by Eric Flint
He left off his finger-tapping and picked up the despatches. "So, we'll allow Johan his independent campaign at Ingolstadt. Send a reply to that effect to the duke, if you please."
"He'll be somewhat exasperated, you realize."
Gustav Adolf grinned. "Well, of course. It's in Ernst's nature to be exasperated, just as it is in Johan Banér's to be exasperating. That's part of the reason I thought they'd make a good match."
* * * *
The Breisgau
Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar was in a foul mood, as he had been for days. What made the situation all the worse for his officers was that the young Saxe-Weimar duke's irritation had nothing to do with the general political and military situation, which was developing quite favorably. It was simply due to indigestion.
Bernhard, unfortunately, had a rather delicate stomach, perhaps inherited from his mother. It often flared up when he was on campaign and making do with field provisions. To make things more difficult for his aides and adjutants, his pride usually got in the way. What sort of daring cavalry commander can't go on campaign without getting an upset stomach? Any expression of sympathy was likely to trigger off an explosion of rage.
So, Friedrich and his associates had been treading carefully of late, around the duke. They'd been riding back and forth across the countryside for weeks. Not because they were trying to accomplish anything but simply because Bernhard had thought it prudent to act as if they were. Perhaps, after getting reports of their activities, Cardinal Richelieu might be fooled into thinking that Bernhard was contemplating—energetically, most energetically—a daring mission to come to the aid of the French army outside Luebeck.
Not likely, of course. It was exceedingly hard to fool the canny prelate who was the effective ruler of France. But, if nothing else, Bernhard had calculated that those reports would go unquestioned by Richelieu, however much they might cause him to seethe inwardly—for the good and simple reason that the cardinal's own position was now precarious. Very soon, in Bernhard's estimate, the French army at Luebeck would be coming to a disaster—and when it did, France's simmering factional disputes would come to a boil. Outright civil war was by no means impossible, and major unrest was a certainty.
The king's younger brother Monsieur Gaston and his sycophants would be laying many charges at Richelieu's feet—nailing them to his door, more like. One of them was sure to be the accusation that he had squandered money on that useless Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and his mercenary army in the Franche-Comté, which had played no role at all in the Ostend war.
Under the circumstances, Richelieu could hardly admit that his opponents were quite right!
Which, indeed, they were. The last thing Bernhard and his close associates intended was to see their preciously assembled army battered into pieces in an all-out campaign against the Swede and the American technical wizards who had provided him with such a fearsome array of weaponry.
No, no. They'd have a much better use for that army soon enough.
* * * *
Ingolstadt
There had been a time when Johann Philipp Cratz von Scharffenstein had been thankful to have the position of the commander of the Ingolstadt garrison bestowed upon him by the duke of Bavaria. Unfortunately, through no fault of his own—Wallenstein's malice was to blame, as well as the fecklessness of the authorities of Lorraine—the Rhenish count's military record as a professional soldier was...
Well. Undistinguished.
His enemies, of which he had many, would no doubt have used a less neutral term. But they were motivated by spite and envy, usually combined with ignorance.
It was hardly Cratz von Scharffenstein's fault that, while he'd been in Wallenstein's service, his troops had committed some depredations upon the populace. Mercenary troops were always rough on civilians, including those they were hired to protect. Any professional officer knew that perfectly well. Wallenstein's anger had simply been the naiveté of a man who was really just a lowly merchant who'd applied his talent for avarice to military affairs. And a nasty bastard to boot. He was not a genuine soldier, like Cratz himself.
The complaints of the Lorraines had been even more absurd. Was Cratz a baker or a tailor or a saddler, obliged to keep meticulous and finicky financial books because he lived on the edge of destitution? An officer and a nobleman, by nature of the very temperament that made him suited to his position in life, of necessity had a sanguine attitude toward these things.
They'd been incredibly unreasonable. Had even dissolved his regiment!
Thereafter, there'd been almost two years of penury, while the imperials dilly-dallied about employing him. That was Wallenstein's malevolence at work, of course. And didn't it serve the Emperor right, that in the end it would be Wallenstein who betrayed him? While Cratz von Scharffenstein took his services to the Bavarians.
Even with Tilly's recommendation, before the old man's blunder at the Lech that cost him his life, the best Cratz had managed to get was a garrison post. Still, by then he'd been thankful enough. If nothing else, being the military commander of a walled and fortified city like Ingolstadt made it exceedingly difficult for his creditors to pester him.
Cratz von Scharffenstein was no longer thankful, however. Garrison duty was boring, and provided little opportunity as a rule for an officer to distinguish himself. On the positive side, there were many avenues for enrichment that were far superior to the measly salary his Bavarian commission brought in—and it was usually not dangerous work.
Usually.
Alas, "usually" was a term that could be quickly buried when an enemy commander like Johan Banér was in the vicinity, damn the drunken Swedish pig. How did a man who consumed as much liquor as his reputation said he did manage to be so energetic at the same time?
Gloomily, Cratz pushed aside the scout reports on the desk in his headquarters. It was just more of the same. Banér's men here, Banér's men there, the Swedes seemed to be everywhere.
That done, he eyed another little stack of papers on the desk. Even more gloomily. Those were the latest despatches from General Franz von Mercy, the man whom Duke Maximilian—God knows what he could have been thinking—had chosen to place in command of Bavarian field forces in the vicinity of Ingolstadt.
Cratz was tempted to shove those aside as well, but...
Cavalry scouts and their captains could be ignored, safely enough. Generals couldn't, even if—there was this small ray of light—Maximilian had not been mad enough to place von Mercy in command of the garrison as well.
So, sighing, he picked up the first one. As he expected, it was... vigorous... in tone. Urging Cratz to do this and do that and do the other. And who was to pay for all this? Even assuming there were enough hours in a day, days in a weeks, and weeks in a month.
He set that despatch aside, for the moment. Picked up the next.
This one was even worse. Beneath a short note from von Mercy "strongly recommending" that the measures in the attached report be applied, the report itself had been penned by von Mercy's subordinate, Colonel Johann von Werth.
Cratz von Scharffenstein lapsed into the vulgar patois of his Rhenish upbringing for a moment. Of all the officers in Bavarian service in or near Ingolstadt, the one he detested the most was Johann von Werth.
Jan van Wierdt, to call the arrogant ass by his right name. He was no more of a genuine nobleman than the simpleton corporal standing guard just outside the door. Unfortunately, by sheer good fortune, van Wierdt had "distinguished" himself in the recent wars. Much the way a peasant might blunder across a buried treasure.
Von Mercy thought most highly of the bastard. Still worse, so did Duke Maximilian. Cratz had even heard that the duke had once remarked that van Wierdt was as good a cavalry commander as Pappenheim. Which was absurd on the face of it, of course.
Reluctantly, Cratz began reading the report. His gloom grew by the minute.
The Swedes are doing this and that and this and that and the other.
We must do this and that
and this and that and the other and yet another.
Just reading the damn thing was exhausting.
* * * *
Brussels, the Spanish Netherlands
Stiffly, in the manner of a stern young prince bound and determined to be faithful to his duty, Don Fernando resumed his seat. Then, stone-faced, gave the portraits one last quick examination.
"Anna de' Medici, then?"
Rubens inclined his head. "All things considered, Your Highness, I think she would make the best choice. Now that the rumors of Claude of Lorraine's involvement with her cousin have been confirmed, she's obviously out of the question. Claudia de' Medici and her sister Maria Maddalena, as we already discussed, are too old. The Polish girl is only fifteen, and... ah..."
"Ugly," the prince grunted. He gave her portrait a glance. Then, gave the portrait of Anna de' Medici a glance that was only slightly less brief.
That was odd, in a way, since the de' Medici girl was actually quite attractive, even if you allowed for a certain amount of artistic license by the artist who'd done the portrait.
Rubens knew the reason, and had to suppress a sigh. As impossible as it might be, for political reasons, Don Fernando had concluded that either of the Austrian archduchesses would make a good match. Especially the older one, Maria Anna. The arrival of their portraits had simply solidified his opinion. Both young women were very attractive.
It was true enough—had the world been other than it was. A marriage with one of the Austrian Habsburgs would bring real power and influence, unlike a match with the Tuscan girl. But with Ferdinand II still on the throne in Vienna, there was no chance that he'd agree. Not even to a match with Cecelia Renata, who was still at liberty, so to speak.
With Maria Anna, of course, there was no chance at all. She was already betrothed to Maximilian of Bavarian, and the wedding was supposed to take place in July.
"Shall I begin the negotiations with the Tuscans?" he asked the prince.
After perhaps half a minute, the answer was "Not yet."
Rubens was not surprised. Nor was there any point in arguing the matter for a while. Don Fernando could do "stubborn" as well as any Habsburg who ever lived, when he was of a mind.
"Very well, Your Highness."
On his way out of the cardinal-infante's chamber, Rubens made a mental note to himself. As soon as possible, hide the portraits of the Austrian archduchesses.
Chapter 20
Et Ferrum Ferentes
On the Golden Street
By the second day, they were about thirty miles northeast of Nürnberg.
"It's enough to make you sick." Marc was looking at the smashed ruins of a hammer mill. His time with Jacob Durre had provided him with some sense of the effort and money it would take to rebuild it.
Mansfeld and Tilly, the Bavarians and the Swedes. Every army that came through the Upper Palatinate for the past dozen years had been acting on the same presumption. If they could not keep a grasp on the wealth of the region themselves, they would at least destroy as much of it as possible, so the enemy could not benefit from it either.
"There must have been really a lot of iron being processed," Keith commented. "It's one thing for someone to tell Ollie so, and for him to send me off to see about getting the place back into production. It's something else to see these wasted smelters for myself. How much were they turning out, annually, before the war?"
"Before the war?" Leopold Cavriani looked reflective. "I wish that Durre could have come with us. He would know better than I do. A geographer with a sense of the poetic described the smelters and hammer-mills as 'strung along every stream in the Upper Palatinate, like pearls on a necklace'. Especially, in addition to the Pegnitz here, along the Vils and the Naab."
"Funny way to describe the mess and pollution that they must have made," Mary Simpson commented. "Look at the size of those slag piles."
"Iron was pearls," Leopold answered. "Pearls in the sense of wealth. How many? More than two hundred fifty, I am sure. But no matter how carefully they have managed these forests—the peasants of the Upper Palatinate are forbidden to keep goats, you know, because they are so destructive of the wood if they get loose—there have been constant shortages of charcoal. Without fuel, the smelters have to stand down."
"Why didn't they use coal?" That was Toby Snell, with a question that just came naturally to a Grantville boy.
"I don't think there's any around here," Keith answered. "None suitable for metalworking, anyway. If they could get a railroad through, from here to Grantville...."
Leopold resumed his interrupted lecture. "The Emperor Charles IV's Goldene Strasse, his 'Golden Street' from Prague to Nürnberg, the one we are riding on and will continue riding on as far as Sulzbach, was built because of iron, too, not gold. Not by Charles IV, originally. It existed long before. He just improved it, and rerouted parts of it through his own lands."
Cavriani looked thoughtful. "It should have been the Eisenstrasse, the 'Iron Street.' For four hundred years, at least, it has been iron, in this region. Probably for much longer than that; I don't know, but that is when the records that I have seen begin. About four centuries ago. Occasionally, however, farmers find pots and iron tools along here that are far, far, older—things from the time of ancient Rome and even before. Look around you. God never meant the thin soil on these hills to grow grain. It is the ore beneath them that made the fortune of the Electors Palatine. The up-timers speak of the Ruhr. Throughout the middle ages, the Upper Palatinate was for the Holy Roman Empire what the Ruhr became for the German Empire so much later."
He grinned. "Oh, the Rhine Palatinate is a fine place. Lovely, scenic, civilized. But the wealth that supported that culture, that ancient university, the great library that was stolen from Heidelberg and taken to Rome a few years ago, was wrested out of these hills by men with picks and shovels. This second part of the Palatinate was the center of the south German iron trade. Mining and processing, both. If the iron isn't brought back into production, nothing else that Duke Ernst can do will help in the long run. In these hills, it is iron or poverty. The proverb runs, 'Dig iron or eat stones.'"
He gestured. "It goes on far beyond what we can see here. The Montanbereich. It is about a hundred of your up-time miles long, from Sulzbach and Rosenberg in the west, it runs northeast almost all the way to the border of Bohemia. These little towns, even those no bigger than a large agricultural village in other parts of Germany, received their city charters in the fourteenth century because of iron."
"You can pretty much tell that," Keith commented. "Everyone in Grantville keeps talking about the importance of industrializing. Around Thuringia, I've not seen anything like this. Some around Suhl and Schleusingen, Schmalkalden, but that's on the south side of the mountains. Just how much of the work force was already out of agriculture down here? Before the war, I mean?"
Cavriani thought for a moment. "It isn't like northern Italy or the Netherlands, of course, so it's hard to compare. It isn't 'urbanized,' as you say. Mining is a rural occupation and so is ore processing. Only the producers of finished goods live mainly in the towns. Or near them, since the forges also benefit from having a source of power from the streams. But probably, of adult men, one out of five; in some places, such as along the Pegnitz River here, or along the Naab, which flows south into the Danube, one out of four, worked in mining or metals."
"Looking at this, I can see why Herr Durre and the other metalworkers in Nürnberg are so worried." Marc was returning to his first thought. "It isn't just that they are short of materials for making wire and such. Even though, if they can't get raw materials for the metals trades, it will soon no longer be a proud and wealthy city. It's the arsenal, too. It's a manufacturing arsenal. Without iron, without enough iron..."
* * * *
Approaching Amberg, the Upper Palatinate
"It was not an easy time," Elias Brechbuhl said Mary Simpson. The widower of Veronica's step-daughter Elisabetha shook his head. "Nor did the Bavaria
ns intend to allow any Protestants who remained in the city an easy time." He had been talking about the year 1626. "In September—I recall very well that it was the fifteenth of the month—they held a Catholic mass, a Te Deum, in the main parish church of Amberg to celebrate the Catholic victory over the Danes. And the school children were forced to attend it. That was the day that I decided to go into exile. Whatever the hardships it would bring upon Elisabetha and the children. For in only two more years, my oldest son would start school. And they would have schooled him into a Catholic. I could not permit it, not on my conscience."
He reined his horse in, pausing to look up at the walls of Amberg.
Veronica drew up her mule next to him. "Yes, I remember that day. Hans was at that service. He was in the Jesuit school. The damned Bavarians had closed the Pädagogium, the Calvinist school, already, three years before that. It was the year before he started his apprenticeship with his father." She sat, looking up at the walls.
Brechbuhl looked startled.
Veronica glowered. "I will say it. Die verdammten Bayer. If you don't want to hear it, you don't have to listen."
Brechbuhl turned back to Mary Simpson. "This is the first time that I have been back. Margaretha's first husband was already dead; he was killed by Bavarian troops almost three years before that day. She came with us, as did Lorenz and Hanna. Clara and Matthias weren't married yet and she was living with Margaretha. So she came with us, as well." He smiled. "A year later, there was Matthias at our door in Nürnberg. I think she had given up hope, but by waiting longer, he was able to salvage more money from the sale of his father's house and business than if he had left so quickly. But then, a bachelor is not as constrained as the head of a household. It is easier for him to take some risks."
