Finally, with spring planting done, it was time to clean the Teutonic Knights out of Mazovia. In my time, despite the fact that they were theoretically a branch of the Church, they had spent the winter of 1242 attacking the Christian Republic of Novgorod and had been beaten by Alexander Nevski in the famous Battle on the Ice. Well, Alex was spared both the trouble and the fame in this world. Here, the Crossmen had spent the winter recruiting more fighters and reinforcing their city-castle of Turon, which means "thorn," appropriately enough.
They had seen what we could do in a field battle but figured that they could stand siege against us. Nice. I'd been counting on that.
My people were all looking forward to the war, for the Crossmen never had worried about making themselves popular. They still made a practice of butchering entire villages and sparing only the adolescent children who brought good prices on the Moslem slave blocks. When I suggested that a single battalion would suffice to handle the Knights of the Cross, I nearly had a mutiny on my hands. Everybody wanted to go!
I didn't want to upset our production schedules, so I forbade the industrial workers to attend. They screamed, bitched, and cried, but I wouldn't back off. There were plenty of men working their farms, and the war would take place during the slack period between spring planting and the first hay harvest. Even so, there were too many volunteers, and I finally had Baron Vladimir set up a competition such that only the best fighters from each unit in the active reserves were allowed the privilege of going and risking their lives. It's strange the things some men will do for prestige.
Chapter Thirty-one
I took three battalions of reservists to the war, along with three of regulars, and made Baron Vladimir hetman in charge of all of them. This was far more troops than was required, but the pressure on me to let everybody go was pretty strong. Captains and barons were coming up with the damnedest reasons why it was necessary for them to participate even after I said that any booty taken would go first to defray expenses and that the rest would be divided out among the entire army. They didn't care. They still kept calling in old favors and trying to go.
Since it wasn't really going to be much of a fight, I took my four maidservants along, with plenty of creature comforts in a big rail car. Cilicia insisted on coming, too, and brought with her a troop of over fifty dancers and a dozen musicians. She knew of Duke Henryk's plans to invite many foreign observers, and she figured that they would want entertainment.
Over her fifty-megaton protests, Krystyana was left home to take care of the kids. Piotr wasn't going, and, well, somebody had to do it.
We had riverboats enough on the Vistula to carry two battalions with their war carts, but I wasn't about to commit more than a quarter of them to the war, not when they were making such profits providing civil transportation! Also, the boats were needed to transport construction materials for our extensive building program. Anyway, if the troops wanted to go that badly, let them walk!
And walk they did, nonstop in the army fashion, all the way to Plock and beyond to the edge of Crossman territory, where the railroads stopped. From there they were ferried downstream to Turon, where we found the city packed with German knights and the gates closed to us.
At first there was no opposition at all. A platoon of scouts scoured the countryside and found nothing but peaceful peasants, whom we left alone. Turon had no suburbs, being a military installation, so we had a clear field of fire all around the walls. We surrounded the city, dug fortifications, and set up housekeeping. Then we waited two days for Duke Henryk to arrive.
You see, Henryk was planning to make as much political hay out of this battle as possible, and he wanted as many foreign observers around as he could get. On the southwest side of the Vistula, across from Turon, we built a good-sized tent city for them, set up a river crossing boat, and assigned two companies of complaining warriors to guard the place and cook for our guests. The numbers of delegates arriving surprised even Henryk. Poland was big in the news, especially since our magazines were still the only newspapers. Many people wanted to see what we were doing for themselves.
Duke Henryk arrived on schedule with his two young sons, Henryk 111, a fine boy of thirteen, and Boleslaw, who was going bald at the age of eighteen, as well as their mother on a rare outing from her estate. But his dozens of delegations of observers straggled in, and another week went by before they had all gotten there.
Rather than let my warriors stand idle, I had half of our forces out preparing the beds for railroads while we waited, and construction companies were confidently extending the railroads downstream along the Vistula while the "war" was going on.
The tent city soon became a regular international village, with six separate groups coming from various states in the Holy Roman Empire, two from various factions in Bohemia, three from Hungary, two from Pomerania, and three from the various Danish principalities. Twenty men were sent up from Tsar Ivan Asen 11 of the Bulgarian Empire. A group arrived from France, personal emissaries from Louis IX, and even some Castilians from Spain.
There were delegations from all the tribes of the Pruthenians: Sambians, Natanoians, Warmians, Pogesanians, Pomeranians, Bartians, Galindians, and Skalovians. The Lithuanians came, headed by Prince Mendog, and the Lusatians were there, too. There was a delegation from Novgorod, headed by none other than Alexander Nevski, who doesn't look at all like he did in the movie. Furthermore, he was a noble prince, not a stalwart yeoman, as the old Russian motion picture would have it!
We even got a Welshman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman.
Prince Daniel was there with two groups from the Ruthenias, and Prince Swientopelk of Pomerania showed up in person. This surprised certain people, because it was claimed by some that he had engineered the assassinations of two Polish dukes. Duke Boleslaw the Pious and Duke Przemysl came, both of Great Poland and subordinate to Henryk, as did Duke Casimir of Kujawy, a small, still independent Polish duchy.
The Church was well represented by Bishop Ignacy of Cracow, plus the Polish bishops of Plock, Poznan, Wroclaw, Lubusz, Wloclawek, and Kamien, and the Archbishop of Gniezno, along with hundreds of minor clerics. Ignacy had even brought a printing press with him and was running off a four-page daily newspaper. The world's first! In short, everybody who was anybody in eastern Europe, and most of the rest of Christendom besides, was there or was represented, except for the Mongols. No, let me take that back. The handless Mongol ambassador I had given to Henryk was there as well, in a steel cage with a double door like an air lock. Henryk wasn't taking any chances with him.
There were so many delegates that we had to enlarge their camp twice, stripping tents from my troops and making the warriors double up. Four more unhappy companies were added to guard and cook for them.
The foreigners wandered around everywhere, inspecting the steamboats and the artillery, talking to the troops, and even visiting the Teutonic Knights, who were still holed up in their city.
While everyone was there for the nominal purpose of watching a battle, Henryk had countless meetings called every day, and every night was spent in feasting, drinking, and politicking. Cilicia's dancers were the big hit of the event, and two temporary Pink Dragon Inns were running on a standing-room-only basis. Baths and massage parlors were running at all hours of the day and night.