1637 The Polish Maelstrom Read online

  Mentally, he shrugged his shoulders. Morris had as much sympathy for the Cossacks as any late-twentieth-century Jew with a good knowledge of history.

  Zilch.

  Fuck ’em and the horses they rode in on. The same bastards who led the Chmielnicki Pogrom—and then served the Tsars as their iron fist in the pogroms at Kiev and Kishinev.

  Wallenstein and Pappenheim still weren’t saying anything. Morris leaned back a little and started scrutinizing the map again, west to east.

  The plan was…shrewd. Very shrewd, the more he studied the map.

  Morris didn’t know exactly where the ethnic and religious lines lay in the here and now. Not everywhere, for sure and certain. But he knew enough to realize that what Wallenstein proposed to do was to gut the soft underbellies of every one of Bohemia’s neighbors.

  Silesia, in this era, was not yet really part of Poland, as it would become in later centuries in the universe Morris had come from. Its population was an ethnic mix, drawn from many sources—most of whom, at least in the big towns and cities, were Protestants, not Catholics.

  Despite the name, “Royal Hungary” in the seventeenth century was mostly a Slavic area, ruled by the Magyars but with no real attachment to Hungary. Morris wouldn’t be at all surprised if most of its inhabitants would view a Bohemian conquest as something in the way of a liberation. They certainly weren’t likely to rally to the side of their Austrian and Hungarian overlords.

  Moving still further east, the same was true again. Parts of “Lesser Poland” had little in the way of a Polish population—and that often consisted mostly of Polish noblemen grinding their Ruthenian serfs under. As for the Ruthenians themselves, the name was not even one that they’d originated, but a Latin label that had been slapped onto them by western European scholars. In a future time, most of them would eventually become Ukrainians. But, in this day and age, they were a mix of mostly Slavic immigrants with a large minority of Jews living here and there among them.

  Most of the Jews lived in the larger towns and were engaged in a wide range of mercantile and manufacturing activities. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth did not maintain in practice the same tight restrictions on Jewish activity that most realms in Europe did. Unfortunately, a number of them had also moved out into rural areas.

  “Unfortunately,” from Morris’ viewpoint, because these Jews did not spread into the countryside as farmers. Instead, they spread as rent collectors and overseers of the large landed estates maintained by mostly absentee Polish and Lithuanian magnates. They were universally hated by the Ruthenian peasantry—who, in the nature of things, did not make any fine distinctions between the small class of Jews who exploited them and the great majority of the Jewish populations in the towns who were simply going about their business.

  Wallenstein’s shrewdness was evident wherever Morris looked on the map. He did not propose to take Kraków, for instance. Looked at from one angle, that was a little silly. At the end of the year 1633, the population of Kraków was also mostly non-Polish. Wallenstein could even advance a threadbare claim to the city, since it had once been under the authority of the kingdom of Bohemia.

  But the Poles had an emotional attachment to Kraków, since it had once served as their capital city—and still was, officially, although the real capital was now Warsaw. Kraków’s Jagiellonian University was still Poland’s most prestigious center of learning. So, Wallenstein would seize everything south of the Vistula but did not propose to cross the river and seize Kraków itself. Thereby, he’d avoid as best he could stirring up Polish nationalism, while establishing a defensible border.

  Sum it all up and what you had was what amounted to Wallenstein’s preemptive strike at every existing realm in eastern Europe. He would seize all the territories that each of them claimed—but for which none of them had really established any mutual allegiance. The end result, if his plans worked, would be a Bohemian Empire that rivaled in territory and population any of the nations in Europe.

  Morris scanned the map again, west to east. With Prague as the capital—it was already one of the great cities of Europe—the rest of Wallenstein’s empire would consist of mostly rural territory stitched together by a number of cities. Pressburg, and possibly Lviv, Lublin, Kiev—maybe even Pinsk, way to the north, in what would someday become Belarus.

  Morris couldn’t help but chuckle. Pinsk, which already had a large Jewish population and would, by the end of the nineteenth century, have a population that was ninety percent Jewish.

  There weren’t many Jews in Pressburg. But Lviv, Lublin and Kiev were heavily Jewish.

  “You propose to use us as your cannon fodder,” he said. “Jews, I mean.”

  “Yes, of course. It’s either that or serve the Cossacks as mincemeat fifteen years from now. Make your choice.”

  Idly, Morris wondered where he’d gotten the term “mincemeat,” which Wallenstein had said in English. Probably from Edith Wild.

  Make your choice.

  Put that way, it was easy enough.

  “I’ll need the Brethren,” Morris said.

  “Yes, you will. Not a problem.” Wallenstein’s long finger came to rest on Lublin. “There is a very large concentration of the Brethren here, you know. And others, scattered throughout the region.”

  Morris hadn’t known the Brethren had a presence in Lublin. The news caused him to relax a little. If the Brethren could also serve as what amounted to Wallenstein’s social garrisons in the major cities of his proposed empire, that would remove some of the tension on the Jews. They were themselves Christians, after all.

  So…it might work—assuming Morris had any chance of translating his pitiful military experience into something worth a damn on the battlefield.

  It was Pappenheim who crystallized the thought that Morris was groping toward.

  “Stop thinking of being a ‘general’ in narrow terms,” said the man who was perhaps the current world’s best exemplar of a general in narrow terms. Pappenheim was a man of the battlefield, with little interest in anything else. “Think of it in broad terms. You simply have to organize the military effort, while you concentrate on political matters. Let others, better suited for the task, lead the troops on the field.”

  He grinned again in that savage way he had. Then, jabbed a thumb at Wallenstein. “That’s what he does, mostly, you know.”

  Morris stared at Wallenstein. The recently crowned king of Bohemia and proposed usurper of much of eastern Europe stared right back at him.

  It was true, actually. Wallenstein hadn’t been so much a general as what you might call a military contractor. He put together armies—and then found men like Pappenheim to lead them into battle.

  Put that way…

  It didn’t sound quite so bad. Of course, Morris would still have to find his equivalent of Pappenheim, since he had no doubt that Pappenheim himself would be fully occupied in the next few years fighting Bohemia’s immediate enemies. That’d be the Austrians, mostly.

  Morris looked back at the map, trying to estimate the territory Wallenstein expected him to seize and hold over the next few years. At a rough guess, somewhere around one hundred thousand square miles. About the size of Colorado or Wyoming, he thought. Just what a former army supply clerk-cum-jeweler had always expected he’d wind up doing.

  “Piece of cake,” he said.

  October 1634

  Vienna, capital of Austria-Hungary

  “So, what do you think?” asked Piccolomini. The Italian general from Florence who was now in Austrian service raised his cup.

  The man sitting across from him at the round little table in the small but very crowded tavern frowned down at the cup in front of him. He’d only had a few sips of the dark liquid contained therein. He still didn’t know what he thought of the stuff—and he certainly would never have ordered it himself, as expensive as the concoction was.

  His name was Franz von Mercy. He came from a noble family in Lorraine, not Italy, as did his table companion. But in
other respects, they were quite similar. Like Piccolomini, von Mercy was a general and a professional soldier. They were long-acquainted, if not quite friends.

  There was one critical difference between them, however, which explained part of von Mercy’s skepticism toward the black substance in his cup. Ottavio Piccolomini was gainfully employed by the Habsburg ruler of Austria and von Mercy was not.

  In fact, he was not employed by anyone. Just a short time earlier, he’d been in the service of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. But after the traitor Cratz von Scharffenstein surrendered the fortress of Ingolstadt to the Swedes, von Mercy had taken his cavalrymen and fled Bavaria. He’d known full well that, despite his own complete innocence in the affair, the murderous duke of Bavaria would blame him for the disaster and have him executed.

  So, he’d come to Vienna, hoping to find employment with the Habsburgs. But he’d been turned down, with only this bizarre new hot drink offered by way of compensation.

  He looked up from the cup to the window. He’d wondered, when they came into the restaurant, why the owners had defaced perfectly good windowpanes by painting a sign across them. And he’d also wondered why they chose to call their establishment a café instead of a tavern.

  Now he knew the answer to both questions.

  “God-damned Americans,” he muttered.

  Piccolomini winced at the blasphemy, even though he was known to commit the sin himself. Perhaps he felt obliged to put on that public display of disapproval since he was now quite prominent in the Austrian ranks. They were, after all, right in the heart of Vienna—not more than a few minutes’ walk from either St. Stephen’s Cathedral or the emperor’s palace.

  “Damned they may well be,” said Piccolomini. Again, he lifted his cup. “But I enjoy this new beverage of theirs.”

  “Coffee,” said von Mercy, still muttering more than talking aloud. “We already had coffee, Octavio.”

  His companion shrugged. “True. But it was the Americans who made it popular. As they have done with so many other things.”

  He set the cup down. “And stop blaming them for your misfortunes. It’s silly and you know it. They had nothing to do with Scharffenstein’s treason—they certainly can’t be blamed for Maximilian’s madness!—and it’s not because of them that the emperor decided not to hire you. That, he did for the same sort of reasons of state that have led rulers to make similar decisions for centuries.” He paused while he picked up the cup and drained it. “I happen to love coffee, myself.”

  He gave his fellow officer a look of sympathy and commiseration. “Tough on you, I know. Tougher still on your men. But look at it from Ferdinand’s perspective, Franz. He’s expecting a resumption of hostilities with the Swede and his Americans by next year. No matter how badly Maximilian has behaved and no matter how much the emperor detests him, do you honestly expect Ferdinand to take the risk of escalating the already-high tensions between Austria and Bavaria by hiring a general who—from Duke Maximilian’s peculiar point of view, I agree, but that’s the viewpoint at issue here—has so recently infuriated Bavaria?”

  He shook his head and placed the cup back on the table. “It’s not going to happen, Franz. I’m sorry, I really am. Not simply because you’re something of a friend of mine, but—being honest—because you’re a good cavalry commander, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I have need of one before long.”

  Glumly, von Mercy nodded. He realized, in retrospect, that he should have foreseen this when he left Bavaria. He knew enough of the continent’s strategic configurations, after all, being by now a man in his mid-forties and a very experienced and highly placed military commander.

  He’d have done better to have accompanied his friend von Werth to seek employment with Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. Bernhard would certainly not have cared about the attitude of the Bavarians, seeing as he was already infuriating Maximilian by threatening to seize some of his territory. Or so, at least, Maximilian was sure to interpret Bernhard’s actions—but, as Octavio said, it was the Bavarian duke’s viewpoint that mattered here.

  Nothing for it, then. He’d have to head for the Rhine, after all, and see if Saxe-Weimar might still be in the market. Von Mercy could feel his jaws tightening at the prospect of leading a large cavalry force across—around—who knew?—a goodly stretch of Europe already inhabited by large and belligerent armies. Most of whom had no reason to welcome his arrival, and some of whom would actively oppose it.

  Alternatively, he could head for Bohemia and see if Wallenstein might be interested in hiring him. But…

  He managed to keep the wince from showing in his face. That would be certain to infuriate his Austrian hosts, who’d so far been very pleasant even if they’d declined to employ him and his men. He had even less desire to fight his way out of Austria than he did to fight his way to the Rhine.

  He heard Piccolomini chuckle, and glanced up. The Italian general was giving him a look that combined shrewdness with—again—sympathy and commiseration.

  “I have another possible offer of work for you, Franz. And one that is rather close at hand.”

  Von Mercy frowned. “The only possibility I can think of, close at hand, would be Wallenstein. And why would you or anyone in Austrian service be sending me to Wallenstein? Like as not, a year from now, you’d be facing me across a battlefield.”

  A waiter appeared. Piccolomini must have summoned him, and Franz had been too preoccupied to notice.

  “Another coffee for me,” the Italian general said. He cocked a quizzical eyebrow at von Mercy. “And you? What’s in your cup must already be cold.”

  Franz couldn’t see what particular difference the temperature of the beverage would make. Hot or cold, it would still be extremely bitter. But…

  Piccolomini was obviously in an expansive mood, and under the circumstances Franz felt it prudent to encourage him. “Yes, certainly. And thank you.”

  After the waiter was gone, Piccolomini leaned across the table and spoke softly.

  “Not Wallenstein directly. In fact, part of the agreement would be that you’d have to be willing to give me your oath that—under no circumstances—would you allow yourself or your soldiers to be used directly against Austria. But…yes, in a way you’d be working for Wallenstein. He wouldn’t be the one paying you, though, which—”

  He gave von Mercy a vulpine grin. “—is always the critical issue for we mercenaries, isn’t it? Or ‘professional soldiers,’ if you prefer the circumlocution.”

  Franz felt his shoulders stiffen, and forced himself to relax. He did prefer the circumlocution, in point of fact. If that’s what it was at all, which he didn’t believe for a moment. The difference between a mercenary and a professional soldier might be thin, but it was still real. A mercenary cared only for money. A professional soldier always placed honor first.

  As Piccolomini knew perfectly well, damn the crude Italian bastard—or he wouldn’t have made this offer in the first place. He’d take Franz von Mercy’s oath not to allow himself to be used against Austria as good coin, because it was and he knew it. He’d certainly not do the same for a mere mercenary.

  “Who, then?” he asked.

  Piccolomini seemed to hesitate. Then, abruptly: “How do you feel about Jews?”

  Von Mercy stared at him. His mind was…

  Blank.

  Piccolomini might as well have asked him how he felt about the natives in the antipodes—or, for that matter, the ones that speculation placed on the moon but which Franz had heard the Americans said was impossible.

  What did Jews have to do with military affairs? They were the least martial people of Europe. For any number of obvious reasons, starting with the fact that most realms in the continent forbade them from owning firearms. About the only contact professional soldiers ever had with them involved finances, and that was usually only an indirect connection.

  Belatedly, Franz remembered that he’d also heard some rumors concerning recent developments among the Jewry of Prague. They’d playe
d a prominent role in repulsing the attack of General Holk on the city, apparently. That had allowed Wallenstein to keep most of his army in the field and defeat the Austrians the previous year at the second battle of the White Mountain.

  They were even supposed to have produced a prince of their own, out of the business. An American Jew, if he recalled correctly.

  Throughout the long pause, Piccolomini had been watching von Mercy. Now, he added: “Yes, that’s right. Your employer would be a Jew. An American Jew, to be precise, who is now highly placed in Wallenstein’s service.”

  Franz rummaged through his memory, trying to find the name. He knew he’d heard it, at least once. But, like most such items of information that didn’t seem to have any relevance to him, he’d made no special effort to commit the name to memory.

  Piccolomini provided it. “His name is Roth. Morris Roth.” He smiled, a bit crookedly. “Or Don Morris, as the Jews like to call him. They fancy their own aristocracy, you know. At least, the Sephardim always have, and it seems the Ashkenazim as well.”

  Franz noted—to his surprise; but then, he didn’t really know the man that well—that Octavio knew that much about the inner workings of Jewry. So did Franz himself, from a now long-past friendship with a Jewish shoemaker. But most Christians didn’t, certainly not most soldiers.

  He realized, then, the purpose of Piccolomini’s probing questions. And, again, was a bit surprised. He wouldn’t have thought the outwardly bluff Italian soldier would have cared about such things.

  “I have no particular animus against Jews, if that’s what you’re wondering.” He smiled crookedly himself. “I admit, I’ve never once contemplated the possibility that one of them might wish to hire me. For what? In the nature of things, Jews don’t have much need for professional soldiers.”

  “Or a need so great that it is too great to be met,” said Piccolomini. “But, yes, in times past you’d have been quite correct. But the times we live in today are ones in which the nature of things is changing. Quite rapidly, sometimes.”