Susan Johnson (30 page)

She watched him in silence as he dressed, not knowing if this was her last sight of him: his muscled, scarred body flexing, moving with grace and power, the sepia tones of his
skin gilded by the glow of the candlelight. He’d smile at her occasionally. The warmth and affection in his gaze were her bulwark, she thought, against the coming chill of her solitude. And she’d smile back and think how lucky she’d been to have known him.

His uniform was still damp so he grimaced and grumbled in discomfort as he slipped into it, and when he muttered in expletives as he sat on the edge of the bed struggling to pull on his wet boots, she came to her knees behind him, leaned against his back, and said, “Let me help.”

“With that kind of help, darling,” he said, flashing a grin over his shoulder, “I won’t ever get out of here. Put something on or I’ll never leave.”

Kissing his ear, she moved away, understanding the time pressures driving him, and rummaging for her nightgown in the shambles of the bed, she found it and slipped it on.

Standing once again, he was swiftly buckling on his sword belt, the gold-chased scabbard beautifully engraved, the words those of gratitude from the Republic for his victories in Italy in ’97.
“Merde,”
he muttered a second later, tossing his wet leather gloves aside. “I can’t wear these.”

Then the expected knock sounded on the door and his head came up like a wolf on the scent. “I’ll be right down,” he said, his voice raised enough to be heard in the corridor outside. He quickly glanced around the room, a habit after sleeping in strange places so often, and then he walked over to the bed.

Teo didn’t want to cry during their last minutes together so she dwelled instead on the joy he’d brought to her as she stood to meet him.

He was already remote in his dark uniform—his cavalry boots and black leather breeches, the navy wool of his unornamented jacket, his black silk neckcloth—a grim, forbidding image of war. The jingle of his spurs and scabbard
were the only sounds in the silence, the hush of parting a suffocating presence in the room.

“Think of me,” he softly said, drawing her into his arms, his damp clothes cool through her linen nightgown.

“Every second,” she murmured, lifting her face to his. “And you must live.”

“I’ll see you in a few months.” His head dipped and his mouth brushed hers, a gentle kiss without emotion, for his consciousness was straying, listening for the noises outside the door.

“I’ll wait for you,” she said, standing on tiptoe to touch his lips one last time, clinging to his hand for a second more.

He smiled as he slipped his hand free. “I love you.”

She nodded, her mouth trembling. “Always,” she breathed as he turned to go.

He paused at the door, and swiveling around, he
gazed
at her, his dark eyes darker in the shadows, his expression softening for a moment. “I’m very glad you wanted my child,” he whispered.

And then he was gone.

She cried until she couldn’t cry any more, until her tears were depleted and the misery of the world had closed around her, and then she fell asleep exhausted. Tamyr wouldn’t wake her in the morning, refusing despite Mingen’s harangues, and it was well into the middle of the afternoon before they left on the next leg of their journey.

In the following days as they made their way through all the petty German principalities, occasionally running across units from the archduke’s army, their Prussian papers offered them security. Mingen was by turn charmingly cultivated and ruthlessly autocratic, adopting whichever guise was necessary, seeing them through the various bureaucracies with aplomb.

Teo couldn’t have done it alone and she thanked him often for his solicitous care. “Duras and I are on a mission from God,” he’d facetiously reply. “Two reprobates with a common goal.”

“Is Andre winning?” she’d ask whenever he’d conversed with some official at a posting stop or border crossing.

“Korsakov is losing the war,” he would always say. With the archduke’s army withdrawn into Germany, Korsakov was in charge of the imperial army until Suvorov marched up from Italy, and Teo found it both strange and blissful that he no longer seemed a threatening shadow in her life. Her fear was gone as if it were absolved by some benevolent spirit; she’d found new depths of strength within her and new reserves of acceptance, and she wondered if the child she bore contributed to her sense of wholeness. It was love too, she knew, that had changed her so. She’d been given a great happiness no one could take away.

And Mingen’s understanding had helped as well. They’d spoken of other marriages like hers that were so prevalent in the aristocracy, of the barbarous inhumanity of bartering young women for financial and political gain. Teo was only one of thousands of women coerced into brutal marriages, women taken as hostages was all too common.

But she’d found her way out and blissfully found love as well. Each day small epiphanies reminded her of all she had and she was perhaps more grateful for having known such pain. She had reached a new understanding by the time they arrived at the Russian border; she was reconciled to her parting from Duras.

It was the middle of September.

Archduke Charles’s army was attacking the French Army of the Rhine around the fortress of Philippsburg and driving it back to the left bank of the river.

In Italy, Suvorov had received instructions from Vienna to go to Switzerland, and while he’d protested, he discovered the archduke had already moved out of Switzerland. He had no choice then but to go to Korsakov’s aid.

The British at this point continued their attempts to stave off disaster by offering Vienna new compensations, but these efforts all failed. On September 10, Prime Minister Pitt suggested to Grenville, his foreign secretary, that England offer to compensate Austria for Italy in return for allowing Holland to take the Austrian Netherlands after the war. Three days later Pitt stated his willingness to back Austria’s claim to Piedmont against the objections of the tsar, but Thugut remained unmoved. Since Austria was in actual occupation of northern Italy, Thugut felt no need of British diplomatic support in retaining these conquests. Pitt had no other leverage. By the middle of September, Pitt came to the conclusion that he couldn’t trust Austria and that England would have to consider carrying on the war with only Russia as an ally.

Moving the archduke’s army north wasn’t necessarily a bad strategic move because it would force the French to divert troops to the Rhine instead of reinforcing Duras’s army. The blunder was rather the Austrian decision to attack Mainz instead of Basel and Belfort. By moving on Mainz, the archduke’s army marched too far north to support Korsakov should the French attack in Switzerland, and even if the French remained on the defensive and the two Russian corps joined forces safely, they wouldn’t be strong enough to attack Duras with more than a fair chance of success.

To make matters worse, the Austrians didn’t wait for Suvorov’s arrival in Switzerland before moving toward Mainz. So while the Austrians were moving on Mainz and Suvorov was marching up from Italy, Korsakov’s army had to face a French force near Zurich that was almost equal in numbers.

As a result of Thugut’s desire to regain control of the Low Countries, the Austrians presented Duras with a unique opportunity to attack one of the Allied armies on very favorable terms and rescue a seemingly desperate situation.

Duras’s plans were
en train
.

Since the first Battle of Zurich in June, Duras had reorganized the army into eight combat divisions, a reserve division, and a division of the interior. He had also revised his command system, appointing several new and energetic commanders. Away from Zurich, Turreau commanded the 9,100 men of the First Division in the Valais, and Lecourbe’s Second Division of 13,500 men held the area round the St. Gotthard Pass. In the vicinity of Zurich: Soult’s 9,950-man Third Division was on the Linth River; the 9,100 men of Mortier’s Fourth Division faced Zurich; Lorge’s Fifth Division of 9,000 troops and Menard’s Sixth Division with 10,600 men held the line of the Limmat River; and Klein commanded the 5,460 men of the Seventh Division, which Duras had placed behind Lorge and Menard. Elsewhere, the 7,950 men of Chabran’s Eighth
Division held the line of the Rhine as it flowed in an east-west direction through Switzerland. The Division of the Interior had 3,400 men and devoted its efforts mainly to guarding the army’s communications line with France and hunting down royalist partisan bands. The Reserve Division was 4,680 men strong and the artillery comprised 1,050 troops.

Facing this force was Korsakov’s 27,350-man Russian corps. It held a line stretching from Zurich to the Limmat River and from there to the Rhine. An Austrian force of 21,800 men under von Hotze manned positions along a line stretching from Lake Zurich along the Linth River to Dissentis in the Grisons. To the south, Suvorov with 30,400 men was moving toward Switzerland.

The minister of war told Duras that “the result of this campaign and perhaps the destiny of the Republic rests on your force and on your courage.”

Duras was well aware that his army was the only corps fit to resume the offensive and a successful attack would not only relieve the pressure on the Italian front but also force the Anglo-Russian army out of Holland. He was busily preparing for his offensive. Replacements, rations, and ammunition flowed steadily to the front until by the third week in September his army was ready to strike.

His objective was not just to force Korsakov to retreat but to annihilate his corps as a fighting force. His tactical plan was to convince the Russians that he was going to strike north across the Rhine, while in fact he prepared a series of strokes in the vicinity of Zurich.

Duras ordered Chabran and Menard to make diversionary attacks along the Rhine while the main assault force, fourteen thousand men drawn from Menard’s, Lorge’s, Klein’s, and Mortier’s divisions, struck across the Limmat at Dietikon, seven miles from Zurich. The main force was to seize the Fahr plateau, thereby splitting the Russian front, and then send brigades to the left and right. Units moving
left were to contain Russian units along the Rhine, while the troops advancing to the right were to threaten the northwest approaches of Zurich. While the main attack moved out, another division was to move against the western face of Zurich and still another unit was to strike at the city from the south. As the pincers snapped shut around Zurich, Soult was to break out on the central front. His objective was twofold: to defeat von Hotze’s Austrians and to prevent them from reinforcing Korsakov.

The operation planned for September 23 required simultaneous execution to ensure its success, but on the twenty-second, Soult informed Duras he wouldn’t be able to complete construction of the bridge he needed to cross the Linth until the morning of the twenty-fifth.

Headquarters at Bremgarten was a hive of activity, the mobilization of the offensive requiring round-the-clock activity. The weather had been humid for weeks, the pace frantic; everyone’s nerves were on edge. Duras swore on reading Soult’s message, tossed the folded sheet aside and stalked into his office, slamming his door with such violence the young ADCs jumped.

No one in the operations room spoke, the hum of conversation abruptly curtailed.

“I’ll see when he wants to reschedule,” Bonnay calmly said into the silence. A faint smile twitched the corners of his mouth. “Soult’s lucky he’s sixty kilometers away.”

“Don’t let him out of his office for a while,” Vigée drawled with his customary insouciance.

“Just make sure your regiment is ready,” Bonnay cautioned, his hand on the doorknob to Duras’s office.

“We’re always ready,
mon ami
,” Vigée replied, his flashing grin lighting up his eyes. “My pets are chafing to kill some Russkis.”

“They’ll have their wish in short order.” Bonnay liked Vigée despite his occasional chiding; the man was good at his job. “Cholet, have the couriers ready to ride in ten minutes.
Every squadron has to be informed of the new schedule.” And turning the knob, he pushed the door to Duras’s office open and entered.

“We can’t afford this delay,” Duras muttered, scowling at Bonnay. “Fucking Suvorov is in Bellinzona already—past there by now,” he grumbled. That morning they’d received news of Suvorov’s progress; he was south of the Saint Gotthard Pass, poised to invade Switzerland. “This offensive has to be over before he reaches Altdorf.”

“Soult’s had problems getting materials for his bridge.”

“We all have problems,” Duras growled, his dark brows meeting in a straight line. Shifting lower in his chair, he gazed up at Bonnay, challenge and discontent in his gaze.

“What’s the earliest we can reschedule? Cholet has the couriers outside.” Bonnay knew better than to argue with Duras in his current mood.

“Soult says the morning of the twenty-fifth.” Taking a deep breath, Duras expelled it in vexation and then said, clipped and curt, “The assault begins at daybreak on the twenty-fifth. No changes for any reason. We cross the Limmat at first light.” Sitting up, he placed his palms gently on his desktop, aligned his fingertips as if in an exercise of restraint, and said in a more moderate tone, “Send in Dedon. I want the transport boats moved to Dietikon tonight.”

“We’ll take Zurich before Suvorov reaches Altdorf,” Bonnay maintained with assurance, his confidence in his commander complete.

Duras smiled faintly. “Damn right we will.”

At five in the morning of the twenty-third, the troop transports—sixteen large boats and thirty-seven lighter ones—were all at Dietikon, hidden from the Russian sentries across the Limmat.

Menard, commanding the Sixth division, openly prepared for a crossing at Brugg on the twenty-fourth. He assembled all his officers, consulting with them, preparing a
pontoon bridge and his boats for launching—all in order to give the Russian troops opposite him at Vogelsang the impression that the main attack would come at Brugg.

Before midnight of the twenty-fourth—with Duras personally directing the operations—the boats, hidden a thousand feet from the riverbank, were hand-carried down to the water. The fastest and lightest boats would cross the ninety meters of river with the first troops; a second group of larger boats would cross next and a third group would land troops on a small island in the river defended by Russian sentry posts.