assume you will make good on your promises.'
'I didn't make any promises, Herr Kresse. No general with half a brain makes promises, when it comes to fighting a war. What I explained to you was my intentions.' He pointed a finger at one of the windows facing north. 'I intend to drive Baner out of his siege lines around Dresden. I intend to defeat him in battle if he chooses to fight. I intend to prevent von Arnim from interfering in this little civil war we're having. And I intend to do whatever has to be done to deal with Oxenstierna, if he comes out of Berlin.'
He paused, staring at Kresse. Not quite challenging him, but close. After a few seconds, he started speaking again.
'What would be helpful here would be a discussion of the various ways you might be able to assist the Third Division in carrying out these intentions.'
Kresse nodded abruptly. 'Very well. We can certainly provide you with a lot of intelligence. Not as quickly as what you might sometimes get from the air force people, but probably in greater detail.'
'Much greater detail,' said the Slovene cavalry officer, speaking for the first time since the meeting began. 'The pilots can't really tell you much except raw numbers and movement. By now, we've gotten to know Baner's army quite well. It's like most mercenary armies. Some units are excellent, many are good, as many are mediocre, and some aren't worth dog piss. Those are the sorts of details we can provide you.'
His German was fluent and idiomatic. He seemed to have a slight accent, but that might be Mike's ear missing a cue rather than anything Bravnicar was saying. Mike's own German was also fluent and idiomatic by now, and he didn't have a particularly pronounced accent. Still, it wasn't his native language. He couldn't necessarily tell when something that sounded like an accent was just a different dialect or regional speech pattern. Seventeenth century German was very far from being a standardized and homogenized language.
'That would certainly help. What about cutting the Swedish supply lines, if Baner comes out of the trenches?'
The Slovene cavalryman waggled his hand back and forth. 'Maybe yes, maybe no. It will depend on a lot of things. Which unit is guarding the lines and the weather, most of all. Still, at the very least we can make their lives a bit miserable and force the pig to detach units for guard duty.'
'The pig,' Mike had discovered, was the term that seemed to be universally used in Saxony to refer to Johan Baner. By anyone and everyone, from Kresse's people to street urchins.
'We can also fight in battles,' said Kresse. 'But only if you are willing to make accommodations. We do not have the training or the equipment of regular soldiers.' A bit stiffly, he added: 'Nor, being honest, do most of our men probably have the temperament. They're not cowards, but…'
Mike nodded. Being a soldier in this day and age, that historical period of gunpowder warfare when the weapons were very powerful but not very accurate, posed some particular challenges. Mental challenges, most of all. A man had to be willing and able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his mates on a battlefield, exchanging volleys with an enemy at what amounted to point blank range. It required not simply courage but a sort of almost surrealistic fatalism. Mike wondered sometimes if the rise of Calvinism had been at least partly conditioned by the warfare of the era. About the only mental armor a man could take with him onto such a battlefield was a belief in predestination-and the hope, at least, that God had selected you for His favor.
Kresse's men, on the other hand, were irregulars whose informal training was quite different. They didn't lack courage, but it was a different sort of courage.
'Yes, I understand. If I use you in a battle, it'd be to hold some defensive positions. I wouldn't expect you to be able to maneuver on an open field.'
The tone of the meeting warmed up considerably, after that. Mike thought he'd probably passed some sort of test.
Two days later, the storm had passed and it was time to make the transmissions. Jimmy Andersen and his little crew of radio operators had had everything ready for some time, but Mike waited until the evening. He wanted to make the broadcast during the so-called 'window,' when the conditions were best for radio transmissions.
So, he took a moment to compose himself. Once he made that first transmission, he'd crossed the Rubicon.
Which-he'd looked it up once-was a river so small it would have been considered a mere creek in West Virginia.
'Piss on it,' he murmured. 'Okay, Jimmy, let's go. The first message is a transmission to Oxenstierna.' To Axel Oxenstierna, chancellor of Sweden From Michael Stearns, major general in command of the USE Army Third Division Your behavior over the past three months has become intolerable. I refer specifically to the following acts: First, the illegal detention and imprisonment of the nation's prime minister. Second, the creation of a rump so- called convention that has attempted to usurp the powers of the nation's legitimate parliament. Third, the sequestration of the injured emperor under conditions of inferior medical care, a deeply suspicious act that smells of treason. Fourth, the imposition of martial law on Saxony and ordering General Baner's assault on Dresden, a peaceful and orderly city, despite the express orders of the province's administrator personally appointed by the emperor.
Thank you, Ernst Wettin. Mike took a moment to think kind thoughts about a small and unprepossessing nobleman whose integrity dwarfed that of most others of his class. Fifth, the commission of atrocities by Swedish troops against the Saxon populace, such atrocities including murder, rape, arson, bodily mutilation and theft. Sixth…
The list went on for quite some time. The kitchen sink wasn't there, but only because Mike hadn't been able to figure out a plausible way to accuse Oxenstierna of stealing it.
He did accuse the chancellor of imperiling the nation's sanitation measures and increasing the danger of epidemics, though.
'It's off, General.'
'The second message is a transmission to Magdeburg. The first of two, actually.' To Princess Kristina Vasa, heir to the throne of the United States of Europe.
He'd considered adding her titles to the thrones of Sweden and the High Union of Kalmar as well, but eventually decided against it. A great deal of the legalities involved in all this derived from the nature of Gustav Adolf's triple monarchy. Much of the case against Oxenstierna, in the end, came down to the charge that he'd used his position in the Swedish government to interfere-completely illegally and with no authorization whatsoever-in the affairs of a separate nation, the United States of Europe.
Mike saw no advantage to undermining his case by dragging in two other nations himself. Officially, his ties to Kristina as a general in the USE army were derived solely from her position in that nation and no other.
Legal folderol, it could be argued. Hadn't Mike himself said publicly that what defined a civil war was the collapse of the rule of law?
Yes, he had. But defining something was not the same as advocating it. From the beginning, his side in this civil war had positioned itself to be the champion of law and proper procedure, and had forced Oxenstierna into the position of being the one overturning the rule of law. That might not count for much in the ranks of Oxenstierna's diehard supporters-it certainly didn't count for much in the minds of diehard CoC members-but it did matter to wide swaths of the German populace. So far, with very few exceptions, the town militias had stayed out of the fight. So had the provincial armies. Mike wanted to keep it that way. Rest assured that the Third Division's loyalty to the Vasa dynasty is not in question. Our quarrel is not with you or with your father. It is with the usurper Oxenstierna and his minions.
'That's done too, sir.'
'Here's the second transmission to Magdeburg.' The Third Division commends the prudent actions of the legal representatives of the legitimate parliament, who have remained at their posts in the nation's legitimate capital of Magdeburg. We give those legal members of parliament the same assurances we give the crown.
There followed a laundry list of praises heaped upon just about everybody who'd had the good sense to stay on the sidelines-not just the parliament members in Magdeburg but the regional heads of state, the mayors and councils of the imperial cities, town militias, etc., etc., etc. This list was even longer than the denunciations of Oxenstierna.
When he was done, Jimmy flexed his fingers for a few seconds. He was sending the transmissions in Morse code as well as vocally. Most of the USE's radios were still limited to Morse code.
