base for them—and then you had to detach a sizeable force to guard the base. Not to mention that they were all but useless in bad weather.

  All of Mike’s experience as a fighter—first a
s a prizefighter, and now as a commander of armies—was that if there was any one secret to winning a fight it was to be relentless. Hit ‘em and hit ‘em and hit ‘em and hit ‘em. Don’t stop, don’t rest. Push on, push on.

  The boxer he’d tried to model himself on when he was in the ring was Rocky Marciano. And while Mike had never thought he had Marciano’s talent, he did have the man’s temperament as a fighter. Never let up. Once you start, keep on. Hit ‘em and hit ‘em and hit ‘em. If you can’t knock them out, wear them down for a while—and then knock them out.

  Never let up.

  Of course, you had to be strong and in very good shape and be able to take a punch, for that strategy to work. But Mike had all of those qualities and he thought his Third Division did as well. Most of all, he was profoundly distrustful of allowing time to go by in a fight. Yes, yes, it would be nice to have excellent reconnaissance at every waking hour. Why not wish for orbital satellites while you’re at it?

  “No,” he said firmly. “Piccolomini just took over command of the Bavarian army less than a month ago—and he’s only had a few days—well, a week or so—to integrate the forces retreating from Ingolstadt. Granted, he’s got a lot of experience and a good reputation, but he’s not a magician. His C2 is bound to be a little ragged.”

  “C2”—he’d pronounced it Cee Two—was an Americanism that had by now spread throughout the USE’s military. It stood for “command and control.”

  Duerr and Long were both giving him looks that might fairly be described as fishy.

  “So is ours, General Stearns, as many new recruits as we’ve got,” said Long.

  He had a point. This campaign against Bavaria was coming on top of the Third Division’s campaigns in Saxony and Poland, followed by a march to and back from Bohemia to fight Báner outside Dresden, followed by a march from Saxony to Regensburg. They’d fought their first big battle at Zwenkau in August—less than nine months ago. That had been followed by the savage fighting at Zielona Gora in October and the big battle of Ostra in February. And here they were, just four months later, readying to fight yet another major battle.

  They’d lost a lot of men in the process, some of them killed, more of them injured, and a fair number just leaving for quieter pastures. Some of them did so by the rules, but most of them simply deserted. There was no great social oppobrium attached to desertion in this day and age.

  Because of its reputation for paying regularly, keeping the soldiers well-equipped and well-fed, and winning victories, the Third Division had no trouble finding new volunteers to replace the men they lost. In fact, the division was technically over-strength, at almost thirteen thousand men, because of its success at recruitment.

  But that came at a cost. To a degree, the Third Division was constantly recreating itself as it went.

  “I’m more concerned about our weakness when it comes to cavalry,” said Long. “I understand your frustration with the Pelican’s limitations, sir. But even reinforced with Mackay’s men, our cavalry is terribly understrength. That allows the Bavarians to use their superior numbers in cavalry to overwhelm our own, which—”

  “Enables them to move their troops without us being able to spot them,” Mike finished for him. “Yes, I know that, Christopher.” He ran fingers through his hair, resisting the temptation to tug at them with frustration. “The ideal solution would be to have another airship permanently attached to us that could rotate with the Pelican. But we’re stretched too much. If only—”

  He shook his head, shaking off the pointless wish that Gustav Adolf would come to his senses and end the war with Poland. Being fair to the emperor, even if Gustav Adolf was willing to make peace it was doubtful at this point that King Wladyslaw would be. Part of the reason for the never-ending rancor between the USE and Poland was that the two nations were ruled by two branches of the same Vasa royal family—both branches of which were firmly convinced the other was a pack of scheming bastards who couldn’t be trusted. Not for the first time since he’d arrived in the seventeenth century, Mike was reminded of his native state’s own reputation for stupid feuding.

  Hatfields and McCoys, meet Vasas and Vasas.

  “One of these days,” he said, “the new hydrogen dirigibles will come into service. That’ll help, because they’ll be able to stay up a lot longer.”

  He looked back down at the map and placed his finger on the spot marked Attenkirchen. “Here, gentlemen,” he said firmly. “By sundown. The Pelican will be fueled up and ready to go by sunup, so they’ll be here early in the morning.”

  And then they’ll have to leave again in half an hour or so. But he didn’t see any point in adding that. Life was what it was. You fought a war with the army you had, not the one you wished for.

  Chapter 18

  Bavaria, on the Amper river

  Two miles east of Zolling

  The ducks were what saved Jeff Higgins’ life. What bothered him afterward was that he never knew what kind of ducks they were, so he couldn’t properly thank the breed with something suitable like erecting a small temple or naming his next child after them.

  He and the small scouting party he was leading had just reached the spot on the Amper which Captain Finck had recommended as a good place for a crossing to be made. Jeff had started to come out of the saddle to lower himself to the ground when the flock of ducks—did ducks come in “flocks”? he didn’t know—suddenly started squawking—or whatever you called the racket that ducks made when they got agitated—and what seemed like thousands of them lifted themselves out of the river and went flying off.

  Startled, his weight resting mostly on one stirrup, he looked to the west and had a glimpse of the oncoming Bavarian cavalry.

  He assumed they were Bavarian, anyway—and he wasn’t about to stick around to find out. He’d go on that assumption and let the devil worry about the details.

  “Out of here!” he shouted, sliding back into the saddle and spurring his horse onto the trail they’d followed down to the river bank. “Get the fuck out of here!”

  * * *

  The ducks were mallards and General von Schnetter felt like cursing the things. The waterfowl had alerted the enemy patrol just in time for them to make their escape.

  Von Schnetter wasn’t concerned about the failure to capture the patrol, in and of itself. What worried him was that the big fellow who’d seemed to be leading them was dressed like an officer—at least, if von Schnetter was interpreting the design and insignia of USE uniforms properly.

  The army of the United States of Europe was an outlier in that respect, being the only large military force of the time that insisted on clothing its soldiers in standard uniforms. That actually made it harder to distinguish between officers and enlisted men because the gray uniforms were much the same color and the insignia were hard to differentiate between at a distance. In a properly costumed army, the extra money officers usually spent on their clothing made them stand out more. He himself, for instance, was at that very moment wearing a broad-brimmed hat with a pair of splendid ostrich plumes which nicely set off his bright red shoulder sash.

  If that big fellow who’d made his escape was just a scout, it would probably take him and his mates a bit of time to find their commander and pass on the warning, and if the commander was a sluggish sort…

  But if he was the commander himself, which he might well have been—von Schnetter was in the habit of leading his own reconnaissance, as he was this very moment—and if he was capable…

  “Fucking mallards!” he snarled.

  * * *

  “Form up! Form up!” Jeff shouted, as he reached the sentries he’d posted to guard the flanks of the regiment.

  For once, he was thankful for the sword he had to haul around. The damn thing was all but useless for actual fighting but it made for the most dramatic pointer you could ask for. He had the sword in his hand and was waving it in the direction from which he and his three scouts were racing.

  He wasn’t too happy about t
hat, either, since Jeff disliked being on a horse under any conditions and especially galloping over terrain he wasn’t familiar with. Push come to shove, though, he’d prefer falling off a horse even at high speed to getting shot or—worse still—getting stuck like a pig by a damn sword. Unlike himself, there were men in the world who knew how to use the idiotic devices.

  “Form up! The Bavarians are here!”

  * * *

  He didn’t have time to get the whole regiment into proper formation. Not even close to enough time. But he was able to get three companies in a line with their muskets ready to fire.

  No breastworks; no pikemen—against cavalry. This was going to be hairy as all hell. He could only hope that Engler and the flying artillery would come up soon.

  Bavaria, near Moosburg

  Five miles east of Zolling

  At that precise moment, Colonel Thorsten Engler was cursing ducks himself—and wasn’t bothering to make fine distinctions between breeds. Being a former farmer, Thorsten knew perfectly well the ducks were mallards. But at the moment, so far as he was concerned, they just belonged to the cursed category of “noisy birds.” Between the ones still on the river just a few dozen yards away and the ones who’d taken to the air, they were making such a racket that he couldn’t hear anything else.

  What he was straining to hear was the sound of horses moving. Or, more likely, the sound of cavalrymen’s gear clattering. If there were horses in the area they were moving slowly. Even over the clamor being made by the ducks, Thorsten could have heard the sound of a large group of galloping or cantering horses.

  You couldn’t see anything, between the heavy growth and the walls of Moosburg. The town wasn’t fortified, but like almost all towns and villages in central Europe the buildings were erected right next to each other. Looking at Moosburg from a distance of a hundred and fifty yards or so, he couldn’t see anything beyond the walls and roofs of the outlying edifices. For all he knew, there was an entire cavalry regiment gathered in the town square, ready to charge out at any minute.