1635: The Eastern Front Read online

  "Any change in the weather?"

  Seeing the expression on the sergeant major's face—and how do I inform a colonel he's a donkey?—Jeff grinned and shook his head.

  "Never mind. Stupid question." The sound of rain hammering on the roof was loud and clear, as it had been for more than a day now. Luckily, the damage sustained by the bakery during the battle hadn't compromised the roof, or Jeff would be swimming by now.

  They were also lucky that Zielona Góra wasn't located on a river the way most cities and large towns were. The Złota Łącza had started to overflow, but it was a small enough stream that it didn't pose any real problems. Jeff wasn't at all sure that would be true with towns located on the Odra or the Warta.

  When he got to the door that led out onto the street, Jeff grabbed a short and wide wooden plank that he'd positioned earlier on a side table. He should have had an oilskin rain cape, since he knew the army had been provided with them. But they were nowhere to be found in the supply wagons. Another thing Jeff had soon learned about big campaigns like this one was that the two most common phrases associated with logistics were "musta got left behind somewhere" and "sorry 'bout that."

  There was no chance of finding an umbrella, since they weren't even officially part of the army's supply materials. Umbrellas were in short supply, period, if you didn't have an up-time one—and Jeff, naturally, had left his behind in Magdeburg. They weren't yet in common use in Europe although you could occasionally find ones imported from China. People used cloaks instead.

  Jeff had a cloak, in fact. But while cloaks did all right when dealing with a drizzle or a light rain, in heavy rain like this they'd just get soaked completely through. He'd wind up arriving at the Rathaus every bit as wet and ten pounds heavier.

  The plank was better. It'd keep off most of the rain.

  He hoped. He hadn't actually walked as far as the Rathaus since the storm broke.

  He started off running but Jeff gave that up quickly. The city's streets were a sea of mud. He'd be bound to slip and fall, especially because the visibility was pretty lousy. They were at least two hours past sunup, but the overcast was heavy enough to leave everything looking like early evening instead. Not to mention that everything was half-hidden behind sheets of rain. This was one hell of a storm.

  He wasn't the last of the regimental commanding officers to arrive. Two other colonels came piling in a minute or so after he did. The three brigadiers seemed to have been in the Rathaus long enough to have started drying off in front of the fire. Jeff figured Mike Stearns had held an initial meeting with them before calling in the next layer of the division's officers. He'd used the city's Rathaus as his headquarters since they'd taken Zielona Góra. The tavern in the basement was well suited for the sort of command meetings he was holding right now.

  Mike didn't waste any time. As soon as the last colonel came in, he said, "All hell has broken loose, gentleman. I received a radio call from General Torstensson a short while ago. The Polish army was able to use the weather to evade Gustav Adolf by moving north without being spotted." He waved his hand at the ceiling. "In this sort of weather, all of the air force's planes are grounded, of course."

  He didn't add what he could have, which was that an overreliance on up-time technology could cause its own problems. Koniecpolski didn't have any airplanes. In good weather, that was a big handicap. In weather like this, though, the advantage shifted to him—because what he did have were a lot of excellent Cossack scouts.

  The Swedish army had Finnish equivalents, but there weren't nearly as many of them. And the USE's army was notoriously weak when it came to cavalry. Horsemanship was a skill that was heavily concentrated among noblemen, and there weren't many noblemen who wanted to serve in the regular USE forces.

  "Whether by good fortune or good intelligence, Koniecpolski was able to trap Hesse-Kassel and his army against the Warta. Which," Mike continued grimly, "was already overflowing its banks and had them pretty well mired."

  He took a deep breath. "They got hammered badly. Torstensson's assessment is that they'll be out of the campaign altogether for at least a week. Torstensson thinks Koniecpolski will now try to come south, maneuvering around Gustav Adolf in order to attack one of the USE divisions. Meanwhile, von Thurn's column—that's about half the Swedish army, don't forget—is on the wrong side of the Warta. There's no way they'll be able to cross the river and come into the fight until the river ebbs and they can get their engineers to build some bridges."

  One of the colonels frowned. That was Albert Zingre, a Swiss mercenary who commanded the 1st Brigade's Freiheit Regiment.

  "Excuse me, General, but if Koniecpolski has come south, then he's left Gorzów undefended. Why not simply take the city and use its bridges? There are two of them, I believe."

  Mike shook his head. "Von Thurn did take the city—only to discover that Polish engineers had destroyed the bridges two hours earlier."

  The more he heard, the more Jeff was getting worried. What all this added up to was that the Polish grand hetman had launched his campaign as soon as the weather turned sour, which indicated superb planning on his part. Within less than two days, he'd then either destroyed or put out of action two-thirds of Gustav Adolf's own forces. And now, apparently, he was trying to move around what was left of the Swedish army in order to attack the USE Army. He was probably aiming for the most northerly of that army's three columns, Knyphausen's First Division. And if he caught the division before it got reinforced, he'd have a three-to-one or possibly even a four-to-one numerical superiority.

  That assumed Koniecpolski had managed to keep his entire army concentrated, but Jeff figured that was a pretty safe bet given the man's track record thus far. What the grand hetman was doing was taking advantage of his enemy's dispersed formations in order to defeat them in detail.

  The scheme wouldn't have worked in good weather, of course, since Gustav Adolf would have gotten wind of what Koniecpolski was up to almost at once. He'd had every available plane in the air force keeping up continuous reconnaissance in daylight hours since the campaign began. In retrospect, it was obvious that this was the reason Koniecpolski had been retreating before Gustav Adolf's advancing forces without putting up a major fight. He'd simply left garrisons in the major towns to delay his enemy and buy time in the hope that the weather would change—which, at this time of year, wasn't unlikely at all.

  Jesus H. Christ. It was one thing to read about "great captains of war," it was another thing entirely to have to face one of the damn monsters.

  All this time, without realizing it consciously, Jeff had been reassured by the fact that he had one of the great captains on his side: Gustav Adolf. But even the greatest generals—maybe especially the greatest generals—could get too ambitious.

  Remember Napoleon?

  Jeff was pretty sure Gustav Adolf had been guilty of that. Instead of mounting a slower and more deliberate campaign, keeping his forces together instead of dividing them into half a dozen separated columns, he'd relied too much on his advantages and had underestimated his opponent.

  "That's the situation, gentlemen," Mike said. "Torstensson is with the Second Division and he's bringing it up to reinforce Knyphausen. In the meantime, he's ordered Knyphausen to stand his ground and prepare for a battle. Gustav Adolf, of course, is moving his units south to join Knyphausen also."

  Mike glanced at the windows along the upper walls. The tavern was in a half-basement, not a full basement. That normally allowed some light into the place, although with this sort of rain and overcast it was as dark as it would have been in late afternoon.

  "In this weather, though, it's hard to know how long it'll take to get those forces together." Mike's jaws tightened for moment. "And there's another problem, which is that we have no good idea where Koniecpolski is right now. Whether by design or chance, he might wind up moving farther south than we expect, in which case he might come at us instead."

  "If he does, so much the worse for him." That came
from Colonel Leoš Hlavacek, the commander of the Teutoberg Regiment, which was also in the 1st Brigade. "We can hold Zielona Góra against him."

  "We can certainly hold it long enough for Torstensson to arrive with the First and Second Divisions," Colonel Jan Svoboda chimed him. Like Hlavacek, he was one of the many Bohemian officers serving in the USE Army. He commanded the Yellow Marten regiment in Derfflinger's 3rd Brigade.

  Mike shook his head. "General Torstensson's not worried about holding Zielona Góra. If we lose it, we lose it. He thinks it's more important for us to send as many men as we can to reinforce the 1st and 2nd Division. And that's what he's ordered me to do. So . . ."

  Mike looked around the room. "We'll leave Brigadier Schuster and the 2nd Brigade here to hold the city as best they can if Koniecpolski shows up. And we'll also leave all of the regular artillery units. Their guns will be useful on defense, and there's no way we could move them fast enough through the muck out there anyway. Even after the weather clears, the ground will be soggy for days."

  "What about the flying artillery?" asked Svoboda. "They'll be handy against hussars."

  "We're taking them with us. Their carriages are light enough that I think they'll be able to handle the terrain. It's not as if any of us are going to be marching very fast."

  He looked directly at Jeff, now. "I'm also leaving the Hangman Regiment behind. They suffered the worst casualties when we took this city, and I think they need more time to recuperate. But, Colonel Higgins, please come see me after the meeting is over."

  That happened less than a quarter of an hour later. Stearns was driving everyone to move as quickly as possible. He normally ran staff and command meetings in a relaxed manner, but not this one.

  When Mike was alone except for Derfflinger, he motioned Jeff to come over.

  "You wanted to see me, sir?"

  "You know that Colonel Gärtner was badly wounded two days ago," Mike said.

  Jeff's stomach felt queasy all of a sudden. "Uh, yes, sir."

  "That leaves the Third Brigade's White Horse Regiment without a commanding officer. I can't promote his adjutant because Major Nussbaum was killed right about the same time."

  Jeff had always wondered what free fall felt like. Now he knew.

  "Uh, yes, sir."

  Mike nodded toward the brigadier standing next to him. "Georg thinks you'd do just fine. So I'm putting you in charge of the White Horse."

  He got a solemn, reassuring look on his face. "It's just temporary, Jeff. We'll have you back in command of the Hangman as soon as possible."

  He made it sound as if being in command of a regiment specifically put together to execute people had been Jeff's lifelong ambition.

  But all he said was, "Uh, yes, sir."

  Chapter 33

  West of Poznań

  The Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel died in the middle of the night. Gustav Adolf got word over the radio as soon as it happened.

  It came as no surprise. Wilhelm V had suffered terrible wounds in the battle at the Warta, the sort a man almost never survives. Still, the king of Sweden was distressed by the news. Hesse-Kassel was not exactly a friend, but he'd been a staunch supporter for years. He would be missed.

  Gustav Adolf didn't spend much time dwelling on the landgrave's death, though. He had much worse problems on his hands, politically as well as on the military front. Hours earlier, the radio had brought news that his wife had been murdered in Stockholm by assailants whose identity was still unknown. The same assailants had also attacked the king's daughter and Prince Ulrik but, thankfully, they had survived. Untouched, in the case of Kristina. Ulrik had been injured, but apparently not too seriously.

  Gustav Adolf had not been close to his wife for many years. In some ways, he'd never really been close. Theirs had been a marriage of political convenience, not of affection. The king of Sweden's romantic attachment since the age of sixteen had been to the noblewoman Ebba Brahe—and still was, although she was now married to Sweden's Lord High Constable, Jacob de la Gardie.

  Nonetheless, Maria Eleonora had been his wife, and had borne him a child. Had she died of natural causes, he would have been slightly saddened but no more. Her being killed in such a fashion, however, had left him furious.

  He'd already been close to a fury because of the weather. What had seemed a straightforward campaign against a redoubtable but still weaker foe was turning into a nightmare.

  Hesse-Kassel was gone now, and his army with him, for all practical purposes. As soon as the landgravine heard the news, she'd undoubtedly recall at least half of her forces to Hesse-Kassel. And the ones she left would be the weakest units, and just enough of them to maintain the pretense that she was not withdrawing Hesse-Kassel's support to the emperor. Unfortunately, the laws of the USE gave the provincial heads a great deal of control over the disposition of provincial troops. Their armies were almost as independent of federal control as the private armies of Polish magnates.

  Gustav Adolf had not yet sent her the news of the disaster on the Warta, but he couldn't stall for much longer. There were some disadvantages to radio as well as advantages. In the old days, he could have send a courier with the news and instructed him to have a lamed horse along the way. By the time Amalie Elizabeth found out her husband had been killed and a good portion of her army destroyed, Gustav Adolf would have had the rest of that army back at the front. And he could have kept forestalling the landgravine for weeks, or even months.

  He'd come into Poland with fifty thousand men, against what he'd estimated were forty thousand at the disposal of Koniecpolski. He'd lost Hesse-Kassel's eight thousand, and another ten thousand troops under Heinrich Matthias von Thurn were stymied north of the swollen Warta. They'd be out of action for several days; possibly as long as a week, if this wretched weather kept up.

  Even if he assumed Koniecpolski had lost as many men in the battle on the Warta as Hesse-Kassel—which he almost certainly hadn't; that had been a very one-sided affair, by all accounts—he'd still have thirty-five thousand troops at his disposal.

  There'd have been losses from disease, but those had probably been equally distributed. The same for losses by desertion. Those had probably been unusually low, on both sides. However difficult they might be to handle politically, the soldiers of the USE army tended to have good morale. The same would be true of Polish troops, especially hussars, so long as they had good leadership—and in Koniecpolski they had a commanding general as good as any in the world.

  In two days, the tactical situation had turned sour as quickly and as badly as the weather. Gustav Adolf had gone from having a five-to-four numerical superiority to odds that were now no better than even. He'd lost all of his technological advantages except radio. The planes were grounded, the APCs were stuck in the mud miles to the rear.

  Finally—this was the factor that really concerned him—his forces had been dispersed when the storm arrived, where Koniecpolski had kept his forces together. Until Gustav Adolf could reunite the four columns still available to fight—his own Swedish forces and the three divisions of the USE army led by Torstensson—he was at a major disadvantage. If Koniecpolski caught any one of those columns on its own, he could crush it.

  The king of Sweden was a pious man. He'd even written a number of the hymns sung in Sweden's Lutheran churches. Now, for one of the rare times in his life, he lapsed into blasphemy.

  "God damn this rain!"

  Hearing that curse, Anders Jönsson got more worried still—and he was already worried. He'd been Gustav Adolf's bodyguard for years and he knew the signs. The one great flaw the king of Sweden possessed as a military commander was his tendency to get headstrong and reckless in the grip of powerful emotions. And right now, the stew of emotions the man was seething in was an unholy combination. The devil himself couldn't have cooked up a more dangerous brew.

  Tremendous frustration at the military situation due to the weather.

  Anger at himself for having been overconfident and allowing his force
s to become divided. Anger at having underestimated an opponent—for which he had no excuse at all. He'd faced Koniecpolski before.

  Fury at the murder of his wife. An act which, in the nature of things, was as much a blow struck at the Swedish crown as it was at a woman.

  Even greater fury that the same assassins had come very close to murdering his only child.

  Anxiety because Kristina was an only child, and therefore the sole heir to the throne. That was a risky situation for any dynasty, even if the child in question hadn't been but eight years old. And now, with Maria Eleonora dead, there would be no chance of producing another heir any time soon.

  But there was nothing Jönsson could so. Any attempt he made to restrain the king would just make him more furious.

  He'd read accounts of the battle of Lützen, in copies of up-time texts that Gustav Adolf had collected. When he read of the king's behavior in that battle in another universe, he'd recognized it instantly. Frustrated by the heavy fog that had covered the battlefield and made it impossible to stay in control of his forces, Gustav Adolf had charged impetuously forward with only a small detachment of guards.

  No one knew what happened next, exactly. Battles were chaotic and confusing enough even in good weather conditions. But however it happened, the king had been killed. His soldiers still went on to win that battle, but from that day forward Sweden lost its guiding hand.

  It could happen in this universe, too. The details might differ, but the essence would remain the same—a great captain who could not restrain himself enough when his blood ran high.

  Magdeburg airfield

  "Not a chance, Gretchen," said Eddie Junker. "Flying into that wouldn't be any different from slitting your own throat."

  Frowning, Gretchen Richter stared at up the clouds. The rain hadn't let up at all and the sky seemed as dark and foreboding as it had since the storm arrived two days earlier.

  Well . . . ​maybe not quite as much.