1635: The Eastern Front

Chapter 26

The south bank of the Odra river, near Zielona Gora

"I don't want a repeat of what happened in Swiebodzin, Captain Higgins. If you have to, shoot somebody. If that doesn't work, shoot a lot of somebodies. Shoot as many as it takes until they cease and desist. Is that understood?"

Mike Stearns was still icily furious, as he'd been for the last two days. Jeff had never seen him in such a state of mind.

Swiebodzin had been hideous, though, sure enough. Some of the Finnish auxiliary cavalry that Gustav Adolf had attached to the Third Division had run amok once they got into the town and got their hands on some of the local vodka, the stuff they called "bread wine." They started sacking the town, with the atrocities that went with it. To make things worse, a couple of companies from an infantry battalion joined in. By the time Mike was able to put a stop to it, half the town had burned down and at least three dozen Polish civilians had been murdered and that many women had been raped. Nine of the dead were children. So were six of the raped girls, including one who was not more than eight years old.

There'd been about twenty of the rioting soldiers who'd been too stupid or too drunk to hide once order starting getting restored. Mike's way of disciplining those soldiers caught in the act had shocked the entire division. He'd had them tied to a wooden fence in a nearby pasture and executed by volley gun batteries at what amounted to point blank range. There hadn't been a single intact corpse left. They'd just gathered up all the pieces and shoved them into a mass grave.

Some of the Finns started to fight back, but Mike soon put a stop to that also. He had his own cavalry now, and they weren't fond of the Finns to begin with. Eight of the Finns were killed outright, and about forty deserted. Mike didn't bother to chase them. A few dozen light cavalrymen simply couldn't survive for very long in a countryside that was as hostile as western Poland. Sooner or later they'd have no choice but to turn themselves in to one of the army units. Of course, they'd choose one of Gustav Adolf's Swedish regiments rather than returning to the USE Third Division. But Mike would deal with that problem when the time came.

The reason the Third Division now had its own cavalry regiment was because Gustav Adolf had decided to march into Poland in six different columns. Dividing his forces like that was risky, of course, but he hadn't really had much choice given that he was determined to move quickly. Marching fifty thousand men through country that had no travel routes except dirt roads and cow trails made spreading out a necessity. Gustav Adolf figured he could take the risk because the six columns were close enough to be able to reinforce each other fairly quickly.

The northernmost column was made up of units representing about half of his own Swedish forces, under the command of Heinrich Matthias von Thurn. That column's mission was to invest the town of Gorzow from the north, while Wilhelm V and his Hesse-Kassel army would approach Gorzow along the south bank of the Warta river, one of the tributaries of the Oder. Between them, they should be able to take the town. A large part of the population was Lutheran and Gustav Adolf thought they'd be happy to switch sides.

Gustav Adolf himself led the third column, marching south of Hesse-Kassel. That army consisted of the rest of the Swedish army-and all of the APCs. Gustav Adolf's column was going straight for Poznan, the principal city in western Poland. "Going straight," that is, insofar as the terrain allowed. Like most of Poland, the area was quite flat. But it was also quite wet, with lots of winding streams; and while it didn't have the profusion of lakes characteristic of northeast Poland it still had a fair number.

Thankfully, they were mostly little ones. Still, one of the things Mike's short experience as a general had taught him was the geographic variation on Clausewitz's dictum. Terrain that doesn't look too tough is a lot tougher than it looks when you have to move ten thousand men through it. And keep them in some reasonable semblance of order. And provide them with a secure and hopefully dry place to sleep at night, with proper sanitation. And feed them. And do all that while being prepared at any moment to fight the enemy.

Gustav Adolf had put himself in charge of that middle column because he was sure that Koniecpolski would have to defend Poznan. So he would come straight at him while Torstensson and two of the USE army's three divisions would approach Poznan from the southwest.

That left Mike in charge of the sixth and southernmost column. His job was to take and hold Zielona Gora, thereby providing the Swedish and USE forces with a secure southern anchor. Zielona Gora would also serve later as the base for moving down the Odra to take Wroclaw.

The area they were operating in was a border region that, over the centuries, had been controlled at various times by Poland, Brandenburg and Austria. In the timeline the Americans came from, it might well have been in German hands at this time. Many of these border cities had converted to Lutheranism and gotten out from under Polish Catholic control.

In the here and now, however, Poland had taken advantage of the CPE and later the USE's preoccupation with internal affairs and the war against the League of Ostend to reassert its authority over the area. Brandenburg had tacitly acquiesced, probably because George William had figured he might someday need Polish support. The border between Polish and German lands now ran along the Oder-Neisse line just as it had in Mike's universe after World War II. The Odra was completely within Polish territory and Breslau was back to being Wroclaw.

Gustav Adolf didn't expect Stearns would run into severe opposition. Koniecpolski had fewer forces than Gustav Adolf did, and he'd be hard-pressed to detach any large force to come to the assistance of Zielona Gora. In essence, the king of Sweden had given Mike the easiest and most straightforward assignment. But in order for him to carry out that assignment, Torstensson had had to give Mike one of his cavalry regiments, so he wouldn't be operating blind. The weather was erratic enough this time of year that the Air Force's ability to fly reconnaissance missions couldn't always be counted on.

"Is that understood, Captain Higgins?" Mike repeated.

Jeff nodded. "Yes, sir. But…?ah…"

Mike waited, with a cocked eyebrow.

Jeff took a deep breath. "Why me, Mike? Ah, sir."

For the first time since Jeff had arrived at the Third Division's field headquarters, Mike's expression lightened a little. Not much, but Jeff was still glad to see it, he surely was. He'd known Mike Stearns most of his life. This was the first time the man had ever scared him. Really scared him. An enraged Mike Stearns bore no resemblance at all to the man Jeff had grown accustomed to.

"Why you? It ought to be obvious, Jeff. You're the one commander I've got who's guaranteed to put the fear of God in every man in this division."

Jeff stared at him. He was trying to make sense of that last sentence and coming up blank.

"Huh?"

"That's 'huh, sir.' For Pete's sake, Jeff, do you think there's one single soldier in this division who doesn't know you're Gretchen Richter's husband?"

"Huh? Uh, sir."

"Talk about the innocence of babes. I can guarantee you that at one time or another every soldier in this division has wondered what she sees in you and come to the conclusion that you must have one huge pair of brass balls. Given that she makes kings and dukes shit their pants."

Mike shook his head. "So do they really want to run the risk of pissing you off, Captain Higgins? No, Colonel Higgins, rather. Now that I think about it, I'll have to jump you up to lieutenant colonel since I'm going to put a whole regiment under your command."

"Huh? Ah… Huh, sir. Mike-General, I just got put in charge of a battalion three months ago, and now you want to hand me a whole regiment? But-but-"

He was spluttering a little, he was so agitated. "But, first of all-uh, sir-we don't have the rank of lieutenant colonel in the USE army. And second of all-uh, meaning no disrespect, sir-but which regiment are you planning to give me? I mean, that's really gonna piss off whichever colonel-real colonel-you take it away from." He took another deep breath. "Sir," he added, not knowing what else to say. He didn't think Mike would have him put up in front of a volley gun, but…

Mike smiled. There was no humor at all in it, but it beat a scowl hands down. "I'm a major general, Colonel Higgins. That means I can do damn near anything I want. I can sure as hell create the brevet rank of 'lieutenant colonel' for a special purpose. Just to keep all the other colonels happy, you'll stay at a captain's pay grade."

"Thank you, sir. I'd appreciate that. I, ah, don't actually need the money anymore."

Mike's smile widened. There still wasn't any humor in it, though. "As for your other objection, I'm not planning to give you any existing regiment. I'm creating a new one. It'll consist of your Twelfth Battalion, and a battalion taken from the Gray Adder regiment. That'll leave them a rump regiment, and ask me if I care, since they're the shitheads who let two of their companies run wild."

Jeff swallowed. Mike had had the major in command of that battalion executed also, along with the captains in command of the two companies-although he'd done them the courtesy of using a regular firing squad, not the volley guns. Then he'd broken every officer in the battalion to the ranks and replaced them with newly promoted sergeants from other battalions.

As a display of savage discipline, Jeff thought the ghosts of Roman tribunes past were applauding somewhere. The whole division was in something of a state of shock. Until Swiebodzin, Stearns had seemed like a very easy-going sort of general.

"Then I'm giving you Captain Engler's flying artillery company instead of a regular artillery unit. For the purpose of your new regiment, he fits the bill perfectly."

Stearns had used Engler's unit to carry out the executions. Between that and the man's well-known composure at Ahrensbok and Zwenkau, everyone in the division would take him dead seriously. Nobody made jokes any longer about "the Count of Narnia."

Well, Eric Krenz probably still did. Jeff wondered how he was doing. And then wondered who he'd put in charge of the 12th now that he was being kicked upstairs. Krenz would have been his natural replacement as battalion commander, but he wasn't available and Jeff had no idea when or if he might be.

"Your new regiment will fight alongside all the others in a battle," Mike continued. "But it has a special function as well whenever I call on it. You're the unit I'll be depending on to keep everyone else in line. Do you understand me, Colonel Higgins? I want no repetition of Swiebodzin. Ever."

Jeff looked around. They were holding this private conversation in one of the rooms of the small village tavern Mike had taken for his field headquarters. "Taken" as in "expropriated," although no one had gotten hurt because the people who owned the tavern along with everyone in the village had fled before the division arrived.

You could hardly blame them. The news of Swiebodzin had spread widely and rapidly. But the expropriation of the tavern itself illustrated the fundamental problem, which was practical at its very core.

It would be nice if atrocities resulted solely and simply from the wickedness of men. Were that true, they could be suppressed by the simple use of harsh discipline. Unfortunately, the world was more complicated-and if Mike Stearns didn't understand that, Jeff would have to explain it to him.

He hesitated, and took another deep breath.

To hell with it. If he shoots me, he shoots me.

And to hell with military protocol, too.

"Mike, this ain't gonna work. Sure, I can probably put a stop to crazy shit like what happened at Swiebodzin. But that's just the tip of the iceberg-and you oughta know it. We have to get supplies. And how are we going to do that? We've already pretty much run out of what we brought with us from Berlin. That means foraging, and foraging means stealing, and the way Koniecpolski's been running us ragged there's no way to round up enough supplies except to send out lots and lots of foraging parties and there's no way in hell you or me or anybody can stay in control of that and before you know it some cavalry unit or some infantry squad is going to kill a farmer who squawks too much when they take his one of his pigs and then they're likely to rape his wife or daughter or likely both and kill the rest of the kids while they're at it. And what good is my shiny new regiment gonna be?"

Mike put a hand on Jeff's shoulder. "Relax. I know the realities of this kind of warfare and I'm going to start taking some steps to ameliorate it. I don't expect perfection, Jeff. I know there'll be incidents. And even if I come down on them as I hard as I did after Swiebodzin-and you can bet your sweet ass I will-some of those crimes will go unpunished because there's no one left alive to report them except the culprits and they sure as hell won't. But that's still not the same thing as wholesale slaughter. That, we can control-with your new regiment."

Jeff took another deep breath, and slowly blew it out. "Okay, then. We'll need a name."

Somehow or other, the tradition had gotten started in the USE army of using names instead of numbers for the regiments. The names had no official existence, but nobody except idiot accountants used the regiments' numbers anymore.

"Call it the Death Watch," said Mike. "Better yet, call it the Hangman."

Jeff thought about it, for a few seconds. "The guys'll probably like that, actually. Well, the ones in the regiment, anyway. Don't know about the others."

"Yeah, I think you're right."

They were silent, for another few seconds. Then Jeff said, "Off the record, Mike, you know how fucked up that is?"

For the first time, a trace of humor crept into Mike's smile. "The Ring of Fire didn't cut us any slack, did it?"

After Mike finished explaining what he wanted, David Bartley frowned. The young financier-turned-army-lieutenant stared at the surface of the table he and Mike were sitting at, in the back room of the tavern that Mike was using for his headquarters. His eyes didn't seem quite in focus.

"Pretty tricky, sir," he said after perhaps a minute. "There's no chance of using TacRail like we did in the Luebeck campaign?"

Mike shook his head. "We're not fighting French and Danes here, Lieutenant Bartley. Leaving aside his own cavalry, Koniecpolski's got several thousand Cossacks under his command. They're probably the best mounted raiders in Eurasia, except for possibly the Tatars. TacRail units would get eaten alive before they'd laid more than a few miles of track, unless we detailed half our battalions to guard them. Which we can't afford to do."

Bartley nodded. "That leaves what you might call creative financing."

"That's what I figured-and it's why I called you in."

The lieutenant looked unhappy. "The regular quartermasters are already kinda mad at me, sir. If I-"

"Don't worry about it. To begin with, I'm pulling you out of the quartermaster corps altogether. You'll be in charge of a new unit which I'm calling the Exchange Corps."

"Exchange? Exchange what, exactly?"

Mike gave David the same humorless grin he'd given Jeff an hour earlier. "That's for you to figure out. Whatever you can come up with that'll enable us to obtain supplies from the locals without completely pissing them off. No way not to piss them off at all, of course. But the Poles have had as much experience with war over the last thirty years as the Germans. They'll take things philosophically enough as long we aren't killing and raping and burning and taking so much that people die over the winter."

Again, Bartley went back to staring at the table top with unfocussed eyes.

"Okay," he said eventually. "I've got some ideas. But I'll need a staff, General. Not too big. Just maybe three or four clerks and, ah, one sort of specialist. His name's Sergeant Beckmann. Well, Corporal Beckmann, now. I got him his stripe back but then he ran afoul of-well, never mind the details-and got busted back to corporal."

"Where is he now? And what sort of specialist is he?"

"He's right here in the Third Division, sir. One of the quartermasters in von Taupadel's brigade. As for his specialty… Well, basically he's a really talented swindler."

Mike laughed. And then realized it was the first time he'd laughed since he saw the carnage in the streets of Swiebodzin.

"Okay, you got him-and we'll give the man back his sergeant's stripe. May as well, since I'm promoting you to captain."

David looked very pleased. That was just another of the many peculiar results of the Ring of Fire, Mike thought. Take a rural teenage kid and put him somewhere he can become a millionaire-but he still gets a bigger charge out of getting a promotion to a rank whose monthly salary was about what he earned in three hours of playing the stock market.

The Ring of Fire might not have cut anyone any slack, but here and there it had certainly played favorites.