Grassi chuckled again. 'Not any, Baron. Neither do I. After such a great victory, the Turk is flushed with pride and ambition. That new young sultan intends to become as famous as Suleiman the Magnificent. More famous, even. And to do that…'
Suleiman had conquered most of Hungary, after the Battle of Mohacs in 1526. That, perhaps more than anything, is what had cemented his reputation as the greatest sultan in the Ottoman line. If Murad IV intended to match him, much less surpass him, he would have to take most of the Austrian empire. Conquer it, not simply defeat it and extract concessions.
Janos rose and came to stand by the window next to Grassi. In his case, not to study the crowd in the streets but the sky.
'The weather looks to be holding up,' he said. 'I'll need to leave early on the morrow.'
Grassi cleared his throat. 'Yes, I thought you would. Back to Vienna, I assume?'
'Yes. I need to speak to the emperor as soon as possible.'
'Do you remember the occasion when you offered me sanctuary, should I ever need it?'
Drugeth nodded. 'Yes. The time has come, I take it.'
'Indeed so. Schmid has disappeared entirely. I have no idea where he is. So has the Dutchman, Haga.'
Perhaps even more than Schmid, Cornelis Haga-or van Haag, as he preferred to style himself-was the epitome of an 'old Ottoman hand' when it came to European ambassadors to the Sublime Porte. He'd been Holland's ambassador in Istanbul for almost a quarter of a century. If he'd gone into hiding-or been taken in custody by the Turks-then things were getting chancy indeed.
'Is Murad on a rampage?'
Grassi made a face. 'Hard to say, with that man. His rages are notorious, but I think at least some of them are feigned. Don't make the mistake of under-estimating him, Baron. He's probably the most capable sultan the Turks have had in a century. He's certainly the most dangerous.'
The doctor turned away from the window. 'Certainly too dangerous for me, at least for a while. I think my health would be greatly improved by a stay in Vienna.'
'Early tomorrow morning, then. This time of year, the weather can also be dangerous.'
Chapter 38
Pirna, in southern Saxony Mike paused the march into Saxony when the Third Division reached Pirna, the first major town north of the border with Bohemia. He'd been driving the men hard and they needed to rest and refit. There was another storm coming across northern Europe, too, and Pirna was the best place in the area for the division to wait for it to pass. In addition to the town itself, there was a large castle nearby-Schloss Sonnenstein-that could hold a number of the division's soldiers. The castle also made an excellent spot for Mike's radio operators to set up. As soon as the storm was over, he wanted to broadcast some messages that were sure to be picked up anywhere in the USE that had a functioning radio.
The time for subterfuge and deception was almost over.
They'd learned of the coming storm from radio messages sent by the military weather stations along the Baltic coast. The air force's stance of official neutrality was now threadbare. Colonel Wood was careful to maintain the needed reconnaissance patrols for Torstensson's two divisions besieging Poznan, and he scrupulously refrained from using any sort of weapons against either Oxenstierna's own forces or the various reactionary paramilitary outfits that had sprung up in many places to counter the CoCs' armed contingents. But he provided Mike with all the reconnaissance he needed and responded to every such request from the Swedish chancellor with silence.
Simpson and the navy were being more scrupulous, still. But Jesse had told Mike that Simpson was moving the two ironclads he had under his control out of Luebeck. For the duration of the crisis he'd keep the SSIM Constitution and the SSIM United States stationed in Rostock. From that port, he could interdict the Baltic and prevent Oxenstierna from bringing any more troops over from Sweden.
He'd do it, too, Jesse had assured Mike.
'Hey, look, you know John. He's a tight-ass, sure, but you can't actually sharpen pencils in his butt. If Oxenstierna pushes it too far, the admiral will take off the gloves.'
How and by what arithmetic Simpson had decided to draw the line that defined 'too far' as a major Swedish troop movement across the Baltic wasn't clear to Mike. There weren't all that many soldiers left in Sweden to begin with. Once you subtracted the bare minimum needed to maintain order, Mike doubted if there were more than five or six thousand available to reinforce the twenty thousand soldiers Oxenstierna already had in Berlin.
But he'd take what he could get, with no complaining. He was already heavily outnumbered, after all. Even if you subtracted ten thousand men from the armies Oxenstierna and Baner had due to illness and desertion, the Swedes still had twenty-five thousand men against his ten thousand. Then, add the ten thousand Saxon troops on the Swedish payroll under von Arnim's command in Leipzig. All told, Mike was looking at odds no better than three-to-one and probably closer to four-to-one against him.
That was the bleakest way to look at the matter, though. On the positive side were at least three major factors:
First, every indication was that von Arnim was desperately trying to keep himself out of the fight.
Second, Oxenstierna had the strongest of the three armies-and he was in Berlin, a hundred miles to the north. That was one hundred miles as the crow flies. Swedish mercenaries not being crows, they'd have to travel at least half again that distance in order to bring themselves into play. An army that size would be doing well if they could march an average of fifteen miles a day-in summertime.
And that was the third factor, of course. General Winter. Mike was counting on that most of all. His was the only army of the lot which was really equipped to fight a winter campaign. If he could keep von Arnim penned in Leipzig while he dealt with Baner, he'd then have some time to deal with whatever Oxenstierna threw at him.
The technical expression was 'defeat the enemy in detail.'
In theory, it sounded great. It remained to be seen how well Mike could carry it out in practice.
There were other factors, too. One of them was standing in front of him this very moment, in the chamber in Schloss Sonnenstein that Mike had set aside for his headquarters.
Georg Kresse himself, along with his chief assistant Wilhelm Kuefer and a young Slovene cavalry officer by the name of Lovrenc Bravnicar. Somehow or other, Kresse's army of irregulars had managed to acquire the services of a troop of professional cavalrymen.
The Vogtlander leader was giving Mike an odd sort of look. Odd, but one that Mike recognized. There was a certain type of German revolutionary who thought that Americans were all a bunch of weak sisters. Too delicate, too squeamish. Nice enough people, but not ones you could count on in the crunch.
Probably best to start there.
'Are you worried that I won't come through?' he asked Kresse. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 'You think I marched ten thousand men all the way from southern Bohemia in order to make rude noises at the Swedes and then turn around and march back?'
'Ah…'
Mike grinned. It was that savage grin that came naturally to him and which he'd perfected in his days as a prizefighter. He'd found it was a more effective way to intimidate opponents than snarling or scowling at them. Oh, I'm going to have so much fun beating the crap out of you, punk.
'Rest easy, Herr Kresse. There are only a handful of Americans in the Third Division. Granted, the commander is one of them and the division's toughest regiment is commanded by another. But I can assure you that neither I nor Colonel Higgins is much given to doubts and hesitations.'
'Ah…'
'If it makes you feel any better, people back home thought I was probably a monster.'
Kresse's sidekick Kuefer started laughing, then. Not loudly, but these were real laughs, not chuckles.
'Poor Georg!' He slapped Kresse on the back. 'He hates having his certain notions upset.'
Kresse gave him an irritated look. 'Stop clowning around.' To Mike he said: 'All right, General. We will
