Chapter Sixteen – The Instructor
The Grand Duke returned to the castle in a foul mood. During his trip he had discovered that most of Hórkustk Ris province was not under Danubian control at all. The only enclave remaining was the provincial capitol, and the only reason that city was still under the Duchy's control was that the Kingdom of the Moon had not yet sent an army large enough to conquer it. The city was packed with Danubian refugees who had been denied permission to move north, precisely to prevent the people of the capitol from knowing how bad the situation was immediately to the south. There was inadequate food for the crowd and a lot of the people had become sick.
The Grand Duke had discovered the awful news that the entire western half of the Duchy was under threat. Hórkustk Ris was the only major Danubian city to the south of Danúbikt Móskt. After that city was taken, there would be nothing standing between the Army of the Moon and the Duchy's people.
The Grand Duke rounded up his military advisors and demanded to know why no one had told him about the foreign occupation of Hórkustk Ris province and the plight of tens of thousands of sick refugees. It turned out the advisors had been divided about telling their ruler the truth. Some advisors did want to tell him about Hórkustk Ris as early as the previous summer, but they were overruled by the advisors who were determined to procrastinate. The advisors remained loyal to each other, so the ones who wanted to talk to the Grand Duke about the occupation were stuck in a dilemma. They either had to betray the ruler, or betray their peers. In Danubian culture, betraying one's companions is considered extremely dishonorable, so the more honest advisors' actions were restrained by cultural taboos.
The Grand Duke was angry at himself for not realizing his advisors were lying to him. Now that he knew what was going on, he needed to find out why he had been deceived. The ruler summoned the Grand Prophet of the Great Temple to assist his interrogation of his subordinates. With the Prophet present, the advisors would have to lie in front of the leading Clergyman from the Danubian Church if they wanted to continue protecting each other. The presence of the Prophet, coupled with the Grand Duke's insight and ability to extract information through simple conversation forced the full story out of them. He already understood that it was not simple fear or procrastination that had motivated some of his subordinates to cover up the invasion and force their companions to go along with the deception. It turned out that the traitors had made arrangements with the Lord of the Moon to be spared, along with their families and properties, when the Kingdom invaded the Duchy. All they had to do was facilitate the capture of Hórkustk Ris by withholding intelligence and delaying any response from the Danubian Crown.
The Grand Duke did not want the public to know that he had been deceived by his own advisors. So, there was no public trial of the traitors, no retaliation against their families, no public spectacle at all. He simply grabbed a long bow and ordered Royal Guards to take the traitors to the execution post. He ordered them tied to the post one-by-one and shocked his spectators by conducting the executions himself. The castle staff, the Royal Guards, and the matrons watched with dumbfounded expressions as their ruler fired five arrows into a traitor, checked to make sure he was dead, ordered the body taken away, and then proceeded with the next execution.
Before ordering the bodies taken out of the castle and returned to their relatives, the ruler wrote the following for each household:
If you value your lives and the safety of your children, you will not ask why this happened. I assure you my action was justified. Bury your relative, say nothing, and your Path in Life will continue in peace. Disobey my command, and the Destroyer will visit you. The choice is yours.
The Grand Duke of the Duchy of Upper Danubia
----------
From their balcony the concubines watched their master killing his subordinates. They were terrified, because they did not yet know what was going on and assumed the sovereign had gone mad. His behavior over the next several days did not reassure them. He vented his anger and fear through sex and copulated with the eleven women as though he were possessed. He did not spare the group's spokeswoman: she had to join her companions in the Royal bed-chamber and endure his rough treatment.
After spending a week calming his nerves with his women, the ruler re-emerged, determined to meet the impending threat coming from the south. He had several months to prepare for the upcoming military campaign, because during the 18th Century it was very difficult for any country to invade any other country during the winter. Large-scale military operations usually took place in the summer, when it was easier for invading armies to live off the land.
The Grand Duke replaced his executed advisors with field commanders from the Royal Army. He ordered the commanders to familiarize themselves with standard military strategies and drills commonly used in Europe at the time. He did not plan to emulate those strategies, but needed to know how to counter them. The Danubian Royal Army, especially the cavalry, would have to adapt to fighting on open ground and abandon the traditional strategy of using forested areas for concealment and protection.
The most significant decision facing the Grand Duke was his country's reliance on crossbows. The crossbow had served the Duchy admirably over the past several centuries, but it was an archaic weapon suited for guerrilla skirmishes and silent raids. It was not a weapon suited for confronting a large modern enemy army on open ground. Like it or not, the Grand Duke's army, or at least many of its troops, would have to switch over to using muskets. The Danubian ruler wrote to a Vienna arms dealer to speed up the purchase of modern muskets. He cringed at the cost of the cumbersome weapons and their ammunition, but he had no choice.
----------
Most rulers would have despaired knowing what the Grand Duke and his Army was up against, but the Danubian ruler's personality was not prone to despair. He knew that, no matter how bad the situation facing him might be, he still had some decisions to make and options available. None of the choices were very good ones, but they were choices nonetheless. Besides, not all of the news coming from the south was bad. The Kingdom of the Moon did have some significant weaknesses that could, under the right circumstances, work in favor of the Duchy.
The most important potential vulnerability was a rival heir contesting the throne. Just a few years before, the Kingdom of the Moon had been ruled by two brothers who, while both were still alive, got along and made a very effective team. After-all, they had maintained their independence from the Ottoman Empire and even managed to annex some additional Ottoman lands. Trouble began, however, when one of the brothers died and the surviving brother made his son, the Lord of the Red Moon, the heir of the throne. His cousin, who called himself the Lord of the Blue Moon, opposed the arrangement and had the support of several nobles. Under current conditions, there was no way the Lord of the Blue Moon could openly confront the ruler, but if the Lord of the Red Moon's forces suffered some defeats, it was possible the situation to the south could change.
The Grand Duke considered the news of the rival heir important. He did not plan to make an alliance with the Lord of the Blue Moon, but the prospect of a civil war in the Kingdom of the Moon, should the Lord of the Red Moon's forces be weakened, would play into his plans if he could win some battles on Danubian territory.
The Danubian ruler did not harbor any illusions his Army could possibly match the Kingdom of the Moon's army in a traditional battle on open ground. The only hope of winning a fight with the enemy would be to combine modern and traditional Danubian tactics, which would entail luring the invaders into a location favorable to the Danubians. How many such locations were there in Hórkustk Ris Province? Well, in the past there would have been plenty. During the reign of King Vladik the Defender, the area was heavily forested, allowing the last Danubian King to fight the Ottomans using guerrilla tactics. For a century after the King's victories, the trees remained as the Duchy's most important line of defense. However, settlers, both Danubian and foreign, had since cut down most of the forest, leaving only a narrow strip between the capitol and Hórkustk Ris. Now the only feature marking the official southern border was a small river and a low-lying range of hills. The hills were still partially forested, but the land immediately to the north was not. The Grand Duke studied maps and pondered from where his army could launch raids. He found very few suitable locations, of which most were away from the main road leading though Hórkustk Ris and thus could be bypassed very easily. Still, there were some possibilities, including some areas along the East Danube River, or possibly the city of Hórkustk Ris itself. However, for any such plan to work the Grand Duke had to have a full understanding of his enemies and the way command decisions were implemented in the Kingdom of the Moon.
Fortunately for the Duchy, the Danubian Grand Duke had an excellent network of informants that had been established by his father. A couple of his spies had direct access to the Lord of the Red Moon and two of his top generals. The Danubian ruler was interested in the Kingdom's battle tactics, equipment, and troop strength, but he was even more interested in understanding the thinking and psychology of his enemies. He knew from the beginning the only hope he had of winning the upcoming war would be to find out about any psychological vulnerabilities of the enemy leaders and try to outsmart them.
The Kingdom of the Moon had an excellent army and cavalry. They were seasoned veterans that had humiliated the Sultan's army over the past two decades, men who were proud, competent, and well-trained. They totally disdained their opponents and enjoyed killing and torturing "inferior" prisoners. They had done some horrible things to Turkish captives, so it was safe to assume if they ever seized control of the Duchy, its people would suffer tremendously. The Army of the Kingdom of the Moon had never suffered a defeat, so they were confident to a fault.
The Army of the Moon's tactics usually focused on charging into an enemy's position with massive force to overwhelm any opposition, following an initial artillery barrage. Much of the strategy relied on speed and terror. The strategy had been employed against Ottoman and rival lords' cities, forts, castles, and hilltop positions over the past two decades. It had always worked, so it was predictable. As the Grand Duke and his commanders studied battle after battle won by the Army of the Moon, the over-all pattern of the fighting was always the same: the artillery barrage, the overwhelming charge, and then atrocities against the conquered.
The Danubian leader pondered his enemy's strategy: always the same... predictable... overwhelming force... terror... confidence... and maybe... over-confidence?
