1636: The Ottoman Onslaught Read online

  * * *

  Two hours later, Rebecca felt she had a good sense for the state of the province. In a word, solid. In a few words, steady and not unsettled.

  “It helps a great deal that the emperor sent General von Arnim and most of his army to Poland,” said Ernst. “That removed any large military force in Saxony that the CoC people and the Vogtlanders might have felt posed a threat. The soldiers remaining in Leipzig are enough to maintain order in the city but no more than that.”

  He shrugged. “In truth, the biggest problem I face is that Dresden’s Lutheran pastors continue to be agitated.”

  “Agitated? By what?”

  She had the definite sense that Wettin was suppressing a grin. “By the competition posed by Richter’s new Episcopal church,” he said. “They’re quite aggressive in their proselyzing, just as the Mormons are in Franconia. Saxony’s been Lutheran for a long time. The pastors have gotten stodgy, I fear.”

  * * *

  On the evening of the second day after their arrival in Dresden, Lt. Goss got word over the radio that the airfield outside Breslau was in good enough condition for them to make the flight. By then, she’d gotten the Belle refueled as well.

  They took off the next morning, shortly after dawn. The flight would be another short one—by direct flight, Breslau was less than two hundred miles away—and Rebecca wanted to have a full day available to her after she arrived. Knowing Gretchen Richter as well as she did by now, five years after the Ring of Fire and having gone through the Spanish siege of Amsterdam with her, Rebecca was sure she’d need it.

  Wherever Gretchen Richter went, excitement was sure to follow. The woman was like a force of nature. Sometimes benign; more often…

  Not so much.

  Always exciting, though. The truth was, although she’d never have admitted it to anyone, Rebecca had enjoyed the siege of Amsterdam.

  Well, not “enjoyed,” perhaps. But it had certainly been interesting. She was sure the situation she was about to enter would be, as well.

  Breslau (Wroclaw), Lower Silesia

  Poland

  “Do not aggravate me any further on this issue,” Gretchen said warningly. “It is settled. You understand? Settled. Any farmers in Lower Silesia who choose to take advantage of our offer will be given shelter behind the walls of Breslau—and Liegnitz, and Glogau, and Lüben and Bunzlau—whether you like it or not.”

  The town notables who were crowded in the Rathaus’ main room began muttering to each other. The sound reminded Rebecca of the buzz of bees in a hive.

  Gretchen pointed at the figure of Lukasz Opalinski, who was standing not far away. The hussar was wearing his full suit of armor, with his helmet nestled in the crook of his arm and a truly brutal-looking saber in a baldric slung over his shoulder.

  Rebecca was quite sure Gretchen had instructed him to wear that armor. He looked enormous, like something out of medieval legend.

  “If you don’t like the fact that those farmers are almost all Poles, not Germans,” Gretchen continued, “take your complaints to him. He’s Polish, too. He can negotiate with the incoming hordes and settle whatever squabbles might arise.”

  Opalinski now smiled at the crowd. In formal terms, you could call that smile “benign.” If you were a village idiot.

  Rebecca had been at the meeting since it began, in mid-afternoon. So far, though, she’d simply played the role of an observer. But by now she thought she had a good enough sense of the situation to intervene.

  Gretchen’s strategy was clear, simple—and in its own way, as brutal as a hussar’s saber. By throwing open the gates of Lower Silesia’s fortified towns to the province’s peasantry, she would entice the Polish population to flee the countryside and take shelter within their walls. That would strip Lower Silesia of any sustenance for Holk and his mercenary army, unless they began farming themselves—which they were about as likely to do as turn into swans.

  The truly fiendish part of Richter’s scheme, however, was her disposition of the livestock. The cattle and swine would not be taken into the towns, but would be rounded up and kept in pens just beyond the fortified walls. If Holk and his men wanted to become rustlers, they would have to come near the urban areas they had so far generally avoided.

  That would create the conditions for a pitched battle between Richter’s motley forces and those of Heinrich Holk. A battle which Richter herself clearly thought—no, seemed utterly certain—she would win and Holk would lose.

  Was she right?

  Rebecca did not have the experience to gauge the military probabilities. But she’d been at Amsterdam and she knew what Gretchen had done at Dresden in the face of Báner’s army, which had been far more fearsome than Holk’s.

  So, it was time to intervene. The main thing needed here was to infuse the new allies—which they were, whether they liked it or not—with confidence.

  She rose to her feet and raised a hand. “If I might say a few words, Gretchen.”

  Richter immediately stepped back a pace or two and gestured for Rebecca to come forward.

  Once Rebecca was facing the crowd, she waited until they fell silent, which took very little time. By now, they would have been informed who she was and what she represented.

  In case there was still any uncertainty, though…

  “I am Rebecca Abrabanel, the Secretary of State of the United States of Europe. I am also the wife of Michael Stearns, the commanding general of the Third Division of the USE’s army.”

  She waited a few seconds, for that to sink in. Her status as the wife of the Prince of Germany was likely to carry more weight in this crowd than her official position. The political revolution which had swept across most of the Germanies over the past few years would have bypassed the German towns of Lower Silesia, for the most part. Their populations were certainly not medieval, any longer, but neither were they what anyone in their right mind would call progressive.

  Raw power, though—that they understood.

  “My husband is now marching his forces to come to the aid of the Austrians. Meanwhile, most of the USE’s army continues to wage war against King Wladyslaw of Poland.”

  Translation: You won’t get any help against Holk from the armies of the USE, but you don’t have to worry about any Polish retaliation for whatever you choose to do, either. Which leaves…

  Gretchen Richter, Chancellor of Saxony. And now…

  This was going to be such a nice touch. Rebecca was really quite pleased with herself. As soon as she’d gotten the idea, the night before, she’d had a quick exchange of radio messages with the emperor. Gustav Adolf had been pleased with the idea himself, as you might expect.

  “I recommend, therefore, that you accept the authority of”—she motioned to Gretchen—“Chancellor Richter of Saxony. Whom Emperor Gustav II Adolf has also just appointed as the Lady Protector of Lower Silesia.”

  Gretchen stared at her. Which was not surprising, since she was hearing about this new development at the same time as the crowd of town notables in the Rathaus.

  “And do exactly as Chancellor Richter tells you to do,” Rebecca concluded.

  * * *

  “This is absurd!” Gretchen exclaimed, as soon as the door to the room was closed and they had some privacy. “What in the name of creation is a ‘lady protector’?”

  “You are,” said Rebecca.

  Lukasz Opalinski and the other Pole in Gretchen’s retinue, a man named Jozef Woftowicz, had followed them into the side room, along with Tata and Eric Krenz. As soon as he entered the room, Wojtowicz had started grinning.

  “It’s brilliant, Gretchen,” he said. He flipped a thumb and forefinger back and forth between himself and Opalinski. “And it makes things a lot easier for me and Lukasz.”

  She frowned at him. “How does it do that?”

  Opalinski had eased himself into a chair, which was a somewhat elaborate process when wearing a full set of hussar armor. “It does that precisely because no one has any clear idea what th
e title means. ‘Lady Protector of Lower Silesia’ is a much—ah, less problematic, let’s say—personage for we Poles to follow than the leader of a USE province.” He cleared his throat. “The USE being a nation with which, technically speaking, Jozef and I are at war.”

  “Awkward, that is,” agreed Woftowicz. “But who could object if we took up arms in the service of the Lady Protector of Lower Silesia to put a stop to the depredations of mercenary outlaws?”

  Richter was now glaring at the two Poles. “That’s ridiculous, too! The silly title was given to me by the emperor of the USE, remember?”

  Lukasz waved his hand airily. “Yes, yes—but so what? Who’s to say that given a peace settlement between the USE and the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania—which is bound to happen, sooner or later—King Wladyslaw won’t agree to anoint you with the same title himself? At which point we’d have what amounted to a joint protectorate between Poland and the USE over the much-abused and downtrodden region of Lower Silesia.”

  He sat up straight in the chair, his expression becoming more serious. “The point is, Gretchen, the title doesn’t make Lower Silesia a province of the USE. That means its status can be negotiated when the time comes—but in the meantime, you now have the authority to get that wretched pack of so-called patricians”—he waved toward the main hall of the Rathaus—“to do what you want them to do.”

  He now looked over at Rebecca. “Brilliant idea. Was it yours, or Gustav Adolf’s?”

  “It was hers,” Gretchen said, sounding a bit sour. “Had to be. The woman is much too smart to let run loose like this.”

  Rebecca just looked serene.

  PART VI

  September, 1636

  What does the mountain care?

  Chapter 47

  Linz, capital-in-exile of Austria-Hungary

  There was a large crowd waiting for Mike Stearns—or, rather, waiting for the motor boat which brought him. As they neared the docks, it became obvious to Mike that most of the onlookers were far more interested in ooh-ing and aah-ing over the Bass Cat Sabre than they were in him.

  As he deftly brought the boat up to the pier, Sergeant Melchior Dietrich of the 1st Reconnaissance Company gave Mike a sly grin. “Don’t take it personally, General,” he said. “You have to remember this is the second time I’ve made the trip to Linz.”

  Mike smiled. “And you couldn’t resist showing off, the first time.”

  Now the Marine sergeant’s expression became solemn, to the point of lugubriosity. “Oh, no, sir. I wouldn’t do something like that. No, I put on a display of the boat’s speed—top speed’s almost sixty miles per hour, you know—because the boat’s pilot insisted that he had to experience the maximum speed so he could properly gauge the time we’d need to avoid obstacles.”

  “I thought you were the pilot.”

  Dietrich got that unmistakable look of the connoisseur overhearing someone using improper terminology concerning his obsession. “Oh, no, sir. I’m not the pilot, I’m the helmsman. The pilot’s an Austrian fellow who knows the Danube from here—actually, all the way from Passau—down to Vienna.”

  Mike knew the Marines had hired a local to guide them as they sped up and down the Danube. The Sabre was a two-seater with not much in the way of carrying capacity. He’d ordered it brought down by airship from Grantville to provide the Third Division with a riverine reconnaissance capability. Of course, it had doubled nicely as a way to bring the Third Division’s commander down to Linz in style.

  “And naturally you had to do the demonstration right here in front of Linz’s population and the royal court because your Austrian pilot knew this stretch of the river by heart.”

  The sly smile came back to the sergeant’s face. “Exactly so, sir.”

  As he always did when dealing with Marines, Mike felt simultaneously admiring and irritated. There was no question the Marine Corps had panache. That helped cover the fact that it was ultimately a military unit with more in the way of political clout than any clear function.

  In truth, the main reason the Marine Corps had been established not long after the Ring of Fire was because Americans—and the inhabitants of Grantville were no exception—had an emotional attachment to them which stemmed from their own history.

  Given the realities of war in the 1630s, however, the sort of full-capacity army that the Marine Corps had been up-time—they’d even had what amounted to their own air force—had little purpose. What marines were really needed for was the task that had been their original one, centuries earlier: to provide naval vessels with a complement of marksmen used in battle against other black-powder vessels in close quarter combat, and a landing force for small scale shore operations.

  That was certainly how Admiral Simpson had envisioned them, initially. But in one way or another, that simple function had gotten frayed over time. Rebecca had used Marines to provide Princess Kristina and Prince Ulrik with a bodyguard when they came to Magdeburg during the Dresden Crisis, partly because they were what was available and partly because they had fancy and glamorous uniforms.

  Naturally, in the time-honored manner of military units going back to the charioteers of the pharaohs, the Marines had kept pushing for more roles, especially ones which had some glamor attached to them. Hence the origin of the very unit to which Sergeant Dietrich was attached as a “transport auxiliary,” the 1st Reconnaissance Company—which was still the only reconnaissance company the Marines had, and Mike was sure that Admiral Simpson was doing his level best to keep it that way. When the fiasco at Bornholm had shown the need for such an outfit, the Marines had muscled their way into the position, shoving aside the claims of the Army.

  Simpson had backed them, initially. Lately, though, the admiral was starting to make noises about organizing an entirely separate unit of what he defined as “maritime marines like they’re supposed to be” which would be called the Naval Marines and would be under the direct and no-damn-fooling thumb of naval commanders.

  He’d probably get it, too. Inter-service rivalry was alive and well in 1636, and Mike thought only a fool would underestimate John Chandler Simpson’s skill at bureaucratic knife-fighting.

  Not his problem, though. As men held the boat against the dock by lines, Mike was helped out by an Austrian officer. “Welcome to Linz, General Stearns,” the man said.

  “Glad to be here.” Once he’d gotten solid footing on the pier, he turned to look down at Dietrich. “Where did you leave your pilot, sergeant?”

  “Here, sir. I know the stretch of river between here and Passau well enough by now.” He nodded toward someone in the crowd. “He’s right over there, in fact.”

  “Off you go, then. I want regular radio reports from as far down the Danube as you can get without taking any real chances.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mike turned back to the officer who’d helped him out of the bass boat. “Where to, now?”

  “The emperor awaits you, General. General Pappenheim is here also.”

  “Already? How did he—oh, right. It must be nice for Wallenstein, having what amounts to his own private plane.”

  “I believe it’s Don Nasi’s plane, actually.”

  As if a man as shrewd as Francisco Nasi would risk annoying the new king of Bohemia, who’d just recently emancipated the city’s Jews—and Prague probably had the largest population of Jews anywhere in the world.

  But Mike didn’t say that aloud, of course. “Lead on, then.”

  Chiemsee (Bavarian Sea)

  Bavaria

  “And there it is,” said Tom Simpson, after he and his small unit reached a crest in the landscape. From that vantage point, they could see all of the Chiemsee, with the majestic line of Alps rising in the distance to the south.

  “How big is the lake, Major?” asked Captain Sebastian Bleier. “I’m from Nordhausen, near the Harz mountains. This is the first time I’ve ever been to Bavaria.”

  “According to the information sent me from the Grantville library,
the Chiemsee’s got a surface area of about thirty square miles. The greatest depth is a little over two hundred feet. It’s the biggest lake in Bavaria.”

  “More than big enough for our purposes,” said the combat engineer officer, nodding. “A bit far away from the theater of opeations, though.”

  Tom shrugged. “It’s about one hundred miles from here to Linz; two hundred, to Vienna. That’s well within the Magdeburg’s range. The only alternative would have been to build the hangar on the Traunsee, on the border between Salzburg and Austria. But that had two big drawbacks. First, it would have taken us much longer to get there, even if the archbishop of Salzburg was co-operative—which he probably wouldn’t be. Paris Reichsgraf von Lodron’s made almost as much of a religion of his neutrality as he has of his Catholicism.”

  He paused to admire the scenery for a moment.

  “The second reason?” Bleier prompted.

  “The Traunsee’s located on the Traun river, which is a tributary of the Danube.”

  “Good water transport, then. That would be an advantage for us.”

  Tom shook his head. “Sadly, the Traun joins the Danube a few miles downstream of Linz.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yeah. Ah. Depending on how the fighting goes, that could be under Ottoman control, if they can push right up to the walls of the city. So it’d be easy for them to send an expedition up the river to destroy our airship base. No, we’re better off playing it safe by building the hangar here.”

  With his hands planted on his hips, he scanned the shoreline. “The biggest problem we’ve got is that, according to the Grantville library, there aren’t any sizeable towns on the lake. We’ll have to make do with whatever village carpenters and artisans we can round up.”

  Captain Bleier’s eyes widened. “Village carpenters—to build a structure five hundred feet long and seventy feet tall?”