1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 01
1636: The Ottoman Onslaught
By Eric Flint
PART I
April, 1636
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?
Chapter 1
Regensburg, Upper Palatinate
The march from Regensburg was supposed to have begun at dawn — and so it did, in a manner of speaking. The cavalry patrols had actually passed through the city’s gates before sunrise. Right on schedule.
But now that he’d been a general for almost a year, Mike Stearns had learned that military time schedules bore precious little resemblance to what he’d considered “punctuality” in those innocent days when he’d been a civilian. In this, as in so many things, Carl von Clausewitz’s old dictum applied. Perhaps better to say, the future dictum, since the man wouldn’t even be born for another century and a half, and then in a different universe.
By now, Mike had memorized the damn thing: Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
He knew Clausewitz’s axiom as well as he knew Murphy’s Law — which applied to military matters even more stringently than it did to the affairs of civilians.
Civilians. Those happy-go-lucky, carefree, insouciant folk in whose ranks Mike could vaguely remember himself being counted once. Back in those halcyon days when he’d been a coal miner worried about nothing more substantial than methane explosions and roof falls. Or the prime minister of a nation, whose frets over issues of war and peace, prosperity and poverty, and the schemes and plots of traitors and malcontents had never troubled what he remembered as blissful sleep.
Pfah. Tell a cabinet member to do something, be it never so problematic and ticklish, and the task would get done — started upon, at least — within the hour.
Tell an army to do something as simple and straightforward as walk out of a town — just walk, no running required — and move on down the road — fifteen miles, maybe twenty; no more — and you’d be lucky if the ass end of the army made it through the gates by noon. The camp followers coming behind wouldn’t manage the feat until mid-afternoon.
He could also remember a time when he’d intended to eradicate the pernicious seventeenth century military custom of having camp followers in the first place. He’d been brought up as a stout American lad, watching John Wayne movies. You never saw a mob of camp followers trailing after John Wayne, did you? Sands of Iwo Jima, The Longest Day, The Fighting Seabees — not a camp follower anywhere in sight. Not even in his civil war movie, The Horse Soldiers. For that matter, not even in the movie where he’d portrayed the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan, The Conqueror, although Mike wasn’t entirely sure about that. The film had been such a turkey that he’d stopped watching it halfway through. It was possible that a stray camp follower might have wandered across the stage toward the end.
Not likely, though. And it wasn’t just the movies. Mike had served a three-year stint in the United States Army. That would be the army of the United States of America, long before the Ring of Fire happened.
Did the U.S. Army have camp followers? Not unless you counted the families living on a military base — but that wasn’t really the same thing at all. When American soldiers went on campaign back up-time, their families stayed behind. They sure as hell didn’t trail after the soldiers like a gigantic caravan.
Caravan? It was more like a circus train without rails. All that was missing were elephants and a carousel.
“I’d think you’d have become accustomed to this by now, General.”
Turning in the saddle, Mike saw that his aide Christopher Long had come up behind him and was now almost alongside.
“I think a grin like that on an adjutant’s face when addressing his commanding officer is probably a court-martial offense,” Mike said. He wondered if he sounded as sour as he felt. “I still have the occasional daydream about a lightning offensive. We even had a name for it where and when I came from: Blitzkrieg.”
By then, his other aide, Ulbrecht Duerr, had ridden up in time to hear his last sentence.
“‘Blitzkrieg,’ is it? Lightning war. Ha! No wonder those stupid German descendants of ours lost most of their wars. Went charging out without proper consideration of what it takes to keep the supplies coming.”
He now looked at Long. “Have you noticed, Christopher, that our commander is always disgruntled at the beginning of a campaign?”
Long smiled. “Oh, yes. I’ve come to expect it.”
Mike was about to make some retort but…
Was it true? What he really that predictable?
He thought back on previous campaigns.
Well, maybe. After the first one, anyway. Well. After the first day of the first one.
“Remind me again why I don’t ban all camp followers,” he said.
“First, because the men would probably mutiny,” said Duerr. The cheery tone in which he said that was surely a court-martial offense. Court-martialable? Mike wasn’t sure of the proper usage — which just went to show he was still a civilian at heart. Carefree, happy-go-lucky…
“We’d have to hope they’d mutiny,” added Long, “because if they didn’t, they’d soon enough start dying of hunger or exhaustion or disease — or any combination thereof.”
“On account of there’d be no one to feed them or keep their clothing reasonably clean,” Duerr continued, still sounding cheery.
“Or tuck them in at night and sing them lullabies,” Mike grumbled.
“This sort of bitterness really doesn’t suit a man as young as you are, General. Look at me! Much older than you, I am — not to mention properly scarred in a soldierly manner.”
He held up a crooked forefinger, which hadn’t healed quite properly after being broken at the Battle of Ostra outside Dresden. Duerr had several scars on his body which were actually more impressive, but they were covered by his uniform — and besides, he was inordinately proud of this one. He’d defeated an enemy cavalryman in hand-to-hand combat even though his injury had forced him to fight left-handed.
Mike had had his own adventures in that battle, and quite splendid ones at that. He’d had two horses shot out from under him. Not one — two. But he’d come out of it quite unscarred, at least bodily.
Whether he’d come out of it unscarred mentally as well…
Too soon to know, he thought. He didn’t think he’d developed PTSD so far, if “developed” was the proper term to use. He’d have to ask Maureen Grady the next time he saw her. She ran the Department of Social Services and was probably — no, almost certainly — the best psychologist in the world.
Having settled that issue to his momentary satisfaction, he went back to grousing about what really bothered him on this sunny day in April of 1636.
“Is it really too much to expect an army to move faster than an old lady with a walker?”
“Is a ‘walker’ something like a cane?” asked Christopher Long. “If so, the answer is ‘yes.’ A competent crone can out-hobble any army in the world.”
“Taken as a whole,” Duerr qualified. “A detached cavalry unit could certainly run her down. Flying artillery also.”
****
Had he cross-checked that last assertion with the commander of the Third Division’s flying artillery, Duerr would have gotten an argument. Lieutenant Colonel Thorsten Engler, normally a calm and phlegmatic officer, was having as close to an apoplectic fit as such a man could manage. He was even swearing a little. At least, by Thorsten Engler values of swearing.
Only under his breath, though. The actual swearing was being done by a lieutenant whom Thorsten was observing, since it would have been inappropriate for the commanding officer to deal with the problem directly.
Finally. 3rd Division marching South…. waited so long for this one to get started.
Glad to see this, but I wonder what happened to War of the Rhine. Still have also waited a long time for this.
The Rhine book will be published by Baen in December 2016. The anthology that was announced under that title several years ago didn’t happen. Virginia DeMarce’s stories will be published in Grantville Gazette and Ring of Fire anthologies. Kim Mackay’s stories are on hold pending revision. So what’s coming out under the title is a novelization of Annete Pedersen’s stories. Available for pre-order now, with cover visible at Baen.com or Amazon.
I just wish i could pre-order the ebooks
Very informative, but what I wanted to know is why are there no snippets for this work. The Grantville Gazette author pages list nothing for Annette Pedersen which covers war or the Rhineland. If there are such stories, where are they”?
The same question was asked on Baen’s Bar. Drak answered that _1635: The Wars on the Rhine_ is shorter than _1636: The Ottoman Onslaught_ so snippets will start later.
I wonder if Mike has realized yet that the camp followers are part of his logistics train? Or at least can be made as such. Even I know that the military has people who’s job it is to cook the food and wash the clothes.
Intellectually he does, but his military service was during the short historical period when conscript armies made camp followers unnecessary. (KP and other duties previously handled by camp followers was one way of keeping conscripts busy.)
Today’s volunteer army has pretty well reverted to using camp followers, although they are not called that. They are called “civilian contractors.” Again however they prepare meals, clean and mend clothes, provide entertainment (the enlisted club), etc. – pretty much the same services camp followers provided. Would not surprise me if some civilian contractors provided off-the-books “personal” services for extra pay, nowadays, much as some camp followers used to.
Cool, cool, cool …
My personal hopes for the book:
(1) Hope they hook up with the big naval guns Major Simpson had been towing south in “the Bavarian crisis”. We were told they had crossed the Thueringer Wald and were left somewhere in the South (Oberpfalz?) but so far they have not yet appeared again …
(2) Hope Bavaria (and Salzburg) gets added to the Austro-Hungarian Empire to give the Austrians a little strategic depth back
(3) Hope the ridiculous “Republic of Essen” gets forced into the USE without a shot being fired, to pay for delivering modern weapons to the Ottomans (seriously, in an age of coal and steam, which German Emperor worth his salt would let slip the Ruhr out of his grasp?? Neither Stearns nor GARS were that stupid …)
(4) Hope to see the hinted-at deal with Wallenstein happen: Wallenstein helps Austria to conquer “real” Hungary from the Ottomans in exchange for some Slavic territories in the north.
(5) Hope the Barbies make a modern fortress out of their little principality and fend of the Ottomans while Vienna proper falls …
I could go on but that should do for now … ;)
If these naval-guns are brought to Bavaria once Mad-Max has been defeated then they can be shifted to Austro-Hungary to be used against the Ottoman forces, such powerful artillery woul be quite a demoralising shock to them.
To continue Positrols posting. Adam Olerius, Anne Jefferson’s husband was sent uptime on an embassy to Persia at about this date. The Persian empire includes about half of modern Afghanistan, about half of the Caucasus states and the Persian heartland. In most of it’s interactions with the Ottomans, it’s lost wars, except under Shah Abbbas I (1588-1629) when they won and captured Baghdad. Abbas was helped with modern English guns which he got through the Shirley brothers. The current Shah, Safi (1628-1642) is primarily interested in wine and opium. His successor Abbas II (1642-1666) is a lot more promising but too young to rule himself. However his mother Anna Khanum was apparently a tough cookie, who successfully ran things for the first part of his reign.
Down time Olerius could be sent as head of mission again by Fernando, in an effort to help his cousin. This time, instead of going through Muscovy, he could be sent by sea, perhaps with a few military advisors.
Oh and it’s a real good idea to wipe Bavaria off the map. Gustav won’t want a duchy full of Catholics, and he seems to be on decent terms with Ferdinand, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
fferdinan
Hopefully Gustav will use this to forcibly incorporate Bavaria into the USE and Mad-Max is given his long overdue and richly deserved beheading.
If you try to force Bavaria into the USE you can bet on a mean and long guerilla war. Better to get rid of Mad Max, install his brother (or one of his nephews) and let him join an Austria-Hungry allied to the USE, or at least friendly neutral.
Don’t forget: The USE will likely be fighting the Ottomans, the Russians and the Spanish. They need all the aliies and friendly neutrals (Netherlands) they can get.
You have a point however Mad-Max definitely needs to go.
Oops. I forgot to mention they already are at war with the PLC …
There was a vehicle that resembled a tank, but it was decorated like a temple, and how did they managed to manufacture a machine gun, and what was the tank powered by anyways?
“machinegun” in front, looks like a pepper box canon. The tank could be steam powered, but would definitely be very slow.
I’m more concerned with, what looks like, a flame thrower, in the hand of the guy riding on top of it.
Finally! Something written by Eric Flint himself. I can start reading Ring of Fire-verse again.
1: Get Rid of Mad Max: Check
Put ??? in his place: I have no idea.
No spoilers but “Mad Max” has a brother who has no love for him.
Also, the brother has two (under-aged) sons.