The Saxon Uprising-ARC

Chapter 50


The United States of Europe

All of the major newspapers in the country and many of the smaller ones came out with the story the next morning. It didn’t matter what day of the week they normally published. It didn’t matter whether they were morning papers or evening papers. Even if the edition was just a two-page special edition, nothing more than a broadsheet printed on both sides, they all published something.

The headlines varied from city to city and province to province, but the gist of them was essentially the same:

great battle at dresden

terrible casualties

the prince triumphant

swedish army routed

general banér killed in the fighting

siege of dresden lifted

The emphasis varied from one newspaper to another. Some stressed the drama and pathos of the terrible struggle in the middle of a snowstorm. Others focused more on the tactical details, still others on the political ramifications.

None of them were restrained. Purple prose was alive, well, thriving—you might even call it the kudzu of contemporary journalese—and most writers laid it on as thickly as they could.

Fussy and slavish devotion to the facts was the poorest of cousins. The claims made in the newspapers that day would by and large become fixed in the nation’s mythology. These in particular:

The Prince of Germany had waged a tactical masterpiece of a battle, anticipating his hapless Swedish opponent’s every move and thwarting him at every turn.

Colonel Higgins led his Hangman Regiment in the decisive charge that routed the Swedes. On horseback, waving his sword—and a fair number of accounts had that sword responsible for sweeping off the head of Johan Banér.

Gretchen Richter personally led the sortie that took the Swedish siege lines. Some of the accounts had her bare-breasted in the doing. In February, in a snowstorm.

And the silliest of them all:

Every soldier in the Prince’s army was a stout-hearted German. Every soldier in Banér’s, a brutal and rapacious Swede.

The last fabrication was perhaps a necessity, for the nation that exploded that morning. For eighteen years, the great war had washed back and forth across German soil. Every nation, it seemed, had either plundered the land and brutalized the populace or (in the case of the French) paid others to do it.

(The one nation that could legitimately claim to be quite blameless in the matter was Poland—which the USE had repaid by invading. Once again illustrating the adage that no good deed goes unpunished.)

The Germanies had been helpless in the face of the catastrophe. And yet—

Almost every army that had wreaked havoc for all those years had been heavily or even largely German in its composition. The rulers who commanded the brutal deeds might have been foreigners and so might the generals. But most of the soldiers had come from the same people who were being savaged.

That had been just as true in the snowfields southwest of Dresden on February 26, 1636 as it had been on almost every battlefield of the war. Johan Banér himself was a Swede, and so were many of his officers. But at least two-thirds of his mercenaries had been Germans and at least half the officers who commanded them as well. The truth was, there were probably more Scottish officers and soldiers in Banér’s army that day than there were Swedes.

The Prince of Germany didn’t simply defeat an enemy that day, he erased a national humiliation. For the first time in years, an army that everyone considered a German army had decisively defeated a foreign army—in defense of a German city.

Mike Stearns would always be the Prince after that day. To almost any German, regardless of their political affiliations—regardless of whether they would have voted for him or not for political office, which many of them wouldn’t, then or ever. A title that had begun as a nickname bestowed upon him by radicals had now become an accepted national verity.

His views didn’t matter. His origins didn’t matter. Indeed, there were plenty of Germans who thought God had sent him across the Ring of Fire for this specific purpose. Germans reacted to his victory much the same way Americans in another universe had reacted when Joe Louis defeated Max Schmeling—magnified ten-fold. Most of the people who’d cheered for Louis had had no respect for his race, wouldn’t have voted for him if he ran for vote, and would have had a fit if he’d come courting their daughters.

It didn’t matter. On that day, in that ring, he was the national champion—against a political cause that Americans by and large detested. (Which was quite unfair to Schmeling himself, who was very far from a Nazi. But historical verdicts are often unfair to persons.)

So it was again. Almost every city and town in the United States of Europe exploded that morning, except the few who didn’t get the news until the afternoon—and then exploded.

For the most part, exploded with excitement and joy, which they expressed with impromptu parades and half-organized festivities. Flags were flown, many of them handmade on that same day. Speeches were given, almost of them cobbled together on that day. At least half of the male children born that day were given the name of Michael—a name which had previously been almost completely absent from the Germanies but henceforth became rather popular.

The tavern in every Rathaus did a land office business—or would have, except the town councils often (and in some cases very wisely) offered the beer for free.

The militias in at least three-fourths of the towns held a march celebrating the victory. The militias in the other fourth argued about it. In the months to come, it was noteworthy that the militias which had refused to march had a hard time recruiting new members.

Almost all apprentices celebrated that day; at least four out of five journeymen; and well over half of all guildmasters.

Here and there, the explosions came in darker colors. The city council of Heidelberg had been dominated by extreme reactionaries who had carried out harsh measures against any opposition. But they’d made the mistake of falling between two stools. They’d been more than harsh enough to infuriate a large part of the population but not harsh enough to destroy all resistance. The backlash on February 27 would destroy them instead.

Four of the council members got out of the city alive. The rest all died, several of them quite horribly—and in the case of one, with his entire family. All were burned alive in their home.

Even more savage was an incident in Mecklenburg, just outside of Rostock. A party of Swedish merchants was caught by a mob and torn to pieces. The hapless merchants were utterly bewildered. What did they have to do with the wars of dynasties?

Those were the two worst incidents. There were many instances of beatings and vandalism, but nowhere else did anyone lose their lives.

Except by accident. There were quite a few accidental deaths. Mostly due to the combination of liquor and livestock, or liquor and heights. In what was perhaps the most flamboyant such death, a totally inebriated apprentice fell off the famous tower of the Ulm Minster, the Lutheran church that boasted a steeple one hundred meters tall. He was trying to affix a tricolor flag to the very top. He was within four yards of the top when he fell, holding onto the flag all the way down.

The parade in Magdeburg was the largest in the nation. For all intents and purposes, the whole city turned out.

Ulrik opted for caution. Over-riding Kristina’s vehement protests, he insisted that they avoid any formal participation in the rally that culminated in Hans Richter Square at the end of a march. Instead, he had Kristina standing on the steps of the royal palace as the march went by, waving at the crowd—and then hustled her off to the kitchens of the Freedom Arches.

Enough to please the mob, not so much as to burn all bridges with the Swedes.

That course of action might have posed a problem, except that there was a most suitable substitute for Kristina on this occasion to serve as the official centerpiece of the rally.

Rebecca Abrabanel, the Prince’s wife, who was appalled and aghast when her role was explained to her.

By everyone on the committee. She had no allies at all. Not one.

“I don’t give speeches!”

She did that day. Five of them. By the time she got to the fifth one, everyone agreed it was pretty good.

The parade in Hamburg was huge as well. So was the one in Augsburg.

In Hamburg, the Battle of Ostra—as it came to be called—and its aftermath shifted the balance of political power still further in favor of the Fourth of July Party and the Committee of Correspondence. But that shift had been happening anyway. Hamburg’s economy had been expanding rapidly, which had drawn into the city people from classes which were naturally inclined in that direction.

The political change in Augsburg was more significant, because it was much less predictable. The central figure was the militia commander, Ruprecht Amsel. The combination of Kristina and Ulrik’s actions and his anxieties about the Bavarians had already inclined him toward the Fourth of July Party more than he normally would have been. Mike Stearns’ victory at Ostra was the catalyst. On February 27, he announced publicly at the rally held in that city that he was switching his party allegiance. Most of his militiamen followed suit.

Thereafter, Augsburg joined most of the imperial cities as FoJP bastions. Not to the degree that Magdeburg or Luebeck were, to be sure. But certainly as much as Hamburg or Frankfurt.

A still greater political shift took place in Hesse-Kassel. Amalie Elisabeth instructed her officials and military commanders to place no obstacles in the way of anyone wanting to celebrate the events in Dresden. Indeed, she instructed them to provide quiet assistance, if they were asked for it.

Then, as a march took place that would culminate in a rally that afternoon, she spent the rest of the morning just thinking. And by noon, had decided that caution now required boldness.

She went to the radio room her husband had set up in the palace the year before and spent a bit of time there. Then, to everyone’s surprise starting with her closest advisers and top officials, she made her way to the rally and politely asked the organizers to give her the platform.

They were just as surprised as anyone, but naturally they agreed at once.

Her speech was short and consisted simply of reading the message that she’d had transmitted an hour before to the entire nation. Leaving aside the flowery preface, the gist of it was simple:

General Stearns was quite correct. Chancellor Oxenstierna’s actions were completely illegal. The legitimate prime minister, Wilhelm Wettin, should be released from prison and returned to office.

The applause went on and on and on. Liesel Hahn, who was on the platform herself, was simultaneously delighted and downcast. Delighted, because she thought Amalie Elisabeth’s actions were entirely correct. Downcast, because the prospects for the Fourth of July Party itself in Hesse-Kassel would remain dim for some time.

Probably for the lifespan of the landgravine, in fact.

Kristina would always hold a bit of a grudge against Ulrik for keeping her from the rally. But not much of one. The truth was, he’d probably threaded the needle as well as anyone could. People in Magdeburg simply remembered her in the kitchens of the Freedom Arches that day. Within a few months, if they’d been asked, most of them would swear that Kristina had given a speech at the rally. A good one, too, allowing for her age.

Mostly, the little grudge was because she’d burned her finger on a skillet. Somehow that was Ulrik’s fault.

He put up only a token protest, figuring that it was worth the price to exchange what might become a big political grudge for a petty personal one. Once again showing great skill at threading needles.

The only major cities in the USE which did not celebrate on February 27 were Dresden and Berlin.

Dresden did not celebrate because the city was mostly just relieved to have been spared what might have been a truly hideous fate—and had immediately pressing problems to deal with. First, thousands of wounded men to treat. Second—a much thornier problem—thousands of surrendered soldiers to deal with.

Goerg Kresse and his Vogtlanders were inclined toward a simple solution: kill them all. But Mike Stearns refused and made it quite clear he wasn’t going to tolerate any impromptu lynchings either.

That still left the problem of what to do with them. In the end, Mike opted for the traditional solution. He offered those willing to volunteer a place in the ranks of the Third Division. The ones who refused would be placed in hard labor clearing away the rubble that weeks of siege had left in Dresden.

About two-thirds of the captured soldiers volunteered. That meant Mike now had the problem of absorbing more than four thousand new men into his regiments.

That task would have been extraordinarily difficult except that the regiments accepted the challenge with confidence and even good humor. Perhaps ironically, they were the one large group of men in the Germanies who weren’t nursing a grudge against all things Swede.

Why should they be? They’d just thrashed the Swedes senseless. As they’d known they would.

If you looked at it the right way, the willingness of Banér’s mercenaries to switch allegiances was simply a reaffirmation of the Third Division’s august status. Even dumb Swedes knew which end was up. (And never mind that there were only two hundred and eighty-six actual Swedes among the new volunteers, and seventy-three Finns.)

Berlin did not celebrate because Chancellor Oxenstierna had twenty thousand troops in or near the city on the Swedish payroll, and was in a fury.

A cold fury, to make things worse. He was now in a desperate situation, he knew it—and he knew he only had one option left. Sheer, stark violence.