1636： The Saxon Uprising ARC - By Eric Flint Page 0,17

counter-revolution.”

“Can you summarize?” asked Helene Gundelfinger.

“If I may,” interjected Ed Piazza, looking at Rebecca. “I’ve just finished examining the question.”

She nodded and leaned back, trying not to smile. She was quite sure that the president and vice-president of the SoTF were operating in tandem here and that Helene’s question has been pre-arranged.

Piazza and Gundelfinger got along very well.

Chapter 5

“Here’s the way it stands, as best as I can figure.” Ed rose from his chair and went over to the wall of the room facing the windows. Where portraits would normally be placed on such a wall in most townhouses of this size, hung instead a very large map of the United States of Europe.

There was a wand hanging from a hook next to the map. Ed picked it up and began pointing with it.

“As I said earlier, we have to assume that the SoTF and the Oberpfalz will be pre-occupied with Bavaria.” He swung the tip of the wand northwest to indicate Hesse-Kassel. “And we figure that, for her own reasons, Amalie Elisabeth will keep her province neutral. That brings us to the heart of the opposition’s strength, which today is in Brandenburg.”

The wand now pointed to the northeastern province’s capital, Berlin. “Oxenstierna has somewhere in the vicinity of twenty thousand Swedish troops here, just about as many men as Torstensson has in his two USE divisions facing Koniecpolski at Poznan. Those are professional soldiers, skilled and experienced, and will do whatever Chancellor Oxenstierna tells them to do.”

He swept the wand back and forth across the entire country. “Some provinces with strong and moderate rulers like Hesse-Kassel and Brunswick will try to keep their reactionaries under control. Westphalia too, for somewhat different reasons. But even they won’t succeed entirely. In provinces under direct Swedish control like Pomerania, the Main and the Upper Rhine, they won’t try at all. In fact, you can be sure and certain that Oxenstierna will be doing all he can to whip them up, especially the Mecklenburg noblemen in exile.”

“You’re still talking in terms of paramilitary units, though, aren’t you?” asked Anselm Keller. “Not much different, really, from the sort of forces the CoCs can put in the field.”

“Yes…and no. I agree with Becky that the CoCs are overconfident because of their success with Kristallnacht. But there they were fighting only the most extreme anti-Semitic reactionaries. They made it a point not to attack—and the favor was returned in kind—what you might call the more standard sort of reactionaries. Local noblemen, town patricians, guild masters, the like. That meant that they didn’t often come up against regular militias with experienced and seasoned leadership. When they do—which they most certainly will in the event of a full civil war—they’re going to discover things are a lot tougher for them.”

He paused for a moment, studying the map. “Still, if the war was simply fought between the CoCs and the sort of forces that provincial and local reactionaries could put in the field, I’d bet on the CoCs. Hands down, in fact. The CoCs possess a truly national organization with a national program, where the reactionaries are a sack of potatoes. A collection of inveterate squabblers with a thousand petty privileges to defend and twice that number of petty grievances to avenge. If the CoCs in one province get into trouble, CoC columns from elsewhere will come to their aid—as they did in Mecklenburg during Kristallnacht. Rarely will you see provincial reactionaries behaving likewise. There’s simply no comparison in terms of leadership, especially on the national level. On the one side, you have people like Gretchen Richter, Spartacus, Achterhof. And on the other?”

He shrugged. “It’s hard to even come up with names. Oxenstierna is a titan surrounded by toads. No, the real danger lies elsewhere. With regular armies, not irregular forces.”

Piazza moved the tip of the wand all the way across the nation to point to the southernmost province of Swabia. “There are three other large Swedish armies in the USE. The first is here in Swabia, under General Horn.”

Bugenhagen started to object but Piazza waved him down with the hand not holding the wand. “Please, Albert. Yes, I know Horn’s forces are legally part of the USE army, not the Swedish. In practice, though, Horn’s soldiers are mercenaries, not the sort of often-CoC-inspired volunteers that fill the ranks of Torstensson’s three divisions. They will do whatever Gustav Horn tells them to do, have no doubt about it.”

“And what do you think Horn will tell them to do?” asked