HISTORICAL NOTE
The years 1806 and 1807 marked the summit of Napoleon Bonaparte’s career. He defeated the Prussians at the battles of Auerstadt and Jena in 1806, the Russians at Friedland in June of 1807, and in July—shortly after the events of this novel—persuaded Tsar Alexander to sign the Treaty of Tilsit that temporarily forced Russia into French orbit. While the winter slaughter at the battle of Eylau in 1807 was a preview of Napoleon’s grim struggles to come, he would dominate Europe for many years. It wasn’t until 1808 that French embroilment in Spain began his long unraveling. Bonaparte would not face catastrophic defeat until 1812 in Russia, and be defeated for the final time at Waterloo in 1815.
The Trojan Icon is set in the period of Napoleonic domination, and its discussion of strategies between Russia, Prussia, Poland, England, Persia, and the Ottoman Empire is taken from history. The naval defeat of Duckworth’s English fleet, the victory of the Russians under Senyavin, and the revolt of the Janissaries against Selim III all really happened. Some of the Turkish bombards described in this novel still exist. Ethan’s experience in the battle of Trafalgar was related in The Barbed Crown, and at Austerlitz in The Three Emperors.
While Mustafa was elevated to sultan, Aimée’s son Mahmud overthrew him in an 1808 coup, becoming Sultan Mahmud II. He would go on to crush Janissary power and rule as an effective reformer until his death in 1839.
Most of the novel’s other characters are real people, including Tsar Alexander and his wife Elizabeth, Alexander’s mother and mistress, Adam and Izabela Czartoryski, the future Louis XVIII who would succeed Napoleon, Marie Walewska, Selim, Ambassador Horace Sebastiani, Admiral John Duckworth, and Sir Sidney Smith. Prince Peter Dolgoruki was indeed misled by the French at Austerlitz, was sent to campaign against the Turks, and died of a mysterious disease in late 1806.
More problematic is Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, the charismatic kadin who has been the subject of several novels and at least one movie. The idea that a French slave girl, cousin to Empress Josephine, was the mother of a future sultan has obvious appeal in the West. Unfortunately, historians regard Aimée as a charming legend whose existence has never been confirmed. Many stories do surround Mahmud’s narrow escape and ascension to the throne in 1808, including a tale that he hid in a chimney or, alternately, escaped to the harem roof after a slave girl named Cevri Kalfa threw ashes in the eyes of his pursuers.
Lothar Von Bonin and Cezar Dalca are inventions, but the Grunwald swords and Trojan palladium are not. The swords were indeed rediscovered and delivered to Izabela’s new Polish museum at the Temple of Sibyl, though historians have overlooked Ethan Gage’s critical role in their recovery. Russians occupied Pulawy again during the November Uprising of 1830-31, and a parish priest hid the swords in his home. Their importance was slowly forgotten. The priest died in 1853 and Russian police confiscated the swords as illegal weapons. They were taken to a nearby fortress, where they disappear from history.
The palladium legend is as described, with the ultimate fate of the Athena statue unknown after its alleged transport to Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine. The Napoleonic era’s abiding interest in ancient knowledge, magic, mysticism, archeology, and artifacts has been a consistent thread through the Ethan Gage novels, and is taken from history.
Poland has been in existence for more than 1,100 years, but has suffered frequent invasion, partition, and temporary extinction. Napoleon did have an affair with Marie Walewska and did constitute a Duchy of Warsaw in 1807, but the Congress of Vienna partitioned the country again after Bonaparte’s fall. Despite periodic revolts, Poland didn’t become an independent nation again until after World War I, only to be divided between Germany and Russia at the beginning of World War II. It was reconstituted yet again after the war, dominated by the Soviet Union, and has recently emerged free. Poland’s geographic vulnerability and its struggle to exist is one of the great tragedies of history, but Adam and Izabela Czartoryski did keep alive the dream of Polish nationhood.
As for the Ottoman Empire, it dissolved after losing World War I while fighting on the German side. Britain and France redrew the Middle East into today’s fractured states, with Constantinople-Istanbul remaining in Turkey. The Persia that Ethan refers to is modern-day Iran.
Catherine’s Palace, the Winter Palace, the Peter and Paul Fortress, the palaces at Jelgava and Pulawy, and the Temple of Sibyl are all real places. Descriptions of Topkapi Palace and its harem are taken from history and personal visit—including the mysterious closets where a eunuch and harem girl vanished. The history of the ship Canopus and the accidental loss of the Ajax are as described in this novel.
As for Balbec, I leave it to readers to hunt for its foundations in the beautiful mountains of Transylvania. Follow old legends, odd stories, and the enigmatic clues of furtive and mysterious mountain people. Look for a place where thunder rumbles, mist swirls off high peaks, and bears rear up to indeed look like trapped, enchanted men.
ABOUT The Author
WILLIAM DIETRICH is the author of twenty-two books of fiction and nonfiction. His New York Times bestselling Ethan Gage series of Napoleonic adventures has sold into thirty-one languages. The author’s Pacific Northwest nonfiction has won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Washington Governor Writer’s Award. As a career journalist at the Seattle Times, Bill shared a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Dietrich has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and the recipient of several National Science Foundation journalism fellowships. He lives on an island in Washington State.
The author’s website is www.williamdietrich.com.
The Trojan Icon (Ethan Gage Adventures Book 8) Page 34