1635: The Eastern Front (15 page)

James Nichols, sitting next to Melissa, grunted sourly. "Otherwise known as The Bürgermeister's Wet Dream."

"Or the Hochadel Folly," added Anselm Keller. He was an MP from the Province of the Main, and was sitting next to Albert Bugenhagen, the young newly elected mayor of Hamburg. To their right, on the table that form the left end of the U, sat the two remaining attendees at the meeting: Matthias Strigel, the governor of Magdeburg province, and Werner von Dalberg.

Von Dalberg, like Melissa Mailey and James Nichols and Charlotte Kienitz, held no governmental position. His prominence in the Fourth of July Party stemmed from the fact that he was universally acknowledged as the central figure for the party in the Upper Palatinate. Given that he'd had to maneuver with the provincial administrator, Ernst Wettin, and—much worse—the Swedish general Johan Banér, he'd had to be a skilled politician as well as organizer. The political situation for the Fourth of July Party—every political party in the USE, actually—was always tricky in those areas that were still under direct imperial administration.

As of July 1635, there were eleven established provinces in the United States of Europe. The heads of state of each of those provinces, whether elected or appointed by the emperor or established by traditional custom, sat in the USE's upper house, the House of Lords. ("The Senate," in the stubborn parlance of the CoCs.) As such, all eleven of them added the official rank of senator to whatever other posts and positions and titles they held.

Those eleven provinces were:

Magdeburg, which was the name of the province as well as the capital city. The province's head of state was an elected governor.

The State of Thuringia-Franconia, whose capital had formerly been Grantville and was now Bamberg. Like Magdeburg, this state elected its own governor, although the title of the post—president—remained that of its predecessor, the New United States.

Those were the only two provinces that had a fully republican structure and elected their own heads of state. Not coincidentally, they were the strongholds of the Fourth of July Party and the Committees of Correspondence.

There were three provinces whose heads of state, while not elected, were established by the provinces themselves. Like Magdeburg and the SoTF, these provinces were entirely self-governing within the overall federal structure and laws of the USE. They were no longer, or had never been, under direct imperial administration.

They were:

Hesse-Kassel, still governed by its traditional ruler, Landgrave Wilhelm V. The Landgrave, along with his wife Amalie Elizabeth, were prominent leaders of the moderate wing of the Crown Loyalist Party that now controlled the USE Parliament and whose leader, Wilhelm Wettin, was the newly elected prime minister.

Brunswick was also governed by its traditional ruler, Duke George of Brunswick-Lüneburg. However, since the duke was now serving as the commander of the USE army's Second Division and was marching this very moment into Saxony, the province was being managed by one of his subordinates, Loring Schultz.

Most recently, the Tyrol had voluntarily joined the United States of Europe. The agreement made between the Tyrol's regent Claudia de Medici and the USE's envoy Philipp Sattler was that a regency council would be set up under Dr. Wilhelm Bienner, the chancellor of Tyrol, for Claudia's two minor sons. Under the new constitution of the province, they and their heirs would be "hereditary governors."

Four provinces had heads of state who had been appointed by Emperor Gustav II Adolf. However, they were no longer under direct imperial administration and were at least technically self-governing:

Westphalia, whose administrator was Prince Frederik of Denmark. He'd been appointed in June of 1634 as a result of the Congress of Copenhagen. They were still wrangling over the title. Frederik wanted "Prince of Westphalia" but the emperor was reluctant to agree and preferred "Governor." Gustav Adolf would probably give in eventually, though, since his misgivings were general in nature whereas the Danes—both Frederik and his father Christian IV, the king of Denmark—were quite keen on the matter.

The Province of the Upper Rhine, whose administrator was Wilhelm Ludwig of Nassau-Saarbrücken. He'd also been appointed in June of 1634 during the proceedings at Copenhagen. Wilhelm Ludwig, not of royal birth, had been happy enough to settle for the title of governor. His position as the Upper Rhine's head of state was something of a formality, anyway, since he was spending most of his time assisting his father-in-law in Swabia. The actual management of the province was in the hands of his deputy, Johann Moritz of Nassau-Siegen.

The "self-governing" aspect of the remaining two provinces in this category was questionable, since their official head of state was the emperor himself. Gustav II Adolf, never loath to use medieval precedents, had cheerfully appointed himself the duke of both Mecklenburg and Pomerania.

The provincial independence of Pomerania was pretty much a myth. For all practical purposes, Pomerania was still being ruled by direct imperial fiat. True, Pomeranians did elect members to Parliament. But all of them were vetted by the Swedish chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna. Insofar as the province had any independent politics at all, it tended to be a bastion of the reactionary wing of the Crown Loyalists.

Mecklenburg was quite different. That province had been transformed in the course of the civil war which had taken place there following the Dreeson Incident. With a handful of exceptions, the nobility had fled the province. The Committees of Correspondence were now as dominant on the ground as they were in Magdeburg and the State of Thuringia-Franconia.

A couple of provinces were "self-governing" in the sense that they could elect representatives to Parliament: the Province of the Main and the Oberpfalz. But their heads of state of state were still appointees of the emperor and answered to him directly. The administrator of the Province of the Main was the Swedish general Nils Abrahamsson Brahe. The administrator of the Oberpfalz was the new prime minister's younger brother, Ernst Wettin.

The provinces were split politically. The Province of the Main was solidly Crown Loyalist whereas the Upper Palatinate leaned toward the Fourth of July Party.

Two more provinces would have fallen into the category of "heads of state, not elected, but established by the provinces themselves," except that their rulers had betrayed the emperor when the Ostend War broke out. That, at least, was how Gustav Adolf saw the matter. Needless to say, the rulers of Saxony and Brandenburg—the electors John George and George William—had a different view. Within a few weeks, the dispute would be settled on the battlefield—and most people figured Gustav Adolf would emerge triumphant.

What would happen then was a matter of speculation. In social and economic terms, Brandenburg was much like Pomerania: relatively backward, with poor farmland and not much in the way of industry. Berlin's position as Germany's premier city was still a long way in the future—and, in the new universe created by the Ring of Fire, might never happen at all. In the year 1635, the city's population was no greater than twelve thousand people.

Furthermore, the elector of Brandenburg was Gustav Adolf's brother-in-law. The emperor was influenced enough by his wife—more precisely, was reluctant enough to upset her—that while he would certainly depose George William he wouldn't strip his family of its political position. The elector would be forced into what amounted to house arrest, and his fifteen-year-old son Frederick William would become the new elector—or, more likely, the new duke. With the effective collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the title of "Elector" was now meaningless. Until Frederick William reached his majority, of course, Brandenburg would actually be ruled by a regent appointed by the emperor. That might very well wind up being Sweden's own chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna.

In short, Brandenburg would probably wind up playing the same sort of role in the internal politics of the USE that Pomerania did and Mecklenburg used to play: a stronghold of the most conservative elements in the nation.

Saxony was quite different. Its capital city of Dresden was both older and more populous than Berlin. So was its other major city, Leipzig. Dresden was becoming an industrial center and Leipzig had long been commercially prominent—the Leipzig Trade Fair went back well into the middle ages.

The province was far more advanced culturally than Brandenburg, as well. Two of central Europe's major universities were located there: the University of Wittenberg, which produced the great theologians Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon, and the even older University of Leipzig.

Most people who paid attention to political affairs thought the situation in Saxony would become very unsettled once Gustav Adolf conquered the province. No one doubted that he would dispossess John George and his family altogether and replace them with his own imperial administration. Nor did anyone doubt that the Committees of Correspondence would be pushing hard to establish the sort of republican structure for the province that already existed in Magdeburg and the State of Thuringia-Franconia.

That left the so-called "Province of Swabia" that had been provided for less than a year earlier by the Congress of Copenhagen. The province was to be created once the region was "fully pacified," with Margrave Georg Friedrich of Baden-Durlach already named as the administrator. But what would actually happen was anyone's guess. The largest single chunk of the projected Province of Swabia was Württemberg, which young duke Eberhard had willed to its population on his deathbed. Lawyers working for the Fourth of July Party were arguing that Württemberg should become its own republican province. Meanwhile, Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar—or "Bernhard, Grand Duke of the County of Burgundy," as he was now styling himself—still had an army nearby and made no secret of his desire to incorporate as much of Swabia as he could into the new independent realm he was busy creating. And just to throw another monkey wrench into the works, several of the cities and towns in the region were now making noises about "turning Swiss."

So, as of July of 1635, the United States of Europe had eleven provinces, with presumably two more to be added soon—or "returned," if you accepted Gustav Adolf's interpretation of the status of Saxony and Brandenburg—and at least one more to be added whenever the situation in Swabia settled down.

In addition, there were the seven imperial cities: Hamburg, Luebeck, Augsburg, Frankfurt am Main, Strassburg, Ulm—and Magdeburg itself. The city was simultaneously the national capital of the USE, the capital of the province of Magdeburg, and an imperial city in its own right. As such, its mayor was Otto Gericke.

It was all very complicated—and, if this latest news was accurate, was going to get still more complicated. Not to mention unsettled and upheaved.

"Is he out of his mind?" Ed demanded.

Chapter 12

Magdeburg

"Wilhelm, this course of action is very reckless." The Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel set down his glass of wine and leaned forward in his chair. That took a bit of effort, since Wilhelm V was a portly man and the armchair in Wilhelm Wettin's salon was plush and deep. "What could have possessed you to decide this?"

Standing behind her husband, with her hand on his shoulder, Amalie Elizabeth knew the argument was probably futile. Wilhelm had that stubborn, grumpy expression that she'd come to know all too well in the three days since she and her husband had returned to the capital. He seemed to have aged a year for every week in office, too.

She wondered what had happened to the charming, gracious, intelligent man who'd been a close friend and confidant of the ruling family of Hesse-Kassel for decades. Had a troll from legend abducted him and left an impostor in his place? This—this—pigheaded, sullen blockhead whom she could barely recognize.

That was just a fancy, though. She knew the real explanation was prosaic, and shied away from it simply because she hated to admit that even people as acute and perceptive as Wilhelm Wettin—as herself also, she imagined, in the wrong circumstances—could behave so foolishly.

It was a matter of poise. Wilhelm had been mentally off-balance and staggering for at least a year, ever since he smelled the scent of victory and began making shortsighted bargains and compromises in order to gain the support of everyone he could. Being fair, Amalie Elizabeth and her husband had initially inclined in that direction themselves. But once they recognized the danger involved, they'd tried to restrain Wilhelm.

To no avail, apparently. They were bystanders, to a degree, where he was the man at the very center of the maelstrom. What they'd been able to see—as would Wilhelm himself, had he retained his normally judicious temperament—was that the petty obsessions of the average aristocrat and the most prosperous burghers were driving the Crown Loyalist Party off a cliff. Their insistence on retaining all possible privileges was blinding them to the need to abandon many of them if they were to survive at all.

And blinding Wilhelm too—or, at least, putting so much pressure on him that he refused to look.

"If you have to throw these dogs a bone," her husband continued, "then make it the established church. But whatever you do, stay away from trying to impose a uniform solution upon the citizenship problem."

Wettin was sunk far back into his own chair, his hands gripping the armrests tightly. "I've already told you, I can't. Our coalition—which is what it is, never think otherwise—has too many factions which are adamant on both issues. And if they were willing to compromise, it'd be over the established church. They won't budge on citizenship."

It was all Amalie Elizabeth could do not to grind her teeth.

There were two central issues roiling the United States of Europe. It was their differences on these two points that had so sharply distinguished Wilhelm and his opponent Mike Stearns in the recent election.

The first was the matter of an established church. Basically, there were four possible positions: