Ableidinger snorted again. "Say better, riot, rebellion and revolution."
Rebecca ignored him. "-while most of the reliable military forces available in the USE are off fighting the Poles and what is left of Brandenburg. And she must have persuaded Wettin of that, as well."
She cocked her head slightly. "As for the question of 'how long,' I think the answer is the same. Wilhelm will stall his allies until he feels he has a secure military force at his disposal."
Werner von Dalberg grimaced skeptically. "I don't know, Rebecca. Given the realities of the USE's own army, 'secure military force' means Gustav Adolf and his Swedes. And I need hardly remind anyone here that the"-he took a dramatically deep breath-"king of Sweden, emperor of the United States of Europe and high king of the Union of Kalmar does not take orders from Wilhelm Wettin. His chancellor Axel Oxenstierna may be a resolute supporter of aristocratic privileges and power, but Gustav Adolf himself is not."
Helene made a little face. "It would probably be more accurate to say that while Gustav Adolf agrees with Oxenstierna in the abstract, he is far more flexible in the concrete."
Ableidinger looked back and forth between them. "Meaning? Please remember, I'm a simple country boy."
"What it means," Rebecca interjected, "is that the king, emperor, high king etc. etc. is far more interested in maintaining his position as the preeminent monarch in Europe-which he certainly is today, even if the Habsburgs might shriek to hear it-than he is in supporting the petty perquisites of every nobleman and patrician in the Germanies."
"Not so petty as all that," said Ableidinger.
"They're petty from Gustav Adolf's standpoint, Constantin," said Dalberg. "He simply doesn't have Oxenstierna's rigidity on the matter. It's obvious, especially if you watch what he does rather that what he says. Is Gustav Adolf going to risk losing his control over the USE-which is now the heart of his power, don't forget, not Sweden and certainly not Denmark-because a pack of Hochadel and Niederadel and city and town patricians can't bear to lose their right to lord it over their lessers? I don't think so."
For all his frequent claims of being a rural bumpkin, Ableidinger was just as politically astute as anyone else in the room. "What you're suggesting, in short, is that the Crown Loyalists are at an impasse. Tied up in knots, as I believe the up-timers say." He smiled. "None of whom, of course, are in the room to correct my possible misquotation."
"That has always been the logic of the situation," said Rebecca. "But it is nice to see that the landgravine has apparently been able to get the prime minister to finally see it."
"To put it another way," said Strigel, "you think there will be no major changes in the political equation until something gets resolved on the military front."
"Precisely."
Rebecca's normal serenity seemed perhaps a bit frayed at the edges. Her hands were now clasped on the table in front of her.
"I understand that congratulations are in order," said Constantin. "With regard to your husband's exploits at Zwenkau."
"Hardly that." She unclasped her hands long enough to make a little wiggling gesture with the fingers of her right. "Michael tells me he did very little except to avoid doing anything stupid."
Ableidinger studied her, for a moment. He didn't miss the speed at which the hands got reclasped. "Perhaps so. But I suspect being a successful general is not as simple as it seems."
Berlin
"We are agreed, then," Gustav Adolf concluded. Standing at the head of the long row of tables that had been set up for the conference, he nodded to Mike Stearns, who was seated four chairs down on the king's left side. "As soon as we defeat the Poles and Brandenburgers in a major battle, General Stearns will take his division to Bohemia. Wallenstein has been requesting our support for months. He fears the Austrians will soon invade."
Gustav Adolf smiled, a bit crookedly. "Personally, I think his fears are excessive. On the other hand, by stationing the Third Division in Bohemia we will certainly forestall any possibility the Austrians might send troops to aid that bastard Wladyslaw."
The last phrase was spoken with real venom. There was a long-standing grudge between the two branches of the Vasa family. The one that ruled Poland felt-with some justification-that it had been swindled out of its rightful claim to the throne of Sweden. For their part, the Vasas who ruled Sweden resented the accusation with the bitterness felt by all usurpers who have convinced themselves they are the rightful heirs. It was a large part of the reason Mike had found Gustav Adolf so unrelenting on the subject of restarting a war with Poland.
As the Swedish king moved on to recapitulate some of the other major decisions made at the conference, Mike pondered the decision that affected him directly.
He was sure that the decision had been dictated by political considerations more than military ones. The Achilles heel of the new USE regime was the allegiance of the military. A very large portion of the soldiers in the army, possibly even a majority, had been recruited by organizers from the Committees of Correspondence. And while the navy and air force had much less of a CoC influence in the ranks, a disproportionate role was played in their leadership by up-timers. In fact, the commanding officers of both services were Americans.
That meant that if the Wettin regime tried to force through the reactionary program demanded by most of its factions, it ran the risk of provoking an open rebellion which, in turn, might very well trigger off a mutiny in the armed forces. The only reliable military units that would leave Wettin would be the king's own Swedish troops-most of whom were actually mercenaries, and most of those from the Germanies-and the forces fielded by some of the provincial rulers. Hesse-Kassel, for instance, had a rather powerful army.
But Hesse-Kassel was here in Berlin, not in Magdeburg-and so were most of his soldiers. In fact, he was sitting across from Mike at this very table, two seats up. Wilhelm V had left just enough troops at home to provide his wife Amalie Elizabeth with a minimal military force.
From the standpoint of the Crown Loyalists and their Swedish allies centered around Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, the situation was close to intolerable. But so long as the Swedish king himself refused to support any drastic measures, they did not have many options.
They did have a few, though. Mike couldn't prove it, but he was certain that his future assignment to Bohemia was a bone that Gustav Adolf had thrown Oxenstierna and Wettin. He'd remove one-third of the USE's unreliable army from the equation by sending it off to Prague-or Ceske Budejovice in the south, more likely-and the one-third commanded by the most notorious leader of the opposition, at that.
"-quiet situation in the Oberpfalz, we will transfer Ernst Wettin and Johan Baner to Saxony to take charge of the province until its final disposition can be decided. They are an experienced and proven team."
And there was another politically-motivated decision. It was true, in and of itself, that Ernst Wettin as political administrator and Johan Baner as the commander of the military had done a good job of stabilizing the Oberpfalz and beating back the Bavarians. But while no one would have any objections to the prime minister's younger brother being appointed the political administrator of Saxony, the same was not true of Baner.
Ernst Wettin was a judicious, fair-minded and reasonable man, by all accounts Mike had ever heard including from Ed Piazza. The Swedish general, on the other hand-also by all accounts he'd heard, including from Americans who'd dealt with the man-was a pigheaded, narrow-minded militarist whose openly-stated opinion on how to deal with the CoCs was to execute the lot of them.
Sending him to Saxony, given the inevitable turmoil that would soon ensue in the province, was not much different from pouring gasoline on an open flame.
Gustav Adolf was perfectly aware of Baner's characteristics and limitations. Baner was the kind of general whom any sensible ruler placed in positions where his undoubted military skills would be of use but which were not politically sensitive. Again, Mike was sure Gustav Adolf was tossing Wettin and Oxenstierna a bone.