The Eastern Front(102)

One of the colonels frowned. That was Albert Zingre, a Swiss mercenary who commanded the 1st Brigade's Freiheit Regiment.

"Excuse me, General, but if Koniecpolski has come south, then he's left Gorzów undefended. Why not simply take the city and use its bridges? There are two of them, I believe."

Mike shook his head. "Von Thurn did take the city—only to discover that Polish engineers had destroyed the bridges two hours earlier."

The more he heard, the more Jeff was getting worried. What all this added up to was that the Polish grand hetman had launched his campaign as soon as the weather turned sour, which indicated superb planning on his part. Within less than two days, he'd then either destroyed or put out of action two-thirds of Gustav Adolf's own forces. And now, apparently, he was trying to move around what was left of the Swedish army in order to attack the USE Army. He was probably aiming for the most northerly of that army's three columns, Knyphausen's First Division. And if he caught the division before it got reinforced, he'd have a three-to-one or possibly even a four-to-one numerical superiority.

That assumed Koniecpolski had managed to keep his entire army concentrated, but Jeff figured that was a pretty safe bet given the man's track record thus far. What the grand hetman was doing was taking advantage of his enemy's dispersed formations in order to defeat them in detail.

The scheme wouldn't have worked in good weather, of course, since Gustav Adolf would have gotten wind of what Koniecpolski was up to almost at once. He'd had every available plane in the air force keeping up continuous reconnaissance in daylight hours since the campaign began. In retrospect, it was obvious that this was the reason Koniecpolski had been retreating before Gustav Adolf's advancing forces without putting up a major fight. He'd simply left garrisons in the major towns to delay his enemy and buy time in the hope that the weather would change—which, at this time of year, wasn't unlikely at all.

Jesus H. Christ. It was one thing to read about "great captains of war," it was another thing entirely to have to face one of the damn monsters.

All this time, without realizing it consciously, Jeff had been reassured by the fact that he had one of the great captains on his side: Gustav Adolf. But even the greatest generals—maybe especially the greatest generals—could get too ambitious.

Remember Napoleon?

Jeff was pretty sure Gustav Adolf had been guilty of that. Instead of mounting a slower and more deliberate campaign, keeping his forces together instead of dividing them into half a dozen separated columns, he'd relied too much on his advantages and had underestimated his opponent.

"That's the situation, gentlemen," Mike said. "Torstensson is with the Second Division and he's bringing it up to reinforce Knyphausen. In the meantime, he's ordered Knyphausen to stand his ground and prepare for a battle. Gustav Adolf, of course, is moving his units south to join Knyphausen also."

Mike glanced at the windows along the upper walls. The tavern was in a half-basement, not a full basement. That normally allowed some light into the place, although with this sort of rain and overcast it was as dark as it would have been in late afternoon.

"In this weather, though, it's hard to know how long it'll take to get those forces together." Mike's jaws tightened for moment. "And there's another problem, which is that we have no good idea where Koniecpolski is right now. Whether by design or chance, he might wind up moving farther south than we expect, in which case he might come at us instead."

"If he does, so much the worse for him." That came from Colonel Leoš Hlavacek, the commander of the Teutoberg Regiment, which was also in the 1st Brigade. "We can hold Zielona Góra against him."

"We can certainly hold it long enough for Torstensson to arrive with the First and Second Divisions," Colonel Jan Svoboda chimed him. Like Hlavacek, he was one of the many Bohemian officers serving in the USE Army. He commanded the Yellow Marten regiment in Derfflinger's 3rd Brigade.

Mike shook his head. "General Torstensson's not worried about holding Zielona Góra. If we lose it, we lose it. He thinks it's more important for us to send as many men as we can to reinforce the 1st and 2nd Division. And that's what he's ordered me to do. So . . ."

Mike looked around the room. "We'll leave Brigadier Schuster and the 2nd Brigade here to hold the city as best they can if Koniecpolski shows up. And we'll also leave all of the regular artillery units. Their guns will be useful on defense, and there's no way we could move them fast enough through the muck out there anyway. Even after the weather clears, the ground will be soggy for days."

"What about the flying artillery?" asked Svoboda. "They'll be handy against hussars."