1635_ The Eastern Front - Eric Flint [108]
The northernmost column was made up of units representing about half of his own Swedish forces, under the command of Heinrich Matthias von Thurn. That column's mission was to invest the town of Gorzów from the north, while Wilhelm V and his Hesse-Kassel army would approach Gorzów along the south bank of the Warta river, one of the tributaries of the Oder. Between them, they should be able to take the town. A large part of the population was Lutheran and Gustav Adolf thought they'd be happy to switch sides.
Gustav Adolf himself led the third column, marching south of Hesse-Kassel. That army consisted of the rest of the Swedish army—and all of the APCs. Gustav Adolf's column was going straight for Poznań, the principal city in western Poland. "Going straight," that is, insofar as the terrain allowed. Like most of Poland, the area was quite flat. But it was also quite wet, with lots of winding streams; and while it didn't have the profusion of lakes characteristic of northeast Poland it still had a fair number.
Thankfully, they were mostly little ones. Still, one of the things Mike's short experience as a general had taught him was the geographic variation on Clausewitz's dictum. Terrain that doesn't look too tough is a lot tougher than it looks when you have to move ten thousand men through it. And keep them in some reasonable semblance of order. And provide them with a secure and hopefully dry place to sleep at night, with proper sanitation. And feed them. And do all that while being prepared at any moment to fight the enemy.
Gustav Adolf had put himself in charge of that middle column because he was sure that Koniecpolski would have to defend Poznań. So he would come straight at him while Torstensson and two of the USE army's three divisions would approach Poznań from the southwest.
That left Mike in charge of the sixth and southernmost column. His job was to take and hold Zielona Góra, thereby providing the Swedish and USE forces with a secure southern anchor. Zielona Góra would also serve later as the base for moving down the Odra to take Wroclaw.
The area they were operating in was a border region that, over the centuries, had been controlled at various times by Poland, Brandenburg and Austria. In the timeline the Americans came from, it might well have been in German hands at this time. Many of these border cities had converted to Lutheranism and gotten out from under Polish Catholic control.
In the here and now, however, Poland had taken advantage of the CPE and later the USE's preoccupation with internal affairs and the war against the League of Ostend to reassert its authority over the area. Brandenburg had tacitly acquiesced, probably because George William had figured he might someday need Polish support. The border between Polish and German lands now ran along the Oder-Neisse line just as it had in Mike's universe after World War II. The Odra was completely within Polish territory and Breslau was back to being Wroclaw.
Gustav Adolf didn't expect Stearns would run into severe opposition. Koniecpolski had fewer forces than Gustav Adolf did, and he'd be hard-pressed to detach any large force to come to the assistance of Zielona Góra. In essence, the king of Sweden had given Mike the easiest and most straightforward assignment. But in order for him to carry out that assignment, Torstensson had had to give Mike one of his cavalry regiments, so he wouldn't be operating blind. The weather was erratic enough this time of year that the Air Force's ability to fly reconnaissance missions couldn't always be counted on.
"Is that understood, Captain Higgins?" Mike repeated.
Jeff nodded. "Yes, sir. But . . . ah . . ."
Mike waited, with a cocked eyebrow.
Jeff took a deep breath. "Why