1634: The Baltic War

Chapter 45

The Wardersee, near Segeberg thirty miles northwest of Luebeck

The march from Hamburg had been exhausting, so General Torstensson ordered a rest once the regiments reached the Wardersee. The lake north of the town of Segeberg provided all the water they needed and they'd brought their other supplies from Hamburg. Behind them, TacRail units were laying a line from Hamburg that would make resupply quite reliable, once it was finished.

By then, of course, the war might be over. Such, at least, was Eric Krenz's caustic opinion.

"And why couldn't we have billeted in Segeberg?" he groused, wrapping his blanket around him more tightly and sliding himself closer to the campfire the battery had made. This early in May, it was still chilly in the morning.

"All twenty thousand of us?" Thorsten Engler shook his head. "Don't be stupid, Eric. I was told by Mark-Lieutenant Reschly-that the emperor gave General Torstensson orders not to weigh too heavily on the local populace. Seeing as how he intends to make them his own citizens, soon enough."

Silently, he reminded himself that he needed to restore a certain formality in his references to Mark Reschly. Captain Witty had suffered a minor accident shortly after the march began from their camp below Hamburg. Nothing really serious, just one of the almost-routine casualties suffered by cavalrymen-a broken foot from his horse stepping on him. But it was a significant enough injury that he'd had to stay behind in Hamburg until the bones healed, which had made Reschly the new commander of their volley gun company. After the battle group had been dissolved and they rejoined the rest of their company in Hamburg, that put Reschly in command of six batteries instead of the two he was accustomed to. The young officer from the Moselle was a bit frantic, these days, trying to catch up on things. He didn't need Thorsten's private familiarity with him to undermine his authority, which was a bit shaky to begin with.

Eric's capacity for grousing, alas, had become something of a legend in the batteries. "Torstensson has a billet in the town."

"I said, don't be stupid. Of course he does-and in the town's biggest tavern, at that. Do you really want the commander of your own army to be making battle plans scratching in the mud?" He waved at the Wardersee, whose banks were only twenty yards away. "Maybe you, but not me, seeing as how I'm not an idiot Saxon."

That got a little laugh from the other men in the battery around the campfire. Most of them, like Engler himself, were from parts of the Germanies west of Saxony. Thuringians and Magdeburgers, mostly, although Engler himself was from the Oberpfalz and there were several men in the battery from Franconia.

"Ha! Should have stayed in Saxony," Eric grumbled. "I'd be sleeping in a warm bed in Dresden."

Thorsten grunted softly. "Yes. This year. Next year"-he jabbed a thumb at one of the nearby volley guns-"you'd be looking at those from the business end. With that idiot John George for a commander instead of Gustav Adolf or Torstensson."

Krenz shook his head. "Nonsense. I'd desert. Join you fellows." He gave everyone a smile. "A year from now. Maybe in the summer, when it's warmer."

That got another laugh. Everyone liked Krenz personally, and certainly didn't hold the treachery of the Saxon elector against him. Why should they? Another of the many American loan words in Amideutsch-phrase, in this case-was equal opportunity. The joke had long become a staple in the regiments that John George of Saxony was an equal opportunity traitor, since he'd stabbed just about everybody in the back by now.

Like Thorsten-and Krenz himself, for that matter-most of those soldiers expected to be fighting Saxony and Brandenburg next year. Those of them who survived this war, at least. Their term of enlistment ran for three years, and none of them thought the war with the Ostenders was going to last more than a few months.

Thorsten wasn't so sure, himself. Not because he had any less confidence in their army than any of the other soldiers, but simply because his twenty-six years of life thus far had convinced him that the truest and most useful of all the American saws was shit happens. In war, who could say for sure?

In the main room of the tavern in Segeberg, General Torstensson straightened up from the big map spread out over a table in the center, then turned to Frank Jackson. Unlike the other top officers of the army who served Torstensson as his immediate lieutenants, Frank had no clear and definite duties on his staff. As tactfully as possible-with Frank's own cooperation-Torstensson had essentially removed him from any direct authority over large bodies of soldiers. Frank's training and temperament were entirely those of a sergeant, not an officer, and he was really not well-suited to be a commander of any body of soldiers much larger than a squad. He'd only been elevated to a generalship by the now-defunct New United States because no one else in Grantville had been any more qualified.

On the other hand, with his extensive practical knowledge of up-time technology, Frank made an excellent aide for anything that involved the interplay of the new American military equipment with the army. He jokingly referred to himself, in private, as "Lennart's utility infielder."

"Do we have radio contact yet with the emperor?" Torstensson asked.

"Just got it up and running. It's a good link, too, so we don't need to wait for the evening window."

"Good. Ask him what he wants me to do. Keep moving-if so, where?-or remain here until further notice."

"On my way." Frank headed toward the stairs that led up to the second-story room where the army's radio operators had set up their equipment.

Torstensson turned back to the table. "My guess is that the emperor will want us to remain here, until something develops. But, whether we do or not, we need to send a force north to secure the southern shore of the Ploner See." His finger indicated a large lake less than twenty miles north of the Wardersee. "It's most likely the French will come though this corridor once they begin their retreat from Luebeck. The Danes will pass to the east of the Ploner See, looking to reach their defenses at the Danewerk, but not the French. They'll pass south of the lake, trying to reach the headwaters of the Stor at Neumunster, and follow that down to the Elbe north of Hamburg. But they won't ever get there, because we'll have them trapped here."

Frowning, Colonel Bryan Thorpe leaned over the table and placed his finger on a different spot on the map, farther south.

"They might choose to take the more direct route, General. Just follow the Trave to Oldesloe, and then…"

His voice trailed off, as he studied the map.

"And then… what, Bryan?" Torstensson shook his head. "They'd find themselves in a worse trap, and one that ought to be obvious to their commanders even before they decamp. Even to that jackass Charles de Valois. Yes, the Trave would make an easy route at the beginning, but once they pass through Oldesloe"-he began moving his finger around on the map, after Thorpe removed his own-"their choices become dismal. They could reach the headwaters of the Alster easily, of course, but what good does that do them? The Alster would take them to Hamburg, where they'd be caught between our garrison in the city and us following them. Their only other options would be just as bad. They could march directly west, trying to avoid us, but that takes them through heavily wooded terrain with few roads, few villages, and only small streams. For an army the size of theirs, a disaster in the making, even this time of year. Or they march to the northwest, trying to reach the Stor from that direction. But the only route they could take would be to continue following the Trave, which leads them…"

He gave the English colonel a smile. Thorpe nodded. "Yes, I see. Which leads them right to us, here at Segeberg."

Torstensson planted both hands on the table, continuing to study the map. "Still… Given de Valois, such stupidity can't be ruled out. But if it does happen, we can march down the Trave from here faster than the French can come up the river. Meet them somewhere around"-he finger tapped a spot on the map-"Oldesloe, at a guess."

He spent the next few minutes discussing the army's logistical situation. By the time that was done, Frank Jackson had returned.

"The emperor wants you to stay put," he said. "The Ostenders are still in their fieldworks outside of Luebeck. Either they haven't gotten the news that Simpson has passed through the Great Belt, or they don't believe it, or they're just being sluggish and stupid, take your pick. But the emperor figures it doesn't matter. Sooner or later, they'll have to begin their retreat, and he wants you to wait for them here."

"The French, at any rate," said Torstensson. "What about the Danes? They'll take their army back on the eastern side of the Ploner See, I'm sure of that."

Frank shrugged. "Gustav Adolf didn't say anything on that subject. Just-wait here, and trap the enemy when they come. The exact identity of the enemy unspecified. You want me to get in touch with him again?"

Torstensson shook his head. "No, that's not necessary. The orders are quite clear."

He wasn't surprised, in any event. After Mike Stearns had demonstrated in December how easy it was to fly a man into Luebeck, Torstensson himself had been flown in twice-the second occasion, just three weeks earlier-to consult with the emperor. He knew that once the siege was broken, Gustav Adolf wanted to keep Danish casualties as low as possible. Their land forces, at least. He would be quite happy to see most of the Danish navy sunk or ruined, since that would give him the greatest leverage in his negotiations with Christian IV for a new Union of Kalmar. But there was no point in killing or wounding Danish soldiers who, soon enough, would be serving under Gustav's own colors. Let them escape Luebeck and take refuge in the Danewerk. They could be plucked there like ripe fruit, once the Danish king yielded and accepted the inevitable.

It was the French army that Gustav Adolf wanted destroyed. Not simply beaten, but shattered. Defeated so thoroughly that France would be knocked completely out of the war, and wouldn't be able to resume hostilities until the following year. By then, hopefully, they'd either have a peace settlement or Richelieu would be under such pressure from disgruntled elements in the French nobility that he couldn't afford to send any troops out of France even if there was no settlement.

It was a good plan, Torstensson thought. He'd marched so quickly that he was now astride the only good route the French army could take, in their retreat from the siege. His was a better army than theirs to begin with-he was quite sure of that-and the fact that he would be slightly outnumbered didn't bother him in the least. Especially since the French suffered from a serious shortage of cavalry, which was the critical arm in terms of winning battles.

"Will the emperor be joining us, do you think?" Thorpe asked.

Torstensson smiled. "With him, who knows?"

As it happened, Gustav Adolf was coming to that decision almost the same moment Torstensson asked the whimsical question.

He didn't like the answer much, though. He even lapsed into blasphemy, something he did rarely.

"God damn it, Nils," the emperor said, "I had been looking forward to that. After six months of this miserable siege! A straight clean battle, on the open field! Do wonders for me!"

Colonel Ekstrom said nothing. It was always best, in a situation like this, to let Gustav Adolf argue with himself. However impetuous he might be on the battlefield, he was as canny a ruler as any in Europe. Certainly canny enough to recognize, once he pondered the matter, that he was indispensable in the coming negotiations with the king of Denmark-and quite dispensable meeting the French. Torstensson was perfectly capable of dealing with that matter himself.

Besides, his plaintive outcry had been more in the way of habit than anything heartfelt. Truth be told, as sieges went, this one at Luebeck had been very far from "miserable." Once the American scuba divers had destroyed several Danish ships anchored in the Trave, early in the war, the Ostender fleet had moved too far down into the bay to pose any real danger to the city. The enemy had never even been able to completely invest Luebeck. There'd always been a corridor open northeast of the city through which enough in the way of supplies had been sent to keep Luebeck's citizens and garrison from being too badly strapped.

That was due, in large part, to the USE Air Force. As few planes as the air force had, and as limited as its real fighting capabilities were, Colonel Wood's people had provided the best possible reconnaissance-and were likely to scare off whatever enemy cavalry forces were sent to cut the supply line, anyway. Even if they couldn't, there was never any possibility of the Ostenders launching a surprise attack on a supply convoy. The worst that happened was that a convoy had to return to the fortified and garrisoned supply depot at Grevesmuhlen, halfway between Luebeck and Wismar, and wait a day or two for the enemy's cavalry to leave.

So, Gustav Adolf had been able to spend the past six months in Luebeck without any great immediate cares or worries. He'd even spent them in a certain amount of luxury. If not so much in terms of his accommodations-he'd settled for a fairly spartan room in the Rathaus-then certainly in terms of his library. Among the items brought into Luebeck with the supply convoys had been a large number of books. Replicas, for the most part, of certain up-time titles the emperor was keenly interested in studying.

Gustav Adolf had read a great deal, over those months. And spent as much time thinking as he did reading. The first time he'd really been able to do so, since the Ring of Fire.

The conclusions he came up with were… often very interesting, to Colonel Nils Ekstrom. Fortunately, unlike Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, he felt under no compulsion to try to talk the emperor out of them.

"How do you propose to get to Copenhagen?" the colonel asked. "Aboard one of the ironclads?"

"No, no. Mind you, it's tempting. Ha! The pleasure I'd take, staring at that drunken bastard Christian over the barrel of a ten-inch gun! But…"

Gustav Adolf shook his head in an almost comically lugubrious manner. "No, I shall forego the pleasure. Best, I think, not to arrive in quite so martial a manner. Besides, it would be a nuisance for Simpson to have to delay things just to wait for an emperor to come aboard one of his ships. A man after my own heart, there. He'd have made a superb cavalry commander, you know."

The emperor looked out the window, which gave him a view to the east. "No, I'll take one of Admiral Gyllenhjelm's ships. That should do for the purpose."

Ekstrom nodded. "And the other matter? Regarding Stearns?"

Still looking out the window, Gustav Adolf smiled. "Ah, Nils-so diplomatic, you are. If you were Axel, you know, you'd have been haranguing me on my folly."

"I don't feel that's my place, Your Majesty." In point of fact, Ekstrom was rather dubious about the emperor's likely decision. But…

That simply wasn't his place. His job, as he saw it, was to help the emperor make whatever decision the emperor felt was best. Let the chancellor try to talk him out of it, once it was made. No easy task, that, of course.

"Yes, I've decided. The equipment needed to repair the Achates should have arrived from Magdeburg by now. Send Stearns a message instructing him to take a force from Hamburg-a good cavalry regiment should do-down to the stranded timberclad. He's to reinforce the existing guard, of course. But, most of all, I want him to take charge of the entire operation and get the Achates ready for action again."

Ekstrom simply nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty."

Now, Gustav grinned. "Amazing. Not a single word informing me that I am grossly violating protocol. What, Nils? Not one?"

Ekstrom hesitated, before deciding at the last moment that was an invitation for him to see if he could find any fallacies in the emperor's reasoning.

"They do make a fetish, Your Majesty, of the subject of separating civil from military affairs."

"So they do. But calling it a 'fetish' misses the mark, I believe. There is a logic to the whole thing, which my extensive reading has made clear to me. The problem is not simply-not even primarily-a matter of abstractions. There is a solid core of practicality that lies beneath. I will tell you what it is."

He turned away from the window. "Organization, Nils. A society so well organized-top to bottom-that clear lines of authority can be defined and delineated."

He chuckled heavily. "They have their own superstitions, you know. One of the greatest being their firm belief that they are individualists-'rugged,' no less, being their favorite qualifier-and deeply opposed to anything that smacks of what they call 'red tape.' "

Ekstrom chuckled also. "True. Quite amazing, really, given that they are the world's ultimate bureaucrats. I've been told they even put up signs in their buildings, giving precise instructions as to where anyone should go to reach whatever-precisely defined-office they might be seeking."

"Oh, yes, it's true. My daughter is quite charmed by the things. She got into some trouble once, when she took it upon herself to have soldiers move some of the signs around, in the palace at Magdeburg, just to see what would happen."

"I can imagine!" But the humor of the moment led to a far more serious issue, which Ekstrom wondered if he should raise.

Gustav Adolf raised it himself, however. "Yes, yes, I know. Sooner or later, I will have to decide if I wish to heed the advice of my daughter's attendants. Seeing as how they flood me with enough missives that I use them regularly to start fires in my fireplace."

He clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing, in that heavy cavalryman's way. "But I think not. No, I think those frantic noblewomen will simply have to learn to make the same accommodations that I've decided I must make myself. Now that we've let the genie out of the lamp, putting it back in is simply hopeless. Better to make a pact with the creature. Since he is not, actually, a devil. Not that, whatever else."

Ekstrom waited patiently. Sooner or later, the emperor would come to the point.

Smiling again, Gustav Adolf tugged at his mustache. "There's a soldier somewhere in Torstensson's army. A sergeant in the volley gun batteries, by the name of Thorsten Engler. My daughter insists-instructs me, no less-that I must make him a count, at the very least. He has become betrothed, it seems, to her favorite American attendant."

"The Platzer woman?"

"Yes. The very one that half those frantic letters are devoted to denouncing. She is undermining my daughter's spirit, they claim. Sapping her of the necessary royal will and sense of importance."

He paused in his pacing. "Fools, the lot of them. Do you know how they proposed to solve the problem of the misplaced signs? Simply ordering the soldiers to put them back properly, and there was to be an end to it."

"I take it the Platzer woman felt otherwise?"

The emperor grinned. "Not entirely. She agreed that the signs needed to be fixed-on the following day. For the rest of that day, she made Kristina stand in front of them and personally give directions to anyone who came into the palace and seemed confused."

Ekstrom couldn't help it. He burst into laughter and blasphemed himself. "Good God! What did she use? A whip?" To say that their princess had a reputation among Swedes for being headstrong would be much like saying Swedes thought seawater was salty.

"Amazingly, no. She seems to be the one person in the world whom my daughter will actually listen to. Even obey, most of the time. And I am supposed to have her removed? As I said, fools."

The emperor went back to his deliberate pacing. "But we're straying from the subject. Here's the point, Nils. Whatever else he may be, the one thing my prime minister is above all else is a practical man. I am quite sure that he knows just as well as I do that his beloved democracy presupposes the existence of the world's best bureaucracy."

Ekstrom frowned. As often happened, trying to follow the emperor's train of logic was not easy.

Seeing the frown, Gustav clucked his tongue. "Oh, come! It's obvious! What is the most basic principle of law-making, Nils?"

That answer, he knew by heart, since it was one of the emperor's favorite saws. Not learned from any up-timer, either, simply part of the Vasa legacy.

"Do not pass a law you can't enforce."

"Exactly. Now apply that principle to democracy."

Ekstrom was back to frowning. Gustav clucked his tongue again.

"And you're normally so smart! It's just as simple, Nils. You can't enforce democracy until you have the wherewithal to do so. No point in telling a man he is the equal of any other, until you have the wherewithal to make that true in fact, as well as in theory. And that means red tape. Everyone has to stand in line to get whatever they want or need, be that man a duke or a pauper. No special privileges. But doing that, in turn, presupposes so many other things. Just to name three-"

He lifted a thumb. "First, everybody has to be literate. And not just enough to work slowly through the Bible, either. Enough to read and comprehend, easily, instructions written by a bureaucrat-and enough literacy that you have a veritable army of bureaucrats able to write the instructions in the first place."

The forefinger came up to join the thumb. "Second, everyone has to have enough time to spare from necessary labor to exert their new privileges. Pointless to tell a farmer or blacksmith he has the same political rights as a duke, when the duke can spend every waking moment engaged in politics and the farmer and blacksmith can barely manage to lift their heads from their labors."

The middle finger came up. "And that, in turn, requires wealth. Lots of wealth, enough for everybody to live on decently enough without constant toil."

He started to raise another finger, but broke off the exercise by simply waving his head.

"Enough to make the point, I think. Be assured of it, Nils. Michael Stearns understands all of these points, just as well as I do. Probably better. And since he's not a man to mistake today for tomorrow, or tomorrow for the day after, he'll accept my command. Why? Because to get to that clear separation of powers, he has to do many other things that are not so clearly distinct. The difference between tyranny and freedom, in the end, is often nothing more than the difference between today and tomorrow. Provided, that is, that you understand the difference between the days yourself. So send him the message. It will be interesting to see his response."

Ekstrom hesitated, then braced himself with the reminder that his job required him to question the emperor. "I still don't understand why you want the prime minister to handle this personally, Your Majesty. Sending a cavalry regiment, certainly-but they have a commander already. And I'm quite sure the captain and crew of the Achates are capable of doing the repairs without oversight, once they get the needed equipment."

To his relief, Gustav Adolf simply smiled instead of responding brusquely. "For shame, Nils! Am I the only one who can think ahead?"

"Your Majesty?"

"Michael Stearns is the prime minister of the USE today, Nils. But he himself expects to lose the upcoming election to Wilhelm Wettin. Assume for the moment that he does. Then what?"

The colonel stared at his king. After a moment, he said, "In truth, Your Majesty, I hadn't given that matter any thought at all."

Gustav Adolf grunted. "Didn't think so. Well, I have. Quite a bit, in fact. And the conclusion that I keep coming to is that I'd be a blithering idiot to let a man with such obvious capabilities-what's that American expression? 'sit on the sidelines,' I think-while I fight another war. Not only would that be a waste, it would probably even be dangerous. So, I intend to appoint him a general and put him in the army."

"Ah… Your Majesty, I don't believe Stearns has had much in the way of military experience. And that, if I recall correctly, simply as an enlisted man."

"True enough. And that's why I'm sending him down to Ritsenbuttel. Let's see how he manages in a military command position, eh?"

The response came back within two hours. The extreme-some might say, highly disrespectful-informality of the words being the prime minister's way of indicating he understood the game. So the emperor claimed, at least.

Sure, Gustav. I'll get back in touch when I get there. You want that warship plain, or with fries?

"What are 'fries'?" Ekstrom wondered.

"A ghastly American way of cooking potatoes, boiled in grease. My daughter says she's become quite fond of them, though, and thinks we should import them to Sweden."

"Ah." The colonel made a silent decision to give Chancellor Oxenstierna a private warning. "And the other matter your daughter raised?"

"The Engler fellow? I was thinking we could borrow the Habsburg practice. We'll make him the first imperial count of the United States of Europe. For meritorious services rendered, that sort of thing. Since the rank stands outside of the local German landholdings, the Adel shouldn't object too much."

Ekstrom had his doubts about the last. The German nobility could manage to find a way to complain about almost anything. Still, it was a rather charming idea.

"Very good, Your Majesty. How soon do you want to make the announcement?"

"Let's wait until after the big battle. Who knows? He might get killed in it, which would make the whole issue moot. Or he might run away, which would do the same, although judging from what my daughter says, that's unlikely. Best of all, he might distinguish himself a bit-at something other than courting a woman, I mean."

"What if he doesn't?"

"Oh, come, Nils! A man of your imagination? Surely you can think of something."

Ekstrom spent the rest of the day, off and on, trying to think of that "something." As a help, the emperor let him read the relevant letters from the princess.

Alas, the best he could come up with was discovered Narnia. A claim which, he suspected, an up-timer would surely challenge. Or anyone, for that matter, with access to one of the pestiferous encyclopedias.