Duke Boleslaw V of Mazovia stood and pledged every man he had, about sixteen thousand of them. In the history books, he's called "the chaste" or "the bashful," depending on whether the particular historian liked him or not. The nickname had to do with his love life, not his fighting. At fifteen, he looked to be a hellraiser.
The Duke of Sandomierz followed suit, pledging twelve thousand men. Knighthood was not really well established in Sandomierz and Mazovia. The men fought in family groups rather than in feudal levies, and the concept of nobility was somewhat different. Not that it mattered much right now.
Duke Henryk announced that from Silesia, Great and Little Poland, he would lead twenty-nine thousand men into battle, over half of whom were knighted, and that he did not include in this total the infantry that I was training.
I was the only mere count who spoke at that council. I said that they all knew about the arms and armor that my men had made. Indeed, most of those present were wearing our products. They knew about the steamboats, but were surprised to learn that there would be three dozen of them on the Vistula alone. The aircraft were well known, and I spoke a bit on the advantages of aerial reconnaissance, until the duke motioned for me to hurry it up.
Then I announced the radios and told what they could do. I don't think anybody believed me! They'd all heard tales about my Warrior's School, but when I said that we would march out with a hundred fifty thousand fighting men, there were looks of stupid disbelief and a few people laughed. They simply didn't think in terms that large.
I was red-faced when I stepped down.
Nonetheless, there was a feeling of buoyancy and confidence in the room. We had the men, we had the power, we had allies coming in from all of Christendom!
Then Duke Henryk announced his battle plan and things started to fall apart. He said that all the foreign contingents, most of which were already on the way, would be gathering at Legnica, and that the rest of us should meet them there. We could then have a single, strong, unified army with which to advance eastward toward the Mongols.
The knights of Little Poland, Sandomierz, and Mazovia were not the least bit pleased by this plan! It meant that they would have to march hundreds of miles west, wait for the foreigners to arrive, and then march back again! And while this was going on, their own lands would be completely at the mercy of the Mongol invaders with no one to defend them!
Young Duke Boleslaw was the first on his feet, shouting. "Henryk, do you expect me to abandon my own duchy, my own people, to go off to your estates to defend your lands? Because if you do, you're crazy! My lands, and those of Sandomierz and Little Poland are in front of yours! The Tartars must go through us before they can touch your precious lands! It is you who should come and support us!"
Duke Henryk was on his feet. "We will come in your support! But don't you see that we must come together? If every man stands and defends his own manor, the Tartars will chew us up one by one in little bites! If we join together in a single army, we will be invincible! The choice of Legnica as a rallying point is the result of simple geography. It is the center point of all the knights who will be fighting on our side, the center of gravity, as Count Conrad would call it. Yes, it is on my lands, but it has to be on somebody's lands! Further, arrangements have already been made to feed and house the vast number of fighting men who will be gathering. Can any of you provide such a thing? Can Sandomierz or Plock feed so many men?"
"Merchants will come," Duke Boleslaw said. "They always do! I say that I will defend eastern Poland with my life! I will not run back for three hundred miles while my people are murdered! I will defend, and if you and your foreigners can come up in time to help me, I will be forever grateful to you. But if you are late, may God have mercy on you, because no one else will!"
And with that bit of bombast, the kid stomped out of the room, followed by all the men of Mazovia. After a few awkward moments, the Duke of Sandomierz stood and followed him, and in a few minutes, the hall was half empty. Even those men from Little Poland, men from the Cracow area who were personally sworn to Duke Henryk, had left. To them, the decision to be made was between abandoning their lands and peoples, or abandoning their oath to their duke. And they had made it. Even many still in the room seemed uncertain.
"Well," the duke said. "It seems that we must fight without them. But at least you men are with me, and Count Conrad's men outnumber by far all those that have left."
I had to stand. "Your grace, don't you see that I can't bring all my men to Legnica, either? I have a major force in my boats on the Vistula. I cannot bring those boats overland to the Odra. They must be used in eastern Poland or not be used at all! The aircraft will be far more useful than you now realize, but we only have one airport! That airport is near Okoitz, which is east of Legnica, and if it is overrun, the planes are useless! My infantry needs the railroads to travel quickly. We have built extensive tracks along the Vistula and through the Malapolska Hills, the area that we will need to defend first. If we can win there, western Poland is safe. But the railroad net is thin in western Poland and nonexistent in many areas. We haven't had time to expand it yet. My men can not effectively fight in western Poland!"
"So. You, too, Conrad?"
"Your grace, I am not abandoning you, but don't you realize what the radios and the rails mean? It is not necessary for all of us to be in the same spot for us to be together! With good communications, we can work in concert even though we are hundreds of miles apart."
"Count Conrad, I don't understand what you're saying. But what I do know is that every man true to me will join me at Legnica before the first of March!"
With that he got up and left, and the council of war was never called again. Instead of one Polish Army, there were now three of them. Those in the east under Duke Boleslaw, those in the west under Duke Henryk, and those men sworn to me. We were in pieces before the Mongols had even arrived.
Chapter Fourteen
There wasn't much time for marital bliss. Not with the war just weeks away. Francine moved into Hell with me, but that was only temporary. The. place for her when it started was Three Walls, only she didn't see it that way. She had visions of herself being a female power behind the throne.
We were arguing about that one night in bed. "Look, love. Three Walls is my home. It's where I normally live and work. It's also my biggest installation, and my best defended. On top of all that, it's the one farthest back. Before the Mongols dare attack it, they must first destroy East Gate. Then they must take out Sir Miesko's formidable manor, as well as Hell, or they have an enemy at their rear. They'd even be well advised to destroy Okoitz before they tried to take Three Walls. It's a matter of simple geography."
"Geography, yes. But not politics. It would be best if I were in Cracow. There I can do you some good."
"I don't need you to do me any good. I need you to be alive. You will have a much better chance of staying that way at Three Walls."
"You have no feeling for the politics of the situation."
"I don't give a damn about the politics of the situation! The city walls at Cracow are made of old crumbly bricks. They are only three stories high, and they are defended by only two dozen guns. Do you know what came into the office today? An order from the city fathers of Cracow for two thousand swivel guns, to be shipped immediately! They should have placed that order two years ago! Then it could have been filled! Now, I could fill it only by stripping the guns from the walls of other cities, and I won't do it!"