1636:The Kremlin games

Chapter 50

Moscow

June 1634

Third Lieutenant Boris Timofeyevich Lebedev was savoring the victory. Right up to the time he was called into the commandant’s office. He had beaten Third Lieutenant Ivan Maslov in the Polish invasion scenario two weeks ago and won a nice purse in bargain. The betting had been five to one against him. Lebedev, known as Tim to his friends, had been playing the Polish and he had won by ignoring Smolensk. After all, Poland already held Smolensk. They had held it since the Time of Troubles. And Poland, just like Russia, only had to worry about Smolensk if they didn’t have it.

Now he was trying to figure out what he had done wrong, that would get him summoned by the commandant. Tim put his shoulders back and entered the commandant’s office not looking left or right, stood at attention and saluted as smartly as he was able. The commandant returned the salute with a casual half wave. Then he asked him the last question he ever expected to hear. “So, Third Lieutenant Lebedev, how did you manage to defeat the entire Russian Army and take Moscow, in just ten weeks?”

“Sir?”

“Come now, Lebedev. It’s all over the Kremlin. I understand the odds were five to one in favor of that baker’s son, Ivan Maslov?”

“Sir? Are you talking about the Polish invasion scenario?” Tim was out of his depth. It wasn’t one of the official war games.

“Yes, of course, Lebedev.” The commandant pointed to a map on the left wall. The map showed part of Russia and part of Poland. “Show me how you did it.”

Tim walked over to the map pointed where he placed his troops and how he moved them using the River Volga as the supply line. “Russia is not Moscow; Russia is the Volga. In the Time of Troubles, Poland took Moscow but they couldn’t keep it. But the Volga controls transport.. ”

Just as Tim was getting into his description of what he’d done, he heard another voice.

“Would it interest you to know, Lieutenant Lebedev, that Polish troops took Rzhev three days ago? From the somewhat vague first reports we have, there are around ten thousand troops there now, a mixture of the magnate’s personal troops, mercenaries and Cossacks.”

“What?” Tim faced the new voice and recognized General Mikhail Borisovich Shein. Then, in a state of shock, he blurted out the first thing that come to mind. “But that’s the wrong place, sir.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” General Shein said wryly.

Tim stood mute.

“Speak up, Lieutenant,” the commandant said. “Why do you think Rzhev is the wrong place?”

“It’s too far upriver, sir. The Volga is navigable at Rzhev but only barely. Tver would be a better choice, even if it is farther. You’d want to take Rzhev, too. Later. After the first strike. But if you take Rzhev first, you warn Tver and give them time to fort up and block any river traffic from going past.”

General Shein looked at the commandant. “He’ll do.”

After that, things moved quickly. Third Lieutenant Boris “Tim” Lebedev found himself suddenly assigned as aide de camp to General Artemi Vasilievich Izmailov.

“Third Lieutenant Boris Lebedev reporting as ordered.”

“Who are you?”

“Sir, I’m to be your cadet aide de camp.”

“I asked for Maslov! The baker’s boy.” General Izmailov was clearly not pleased.

“Ivan?”

“You know him?”

“Yes, sir. We’re friends at the military academy.” That was the semiofficial name of the still semiofficial officer training school that was growing in the Kremlin.

General Izmailov paused and give Tim’s uniform a careful once over. “Let me guess. Your father is a boyar or duma man?”

Suddenly Tim understood. “A great uncle, sir.” The pride that Tim’s voice usually had in that announcement was notably missing. The general had asked for the best student in the cadet corps, Ivan Maslov. Instead he had gotten… well, not the highest in family rank. There were a lot of high family kids among the cadets. It was quite the fashion these days. No, what the general had received was a cadet of acceptable social rank and lesser skill. Even if Tim had beaten Ivan once.

General Izmailov was not usually placed in independent command. For the same reason-he didn’t have enough social or family rank. In fact, he was officially second in command of the army they were raising right now, placed temporarily in command of the advance column.

General Izmailov shrugged and got down to business. “I’ll be leading a reconnaissance in force and-if necessary-a delaying action while the reserves are called up. The reconnaissance force is made up in part from Streltzi Prince Cherkasski has loaned us from the Moscow Garrison.” Prince Ivan Borisovich Cherkasski was the chief of the Strel’etsky prikaz, Musketeer Bureau. “They’re under Colonel Usinov. We have small detachments from the Gun Shop and from the Dacha. And two regiments of cavalry under the command of Colonel Khilkov.” General Izmailov gave Tim a look. “Usinov has more experience but Khilkov’s family is of higher rank. We have peasant levies for labor battalions. About four thousand of them. We have four brand-new cannons from the Gun Shop and some of the Streltzi we’re getting have been equipped with the new AK3’s. From the Dacha we’re getting Testbed, the flying machine. I am told it is to be used only for reconnaissance. And we’re getting thirty of the scrapers. There won’t be time to use them much on the march, but they should help a lot with fortifications when we find our spot.”

Tim nodded his understanding. “What about the radio network, sir?”

“Apparently there is no link going toward Rzhev. There is one going toward Smolensk, which would have given us warning if they’d come that way. Which may have something to do with why they’re coming from Rzhev. Unfortunately, most of the radio network has been put in places where it would be convenient for members of the great houses, not where it would help the army.”

The assumption was that they would meet the advancing Polish forces somewhere between Rzhev and Moscow. Meanwhile Tim was assigned fourteen different jobs, some of them in direct conflict with the others. Or at least that’s how it seemed. He was to coordinate with the labor battalions, the Streltzi, the Dacha contingent as well as the Gun Shop contingent, and make sure that all the various units were in the right marching order. Except that the people in charge hadn’t actually decided the marching order yet. So he was given one order and then fifteen minutes later given a different order by someone else.

By noon Tim was considering the value of getting rid of the beards, as he’d read Peter the Great had done. But in his own mind, “the beards” were the idiots who kept harping on their noble rank, regardless of their true ability at war. At this rate we’ll meet the Poles thirty miles out of Moscow.

On the first day Nikita-“call me Nick”-Ivanovich’s dirigible contingent ended up at the back of the line of march, which meant that by the time they reached the campsite it was already getting dark. Tim watched as Testbed lifted into the night sky and disappeared. All Tim could see was the rope from the wagon, climbing into a bit of deeper blackness which hid the stars.

“Of course, it could be that there simply wasn’t that much to see,” Nick reported a half hour later. Tim could see that General Izmailov was less than pleased. But Nick didn’t seem to be worried about it. Which Tim thought was very brave or very stupid. Then he looked over at Testbed, which the crew was still tying down for the night. He remembered that Nikita Ivanovich had been the first person to climb into it and had flown it without ropes to keep the wind from carrying it away. Tim still wasn’t sure whether that was brave or stupid, but the “very” gained a whole new level of magnitude.

“Tim! Testbed will be placed near the front in tomorrow’s order of march,” General Izmailov gritted. Tim knew that the general had seen the demonstration at the Dacha and had been planning to use the dirigible. But how were they supposed to know that it didn’t work at night? Granted, it was pretty obvious when you thought about it. Dark is no time to observe things.

“I don’t believe this,” Tim muttered. “We’ll never get there at this rate.” The march had put them about twelve miles west of Moscow. Worse, they were trying to move fast and doing it over good roads. The scrapers had improved the roads around Moscow quite a bit.

His friend and fellow student at the cadet corps, Pavel, nodded in agreement. “Bad enough the delays because of the confusion. But Colonel Khilkov and the fit he threw when we were setting out and he discovered that we were ahead of him in the line of march was just plain stupid.”

Tim figured the flare up was at least half Usinov’s fault with all the gloating he was doing. But he didn’t say so. Pavel was Colonel Usinov’s cadet aide de camp, and thought quite highly of him. “Just wait till he hears that General Izmailov is going to put Testbed near the front of the line tomorrow.” Tim threw his arms up and pretended to be having a fit. “Never let it be said that mere military necessity should trump social position in the Russian army. ‘My cousin is of higher rank than your uncle, so of course my company must be ahead of yours in the order of march.’” Tim spat on the ground. “Idiots. We’re all idiots. If we go on like this we’ll be defending Moscow from another Polish invasion and we’ll be doing it right here. You can bet that the Poles aren’t sitting on their asses in Rzhev arguing about who should be first in the line of march.”