Hans watched the angels of death for several minutes before he spoke. He was puzzled by the difference between them. It was not the fact that one was male and one female. It was simply that Hans had always thought of angels as being… ageless. So why should one of them resemble a young woman, and the other a gray-haired man?
Their hair seemed strange, too.
But he was not frightened. He knew they were angels of death because of their black color, but he could detect no evil in their faces. Only a sort of calm concern. They seemed to be watching over several souls.
Not Hell, then.
Hans' eyes ranged through the room. That, too, was odd. He would have thought a divine antechamber would have been better constructed. Or not constructed at all. Simply-spoken into existence. But he could see the nail heads holding the wooden framework together. Very sloppy workmanship, actually.
His eyes studied the filmy substance separating him from the dimly sensed soul of another. The other soul, like his own, seemed to be lying on some sort of cot. Hans admired the filmy substance. Very ethereal, he thought. But he was a bit nonplussed by the cot. It did not seem at all heavenly.
He was not dead yet, then. His soul was simply suspended somewhere, waiting to be reaped.
The filmy substance was suddenly brushed aside. One of the angels of death entered into his space. The young female one.
Hans studied her face. Her features were not what he would have expected on an angel. Very large, broad. But he decided she was quite beautiful. He liked the way her tightly coiled black hair framed her forehead. And her dark eyes seemed very warm.
He cleared his throat. "I am ready," he whispered.
The angel leaned closer, turning her head slightly to present an ear. "What did you say?" she asked.
Hans was puzzled. Why would an angel speak English? But he accepted the divine will, and repeated himself in English.
"Take me, angel," he repeated. "I am ready."
The words seemed to register. The angel's eyes widened. Her lips curved into a smile, the smile became a laugh. Hans got his next surprise.
" 'Take me!' " she mimicked. Another laugh. "I've heard of one-track minds before, but this-(strange idiom; something about a cake being taken)."
But English it surely was. Hans was quite familiar with the tongue. The only member of Ludwig's band that he had genuinely liked was a young Irishman. The Irishman was also dead, now. Hans had seen his brains explode.
The angel was still laughing. "You may be ready, honey," she exclaimed, "but I'm not!" Another laugh, quite gay. "Aren't you the randy one!"
She patted his cheek. "Welcome back, Hans Richter. I'll get your sisters."
They arrived within an hour, and Hans discovered that he was still alive. Alive-and healing well. But he had spent many weeks on the edge of death. It was now the month of August.
Other changes had taken place, he discovered, and still others were in the offing. By the end of the day, he met Gretchen's new husband. And his new employer.
"You don't have to be a soldier anymore, Hans," explained Gretchen. She gestured to a man standing behind her. He was a large man, rather young, with a friendly smile.
"This is Mr. Kindred. He is-was-the publisher of Grantville's newspaper."
"What is a newspaper?" asked Hans.
Gretchen frowned. "It's like a broadsheet, except it comes out once a week and tells people what's happening in the world."
Hans started to ask another question but Gretchen overrode him. "Later, brother. For now, Mr. Kindred could use your help. He is trying to build a print shop, so that he can resume his publication. But-" She hesitated. "His old methods won't work, so he needs to build one the way father did. He would like your help. Three other former printers have already joined him. If it goes well, you can become a partner if you want to."
Hans stared at the publisher. "I could be a printer again?" he asked, very softly. "Not a mercenary?"
Gretchen nodded. "They will ask you to join what they call the militia, and do some training every week. But unless you want to be a professional soldier"-she laughed, then, seeing the expression on her younger brother's face-"you don't have to."
"Be a printer again," Hans whispered.
The next day, the doctor he had thought was an angel of death released him from the hospital. Helped by his sisters and his new brother-in-law, Hans entered a new world.
It was all very strange, but Hans did not care. Not even when he was conscripted into the labor battalions the day after he moved into his new home. The battalions were being mobilized every day to bring in food from the surrounding countryside. Winter was coming, and the teeming town of Grantville was working feverishly to prepare for it. Hans understood the urgency. He understood winter all too well.
And then, acceptance turned into sheer joy. Because he was still weak, the Americans decided he was unfit for hard labor. They were on the verge of sending him home when one of them, hearing that Hans had been a printer, asked if he was comfortable around machinery. The next thing Hans knew he was being trained to operate the most wonderful machine he had ever seen. A "pickup," it was called. Hans fell in love with it immediately. Over the next few weeks, he learned to drive most of the American motor vehicles. And fell in love with all of them. He was almost sorry when he had to start his new job in the print shop.
But the print shop was urgent, now. The American leaders were determined, it seemed, to begin publishing newspapers and broadsides. And books, soon enough.
They called it "propaganda." After Hans read the first pamphlet which came off the press, he fell in love with propaganda also. He liked the Bill of Rights, even if he thought it was probably insane.
A mad, crazed new world. Hans loved all of it, especially after his wonderful new brother-in-law showed him how to operate the machine called a "computer."
The best of all, however, came on September 10. That evening, the strange machine in the trailer which his brother-in-law called a "television" came to life. For the first time, apparently, since the divine event which the Americans called the Ring of Fire.
Hans was gathered around the odd glass with the entire family. The room was packed with bodies. His brother-in-law, smiling, reached down and pushed a button. The glass-the "screen," it was called-suddenly came alive.
"Oh, look!" exclaimed Annalise. "It's Becky."
Gretchen pursed her lips, studying the image of the young woman on the screen. True, it looked like Becky. She was standing behind a table, whispering something to her betrothed. Yes, that was Mike, sure enough. But Gretchen was not certain. "She seems awfully nervous," she mused.
"That's nonsense," retorted her sister firmly. "Becky is never nervous."
Chapter 33
"I'm so nervous," whispered Rebecca.
She leaned her head on Mike's shoulder. He put his arm around her waist and gave her a quick reassuring squeeze. Then, nuzzling her ear, whispered in return: "Relax. You'll do just fine." His hand slid down, patting her upper fanny. Rebecca smiled and returned the pat with one of her own.
Janice Ambler, the school's television instructor, started hopping up and down with agitation, fluttering her hands frantically.
At the back of the high school's TV studio, Ed Piazza frowned. "Great," he grumbled. "We finally get this TV station back on the air and what's the first thing the audience sees? 'Grab-ass at North Central High.' "
Next to him, Melissa grinned. "You might remember, in the future, to warn her when she's going on the air."
"Why?" demanded Greg Ferrara. "If you ask me, it beats the old days. There's something nice about a National Security Adviser who lets her hair down in public now and then. In a manner of speaking."
"Good point," murmured Melissa.
Piazza was not mollified. "You people are sick, sick." He cleared his throat loudly. "Uh, Becky, you're live."
Startled, Rebecca raised her head and stared at the camera. The small audience in the room had to fight down a wave of laughter. She looked like a squirrel startled in the act of stealing food.
A moment later, Rebecca was scuttling into her chair. Mike ambled lazily out of camera range, smiling all the while. And a very smug-looking smile it was, too.
"Great," repeated Piazza. "You watch. Every kid and his girlfriend is going to be sneaking in from now on, trying to cop a feel on the air."
Ferrara started to make some jocular response, but fell silent. Rebecca was speaking.
"Good evening. Guten Abend. Welcome to our new television station. Thanks to the hard work of the school's teachers and students, we have been able to come back on the air for the first time since the Ring of Fire. Tonight, we will only broadcast for a few hours. But we hope, within a week, to be on the air for at least twelve hours every day."
She began translating into German. By the time she was halfway into the translation, all traces of nervousness had disappeared and Rebecca was her usual self.
"Smile," muttered Piazza. "C'mon, Becky, smile now and then."
"Naw," countered Ferrara. "I like it just fine the way she is. It's such a relief to see a news announcer who doesn't crack jokes every other line, like they were a stand-up comic or something. Just tell it like it is, Becky."
"Amen," agreed Melissa.
Rebecca resumed in English:
"Most of tonight's program will be entertainment. We felt everyone deserved an enjoyable evening, after all the hard work we have been doing. There is good news in that regard, by the way. I spoke to Willie Ray Hudson just an hour ago, and he told me that he is now quite certain we will have enough food for the winter. Rationing will be tight, but no one will go hungry. But he warned me-I felt I should pass this along-that our diet is going to be awfully boring."
Again, she translated into German. By the time, she was done, Rebecca was frowning. She added a few more sentences in German. Melissa, the only one of the Americans in the studio whose knowledge of the language was becoming passable, began laughing softly.
Piazza eyed her quizzically. Melissa leaned over and whispered: "What Becky said was that since Americans don't seem to be able to cook anything without a lot of meat, she just realized it might be a good idea for some German women to organize a cooking class and do it on TV. So she asked for volunteers. Congratulations, Ed. You've got your first new program for the season."
Piazza's face was a study in contradiction. Humor mixed with outrage. "She doesn't have the authority-"
But Melissa was laughing again. Rebecca, after pausing for a moment-still frowning-had just spoken another few sentences in German. "Now she said that while she's thinking about it we ought to have some German brewers come on TV and explain how to make real beer instead of that colored water Americans confuse with it."
Piazza started sputtering. "Amen!" exclaimed Ferrara.
Janice Ambler was scowling at them and making little waving motions with her hands. Shut up! We're on the air!
No use. Rebecca was now translating her latest impromptu remarks into English and the rest of the small crowd which formed the audience in the television classroom burst into laughter-all of which was faithfully picked up by the microphones and broadcast into hundreds of homes, trailers, and the still-packed refugee centers.
Grantville rollicked. The Germans' humor was heartfelt; that of the Americans, a bit chagrined.
By now, Mike had joined Piazza and the two teachers. He was grinning ear to ear. "I knew she'd be great."
Piazza shook his head ruefully. "So much for following the script."
But Rebecca was now returning to the planned program. She was still frowning, but the expression was now severe instead of thoughtful.
"We are starting to develop a problem with sanitation." Frown, frown. "Some of the newer members of our community are growing lax about it. We cannot have that! You all know that plague comes with the springtime, which is not so many months away. Later tonight, Dr. Abrabanel is going to come on the air and explain-again-why personal and public sanitation is so essential for warding off disease."
Ferrara was frowning, now. "I don't understand this," he muttered. "Why is Balthazar doing that segment? I'd think James or Doc Adams would-"
Mike interrupted, shaking his head. "No. You've got to remember, Greg, that the Germans are still skeptical about all of this weird stuff about germs. But the one thing they know for sure is that Jewish doctors are the best. That's why all the kings and high nobility have them. If Balthazar says it's true, they'll believe it."
Mike smiled at the expression on Ferrara's face. "Nobody ever said prejudice made any sense, Greg. Even when it's standing on its head."
Again, the television instructor was waving everyone silent. This time, the crowd obeyed. Rebecca, after translating the medical announcement into German, broke into her first smile since starting the program.
"But it is time we should enjoy ourselves. I will be returning with news announcements later, but for now let us watch a motion picture. I have seen it, and it is truly wonderful."
She fell silent, smiling into the camera. The television teacher's frown of displeasure didn't seem to faze her at all.
"She's supposed to explain what it's about," hissed Piazza.
Mike grinned. "She told me that was purely stupid. Buster Keaton explains himself."
Janice Ambler gave up her useless frowning, sighed, and started the movie. The General came on the air and Buster Keaton spoke silently for himself. Within minutes, Grantville was rollicking again-and no one harder than the Germans. True, they were not very familiar with trains. Many of them had helped to lay the tracks just coming out of the new foundry, but the first steam locomotive was still being built. It mattered not at all. Film critics had often argued that Buster Keaton's genius was universal. That speculation was now proven, beyond a doubt, in another universe.
While Keaton struggled with a refractory cannon, Mike and Rebecca conferred with Ed, Melissa and Greg on a different problem.
"I still think it might be smarter to let Simpson have what he wants," argued Ferrara. "He's been squawking for months about Mike's so-called 'rule of martial tyranny.' So let him have his hour of 'free speech.' "
Mike rubbed his chin uncertainly. But Rebecca was adamant. "That is absolute nonsense! Michael was elected unanimously. If we allow Simpson to proclaim himself the official opposition-and who elected him, anyway?-then we would have to do the same for everyone with a grievance. That is not democracy, that is simply anarchy."
Piazza immediately sided with her. "She's right. Besides, we've already announced that the founding convention is going to be held over the winter. There'll be new elections then. If Simpson and that gaggle of his want to run for office, let them do it at the proper time. Until then, he's just another grouser."
"He's got a pretty big crowd following him," countered Ferrara.
Melissa snorted. "Oh, come on, Greg! It's not that big. Three or four hundred maybe, out of three thousand. And that's only counting the Americans. How many Germans do you think would vote for him? Five, tops?"
"The Germans won't be voting in the next election," pointed out Ferrara. "We've already agreed we can't extend the franchise until the convention says it's okay."
Mike came to a decision and shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Even if he had more support than he does, he's still just another private citizen. When the elections are opened, he can get nominated if he wants. Then he'll have the same access to airtime as any other candidate. But Becky's right. If we give in to his demands now, we'd just be accepting political blackmail. Rules are rules. The loser can't demand they be changed after the fact."
Grudgingly, Ferrara nodded. "All right. I won't push it any further. But-" He gave Melissa a skeptical glance. "Three or four hundred? Now, maybe. But you just watch what happens after Mike announces the first plank of his election platform. Universal suffrage for everyone eighteen years or older, after three months residency."
Mike grinned. "Yup. And no lawyering, either. No poll taxes, no literacy tests, no language requirements-nada. If you've lived here for three months, you're eighteen years old, and you're willing to take the loyalty oath-you're a voter."
"The shit is going to hit the fan," predicted Ferrara. His expression was gloomy. "Right now Simpson's only got some of the older folks and the faint-hearts. But as soon as Mike makes that announcement, every bigot in town is going to be jumping on the Simpson bandwagon. And don't think there aren't plenty of them. You can start with those rednecks who hang out at the Club 250."
"Those bastards," hissed Melissa. "I oughta picket the sons of bitches."
Piazza frowned. "What's this about?"
Mike was scowling now. "The owner, Ken Beasley, put up a sign last week behind the bar. 'No dogs and Germans allowed.' "
Ed's mouth dropped. Mike chuckled harshly-very harshly. "Yeah. When I first heard about it, I grabbed some work gloves and started on down there. Looking for sparring partners. But Becky stopped me."
Rebecca sniffed. "Stupid. So was Dan Frost's idea to close them down for violating the building codes. It took me an hour to talk him out of it." She gave her fiancй a glare and poked him in the ribs with a finger. "Especially since this one kept encouraging him."
"Why'd you stop him?" demanded Ferrara. "That rathole must have a thousand violations."
Mike shook his head. "No, Becky was right. It would have been a gross abuse of official power. It's not as if we haven't been cheerfully violating the fine points in the building code ourselves, with the all new construction we've been putting up. Besides, she came up with a better idea."
Melissa cocked her head, inviting an explanation. Rebecca smiled seraphically. "I spoke with Willie Ray-he owns that piece of land across the highway from the Club 250-and the partners who set up the Thuringen Gardens. I pointed out that with winter coming, they really needed to get themselves a permanent building. So-"
Mike grinned. "So Willie Ray's now a new partner and they're starting construction next week. A great big enormous German-style tavern they'll be putting up, right across the street. Frank and I are planning to raise the matter at the next local meeting. We want the miners to adopt the new and improved Thuringen Gardens as our unofficial watering hole. The partners have already agreed we can hang a big sign on the side of the tavern, quoting the relevant passage from the UMWA Constitution. The one we adopted back in the nineteenth century, banning racial discrimination."
Melissa burst into laughter. "Oh, that'll be perfect! Let those rednecks huddle in their rathole, with the town's biggest tavern doing a booming business right across the way."
Ferrara and Piazza were grinning themselves. "Won't be any rough stuff, that's for sure," said Ferrara. "Not even the bikers are crazy enough to piss off the UMWA."
"When do they expect to open?" asked Ed. "I'll make it a point to bring the whole family down for opening night. Even if it's standing room only, which it will be."
The television teacher scurried over and interrupted. "Becky!" she hissed. "You've got to start getting ready for the news broadcast."
Startled, Rebecca glanced at the clock on the wall. "It will not start for another-"
But Janet was not to be thwarted. She took Rebecca by the arm and began hauling her away. "We're going to rehearse," she hissed. "You must learn to follow the script."
"Why?" asked Rebecca. Her studious face was intent. She added something else, but she was too far away for the rest of her words to be heard.
Ed smiled ruefully. "Poor Janet. I think she's in for a rough few months."
"That's my girl," murmured Mike happily.
When Rebecca came back on, she followed the script for not more than three minutes. Then, frowning, she laid the sheets of paper to one side and clasped her hands in front of her. Staring intently into the camera, she said:
"I will return to all this news on the production projects later. The essence is that things are going well except for the new ice-cream factory, but I think we can all agree that that is really a little frivolous."
A hiss went up from the audience, a groan from Janet.
"Well, maybe not so frivolous," admitted Rebecca. "But it is still not so important as the news on the military front."
The audience fell silent. Rebecca paused for a moment to scan her notes. Then:
"You all know that Tilly's troops have been leaving Thuringia for the past several weeks. Mackay's scouts report that the last units of the Weimar garrison have also departed, as of two days ago. Now Mackay has received more news, from a courier sent by King Gustav."
She stared into the camera. "A great battle is looming, somewhere near Leipzig. Tilly is marshaling all his troops to meet Gustavus Adolphus on the open field."
She looked away, gathering her thoughts. When she turned back to the camera, her face was solemn and pensive.
"I am Jewish, as you know. Most of our citizens are Christians, and most of them are now Catholics. But I do not believe that anyone here can take sides in this coming battle based on creed. What is really at stake is not whether Protestant Sweden will defeat Catholic Austria and Bavaria, or the opposite. What is at stake is our own freedom and liberties."
There came another long pause. "I am supposed to present the news without commentary. That seems a bit foolish to me, since I do not know anyone who does not have an opinion on almost everything, including myself. But I will of course abide by the wishes of the television people. Nevertheless-"
Another groan from Janet. The audience-throughout Grantville-was utterly silent.
"My prayers tonight will be for the king of Sweden. In this coming battle, Gustav II Adolf fights for our future. Ours, and that of our children, and of theirs, and of theirs, and of theirs, and of theirs."
"Amen," whispered Mike.
Part Three
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
Chapter 34
In the centuries to come, they would call Gustavus Adolphus the Father of Modern War. Then they would take to quarreling over it.
For he wasn't, really. That title, if it can be given to anyone, more properly belongs to Maurice of Nassau. Gustavus Adolphus learned the modern system from the Dutch, he did not invent it. True, he refined Maurice's emphasis on the line rather than the square, and extended it to his arquebusiers. True, also, he gave particular emphasis to artillery. Here, too, myths would abound. People would talk of the famous "leather guns," never realizing they failed the test of battle and were soon discarded. The guns had a tendency to overheat and burst. Gustav brought none with him to Germany.
His greatest accomplishment, others would argue, was Gustav's creation of the first national army in the modern world. His Swedish army was an army of citizen conscripts, rather than mercenaries. But, again, the claim was threadbare. The Swedish system was actually pioneered by his uncle, Erik XIV. And, in truth, Gustav soon came to rely on mercenary soldiers-vдrvade, the Swedes called them, "enlisted" men-almost as much as his opponents. Sweden was a sparsely populated country, whose citizenry could not possibly provide the number of soldiers Gustav required.
So it went…
He introduced the light musket, which eliminated the clumsy musket fork. But many other European armies used light muskets, and as late as 1645 musket forks were still being issued to Swedish soldiers.
He abolished the bandolier and introduced cartridge pouches for his musketeers. Another exaggeration. The Stockholm Arsenal would continue issuing bandoliers at least until 1670.
He invented uniforms. Not true. Uniforms were already coming into existence throughout Europe. If anything, the ragged Swedish troops were more haphazardly garbed than any.
He shortened the pike to eleven feet, making it more maneuverable in battle. False-even silly. What use is a short pike to an infantryman? That legend was begun by a parson, who mistook an officer's partisan for a pike.
Legend after legend. Gustavus Adolphus seemed to attract them like a magnet. For each legend refuted, two more would come to take its place.
He reintroduced shock tactics into cavalry warfare. He replaced the ineffective caracole, where cavalrymen would wheel around and fire pistols from a distance, with the thundering saber charge. There is an element of truth to this claim, but only an element. Many German armies were abandoning the caracole already, and Gustav learned the value of shock tactics from the ferocious Polish lancers that his army faced in the 1620s. In truth, the Swedish cavalry took many years to become an effective force. Sweden had never been a cavalry nation. Swedish kings-Gustav no less than his predecessors-leaned heavily on their half-civilized Finnish auxiliary cavalry. Even the Swedish horses were small and stout. As late as Breitenfeld, Tilly could still sneer that Gustav's cavalry was no better mounted than his own baggage-boys.
As late as Breitenfeld…
After Breitenfeld, of course, Tilly could no longer make the boast. All of central Germany was now open to Gustav, along with its magnificent horses. Soon enough, his Swedish cavalry was as well-mounted as any in the world.
Breitenfeld.
All the legends revolve around that place. They pivot on that day. Wheeling like birds above the flat plains north of Leipzig on September 17, 1631, they try to find sharp truth in murky reality. Never seeing it, but knowing it is there.
The legends would be advanced, and refuted, and advanced again, and refuted again-and it mattered not in the least. Breitenfeld remained. Always Breitenfeld.
After Breitenfeld, how could the legends not be true?
Breitenfeld was a rarity in those days. Pitched battles on the open field between huge armies were a thing of the past. For well over a century, warfare had been dominated by the trace italienne, the new system of fortifications developed in Italy and perfected by the Dutch in their struggles against Spain. War was a thing of long campaigns and sieges, not battles. The strength of nations was measured by the depth of their coffers, not the names of victories emblazoned on their standards. Attrition, not maneuver-and even there, attrition was measured in coins rather than lives. Lives were cheap, bullion was hard to find.
On the rare occasions when armies did collide in the open, the queen of battle was the tercio. Swiss pike tactics-with Swiss йlan long gone-married to blocks of arquebusiers. Generals "maneuvered" armies only in the sense that the pharaohs maneuvered great stones to make pyramids.
The battle only happened because Tilly made a profound strategic error. Brought on, perhaps, by the overconfidence of seven decades of life without a defeat.
Tilly's greatest asset, since Gustavus Adolphus landed in Germany-on July 4, as it happens, in the year 1630-had always been the vacillation of Sweden's Protestant allies. The Saxons, in particular. Saxony was the most powerful of the German Protestant principalities, and it had always been Tilly's anchor.
One Saxon, rather: the elector of Saxony, John George. For whatever reason-stupidity, cowardice, or simply the cumulative effect of his constant drunken carousing-John George could never make up his mind. The Prince of Yes and No. The Knight of Doubt and Hesitation. Hamlet without the tragic grandeur; certainly without the brains.
John George had been one of the princes who invited Gustav's intervention; and then, when it came, foremost among those who quibbled and lawyered. Elector Hem and Haw. History would blame Tilly for the slaughter at Magdeburg, but the charge is more properly laid at the feet of the prince who was not there himself and would not allow another to come to Magdeburg's aid. When Tilly's soldiers ran amok, Tilly himself rode into the city to stop them. He failed, but at least he tried. And when nothing else could be done, the old soldier plucked a baby from the arms of its dead mother and carried it to the safety of his own tent. John George, secure in the safety of his palace in Dresden, saved not even the dregs of his tankard. As was the prince of Saxony's custom, he poured the dregs over the head of a servant, signaling his desire for another draught.
Tilly should have left him alone. So long as Saxony barred the way, Gustavus Adolphus was safely penned in Pomerania and Mecklenburg. Let the Lion of the North roar in the Baltic, far from the fertile plains of central Germany.
But Tilly grew too bold. Or, perhaps, he was offended by the constant complaints and the whispering sneers of the imperial courtiers. Tilly was past the age of seventy, now, and had never been defeated in battle. Who was this Swedish upstart-a man barely half his age-to sully that reputation?
So, when the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand insisted that the Edict of Restitution be enforced-at long last!-on Saxony, Tilly was obliging. He marshaled his forces, pulling them out of Thuringia and Hesse-Cassel, and marched on Saxony. Along the way, as always, his soldiery ravaged and plundered. By the time his army reached Halle, on September 4, two hundred villages lay burning behind them.
Tilly moved on. Near Merseburg, his army went into camp and began devastating the region. Tilly sent his demands to John George. The Saxon elector was required to quarter and feed the imperial army; disband his new levies; place his troops under Tilly's command; formally recognize the emperor as his sovereign; and sever all ties to the Swedes.
Even now, John George vacillated. Tilly moved again, capturing the rich Saxon city of Leipzig after threatening it with the fate of Magdeburg.
The loss of Leipzig finally convinced John George he had no choice. He offered to join his army to Sweden's, and Gustavus Adolphus immediately accepted. The Swedish army joined with the Saxon forces on September 15 near the town of Dьben. The next day, the combined Swedish-Saxon army marched from Dьben to the hamlet of Wolkau. There was nothing between them and Leipzig but a level plain; vast, open, and unwooded. Ideal terrain for a battle.
On the morning of September 17, Tilly led his army into position before his opponents arrived. His left flank was anchored by the town of Breitenfeld; his right, by Seehausen. The old veteran's position was excellent. His army commanded what little high ground there was in the area, and he had the sun and the wind at his back.
His army's numbers are uncertain-somewhere between thirty-two and forty thousand, a quarter of them cavalry. The infantry was drawn up in the center into seventeen tercios-or "battles," as Tilly's men called them-massed side by side. Each tercio numbered between fifteen hundred and two thousand men. The cavalry was drawn up on the flanks. Pappenheim's famous Black Cuirassiers were on the left-the same men who had breached the defenses of Magdeburg, and initiated the city's massacre. On the right, under the command of Fьrstenburg, was the newly arrived cavalry from Italy.
Later in the morning, the Swedish and Saxon armies arrived and took their own positions. The Swedes held the right and the center; the Saxons, the left. The Saxons were on the east of the road to Dьben; the Swedes, to the west.
Like Tilly, Gustav Adolf concentrated his infantry in the center. His right wing, mostly cavalry, was under the command of Field Marshal Banйr. His left, also made up of cavalry, under Field Marshal Horn. The core of his artillery was massed on Gustav's left center, young Torstensson in command. But, unlike Tilly, Gustav Adolf interspersed cavalry units among his infantry. The phrase "combined arms" had not yet entered the military lexicon, but its logic had already been grasped by the young Swedish king.
Of the Saxon formations, there is no record. They were simply "on the left"-and not for very long.
The Protestant allies enjoyed a slight advantage in numbers, it seems. And they held a definite superiority in artillery. But their Catholic opponents were not fazed. No, not in the least. And why should they be? Tilly's men had only to look across the field to see that victory was certain.
The Saxon troops-well over a third of their opponents-were a semirabble, untested in battle and obviously disorganized. The Elector John George himself, surrounded by young Saxon noblemen wearing flamboyant scarves and cloaks, commanded the Saxon cavalry on the far left. Resplendent figures, those newly equipped cavalrymen, with their polished arms and shiny uniforms. Tilly's veterans were not impressed. A sheep looks resplendent, too, before it is shorn.
The Swedes presented a different picture, but Tilly's soldiers were unequally unimpressed. True, the Swedes were arrayed in excellent order, but What a ragged lot of vagabonds!
On this, every eyewitness account of the battle is agreed. The Swedish troops, said one Scottish officer later, "were so dusty they looked like kitchen servants, with their unclean rags." A Swedish observer would say much the same, contrasting the appearance of Gustav's men to Tilly's:
Ragged, tattered and dirty were our men (from the continual labors of this last year) besides the glittering, gilded and plume-decked imperialists. Our Swedish and Finnish nags looked but puny, next to their great German chargers. Our peasant lads made no brave show upon the field when set against the hawk-nosed and mustachioed veterans of Tilly.
Tilly's army had followed him for years, and had known nothing but victory. In truth, those "hawk-nosed and mustachioed veterans" included many neophytes. The desertion rate in armies of the time was astronomical. But, because of the chaos which engulfed central Europe, men who deserted would usually join other armies-or, often enough, simply "recycle" through the army they had abandoned. And there were always new men available for recruitment, due to that same chaos. The formalities and rigidities which would characterize armies of a later day were almost entirely absent.
Yet even the rawest recruit, once they joined up, absorbed the mystique and prestige of the past. Whether veteran or not, hawknosed or not, mustachioed or not-they acted that way. And so, to those who faced them, there was nothing quite as intimidating as facing "Tilly's men" across a field of battle. The image may have been skewed, but it was an image carved out of history's true granite.
The Catholic soldiers began binding white scarves in their hats. As the old general-he was seventy-two, then, not a day less-trotted down the line on his familiar white battle-charger, shouts of "Father Tilly!" passed from tercio to tercio. And, along with it, the triumphant battle cry of the empire: Jesu-Maria!
Gustav Adolf likewise addressed his troops. The king was a famous orator-the best in Sweden, by all accounts-and his men greeted him with enthusiasm. Gustav Adolf was the boldest figure of his time. Not since Alexander the Great had a ruling monarch shown such personal daring-to the point of recklessness-on the field of battle. By the day of Breitenfeld, he bore the scars of many wounds on his huge body. He wore no armor, because he could not. A Polish bullet which had struck him four years earlier at the battle of Dirschau was still lodged in his neck. Armor chafed that wound, so the king went into battle protected only by his buff coat and the Will of his God.
As they listened, the Swedish troops tied green branches into their own helmets and headgear. When he finished, they roared their own battle cry: Gott mit uns! Gott mit uns!
At noon, the battle of Breitenfeld began. But for the first two and a half hours, it was simply an exchange of cannon fire. Tilly and Gustavus were still measuring each other.
As time went on, it became obvious that the Swedish artillery overmatched their opponents. The king had more guns, better guns, and better trained gunners. Most of all, he had Torstensson in command. Once they were into their rhythm, the Swedish artillerymen were exchanging three shots for one with their imperial counterparts.
Pappenheim, rash and impetuous as always, broke the impasse and led his Black Cuirassiers in the first charge of the day. Not waiting for Tilly's command, the commander of the imperial left launched a thundering cavalry charge on the Swedish right.
It was a foolish gesture, and Tilly cursed him for it before Pappenheim had ridden a hundred yards. "They have robbed me of my honor and my glory!" he cried, throwing up his arms in despair.
Pappenheim thought to outflank the Swedes and roll them up from the side. But his Swedish counterpart, Field Marshal Banйr, was prepared. His king's combined arms approach proved itself on the defense as well as the offense. Pappenheim's cuirassiers were held off by the salvos of the infantrymen, while Banйr's Swedish and Finnish cavalry launched their own sharp sallies.
Seven times Pappenheim drove his men against the Swedish lines, ignoring all of Tilly's commands to retire. Seven times he was driven back. Then Banйr launched a massive counterattack and drove the Black Cuirassiers from the field. In complete disorder, Pappenheim's heavy cavalry fled toward Halle. Banйr made to pursue, but Gustav Adolf recalled him to the line.
The king was cautious. Things were not going well on his left. Seeing Pappenheim tangled up, Tilly sent the imperial cavalry on the opposite flank into battle. Here, Tilly's forces met with far better results. The Saxons, for all their glitter, did not have the years of Polish and Baltic wars behind them that Gustav and his Swedish veterans enjoyed. The very first charge of the imperial cavalry shattered them.
True to his nature, the elector himself led the rout. Seized with terror, John George and his splendiferous noble bodyguard galloped off the field, leaving their army behind. The army followed soon enough. Within half an hour, the powerful imperial cavalry had driven the entire Saxon army into headlong retreat.
The Swedish left flank was now open, bare, naked. The imperial cavalry began curving in upon it. Disaster loomed, as certain as the tide. The Swedish camp followers, panicked by the Saxons, began their own scrambling dash for the safety of Eilenburg. Tilly, whose veteran's eye immediately saw the coming glorious victory, gave the order for his entire army to advance on his enemy's shattered front. The tercios lurched forward, angling to the right in order to bring their full weight to bear on the broken Swedish left. As cumbersome as a glacier, that mass of tercios-and just as unstoppable.
There. Then. That moment.
That is where the legends pivot and wheel. Decade after decade, century after century; never reaching agreement, but always circling.
The Father of Modern War, Gustavus Adolphus almost certainly was not. But he may very well have been the Father of the Modern World. Because then, at that place, at the moment when the Saxons broke and the Inquisition bade fair to triumph over all of Europe, the king of Sweden stood his ground.
And proved, once again, that the truth of history is always concrete. Abstractions are the stuff of argument, but the concrete is given. Whatever might have been, was not. Not because of tactics, and formations, and artillery, and methods of recruitment-though all of those things played a part, and a big one-but because of a simple truth. At that instant, history pivoted on the soul of one man. His name was Gustavus Adolphus, and there were those among his followers who thought him the only monarch in Europe worthy of the name. They were right, and the man was about to prove it. For one of the few times in human history, royalty was not a lie.
Two centuries later, long after the concrete set and the truth was obvious to all, a monument would be erected on that field. The passing years, through the bickering and the debates, had settled the meaning of Breitenfeld. The phrase on the monument simply read: freedom of belief for all the world.
Whatever else he was or was not, Gustavus Adolphus will always be Breitenfeld. He stands on that field for eternity, just as he did on that day. September 17, 1631.
Breitenfeld. Always Breitenfeld.
Chapter 35
"Those bastards!" snarled Bernard. The younger duke of Saxe-Weimar glared at the Saxons racing toward the safety of Eilenburg. "Wretched cowards!"
Bernard shifted his gaze to the oncoming tercios, lurching at an oblique angle toward the ruptured left flank of the Swedes. He turned a pale face to Gustav Adolf. "We can hold them off, Your Majesty-long enough, I think, for you to organize a retreat."
Gustav's light blue eyes were alive and dancing. "Retreat?" he demanded. "Are you mad?"
The king pointed a thick finger at his left flank. "Race over there, Bernard-fast as you can-and tell Horn to pivot his forces to the left. Tell him to keep his right anchored to the center, but to form a new battle line at right angles to our own. Do you understand?"
Bernard nodded. An instant later, he had spurred his charger into a gallop. His older brother made to follow, but Gustav restrained him. "You stay with me, Wilhelm."
The king smiled. "Your impetuous and hot-headed brother is enough to pester Horn-who won't need the pestering anyway."
Wilhelm nodded obediently. Gustav twisted in his saddle. As usual, his small band of couriers were sitting their horses not many yards behind him. Most of these were young Swedish noblemen, but there were two Scots in the group. The king snatched the broad-brimmed hat from his head and used it to summon them forward. The flamboyant gesture was quite unnecessary, being due simply to Gustav's high spirits. For all the world, the king seemed like a man facing a ball rather than a disaster.
He spoke to the Scots first. "Tell Colonel Hepburn to move his brigade over in support of Field Marshal Horn. Understand?"
The Scots nodded. Hepburn's brigade, along with that of Vitzthum, formed the second line of the Swedish center. They constituted the bulk of the Swedish reserves. The king, logically enough, was now using them to shore up his threatened left.
The Scots had barely left when Gustav was issuing the same orders to two other couriers. Vitzthum the same!
The king eyed the center of the battle. Tilly's tercios were rippling slowly down the gentle slope where the veteran Catholic general had positioned them. Even with the advantage of downhill movement, across unimpeded ground, the imperial soldiers were making slow progress.
Gustav gave them no more than a quick scrutiny. He was quite confident that his infantry in the center, anchored by Torstensson's guns, could repel any direct charge. The Habsburg tercios would probably not even drive directly forward. The danger was on the left, and he had done what he could to support Horn against the coming hammer blow. The opportunity On the right!
Eagerly, Gustav examined his right flank. For a moment, he silently congratulated himself for having kept Banйr from pursuing Pappenheim's broken cavalry. The temptation had been almost as great for the king as for his Field Marshal. But Gustav had distrusted the steadiness of the Saxons. Better to have Banйr available if the battle went sour.
Which it most certainly had! But now-now!-Gustav could turn disaster into triumph. Banйr and his men were back in line, organized and ready. Most of all, Gustav knew, those cavalrymen would be infused with self-confidence. They had already broken Pappenheim's famous Black Cuirassiers. Why should they not do the same to the rest?
"Why not?" demanded the king aloud. He grinned at the four couriers still around him. "Why not?" He waved his hat about cheerfully.
The young noblemen grinned back. One of them lifted his own hat in salute, shouting: "Gott mit uns!"
A few feet behind them, Anders Jцnsson slid his saber an inch or so out of its scabbard, before easing it back. He did the same with his four saddle-holstered pistols. Those weapons would be needed soon, and he wanted to be certain they were easy to hand. The huge Jцnsson was the king's personal bodyguard.
The dozen Scotsmen under his command followed suit. They knew Gustav Adolf. The king of Sweden was utterly indifferent to personal danger. There had been few enough battles in which the king was present where he did not lead a charge himself.
Clearly, this was not going to be one of them. His Scots bodyguards were about to earn their pay.
One of the Scotsmen tried to be philosophical about the matter. "Ah weel, he's a braw lad, no' like yon God-rotton Stuart king o' England." He spit on the ground. "Ae fuckin' papist, tha' one be."
"Aye. Near's ca' be," agreed one of his mates.
Gustav Adolf spurred his horse into a canter, and then a gallop. Duke Wilhelm of Saxe-Weimar rode at his side, with the couriers and bodyguards thundering just behind.
As they neared the Swedish right flank, Gustav could see Banйr trotting out to meet him. But the king gave the Field Marshal nothing but a moment's glance. His gaze was riveted on a large body of cavalrymen waiting behind Banйr, under green standards. Those were Erik Soop's Vдstgцta. Over a thousand horsemen from West Gothland, organized into eight companies. Gustav thought highly of them. Just the thing!
When he reached Banйr, Gustav reined in his horse and shouted gaily: "And now, Johann? You see?"
The Field Marshal nodded his bullet head. "You were right, Majesty. As always."
"Ha!" cried Gustav. "So modest! Not like you at all!"
The king was grinning fiercely. His own combative spirit seemed to transfer itself to his horse. The great charger pranced about nervously, as if impatient for battle.
"I want you to take the Vдstgцta, Johann." The king pointed to the left flank of Tilly's battle line. With Pappenheim's cuirassiers routed, that flank was unguarded. Unguarded, and getting more ragged by the moment. Tilly's oblique advance, marching from left rear to right front across the field in order to fall on the Swedish left, was straining the rigidity of his tercios. The Spanish-style squares were not well suited for anything but a forward advance.
"I intend to do the same to Tilly that he plans for me," the king explained. "Ha!" he barked happily. "Except I will succeed, and he will fail!"
For a moment, Banйr hesitated. The king was proposing a bold gamble. It would be safer As if reading his thoughts, Gustav shook his head. "Horn will hold, Johann. He will hold. Horn will be the anvil-we the hammer."
Banйr did not argue. He trusted his king's battle instincts. Gustav II Adolf was young, by the standards of generalship in his day. He was thirty-six years old. But he had more battle experience than most men twice his age. At the age of sixteen, he had organized and led the surprise attack which took the Danish fortress of Borgholm. By the age of twenty-seven, he had taken Livonia and Riga and was already a veteran of the Polish and Russian wars.
Banйr had been with him there. Banйr, Horn, Torstensson, Wrangel-the nucleus of that great Swedish officer corps. Along with Axel Oxenstierna and the more recently arrived Scots professionals-Alexander Leslie, Robert Monro, John Hepburn, James Spens-they constituted the finest command staff in the world. Such, at least, was Banйr's opinion.
The king's also. "We can do it, Johann!" he cried. "Now be off!"
Banйr turned his horse and shouted orders at his own couriers and dispatch riders. Within seconds, the neatly arrayed Swedish right wing erupted into that peculiar disorder which precedes coordinated action. Company commanders and their subofficers dashed about, shouting their own commands-unneeded commands, for the most part. The Swedish and Finnish cavalry were veteran units themselves, as such things were counted in those days. Within a minute, the scene was one of individual frenzy. Men jumped to the ground to cinch a girth, or checked the ease of a saber's draw, or changed pyrites in the jaws of a wheel lock, swearing all the while. Cursing their refractory horses and equipment, perhaps; or clumsy mates who impeded them; or their own clumsiness-or, often enough, simply the state of the world. Many-most-took the time as well for a quick prayer.
The Brownian motion of a real battlefield, nothing more. Logic and order emerged from chaos soon enough. Within five minutes, Banйr and his West Gothlanders began their charge.
The king, in the meantime, had been organizing the heavier forces which would drive home the assault. Four regiments, numbering perhaps three thousand men.
The Smalanders and East Gothlanders were Swedish. Heavy cuirassiers, in their arms and armor, although the term was mocked by the puny size of their horses. The two Finnish regiments were more lightly armed and armored, but their Russian horses were much superior.
The Finns, like their mounts, favored the wild Eastern European style of cavalry warfare. What they lacked in discipline they made up for in fervor. They were already screeching their savage battle cry: Haakkaa pддlle!
Hack them down!
Gustav would lead the charge, at the head of his Swedish regiments. He hesitated only long enough to gauge the battle on his left. He could see nothing now. The farmland dust thrown up by thousands of chargers, mixed with billowing gunsmoke, had turned the battlefield into a visual patchwork.
But he could hear the battle, and it did not take him more than a few seconds to draw the conclusion. Horn-good Horn! reliable Horn!-was holding Tilly at bay.
He drew his saber and pointed it forward. "Gott mit uns!" he bellowed. "Victory!"
The first imperial cavalry charge shattered against Horn's defense. The Catholic horsemen had been astonished at the speed with which the Swedes took new positions. They had been expecting the sluggish maneuvers of Continental armies.
Others could have warned them. The Danes and Poles and Russians had been bloodied enough, over the past twenty years, by Gustav's small army. The Danes could have told them of Borgholm, Christianopel, Kalmar and Waxholm-all places where a teenage Swedish king had bested them. The Russians could have told them of Angdov and Pleskov, and the Poles could have recited a very litany of woe: Riga, Kockenhusen, Mittau, Bauske, Walhof, Braunsberg, Frauenburg, Tolkemit, Elbing, Marienburg, Dirschau, Mewe, Putzig, Wцrmditt, Danzig, Gurzno and the Nogat.
The haughty cuirassiers in Tilly's army never thought to ask. They were south Germans, in the main, taking the coin of Maximillian of Bavaria. The peculiar-sounding names of Baltic and Slavic battlefields and sieges meant nothing to them.
In all those years Gustav II Adolf had suffered defeats as well. The Danes had beaten him at Helsingborg, and the Poles at Honigfeld. But the Danes and the Poles could have warned the forces under the Habsburg banner of the incredible elasticity of the Swedish king. He rebounded from reverses with renewed energy, using defeat as his school.
Tilly's men would study in that school themselves-study long and hard, before this day was over. They were not, alas, apt pupils. Arrogant Pappenheim, now trying-and failing-to rally his cavalrymen somewhere on the Halle road, had learned one lesson. Pathetic the Swedish nags might be, but there was nothing pitiful about the men astride them. Neither they, nor the infantrymen who formed their shield. Seven times his Black Cuirassiers had charged the Swedish line. Seven times they had been beaten back-and then routed by a countercharge.
Not apt pupils, no. Now, on the opposite flank, the imperial cavalry failed the lesson for the eighth time. The first charge, headlong, exuberant, certain of victory-no caracole here!-broke like a wave against a rock. They had been expecting a confused and shaken enemy, disorganized by the sudden rout of the Saxons. Instead, the Catholic cuirassiers found themselves piling into a solid and well-positioned defense. Horn had even managed to seize and prepare the ditches alongside the Dьben road.
The Swedish arquebus roared; the Swedish pike held firm. The imperial cavalry fell back.
Back, but not dismayed. Tilly and his men had won the first great Catholic victory in the Thirty Years War, the Battle of the White Mountain. Eleven years had since passed, and with them came many more triumphs. That army had been accused-and rightly-of many crimes over those years. Of cowardice, not once.
Again, they charged; again, with sabering fury. And, again, were driven back.
The infantry tercios lumbered nearer. The cavalrymen, seeing them come, were driven into yet another headlong charge. For them the victory! Not those wretched footmen!
No use. The tercios crept forward.
Finally, the imperial cuirassiers abandoned the saber and fell back on the wheel-lock pistol. They began wheeling in the caracole, firing their pistols at a distance and circling to reload. Those men were mercenaries, when all was said and done. They could not afford to lose their precious horses. And they had already learned, as Pappenheim's men before them, that the Swedish tactic against heavy cavalry was to aim arquebus and pike at the horses. They had been trained and instructed in that method by their king. Gustav Adolf had long understood that his Swedish ponies were no match for German chargers. So kill the chargers first.
The tercios advanced across the battlefield, at the oblique. Grinding toward the Swedish left, now bent at a right angle away from the original battle line. Like a glacier, those seventeen tercios seemed. Slow-and unstoppable.
But that too was illusion. The glacier was about to calve, under gunfire it had never before encountered. The finest artillery in the world was on the field, that day, under the leadership of the world's finest artillery commander. Torstensson had needed no orders. His king had not even bothered to send a courier. The young artillery general, as soon as he saw Gustav sending Hepburn and Vitzthum's men to reinforce Horn, had known what was coming. For all the Swedish king's strategic caution, he was invariably bold on the battlefield. Torstensson knew that a counterattack was looming, and it was his job to batter the tercios in advance. Batter them, stun them, bleed them. Like a picador in a bullring, he would weaken the beast for the matador.
"Swivel the guns!" he roared. Torstensson, afoot as always in a battle, raced to stand at the front. It was a day for hat-snatching, it seemed. He tore his own from his head and began waving it.
"Swivel the guns!" That second roar caused him to choke. There had been a drought in the area that summer, and the plains were dry. The dust thrown up by thousands of horses caught in his throat. Using his hat as a pointer, Torstenson silently emphasized his command.
His gunners were all veterans. Immediately, grunting with exertion at the levering spikes, they began swiveling the field guns to bring enfilade fire on the tercios crossing in front of them.
There were two types of guns in the batteries. The majority, forty-two of them, were the so-called "regimental guns." Three-pounders: the world's first genuine field artillery. These cannons were made of cast bronze, with a light, short barrel to make them easily maneuverable in the field. The Swedes, after experimenting, had discovered that by using a reduced powder charge the guns could be fired safely time after time. They were of no use in a siege, but were superbly effective on the battlefield.
The heavier field guns were twelve-pounders. Gustav Adolf had simplified his ordnance drastically over the past years, based on his experience in the Polish wars. He brought only three sizes of cannon with him to Germany-the light and heavier field guns, and twenty-four-pounders for siege work. He had dispensed altogether with the forty-eight-pounder traditionally used in reducing fortifications.
The three-pounders were firing within a few minutes. The twelve-pounders quickly followed suit. By the time Tilly's infantry neared the angle in their opponent's line, they were coming under heavy fire from the Swedish artillery.
Understanding that the battle had reached a critical moment, Torstensson was ordering a rate of fire which was just barely short of reckless.
"I want a shot every six minutes!" he bellowed, trotting up and down behind the line of his guns. "Nothing less!" He practically danced with energy, waving his hat. "I'll hang the crew who gives me less!"
His men grinned. Torstensson always issued blood-curdling threats on the battlefield. And never carried them out. Nor was there any need. His men were well into the rhythm again, and had already reached the round-every-six-minutes rate which was considered the maximum of the day.
They could not keep that up forever, of course. The problem was not with them, but the guns. The cannons had been firing for three hours, now. Each of them had discharged close to thirty rounds. After another ten rounds, at that rate of fire, the guns would be so hot that they would have to sit idle. For at least an hour, probably, to allow the barrels to cool enough to be used safely.
"Let the blasted things melt!" roared Torstensson. He flung his hat toward Tilly's tercios. "I want those battles broken! Broken in pieces, do you hear?"
The grins faded from his gunners' faces. Torstensson was dead serious now, they knew. If need be, he would keep the guns firing long past the point of safety. The artillerymen sweated through the rhythm. So be it. If a crew died because of a burst cannon, so be it. Torstensson himself would pick up the rammer.
Cannonballs began tearing great holes in the tightly packed Catholic formations. Torstensson's gunners were the finest in the world, and they knew what their commander wanted.
"Grazing shots!" Torstensson slammed the flat of one hand into the other, as if skipping a stone off a lake. "Nothing but grazing shots! I see two balls in a row plunge into the ground I'll hang the crew! Hang 'em, do you hear?"
His men laughed. Another idle threat. Almost every round they fired was the good artilleryman's sought-after "grazing shot."
The "grazing shot" was useless against fortifications, but against men in the field it was devastating. The balls landed dozens of yards in front of their target and bounced forward at a shallow angle, instead of burying themselves in the ground. From that first bounce, their trajectory was at knee-to-shoulder height. The cast-iron missiles caromed into the packed ranks of the enemy like bowling balls-except these balls destroyed men instead of knocking down pins. Even a three-pound ball, in a grazing shot, could easily kill or maim a dozen men in such close ranks. The twelve-pounders wreaked pure havoc.
Torstensson's artillery was ripping the tercios like an orca ripping flesh from a great whale. Blood began settling the dust. The men in the rear tercios slogged through mud left by their comrades' gore-and added their own to the mix. Graze, graze, graze, graze. Death wielded his sickle that day, and mercilessly.
Not even Tilly's men could shrug off that kind of fire. Courageous as always, the recruits following the lead of the veterans; they obeyed their orders and plowed stubbornly toward the angle in the Swedish line. But their formations became more and more ragged and broken. Pikemen were being injured by the weapons of their mates, now, as men stumbled over corpses and lost control of the great blades.
Tilly saw, and grew pale. Near the front of his advancing tercios, he reined in his horse and stared back at the carnage.
"God in Heaven," he muttered. Wallenstein had tried to warn him of the Swedish artillery. Wallenstein-that black-hearted Bohemian! Aye, he-and a dozen Polish officers in Tilly's service. But Tilly had not believed.
"God in Heaven," he muttered again. For a moment, he thought of changing his attack. Wheeling, and driving down on those cursed guns.
Wheeling…
Tilly dismissed the notion instantly. His battles did not "wheel." Could not wheel. They were instruments of crushing victory, not clever maneuver.
"Victory," he growled. Seventy-two years old he was, not a day less. Seventy-two years, not one of whose days had ever seen defeat.
"Onward!" he bellowed. The old general drew his sword and trotted toward the front. He waved the sword at the Swedish left.
"Onward!" he bellowed. "Victory is there!"
The tercios obeyed, and obeyed, and obeyed-seventeen battles, down the line, slogged tenaciously forward. Not one of them faltered in their duty. Not one tercio, not one rank, not one file, not one man.
Torstensson splattered their entrails across the land. No matter. Those men had marched through entrails before. Torstensson painted the soil with their blood. No matter. Those men had bled before. Torstensson savaged them like no artillery in their grim experience. No matter. Tilly had never failed them before.
Murderers many of them were. Thieves and rapists too. Cowards, never.
The broken Swedish angle was in front of them now. Like a bear trailing gore, the tercios were about to mangle their prey.
At last!
"Father Tilly!" they bellowed. "Jesu-Maria!"
But the angle was not broken. Not any longer. Horn-trusted Horn, trustworthy Horn-had reformed the line even before his king's orders arrived. The Swedish left now formed a solid corner for the battlefield. The imperial heavy cavalry had already broken against that Baltic rock. The tercios lumbered up and did no better.
Pike against pike, the Catholics were easily the equal of their foe. But the Swedish king was a believer in firepower more than cold steel. He had studied the methods of the Dutch, and tested them in Poland and Russia.
At Breitenfeld, the Swedes had a higher arquebus-to-pike ratio than their enemies. More important, Gustav Adolf had trained them to fight in shallow formations, following the Dutch example. Tilly's arquebusiers were arrayed thirty ranks deep. Most of those arquebuses could not be brought to bear. Gustav's, not more than six-just enough to allow time to reload while the front ranks fired.
The Swedish pikes held the tercios at bay long enough for the Swedish preponderance in firepower to bring down them down. Tilly's men never buckled. But they made no headway against the Swedish line. They simply died. And meanwhile, the king of Sweden prepared the death stroke.
Tilly and his tercios could not wheel, but Gustav Adolf could. Could, and did.
Chapter 36
The king himself led the charge up the slope, heading toward the imperial guns. "Gott mit uns!" he bellowed, waving his cavalrymen forward with his saber.
Behind him, Anders Jцnsson rolled his eyes with exasperation. Gustav Adolf carried two wheel-lock pistols at his side, holstered to his saddle. But he never used them in battle. He claimed it was because the weapons were too inaccurate, but his bodyguard was skeptical. The king of Sweden was sensitive about his myopia. Jonsson thought his unwillingness to use pistols was simply because Gustav couldn't hit the proverbial broad side of a barn.
Anders spurred his horse alongside the king's. "I'm supposed to be guarding you, Highness," he snarled, "not the other way around."
Gustav grinned. "Get a faster horse!" he bellowed. Again, he waved the saber. "Gott mit uns!"
Behind them, the Smalanders and East Gothlanders echoed the words. From either side-the Finns were already curling around the slower Swedes-came the blood-curdling Finnish battle cry.
"Haakaa pддlle!"
Ahead of the cavalry charge, positioned almost at the crest of the shallow slope, were the imperial batteries. As slow as the tercios were, the big guns were slower still. Tilly's order for an oblique advance had caught the artillerymen by surprise. They were still hitching up the horses and oxen when Gustav started his charge.
The Catholic gunners stared at the thousands of Swedish and Finnish horsemen galloping toward them. They had no protection left beyond a small force of pikemen.
One of the gunners began hurriedly unhitching the lead horse from the trail of his six-pounder. "What are you doing?" demanded his comrade.
"I'm getting out of here," the gunner hissed. "You'd better do the same, if you're smart. Those Finns are as savage as Croats."
His partner blanched. The rammer had no experience with Finns, but he knew Croats. They formed a large part of the Habsburg dynasty's light cavalry, and were as famous for their cruelty as their horsemanship. Croats had no use for prisoners.
The gunner had unhitched the horse and was awkwardly climbing onto it. The horse had neither a saddle nor stirrups, and was guided by a simple halter. From a distance, his partner heard the faint sound of the Finnish battle cry. Haakaa pддlle? He didn't know the words.
"That means 'hack them down,' " grunted the gunner. "In case you were wondering." He pounded his mount's flanks with spurless heels. The confused artillery horse broke into an awkward trot. Seconds later, inspired more by the fear and fury in his rider's voice than the naked boot heels, the horse lurched into a sudden gallop.
The gunner, riding bareback and without stirrups, was flung to the ground. He died soon thereafter. His broken neck was trampled by his partner's horse, as it made its own uncontrolled exit from the scene. Unlike the gunner, his comrade managed to stay on the horse's back by clutching the beast's mane. But it did him little good. The horse, unaccustomed to being ridden, was so terrified and confused that it galloped in a circle and brought the rammer into a knot of Finnish cavalrymen. Haakaa pддlle!
Most of the imperial artillerymen lacked the option of fleeing-or trying to-on horseback. There were few horse-drawn six-pounders in Tilly's army. Catholic armies favored twelve-pounders and huge twenty-four-pounders, drawn by oxen. The gunners simply escaped on foot-successfully, in all but a few instances. For all their savage reputation, the Finns were under Gustav's command and were accustomed to his discipline. The king had a short way with cavalrymen who went off on wild charges when there was royal work to be done.
"Take the cannons!" Gustav roared. Ignoring the imperial gunners and rammers scattering to the rear, the Finns stooped onto the guns like hawks. The few knots of artillerymen still trying to stand their ground were butchered within a minute or two. By the time Gustav Adolf and the slower Swedes galloped onto the scene, Tilly's entire artillery had been seized.
Gustav trotted back and forth on his charger. He had scabbarded his saber and was back to waving his hat. "Turn them around!" he bellowed. His powerful voice, as always, carried well in a battle. "I want those guns turned on Tilly! Now, d'you hear? Now! Move, move, move!"
The Finns ignored the command, knowing it was not intended for them. While they maintained a guard against enemy cavalry, hundreds of Smalanders and East Gothlanders dismounted. Hurriedly, they picked up the spikes discarded by the routed Catholic gunners and began levering the great weapons around. Even before the guns were repositioned, other cavalrymen were already beginning to load the pieces.
They were slower and less adept than Torstensson's men would have been, of course. But, unlike the cavalry of other armies, Gustav's men were cross-trained to serve as artillery or even, if need be, as infantry. Swedish cavalry, like the cavalry of other nations, was dominated by noblemen. But the Swedish aristocracy had little in the way of continental hauteur-and what little they began with was soon drummed out of them by their king's training and discipline.
Soon enough, the huge cannons were brought to bear on their target. Gustav did not wait to fire a coordinated volley, as Torstensson's artillery was trained to do. Each gun fired as soon as possible.
The fire was ragged, slow, and indifferently aimed. It mattered not at all. Tilly's army was now a crumpled and half-broken thing, distorted almost beyond recognition by the pressure of the battle. The rigid formations of the tercios had collapsed, compressed between Horn's unyielding line and the battering of Torstensson's artillery. Now, adding to their destruction, came the heavy fire of their own cannons. The huge mass of Catholic soldiers-not much more than a mob-was a target impossible to miss, even for the cavalrymen manning the captured guns. And the size of the cannonballs made up for their lack of accuracy. Unlike Torstensson's well-trained and experienced gunners, the cavalrymen failed more often than not in making the grazing shot. But against thousands of men packed so tightly they could barely move, the twelve- and twenty-four-pound balls which landed caused pure havoc.
For one of the rare times in his life, even Gustav was not tempted to launch another charge.
Well… Not much.
"Perhaps…" Jonsson heard him mutter. "Perhaps…" The king was squinting at the distant enemy, raising himself up in his stirrups. His huge frame seemed like that of a brown bear, eyeing a crippled moose.
His bodyguard spoke hastily. "It's a done thing, Your Majesty." Jonsson pointed at the imperial forces with his saber. "They're finished. It's over."
The king took two or three deep breaths, and then eased himself back into the saddle. "Yes."
He heaved a sigh. "They should surrender now. Their cavalry has all fled. No chance of making a sally. They're trapped."
Jцnsson said nothing. There was no chance at all of their enemy surrendering. Not with Tilly in command.
"Poor Tilly," mused Gustav. "Pappenheim has ruined him twice. The butcher of Magdeburg. And now-forever-"
The king's near-sighted blue eyes scanned a landscape that could have been nothing but a blur. But the sight still seemed pleasing to him.
"And now, forever. Breitenfeld."
"God damn Pappenheim," hissed Tilly. The old general's face grew pinched as his aide tightened a bandage, but he made no sound of protest. Just another hissing curse:
"God damn Pappenheim."
Tilly was lying on the ground near the center of his army. He had been wounded twice already. The first wound was minor, not much more than a bad bruise caused by a musketball glancing off his cuirass. The hip wound which his aide was now bandaging was more serious. A pike head sent flying by those infernal Swedish guns had torn him badly. His entire leg was soaked with blood.
Tilly's verbal curse was for Pappenheim. His silent one, for himself.
I should have listened to Wallenstein. So fast! So fast! I never saw an army move that fast. How did that Swedish bastard do it?
The old man was tempted to close his eyes, from sheer anguish and humiliation. But he resisted the impulse, even when-not forty yards distant-he saw another dozen of his men turned into a bloody, bone-splintered mess by a bouncing cannonball. No man would ever say that Tilly-Jan Tzerklas, Count Tilly!-could not face ruin with the same fearlessness with which he had always faced triumph.
Two of his officers approached and knelt at his side. The faces of both men were haggard.
"We must surrender, General," said one of them.
"There is no possibility of retreat," added the other, "not without cavalry to cover us. The Swedish cavalry and their Finns will butcher us."
Still lying on his back, weak from loss of blood, Tilly shook his head. For all the general's exhaustion and age, the gesture was firm as a bull's.
"No." Hissing: "Damn Pappenheim and his precious Black Cuirassiers!" For a moment, he closed his eyes. Again: "No. I will not surrender."
The aides began to protest. Tilly silenced them with a clenched fist held high. His eyes reopened, staring at the sky.
"How soon is nightfall?" he asked.
One of the aides glanced up. "An hour. Perhaps two."
"Hold till then," growled Tilly. "Till nightfall. After that the men can retreat. It will be a rout, but in the darkness the damned Swedes will not be able to pursue. We can save most of the army."
"What's left of it," muttered an aide.
Tilly glared at him. Then at the other. Then at three more officers who had come to their side.
"Useless," he snarled. "As bad as Pappenheim. All glory and no stomach."
He turned to his aide. "Get me up," he commanded. "Onto my charger."
The aide didn't even think to protest. It was the work of a few minutes to lever the old general onto his horse.
From the saddle, Tilly sneered down at his officers.
"Surrender, you say? Damn you all! My men will stand with me."
And so it proved. Till nightfall, Tilly took his place near the front of the imperial line, holding his men by force of will and example.
Jesu-Maria! they cried, dying. Father Tilly!
At dusk, Tilly was struck down again. No one saw the missile which caused the wound. A musketball, perhaps. But by the look of the terrible wound in his shoulder, it was probably another broken piece of the battle, sent flying by those horrible Swedish guns.
His aide and several soldiers rescued him. Improvising a stretcher, they hurried to the rear. Until he lost consciousness a few minutes later, Tilly cursed them for cowards. As the stretcher passed through the broken tercios, clusters of Tilly's soldiers formed a defense guard, escorting their commander to safety.
For the rest, Tilly's fall signaled the rout. The Catholic veterans could stand the butchery no longer. In less than five minutes, the lines which had stood unyielding for hours broke into a stampede. Discarding their weapons and gear, thousands of imperial infantrymen began racing for the shelter of darkness and distant woods.
Most of them made their escape. Gustav ordered no pursuit. Tilly's sheer courage, by holding the Swedes at bay until nightfall, had made the complete destruction of his army impossible.
As he knelt in prayer after the battle, the king of Sweden was not aggrieved and never thought to curse his foe. He understood what Tilly's purpose had been, in that seemingly insane stand, and found nothing in it except admiration.
And, truth be told, a certain satisfaction. The last of a great line had fallen. But he had toppled like a great tree, not rotted like a stump. Something in the pious Lutheran king saw the hand of God at work, in the broken but glorious ruin of his Catholic enemy. God's will worked in mysterious ways, not understood by men. But Gustav thought he could detect something of that divine purpose, in the manner of Tilly's downfall.
No matter, in any event. Gustav Adolf had not completely destroyed his enemy, true. But he had won the greatest battlefield victory in decades, perhaps centuries. And if Tilly had prevented total ruin, the wreckage was still incredible to behold. The proud imperial army which had defeated every opponent they faced since the White Mountain was nothing but rubble.
At Breitenfeld, the Swedish forces suffered barely two thousand casualties. Their opponents?
Seven thousand dead.
Six thousand wounded and captured.
All the artillery, captured.
The entire imperial baggage train, captured.
Ninety battle flags, captured.
The road into central Europe was open. Vienna, Prague, Munich, Mainz-anywhere the king of Sweden might choose to go. Breitenfeld opened the way.
The Lion of the North was no longer penned in the Baltic. Emperor Ferdinand was penned, now. He and his cohorts in the Inquisition.
"Send for Wallenstein," Ferdinand sighed, when he heard the news. His courtiers began to protest, but the emperor scowled them down. "I distrust and despise the man as much as you," he snarled. "But what choice do I have?"
Silence. No choice at all.
Cardinal Richelieu did not sigh, when he was told of Breitenfeld. Sighing was not his way. He said nothing; his lean, intellectual's face remained expressionless; he gave no hint of his sentiments or thoughts.
He dismissed his assistants immediately. Then, sitting at his study, began to pen a letter.
My dear Wallenstein,
Greetings, and may God's blessing be upon you. By now, you will have heard the news of Breitenfeld. You will recall, I am certain, a conversation which we had once. I regret that I did not listen more carefully to your advice and warnings. It seems to me that there might now be a mutual advantage in working toward the end which you suggested at the time. I will say no more of that here. Surely you understand my purpose without further elaboration. If you are still of the same mind, send word to me by courier.
Richelieu.
While his enemies-open and hidden-plotted against him, the king of Sweden solidified his hold on central Germany. He left Leipzig to be recaptured by the chastened Saxons, while he himself followed Tilly's retreating army. He captured three thousand more of those men in a small battle outside Merseburg two days later. On September 21, four days after Breitenfeld, he occupied Halle and allowed his army to rest and refit.
The future was unclear, his ensuing course uncertain. Already the king was being urged in many different directions by his various allies and advisers.
No matter. Whichever course he decided upon, Gustav Adolf was certain of one thing. At Breitenfeld, the world had changed forever.
Breitenfeld. Always Breitenfeld.
Part Four
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
Chapter 37
Word of Breitenfeld reached Grantville toward the end of September. The town erupted in celebration, which went on for two full days.
The fact that the Catholics-who now constituted well over half the population-participated fully in the festivities was a sign of just how little religious affiliation lay at the center of the war. Germany's commoners, by and large, tended to be indifferent to their neighbors' Christian denomination. It was the aristocracy and the princes-above all, the Habsburg dynasty-who had forced the issue upon the Holy Roman Empire. And while each one of those noblemen claimed to be acting out of nothing more than piety, it was really their own power and privileges which were at stake. The great mercenary armies which ravaged central Europe were willing enough to enlist Protestants or Catholics into their ranks, regardless of their official allegiance. Any number of the "Catholic" mercenaries defeated by the Americans and then incorporated into their new society proved, once the dust settled, to be Lutherans or Calvinists.
So, everyone celebrated. Even Simpson and his coterie, for once, refrained from their usual recriminations and protests. Not even an ox was dumb enough not to understand that the king of Sweden's great victory at Breitenfeld removed most of the immediate military pressure from Thuringia.
Most, but not all. There were no official imperial armies squeezing the province any longer. But Tilly's army, in shattering, had produced a number of splinters. One of them, under the "command" of a self-appointed "captain," had decided to seek refuge for the winter south of the Harz mountains.
That ragged army numbered perhaps a thousand men, accompanied by twice that many camp followers. They marched-in a manner of speaking-into southern Thuringia, desperately seeking food and shelter from the coming winter. They had heard that the region was still largely unravaged by the war. They believed those rumors.
They had also heard that a band of sorcerers lurked thereabouts. But that rumor they dismissed. Witchcraft was a thing of old women, casting malicious spells on their neighbors-not powerful sorcerers shattering entire armies.
They learned otherwise before they got within thirty miles of Grantville, at a small crossroads not far from Jena.
Jena was a university town, famed throughout Germany as a center of learning. Its Collegium Jenense had been founded in 1558 with the help of the Protestant reformer Melanchthon. Jena had a population numbering in the thousands but, unlike Badenburg, the town was unwalled and essentially unprotected. When word arrived of an approaching army of mercenaries, the townsfolk were thrown into panic.
The notables conferred, debated, squabbled, bickered. What to do? The traditional remedy for the coming ill was to pay what amounted to extortion money. But there was no guarantee the measure would shield the town from such an undisciplined and half-leaderless force. It was a moot point, anyway. Jena's coffers had already been drained dry by Tilly.
Resistance? With what?
To be sure, the university's students mobilized in the streets, brandishing their cudgels fearlessly and demanding to be led into battle. The notables refrained from public sarcasm, since university students had a tendency to become riotous when mocked. But they did not take the offer seriously. A few hundred students armed with clubs-against a thousand real soldiers, armed with pike and arquebus?
Absurd.
Then, there came an unexpected offer of assistance. From the mysterious new town to the southwest called Grantville. A sorcerers' town, some said. A den of witchcraft and deviltry.
The notables consulted privately with the university's leading professors. Theologians, to a man. Experts on the Devil and his works.
The theologians, of course, also debated and bickered and squabbled. But not for long. Divine intention has a way of becoming very clear, when the alternative is a city sacked.
God's will. Accept the offer.
Three days later, the military contingent from Grantville passed by the town, on their way to confront the oncoming mercenaries. The townsfolk were relieved when the leaders of that force stated they had no intention of entering Jena. They were even more relieved when the leaders-"Americans," they called themselves; odd name-reiterated that they sought neither payment nor tribute. Only, as they had said in their offer, a desire for trade and commerce. Oh, yes-and a desire to exchange knowledge with the university's faculty and students, and take advantage of their famous printing facilities.
What could be the harm in that?
Half the town, and all the students, turned out to watch the Americans march by. They lined the road leading to Leipzig, cheering wildly. The applause was not diminished by the relatively small size of the American army. There were only four hundred men in that force, but they marched in good order and seemed full of confidence. So did the two hundred or so Scots cavalrymen who accompanied them.
The onlooking burghers and their wives were disturbed by the passing army. Well disciplined and unthreatening, yes. But the gear and equipment! Especially The university students, on the other hand, were not upset in the least by the huge vehicle which led the procession. To the contrary, they were quite charmed by the grotesque-looking thing. And once a few of their bolder number ascertained the name of the contraption, its further progress was greeted by a new cheer: