1634: The Bavarian Crisis (assiti chards)

by Eric Flint

  "We are here, in Basel. This is the Rhine River. Here are Becky and Gretchen, in Amsterdam, at the other end. This, on this side, this is what was last year. This, on the other side, this is what is now."

  ****

  Maria Anna understood the implications of the two drawings first. She stood up, pointing with her finger. "Duke Bernhard has occupied a lot of territory on the Upper Rhine. It's almost as large as the Swiss Confederacy itself, without conflicting in any way with the Confederacy's cantons. It draws almost equally from what were French lands and what were the lands of the Holy Roman Empire. That is important, yes. A new principality within the empire. Mary's 'room of one's own'. But also…" She pointed. "Along here. Your cartographer has not drawn it, Diane, but along here is crucial. If he holds this, he will have broken the Spanish Road from Italy to the Netherlands. That means…"

  Everyone started to chatter at once.

  "Diane," Maria Anna said. "I will write for you what I see here. It is very important. I will give you a copy. Tony, you must send radio for the whole window tonight, I think, without stopping. I will do this if you agree to send it to Amsterdam, that they give it to my cousin, to Don Fernando, and to the king of Sweden at the same time. Not first one and then the other. Together."

  She turned to Margrave Friedrich almost fiercely.

  "And both of them must have it before you send your envoy back to the duke and tell him what we have seen. Do you understand that??

  The margrave nodded.

  Maria Anna continued. "Whether he can hold it for long? That is hard to predict. There are so many things which might contribute, both for and against, and I am only starting to think. If my brother and Duke Maximilian combine against him, here in the south, they might be able to drive him out of the lands on the right bank of the Rhine, at least. But there is no way, any more, that they could coordinate with Spanish coming from Italy to create a victory such as Nordlingen was, up-time. Not until after he has been pushed back very far."

  "You know about Nordlingen?" Mary Simpson asked.

  "Oh, yes," Maria Anna said with some surprise. "Last winter, before all this began, at home in Vienna, I was thinking about what I had read about the Battle of Nordlingen in that other world of yours, and how proud Papa had been of Ferdinand. I think I have studied all the things that your encyclopedias said about this war. And some of the books. Father Lamormaini did not want me to have all of them, of course, because I am a woman. But I am also a Habsburg. The Jesuits could not refuse to obtain the things for my brothers and they shared them with me. And with Cecelia, of course. We have to be prepared for our responsibilities."

  Mary nodded.

  "And, of course, there are more problems. First, of course, the way the map is at the moment, General Horn is here." Maria Anna drew an oval with here forefinger. "That means that my brother and Duke Maximilian could not even reach Duke Bernhard without somehow going through, or around, General Horn's forces. Going around is not possible, politically." Her finger draw two quick arrows on the second version of the map. "Not through the Swiss Confederacy; not through the State of Thuringia-Franconia. Either would mean a major escalation of the war. Duke Maximilian cannot afford one, just now. My brother, I believe, although I have not been able to speak with him since last spring, will not want one."

  "Even if he did," the archduchess flashed a smile, "somehow, I do not think that the king of Sweden will wish to withdraw General Horn so that others may pass here," she drew her finger along the northern border of the Swiss Confederacy, "to confront Duke Bernhard, do you? There would be too much of a possibility that they might change the direction of their campaign." She drew another arrow with her finger, this one curving north through Baden and Wurttemberg at Mainz and the Rhine Palatinate.

  "No, I suspect-suspect only, you understand-that in the long run, the king of Sweden will find the opening of the gap in the French defenses at Mainz and the cutting of the Spanish Road to be sufficiently great gifts to him that he will swallow his pride and allow Duke Bernhard his independent principality. If he agrees to play nice in his corner of the kindergarten sandbox. Even if he pretends to agree to play nice."

  Margrave Friedrich nodded. He was thinking, of course, about what this reconfiguration of the map might mean for Baden.

  Maria Anna was looking at the others. "But I will not be his tool, you understand. I will not let that heretic use me against my family. I will not be a brood mare through whom he can strengthen his children's claims to the lands he has won."

  Margrave Friedrich nodded.

  The archduchess looked at him fiercely, but phrased her next statement diplomatically. "You will be so kind as to let Herr Wettstein know this, please, as he speaks with the city council. And, if possible for you, Herr Cavriani as well."

  Freinsheim mumbled something.

  "Don't mumble," Diane Jackson said sharply. "It is not polite."

  Startled, Freinsheim said, "If Wettstein knows it, it's damned sure that Cavriani will, too."

  The ambassadress smiled. "Much better. It is not polite to mumble. They teach that in kindergarten, too. I know. I had three sons about your age, before we came here. They were left up-time."

  Freinsheim looked down at his notes, a little embarrassed.

  Margrave Friedrich was more than a little startled. It had never occurred to him to inquire as to whether or not the up-time general and his exotic wife had children. As to whether the up-timers in general had families, or how they lived among themselves when they were not upsetting the political and confessional map of Europe.

  ****

  General Horn's Headquarters, Swabia

  "Overall," Gustav Horn said, "I preferred commanding Finnish troops in Livonia to commanding USE troops in Swabia. Of course, Christina was alive then. I preferred my life when Christina was part of it, even if it did mean that I had Axel Oxenstierna for a father-in-law."

  "Perhaps," Burt Threlkeld said, "you ought to get married again. If you found a really nice wife, maybe she could help your daughter get over her nightmares about the way she was treated three years ago and how her little brother died. My wife Debbie could help match you up with someone, if you don't think your wife has to be a Swedish noblewoman. You know. A nice child psychologist or something. You're not like General Baner. You've been to the university and everything. It would probably work out fine."

  General Horn glared at his up-time military adviser.

  "It doesn't do you any good to ignore it," Burt persisted. "Shit happens when you're in the army. They taught us that back when I was in. You thought your wife was getting better, so you went back to the king's headquarters and then she died. You trusted a junior officer to take care of your kids, but he made off with the money you provided to him and left them to die in a wet cellar. Your son did; the girl was tough enough to live and tell about it. You're going to have to deal with it. That much, at least, I got out of all the counseling they made us sit through in reserves.

  "But not this minute. The rest of the staff is coming, so you're facing a meeting and you've got to decide what to do."

  He moved to his customary position behind Horn. Whatever he had expected he might end up doing when he was sent down from Grantville to be the general's liaison with Grantville, psychological counselor had not been in the job description. He prepared himself for another protracted, indecisive meeting.

  The long and short of it was that General Horn did not like to fight battles. General Horn liked maneuvering around, keeping the other guy off balance. Especially when the other guy was Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, whom he just couldn't stand anyway. As far as Horn was concerned, having a large, powerful, army available was an important piece on the board, in and of itself. A battle would risk this; especially an all-out battle with Bernhard. Bernhard might smash his pieces, take them off the board. Bernhard really was a damned good general once he managed to close against the other guy in a battle.

  What was more, by refusing to fight a battle
, Horn infuriated Bernhard. He seemed to think that scored him points, somehow. So, for two years now, they had been marching and counter-marching, first in one place and then the other, all over the map of Swabia, Baden, Wurttemberg, leaving disease and destruction in their paths, but never coming to grips.

  Burt gave Horn credit. For most of those two years, he had succeeded in keeping Duke Bernhard occupied. The Swabian front, the way Horn handled things, had never been an immediate dire threat to Gustav Adolf while he dealt with the League of Ostend and never a big drain on Sweden's resources. Since the king couldn't just wave his hand and make Duke Bernhard go away, that was probably a good thing.

  Now, Burt knew, Horn had direct orders to proceed to Rheinfelden as fast as possible and confront Bernhard, who was threatening Basel.

  Would he?

  All he could do, Burt supposed, was wait and find out. Gustav Adolf was not likely to fire the man who had been Oxenstierna's son-in-law. There certainly weren't enough up-timers here to conduct a mutiny, even if they wanted to. Aside from the two kids, Kyle Bourne, the radio operator, and Bob Barnes, the EMT, who spent most of their time training down-timers to do their jobs at a pinch, there were only four besides himself. Three were veterans; two just reactivated from the reserves when things started to heat up down here-Jack Whitney, who had grown up in Morgantown even though he had relatives in Grantville and had married Jessica Ellis; Johnnie Sloan-Johnnie, like Jack, had been in the Gulf War.

  Then the two who had been here as long as Burt. Gerry Pierpoint, a peace-time warrior. A techie, too. He didn't sit in on policy sessions; he talked to miners and sappers and artillery guys. Plus Marty Thornton. Marty? Well, as a soldier, he was very good at carrying a clipboard and keeping track of things like schedules for the sentries. Armies needed those, too, although why Horn's army needed Marty was beyond Burt's comprehension. Horn had hundreds of down-timers who could keep track of sentry schedules.

  That was all, in an army of eight thousand, plus baggage train and camp followers. Not very much leaven for a very large loaf. The up-timers definitely did not call the tune in Swabia.

  ****

  Basel

  The city council meeting had been very long. The leitmotif of the majority appeared to be a desire to avoid destruction of Basel's resources. That, naturally, meant that the council would have to avoid having Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar's army occupy the city's territory. Definitely avoid having it occupy the lands on the left bank; he must be dissuaded from crossing the Rhine.

  They could, if necessary, sacrifice Riehen. Temporarily, of course.

  Johann Rudolf Wettstein advanced passionate objections to this course of action, on the grounds that if Duke Bernhard ended up in possession of the rest of the right bank of the Rhine, he was unlikely to prove sufficiently accommodating to return Riehen to Basel.

  Someone pointed out that Wettstein, as the Landvogt in Riehen, was possibly not completely dispassionate in his analysis.

  Wettstein replied that the Riehen militiamen, who had stayed to defend Basel's interests, were, after all, the subjects of the city council. He also mentioned in passing the customs revenues that the right bank holdings generated.

  Unfortunately, someone else commented that Duke Bernhard's demands could be met fairly easily, thus sparing Riehen from all the anticipated tribulations. The duke was not even asking that Basel itself violate the diplomatic immunity of the USE embassy; merely that the city council not offer opposition to his sending a limited force across the bridge to take custody of an embassy guest. A guest who was not, it should be noted, a citizen of the USE.

  Gustav Adolf, someone said, would look rather ridiculous if he tried presenting himself as the appropriate champion of the interests of a Habsburg archduchess.

  Actually, Wettstein thought, that had turned out to sow a nice amount of confusion, since at the mention of the term "Habsburg," the discussion veered off into the issue of whether the presence of the archduchess might offer sufficient leverage to obtain the legal independence of the Swiss cantons, and one of the guildmasters pointed out that if they let Duke Bernhard abduct her from the USE embassy, that opportunity would be dry up.

  Margrave Friedrich V of Baden-Durlach requested permission to address the council on behalf of his father.

  The council refused.

  He requested permission to address the council on behalf of the emperor of the USE.

  The council refused.

  They adjourned without a decision. Wettstein talked to Buxtorf.

  ****

  Maria Anna tried very hard not to show her exasperation. It was almost dark. Margrave Friedrich V had called, telling Diane that the council had refused to hear his arguments. Pastor Zwinger, the Calvinist, Professor Buxtorf's brother-in-law, had brought information that the council had decided nothing-and that the date stated in Duke Bernhard's ultimatum, the date when he would cease to negotiate, was now less than a week away.

  The soldiers inside the embassy would not let her close enough to the windows to get a really good look at what was happening outside. Sergeant Swiger appeared to be afraid that someone would shoot her, which he said was not going to happen on his watch. The ambassadress would not reverse his decision.

  In fact, since the Basel city council was no longer permitting Cavriani and Wettstein to come into the USE Embassy, she was getting almost all the information she received from Mary Simpson, who herself was getting it only second-hand from Diane through Tony Adducci, as well as the radio.

  She was a guest, with no more status than any other guest, she thought with frustration. But-she reached into her pocket.

  Frau Ambassadress Jackson had authorized her to send four messages. The other morning, she had only sent three.

  This was the time of day when Tony sent messages radio messages again. Mentally writing as she walked, Maria Anna headed upstairs to his office.

  Tony confirmed it. Diane had authorized four messages; the archduchess had only sent three, so she could send another.

  Most honored cousin. Basel trying to hold me hostage. Basel guards around USE embassy no longer permit visitors. Duke Bernhard on the border with army, trying to get permission to abduct me. Would prefer not to become the so-called guest of either. Should I run again? If so, which way? Maria Anna.

  Chapter 64

  Sceptrum Tenens

  Munich

  "Duke Maximilian's reaction to the news of Archduchess Maria Anna's arrival at the USE embassy in Basel was not at all favorable," Bartholomaeus Richel admitted to Father Lorenz Forer. "In addition to threatening to dismiss all of the prominent officers who were commanding his forces at the time Ingolstadt fell in disgrace, he now is including in his disfavor everyone in the diplomatic service who has ever negotiated with either Baden or Basel. He counts them as being among the individuals whom he suspects of having participated in an Austrian-Bohemian conspiracy against him."

  "One could wish," Forer commented, "that General Pappenheim were not a native-born Bavarian. That fact by itself is causing the duke, the more he considers the matter, to doubt the loyalty of Bavaria's native families. There were enough difficulties right after the general threw in with Wallenstein and became duke of Moravia. Now that Wallenstein has granted sanctuary to Duke Albrecht since Duchess Mechthilde's unfortunate accident…"

  "There is no way to present it as an accident," Richel said. "Duchess Mechthilde was killed during a fight. We admit that. We merely avoid all reference to the agent through whom her death came about."

  "If you say so," Forer said dubiously. "It would be better for Duke Maximilian's spiritual and mental rest if her death was an accident."

  "His reaction to the news was not at all favorable." Richel resumed his theme. "Duke Maximilian has ordered several arrests and has summoned the judges to issue indictments and hold another round of hearings under strict questioning. Beginning tomorrow."

  "What is the reaction among the members of the Estates?"

  "Unfavorable,
" Richel admitted reluctantly. "They did not care so much when his anger was falling on the army. Its commanders are, of course, mainly either foreigners like Mercy or both foreigners and commoners, like Werth. Even the execution of Horwarth did not offend most of them, since his father was from Augsburg, not a Bavarian. This, however, affects many of Bavaria's own nobility directly, so their response is likely to become more unfavorable. Many of the leading families have members included in the current round of accusations. Several leading noblemen have submitted requests that the duke summon a meeting of the Estates."

  "The duke's response?"

  "He refuses, of course."

  ****

  Vienna

  The news arrived from Amberg, of all ridiculous places, by way of a Jesuit mailbag, Father William Lamormaini wrote, in his report to the Father-General of the Jesuits.

  The rider had galloped all the way. Archduchess Maria Anna was in Basel, residing in the embassy of the United States of Europe. Voluntarily, which made it worse, from his own perspective. Almost, he had considered withholding the information from the dying emperor. It would have been, he felt, an act of mercy.

  Unfortunately, someone else had sent the same news, from the same city, directly to the imperial family. That someone being the Swede's regent, Duke Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, at the request of Dona Mencia de Mendoza, who had requested this favor through means of the radio. Dona Mencia was in Amsterdam. The courier sent by Duke Ernst handed it over to the Empress Eleonora.

  That much, Lamormaini wrote to Father Vitelleschi, he knew. He also knew that the empress had taken it directly to the king of Hungary, Ferdinand-who was likely to inherit the Austrian throne at any moment, given his father's health.