1635:The Dreeson Incident

Chapter 67

Magdeburg, March 1635

"This is madness," hissed Amalie, the landgravine of Hesse-Kassel. Her hand on her husband's arm tightened. "What is Wilhelm Wettin thinking?"

Her husband, Landgrave William V, looked out over the huge crowd celebrating in the great hall of the new imperial palace in Magdeburg. "What difference does it make? Wilhelm can't control this. I doubt if anyone can."

He shook his head. The landgrave-some primitive part of him, at least-understood the riotous mood of the celebrants perfectly well. The last few years had been deeply unsettling to any member of Germany's elite classes, and sometimes terrifying. Now…

It was over! The troll is dead! Sanity has returned! We are back on top!

Unfortunately, the troll was not dead. Defeated, yes; dead, no-and perhaps the worst of it was that the troll had predicted the defeat himself. Predicted it, quite matter-of-factly, and gone about his business.

That was because he was not a troll in the first place. He was a man, and a particularly cunning and astute one, when it came to politics.

Far more astute, William suspected, than the leader of the Crown Loyalists, Wilhelm Wettin. The brutish troll, for instance, knew when his reach was beginning to exceed his grasp; knew the difference between real allies and fellow travelers of the moment; perhaps most of all, knew when he could safely compromise and when a bargain led into an abyss.

William sighed. There had been too many promises made. Too many unwise trades, for the sake of immediate gains. And now, all of the people with whom Wettin and his Crown Loyalists had bargained had come to Magdeburg to enjoy a raucous celebration of their victory-and to demand payment in full.

And Wettin would pay them. He had no choice.

Or try to pay them, at any rate. Whether he could succeed or not, remained to be seen. The landgrave was becoming increasingly dubious.

He came to his decision. "We shall leave, Amalie. We have no choice, I think. We must place Hesse-Kassel first."

"I agree," she said firmly.

On their way out, they were intercepted by Hieronymus von Egloffstein, who was one of the central figures in Wilhelm Wettin's personal staff. Egloffstein was not himself an elected or public official. His capacity was that of what the Americans called a "political operator."

"Surely you aren't going!" he protested. Grinning gleefully, he waved a goblet of wine at the crowd, spilling some of it on the floor. "The festivities are just starting."

William disliked the man. Amalie positively detested him.

"Surely we are," she said coldly. "Half the nation is in mourning over the murder of an old man and seething in anger-and you choose to rub salt into their wounds? Well, you may be idiots, but we are not."

The landgrave cleared his throat. "Tell Wilhelm we've returned to Hesse-Kassel. Where we will handle this situation quite differently."

They left, then, with Egloffstein gaping after them.

"It's starting already," William said an hour or so later, as their carriage neared Magdeburg's outskirts. He let the curtain fall back into place over the window and leaned back in his seat. "I can't see very much, of course, in the darkness. But it's obvious the city's Committee of Correspondence is mobilizing its forces. And I could see that many of them are armed. With flintlock rifles, too, not just hand weapons. They look like military issue. I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover they came from the army's own arsenals."

Amalie's hand went to her throat. "Oh, my God. Surely you don't think… William, he can't be that rash."

"Stearns?" Her husband shook his head. "It won't be anything as reckless as an assault upon the palace. No, certainly. Those imbeciles will be able to celebrate as long as they want, quite unmolested. If nothing else, Stearns won't want to risk bringing Torstensson and his regular army units into the city."

He barked a grim little laugh. "Assuming that Torstensson would even do so-given that no one really knows how the army would react in such a situation."

"Do you really think the CoCs take their orders from Stearns?"

The landgrave cocked his head, considering the question. "It's.. . not that simple. Take orders from him? No. He is not their commander, nor even part of the central leadership the way Gretchen Richter or Gunther Achterhof or Spartacus are. In some ways, in fact, I sense that there is considerable distrust on both sides. Stearns, that the CoCs will behave foolishly; the CoCs, that Stearns is too much the politician, too much the compromiser. But they listen to him, Amalie, you can be sure of that."

"Yes, I suppose." The hand at her throat began to massage it gently. Then, much more softly, she laughed herself. "And can you blame them? Whatever else, he's a canny bastard."

She leaned forward, drew aside the curtain on her side with a finger, and peered into the darkness. "What do you think he's told them?"

"I have no idea," replied her husband gloomily. "But, as you say, whatever it is, it will be canny."

When he wanted to be, Gunther Achterhof could be as ferocious as any man alive. No trace of his usual sardonic humor was in evidence here and now. The hard face that gazed upon the subordinate commanders gathered for their final instructions was that of the refugee who, years earlier, had fled from his destroyed town to Magdeburg across half of Germany-and left a trail of dead and mutilated mercenaries behind him. He'd come into the city holding a bag full of their severed noses, ears and genitals.

"Remember, the known anti-Semites and witch-hunters only-and the line has been clearly drawn. All of you have your lists and you must stick to the names on those lists. Any column which violates that directive will be severely punished."

Gretchen Richter spoke then. For a wonder, this time she was a mollifying voice.

"Look, fellows, we know you'll find it hard to resist striking all of the reactionaries." She threw a disgusted glance at one of the windows in the building. Even at the distance-they were about a mile from the palace-the sounds of the Crown Loyalist celebration could be faintly heard. "And it's not that the swine don't deserve it. But they won this victory playing by the rules, so if we go after them we'll just make ourselves look like criminals or would-be tyrants. Neither of which we are."

She paused, scanning the faces to see if anyone seemed doubtful or questioning.

But no one did, so she continued. "So you don't touch them-well, at least not unless they attack you first and it's clearly a matter of self-defense. But so long as a nobleman keeps his armed retainers quiet and the city patricians and guildmasters do the same with their militias, we will leave them alone. We will not even so much as snarl in their direction. Just tip your hats politely and go about your business. Instead, we will destroy the illegitimate arm of reaction, that no one tries to defend openly, but which all the reactionaries lean upon, even if only as a veiled threat. Within a week-well, two or three, in some of the provinces-that arm will have been amputated."

One of the column commanders grinned. "By the day after tomorrow, in this province."

That drew a chuckle from a number of the men. Of course, in some ways it was an empty boast. Magdeburg province hadn't had much in the way of organized anti-Semitic groups or witch-hunts in quite some time. The city, none at all.

Gretchen smiled. "You'd best leave, then. Some of you have a long way to go."

After they were gone, a side door opened and Francisco Nasi emerged from one of the small rooms adjoining the big central one. He hadn't been hiding, exactly. Given the nature of the lists that every one of those commanders had been given, only a very dim-witted one would have failed to understand that Richter and Achterhof had the quiet support of Stearns and his spymaster. True, the Committees of Correspondence had their own lists of known anti-Semitic organizations and prominent activists. But those lists were nothing compared to the meticulously detailed records that Nasi had compiled over the past year and a half.

Still, good habits were worth maintaining for their own sake.

"Mecklenburg?" asked Gunther.

"The orders have been transmitted," said Francisco. "To Pomerania as well, although that'll obviously take more time to unfold."

The orders had already been sent to all the other provinces and imperial cities. But Mecklenburg and Pomerania required more circumspection. They also had army radio posts, with reliable operators. But since both provinces were directly administered by the Swedes, with the emperor himself as their duke, they had a higher proportion than usual of Swedish soldiers. In fact, the provinces were used as training areas where the up-timer soldiers could train Gustav Adolf's own forces how to use the new technology.

There were not very many Swedes in the Committees of Correspondence. Swedish soldiers were not actively hostile to the CoCs, as a rule, they just didn't find them particularly relevant to their own situation. There was no great social unrest in Sweden. In fact, the emperor-just a king, to the Swedes-was quite popular among his countrymen.

"It's done, then," said Gretchen. Her expression suddenly became rather disgruntled. "I wish I was out there myself."

Nasi smiled. "Surely you're not that bloodthirsty?"

She gave him a cold look. "Henry Dreeson brought some real happiness-well, contentment, at least-to my grandmother. Who needed it, if ever a woman did. And now, she's a widow again. So do not presume to think how bloody I might like to be, if I could have all my wishes."

Achterhof made an impatient gesture. "Cut it out, Gretchen. You're needed here, at headquarters, and you know it perfectly well."

He was right, and she knew it. But she still wished she could be leading one of those fierce columns, beginning to spread across the Germanies. Many, from the capital cities of the provinces. Some, from other strongholds.

By dawn tomorrow, there would be no known anti-Semitic agitators or groups in Luebeck or Hamburg. By dawn of the next day, none within fifty miles of those cities. A week from now, none within a hundred miles or more.

There weren't very many in Thuringia, anyway. But whatever there were, would all be gone by then also.

Franconia would take longer. Anti-Semitism had deep roots there. But the Ram had more experience with armed struggle than the usual CoCs, and quite recent experience. Franconia would be scoured clean, soon enough-and probably scoured more thoroughly than anywhere. Constantin Ableidinger and his closest associates were handling the matter directly.

Elsewhere, the process would be more ragged. In some places-Hesse-Kassel and Brunswick-the local committees had been instructed not to push matters to an open confrontation with the official authorities. Just… strike some hard blows, and then pull back and see. It was quite possible that Landgrave William and Duke Georg would decide to finish the job themselves, once they realized the peril of doing otherwise. The landgraves of Hesse-Kassel had never allowed anti-Semitism much leeway anyway, not for centuries. And Duke Georg was now far too reliant on Jewish financing for his booming new petroleum industry to have any truck with the anti-Semitic swine either.

But, however long it took, and however it was done, it would be done. That long-festering boil in German politics would be lanced, finally. Crushed; shattered; destroyed; drowned in its own blood and gore. Reaction would have to make do thereafter without that sturdy support. And the same with witch-hunting.

And-best of all, from Gretchen's viewpoint-by the time it was all over the Committees of Correspondence would have been transformed. For the first time, that often fractious and disorganized movement would have acted coherently, in unison, on a national scale. And in a directly military manner.

There was no way to know what the future might bring. But whatever came, the CoCs would be ready for it.

Francisco still had his doubts. But…

First, he did understand the reasoning, as Mike Stearns had laid it out. Harsh and cold that reasoning might be-even cruel, you could fairly say. Within two weeks, the Germanies would have several thousand more corpses than they would have had otherwise.

But Francisco didn't question the reasoning. Like his employer, Nasi had now spent a great deal of time studying the history of another universe. Not, as many foolish people did, because he thought he could predict the future in this one, but simply to find the underlying patterns. The logic of developments, as it were.

One thing was clear. Anti-Semitism had always played an important role in European politics, but the phenomenon could be quirkier than it looked. Francisco had been quite fascinated to discover, for instance, that during the Holocaust the two safest places for a Jew in those parts of Europe under the Nazis had been Italy and Bulgaria-both of which had fascist governments themselves.

He still didn't know the reasons for that, beyond the fact itself, in the case of Bulgaria. Grantville's records concerning Bulgarian history were essentially non-existent, and even that seemingly endless fount of historical knowledge Melissa Mailey had admitted she knew hardly anything on the subject.

But Grantville's records on Italian history were quite good. Not surprisingly, given the high percentage of its inhabitants who came from Italian stock. And the logic in the case of Italy was quite clear, once you knew where to look.

In Germany, anti-Semitism had become a tool of the emerging nationalist movement and became an integral part of it. One of the early nationalist leader Father Jahn's complaints against the foreign tyrant Napoleon had been that the French bastard prevented the Germans from indulging in their ancient custom of pogroms.

The logic developed in an opposite manner, in Italy. There, anti-Semitism was seen as a tool of the papacy-and it was the papacy and the papal states who were the principal internal obstacles to Italian unification. As it emerged, therefore, Italian nationalism was deeply hostile to anti-Semitism. Where Germany's Father Jahn had stirred up anti-Semitism, one of the first acts of the revolutionists in the great 1848 revolution in Rome had been to tear down the walls of the ghetto.

So. Who was to say that the rise of German nationalism in this universe couldn't develop in a nicely Latin manner?

Not Francisco Nasi. Who was, after all, himself a Jew.

He began humming a tune.

"Catchy," commented Achterhof. "What is it?"

"Oh, it's an up-time melody. Composed by a fellow named Verdi."

And then, of course, there was the second reason. Whatever doubts Francisco might have had were simply overwhelmed by the delightful possibility that opened up in the course of the final discussion between himself and Stearns and the CoC leaders.

"We need a name for this operation," Gretchen had said at one point. "Something striking and memorable."

Mike scratched his chin, thoughtfully.

It came to Francisco, in a flash. And by the sudden change of expression on Stearns' face, to him as well. They exchanged glances, and much as the poet said:

Looked at each other with a wild surmise -

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

"I have it," said Francisco. "You should call it 'Operation Krystalnacht.' "

"Absolutely," said Mike.

Gretchen and Gunther and Spartacus rolled the name around.

"Krystalnacht," mused Achterhof. "I like it. It's catchy and memorable. 'Crystal Night.' It doesn't make any sense, but I like it."

"Krystalnacht' it is, then," said Gretchen.

Later, when the two of them were alone, Mike shook his head. "I can't believe we did that."

"Don't be silly," said Francisco. "It's perfect."