Where it turns out that Mike is not the only one that got outed because of this war.
*_*_*_* Mike / Maria *_*_*_*
As I was came back to Amsterdam and my house at Prinsengracht, I had some trouble getting into my own house, as the caretaker thought I was someone else. I then got a real surprise: Lucas was back. He had quite some story to tell. But first he had a good look at me.
"Mike, You look great in a dress. What made you come out of the closet?"
I told him, and he laughed for at least ten minutes.
"Hi Hi Ho Ho - Now you are stuck wearing dresses - YOU who swore never... Ha Ha"
At least he saw the humour of it
"But just wait! - I have also a good story to tell!"
He had his baptism of fire on the Barbary coast where they were becalmed, and a galley out of Safi approached.
"With all those rowers I knew it was not the best solution to sink them, so I charged the deck guns with shrapnel shell, and just before they got within range of their own gun, I fired ours, while we filled our barkas ( a launch ) with en entering crew. The remaining Saracens on deck, I could take out with the rifle. Only few of the slave rowers were hurt, and those of them who wanted - mostly Spaniards were put on shore at Teneriffe, while we encouraged the remaining wretches to muster. "
As he got the message of the French declaration of war, he was in the South Atlantic. He happened to be near an English merchantman "Treasure Dawn", who was boarded by surprise. That merchantman was brought to Kapstaad (The Cape). where the rest of the convoy of VOC was warned. The navy vessels in the area then started a raid on St Helens. ( They would be successful)
He had then escorted the Merchantmen of the VOC towards Europe, and through the English channel, right into the wolf's den. Of course - the whipping of the combined English and French fleet at Solebay had made the passage possible, but still attacks were expected. Ships that have been for months out at sea are slow. Growth of shells and barnacles on the hull slow those ships down. The Zwan was still fast because of this product underneath. Only a few of the other ships had that special paint of yours applied. The VOC is going to pay millions of florins for that product."
"Your guns are just fantastic, Of course we represented a too tempting target. Twenty large fat ships from the Far East, and my schooner, and The Dawn laden with even more products from Africa such as Ivory and gold. Thanks for telling us that the English fleet was severely hit at Solebay. However, they had some privateers that dared attack. First was a detachment from Southampton. Five corvettes, all eager to collect the booty as every ship within sight of the capture were entitled to their share. They were in for a surprise. The VOC merchantmen are almost as well armed as a man-of-war.
De Zwan is quite faster than the frigates particularly in weak wind. The mast you put on it is thrice as tall as the others, and could make good the wind up there. So I then could hit the first with the fire-grenades. The frigate "Lionheart" was next. With one shot I made it burn, and it was impossible for the crews to quench. The five English corvettes got the message, they were on their own too small for the heavily armed VOC merchantmen, and one after the other struck their colours. Two tried to escape. I followed them, and from a distance of two nautical miles I set them afire, which made those that had struck their colours quite meek. I let the crew VOC ships man the frigates, and the crew were disarmed, and kept below deck. The nicest thing is that we were not seen from ashore at the time as the fog was rising up from the sea"
Lucas took a sip of tea before he continued his story.
"When we passed Calais at dawn the French were on the fray, and sent three ships. It was under Admiral Jean d'Estrée I believe, at least his flagship:' La Reine' was there, but that one quickly ran away as I shot holes in one ship after the other. The grenades were more suitable to hit on-shore targets, but sank the ships when they were hit. I think they saw risk of approaching, and disengaged,”
“I saw an order – a set of rules of engagement - signed Colbert that the captains are supposed to save the ships almost at any cost!” I said, interrupting the narrative.
“... but the ship "La Magdeleine" had taken the initiative, and was already windward of us, going about and was cutting behind me, threatening the other ships, so I had to engage, and I was limited to use the deck mounted guns. All hands were on deck on this "La Magdeleine", and most were hit by the first shot. They tried to man the rigging with people from the gun-deck, but the rigging was in tatters. And as a consequence they were awfully undermanned on the gun-deck when they were in range, and could not manoeuvre. It didn't help that we had wounded their otherwise competent captain, so the first mate was forced accept defeat and surrender. I felt it a matter of pride to have both English and French war trophies.
I found the captain de Préville of the La Magdeleine wounded in his cabin. One single piece of shrapnel, had practically torn off a large section of the arm. I helped our surgeon save the captain, and I was applying the tourniquet on the the arm, when I discovered he had a lump on his thorax, a bit like you....
Captain de Préville, was a woman. I sedated her with some opium from the medical supply, and sawed off the arm, and used some of that morphine you have synthesized. . When she woke up just before we sailed into the Zuiderzee. I can tell you she she swore like a French sailor. You could probably question her better than me, as you know the language. By the way Marijke, you wouldn't happen to have a dress to give her? We can't dress her up like a servant!"
"I hate it when you call me Marijke. Call me either Mike or Maria. I don't like that just because I am appearing as a woman, it is now allowed to use diminutive. I am not a baby - I am not helpless, I am standing on my own two feet. And I think the captain can be allowed to choose for Himself! He has made a choice, so please respect it! "
Lucas was a bit deflated.
"Yes - Yes - Yes, understood. Actually I agree with you! I forgot what it was like."
I was a bit stunned by that last comment, but let it pass.
I followed Lucas to the harbour where he was hailed by his men, and a large amount of other sailors that now knew of him. We went on board the La Magdeleine, and there (s)he was in the bunk; Louise Marguerite de Bréville was the name given at birth. I greeted her in French, and offered her a set of women's clothing if she preferred, as my conclusion was better to go as was considered "decent" when the game was up, as it was terrible to be looked upon as a freak.
He declined, saying he preferred to die, rather than don female clothing.
“I respect that, but I don't know how about everyone else. ...
How did you manage to get the job as a captain? Here in the Netherlands it would be inconceivable that you got the job without going the grades, showing seamanship, before getting the commission as a captain on a man-of-war.” I said thinking about a series of books I once read about a girl becoming a midshipman.
“Well – the French system of getting the commission based on breed rather than experience worked in my favour. I was in the Army for a year or so, but I got in trouble. My father was a good friend of d'Esté, and he knew of me. He was obliging enough to give me command of a vessel. I had proven myself in battle against the corsairs.”
“Then maybe we should send a message to your friend the Admiral – and confirm you are alive. I suppose you will find it a bit more difficult to gain a renewed contract when you are back in France, so I beg you to consider employment in my service when your allegiance to Louis and France is somewhat less important”
I explained that he could wear whatever as long as it was up to me. The lack of a body-part or two was no hindrance.
"You still have to win the war" he said with a tone that implied that he still thought that Louis XIV - the Sun king, would prevail.
He said he was going to be a freak anyway, as a one-armed woman. I still admire his stance.
I got in contact with Greta again, still trapped in Zwolle; Paul was out of reach.
It certainly was almost happening: The cities along the Rhine had not prepared themselves against this superior enemy, and everywhere there was chaos. the Provinces of Holland and Zeeland were most worried about attacks from the sea, so they had not provided help to their brethren. In many ways Utrecht did a sensible thing by surrendering without a fight. Friesland could not help either, as they were fighting on their own against well prepared Germans under the leadership of the Bishop of Munster , and his acolyte the bishop of Cologne. Both of them were funded by the king of France. Greta said she was not finished sorting out her father's estate, and that was why she got trapped in Zwolle. Instead she was now leading the resistance And she had had a large stock of food that did not easily perish; which usually is a problem when a town is surrounded a long time before harvest. Herring, pickled cabbage and had a healthy amount of Sodium nitrate, which local authorities didn't know about.
My yacht - was moored in Schiphol, next to one of the fortresses that was going to defend Amsterdam. The crew was reduced as the more able-bodied were tempted by service in the army or navy. In England, they would have pressed the crew into the navy. In the Low Countries that was illegal. Gysbert was anyway too old, and reliable, but it was with a skeleton crew we sailed back to Altena
I left Amsterdam on the same day as Naarden fell to the French. I could hear the guns, just as everyone in the city could hear it. Naarden is only 20km away from the city centre of Amsterdam. It takes somewhere between 3-4 hours to walk that distance. The front was near, but the enemy was closer
I had assumed it was safe to sail on the Zuyderzee in a small boat back to Altena. I couldn't be more wrong. We were almost overtaken by a pirate-ship full of Germans attacking smaller ships on the Zuyderzee. Our rifles kept them at bay, and Lucas vowed to hunt them down.
In Altena I found the the whole town in disarray. Old men and young boys excepted, most men were called up to the front - either to dig trenched in the bog or man the few guns.
Pieterzoon was amongst those greeting me, and he almost laughed his head off when he discovered I had duped him for so long.
The only advantage of turning up with a new wardrobe is that women were flocking around me, and it gave them a good laugh. They needed to laugh in these times when all news were bad. My nickname in Frys "t'famke" means the Girl, was not that far off. More than one claimed they knew I was a woman, that they had seen through my disguise.
In Paul's stuff I found a letter he had hidden. It confirmed he was the son of Graf von Arnsberg zu Siebenberg. My memories started to come back. Visions of the past which was flickering through my mind while I sat in prison, was now making sense. Indeed he was the son, and I the daughter, but we were not true siblings.
Right - we had a job to do, and my workers were used to obey me, which is an advantage.
I could understand why Paul didn't take the seven machine guns, as they were heavy, and he probably was aware they would consume all the rifle-ammunition, available at the time, in a few minutes. I had planned to use these on small armoured boats.
I had the funds to pay for production of more ammunition, and more guns and more grenades.
Our military expedition could be started. Lucas volunteered his whole crew, and some other sailors that saw hope in him as a good captain, and joined.
Quickly I organized some women to take care of all the children, so that I could use some of my best "girls" who by now were women with family. 240 women, but I didn't need yet a gigantic army. Anna had not only gone up against Paul by helping to hide the hidden funds, she had between her duties as a surgeon managed to keep an eye on the production of ammunition, though it was at a lower level.
I was worried the other side may have some players on their side. That there were other players I knew, as Anna, Greta and Lucas were identified. But had they access to advanced technology?
The radios were possible thanks to graphene- which is a semiconductor. Still amazes me that none of the others had been thinking how easy it is to make graphene.
[note: graphene was made with pencil and adhesive tape by Geim and Novoselov]
The good burghers of Amsterdam had some right to use their ships as warships in times of war. Getting a letter of mark to become a privateer was easy, and I had purchased such on behalf of my captains even before the onset of the war. I was the owner of five ships with fighting capabilities As such I was referred to as a Captain – at least before the city's burgers heard I was of the wrong gender, and unmarried, but the issue wasn't the highest on their agenda with an English invasion imminent, and the enemies at the gate. Then I contacted my liege.
I was allowed by The Countess to raise a regiment, and as the funds came in, to raise more. I don't think it was in her mind that I should lead it. The situation was pretty desperate so the HQ agreed to anything. I kept my miniature army under control by embarking them on boats,.
It may seem a bit off to aim for Zwolle first, but my accountant and friend Greta was trapped there. The small steel-ships had had built - could accommodate the guns, and supply the troops on the march. On the way was the city of Kampen. I never liked Kampen. Haughty citizens, still living on a glory of Hanseatic past, while the river Ijsel was silting up. The good citizens of Kampen had even torn down their bridge, although it was not over the bridge the aggressors attacked, they had given up the city without more than 20 shots fired. It was with great pleasure that I ordered the firing upon the this city, and the German gunners on the old walls had no chance to resist. They surrendered after having had seen their comrades hit at distances where they could not retaliate. One hour it took to gain control of the city. It was with mixed feelings we discovered that the enemy had taken the city officials as hostages. In the process of shelling the local HQ, we wiped out the old order. So much easier it was for me to appoint Lucas as Governor, and he would hold the first General election to the city council on the principle een mens een stem (one man one vote), and that involved women too, so there was suddenly 5 women and 8 men in the city council, and none of them particularly rich.
We didn't stop. Very soon we came into action as the troops of the Archbishop of Keule (Cologne) were considering re-taking Kampen. A very fast manoeuvre by the remaining marines, and our superior range with rifles crushed completely the four enemy regiments.
We were welcomed like saviours. We sent the boats back for supplies, while being celebrated, and taking care of the POWs. Greta was there. Greta was considered a heroine, as she knew how to fire those rockets, that kept the enemy at bay, together with the effect of rifled muskets (with Minié type bullets), and she had one of my special rifles with telescopic sight. They called it "caliver", as that was an existing small musket. Women were not allowed on the walls, but she climbed the ruins of the church-tower, with some of the safety harness I once had helped her design, and from there she could at leisure kill sentries, and officers. Just because of her, the enemy had to move the camp 5km off. Greta hit the wagons transporting powder to the guns. She killed most of the skilled gunners, and she even killed Baron von Something, and a Freiherr von That, in summary: terrorising the officers.
The mayor had several times wanted to surrender the city, but the brewers and the drapers guild had resisted, and the mayor was deposed while the siege lasted. The failed attacks had bolstered the citizens' morale, although it was tough to hear from the enemy that Zwolle was the last city that was was resisting. For some reason the main French force disdained to help their German allies, just as the final assault on Holland was delayed because the cities of Holland and Zeeland were going to the English if the secret Treaty of Dover was to be believed, so they had achieved their territorial goals, and then there was no really good reason to spend French blood, for no additional gains. So Münster troops were relying on an age-old tactics: starve the city.
"But my friend Jacob - goldsmith by trade, pointed out that if the United Provinces had given up, then we would either have seen an enormous army outside the walls, or receive a delegation from 's Gravenhage telling us to give up. Neither of which happened. Still - it was tough to ration food. They would maybe have lasted only twelve months, and Greta had only a hundred shots left. We were ill prepared for a siege. But thanks to you we were at least prepared to defend ourselves", said one of the men that was going to be a staunch supporter of Greta and me later.
*_*_*_* Greta*_*_*_*
I never like Paul. There was something about the way he looked at me. Maybe because he was jealous. I avoided having to be near him as much as possible. He had made his advances. The he found Anna, and I was no longer so attractive. I don't mean that he didn't try but he was much more careful when trying. He only did a pass when we were alone, and that was now fairly easy to avoid. He was absent a lot, and Anna was mostly around when he was back.
As the accountant I had a very good overview of the financial situation, which was extremely good. I made sure to have Mike's approval for investing in the VOC which had a yearly dividend of 18%. Shares in the company was easy to use a security, and there were other companies that did try to emulate the mighty VOC. A less eminent investment was done in London, where we bough shares in the The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay. Mike was a bit reluctant, as he felt there was a war looming. I disagreed: England and the Provinces were allies against France. And anyway - it could be used to have genuine business reasons to enter England and do some spying. It was impossible for me to do it, as the English would not allow a young girl to travel alone without a chaperone. I did try, and was arrested. Not for spying, but precisely for being without male attendant. I was saved by a Dutchman called Cornelis Vermuyden, who had a brood of children, and he turned out to be a very good contact because he was surveying he areas near the Thames estuary, and in Cambridgeshire, providing us with very good maps of the area. He was probably not aware he was doing us services. I even bought land, to make it "reasonable interest". I "betrayed" Mike by describing an experiment I had seen Mike do. It was a lie, but it worked. A very tall box was filled with soaked peat. The water was drained from a hole in the bottom, and then the shrinking of the pile could be measured. I told him Mike was working on this problem of shrinking while drying peat, but if Cornelis hurried he could publish an article to the Royal society on the subject. So I think Cornelis thought he was outwitting Mike by working on this. Mike had reached a solid reputation in some scientific circles, and that was paying off. Precisely the reason he was going to Paris. Officially to get a doctorate at La Sorbonne, and then a seat at the Academie des Sciences, one of Colbert's pet projects.
Mike had his breakdown, and was under treatment by Anna. I was for once alone with Paul, and I kept my distances. Els - our caretaker was also present, so maybe I wasn't very careful. I remember I felt very strange. The walls started to wobble around me. Els told later that she had to help me in bed. I was better in the morning, but had some pain in my tummy.
This happened a few times, and I contacted Anna when she came back from a particularly long period of teaching Medicine and doing surgery at the University. I explained the symptoms. She was very worried, and then she mumbled something about checking the stores.
I have never seen anyone come back so livid. She was enraged,and her wrath was not directed at me. It took a while before she could even talk, and then she cried. I tried to comfort her. I had no idea that it was me telling about those periods of illness that created this.
Finally, after about one hour she could manage to explain.
"Greta. You see - I checked the stores for the amount of anaesthetic and painkillers. The last entry was when Mike left. He brought 6 bottles with him. There should have been 18 left. There are only 12 remaining. The product missing is Rohypnol. It looks like Paul has been molesting you without your knowledge.
I will have to do a full check of you. Sorry about that"
I didn't cry. It was as if she was telling me something that had happened to someone else. It wasn't until she said : "You are no longer a virgin, and you are even pregnant"
Even then I didn't completely understand. It couldn't happen to me! .
I looked at Anna wobbling around in the late stage of her third pregnancy, and she looked tired, in a way that she was not a few hours before. Tears was running down her cheeks. Paul had betrayed her, and had proven to be a complete bastard. I think I started to cry because she did, and while I started to cry - then I realized I understood it was about me.
I know Anna don't do terminations of pregnancies. There were several cases where we had helped the girls in the family way by providing light work, and a small cottage. Anna said a year ago: “In my previous life I would have given anything to achieve the experience of giving birth, that I think it is wrong to terminate a life because it is just inconvenient.”
I never quite got underneath the skin of Anna, but I think that being pregnant, and becoming a mother meant a lot to her. But Paul's brutal betrayal, his lack of morale, was a heavy blow to her.
She said that she had given up on Paul. She had thrown him out of the house. She admitted the bruises were his doing (she had managed to hide them from me, but she thought I had seen them). I had an inspired moment: He was probably going to betray Mike one day. We decided to form an alliance and help the next victim.
"Please, Greta, could you wait to tell Mike about this until he is back. He is so fond of his brother"
Strange I thought that Anna knew that Mike was not male. A doctor should know, and after all those years. Well- it is not my secret to tell!.
Mike's absence was a long one. He wrote that he had made useful contacts, and that he had met the great Christiaan Huygens. They were quite entertaining. Mike needed to enjoy life. The plans to thwart the crushing of a free country was the initial drive, but I think Mike wanted something more. The pamphlets were directed towards freedom for all, not just the patricians, and the rich.
Father asked me to come, as his wife died. So I came. It was just before Christmas, and my reason to keep away was dead. Hein was stuck with three boys, and a newborn girl. My little sister. The oldest boy was barely younger than me, but Father had a disease. I understood it was likely to be cancer of the pancreas or aesophagus and he was not well. I urge him to see Anna, and she came with me and with her kids for Christmas, because Mike didn't come home at once. It was useful to have someone else present when explaining that I was in the family way.
I asked my Father - what the name was of that town where my little sister Traudel died. I got to write down memories from old times, and the names of ancestors, and relatives, some of which would probably reappear when they learned about the successful brewer, that once was shunned. We got news from Lucas. He was fighting Moslem pirates off the coast of Africa, and on his way to South-Africa.
Father was unwell from all the heavy food during the celebration. My slender body was not so slender any more, and I was often sick, but that he didn't notice. I finally told him my situation. It was quite a shock for him. I explained that Mike was innocent in this, as he thought it was Mike... No it was Paul. Hein then asked me to call his notary - It was a minor change in the will that gave my baby half-sister Hendryetta and me everything, except a yearly pension to the sons of his dead wife, until they were 20. However he has specified Paul and Mike as executors and my guardian until I married. Mike was already a partner in the Brewery anyway. Paul's name was now erased, and the act witnessed. Hein was traditional in his thinking. It was kind of irritating, that although I was more than capable of handling money myself, I was considered as a woman to be irresponsible. I got one concession about this guardianship business: Should Mike van Zevenhuis be somehow unable to assume the responsibility of the running of the brewery, then his daughter Greta (me) would be free to take the necessary steps.
A barge came with a very sick person, and good luck would have that the Captain of the barge knew that the patient was somehow the owner of the largest brewery in Zwolle. So he dumped Mike on us, and I sent him on to Anna. Mike had a sever case of pneumonia, so he was in bed for months, and needed quite some time to recover.
We followed the bier to the graveyard. I walked behind while a nanny held Hendryetta In the third place came the orphans Jan, Joost and Gijsbert. They were a lot more subdued now that their mother was gone, and they were at the mercy of this evil step-sister - I may be disgraced in the eyes of many, but I was now the third richest person in town. Export of beer was phenomenal after the VOC understood the benefits of the brew of Hein and Mike. Because of all the grief and bereavement I missed the message that France had declared war on the United Provinces, and I could not react to Mikes recommendation to get out of Zwolle. I had so much to do, and it isn't easy to travel with two brats inside that decided to come out when it suited them. To be honest I was terrified when thinking about the birth, and it didn't help when suddenly an extremely large German army under the command of François Henri, Duke of Luxembourg crossed the border, while Turenne and Condé led the army of Holland, as the French called this huge northern army, and were using the corridor formed by the land of the Archbishop along the Meuse.
Two healthy boys were born, very tiny, and with a will to live.
The refugees came flooding in. I started to organize the defence, and I explained to them that I could make tons of black powder, and it was possible to improve the range of the muskets. As it was practically a sea of soldiers surrounding the city they decided to hear me out.
With a practical range of 100 cubits for a rifle shot, it is no wonder that the range of a cannon - about 1000 cubits was the preferred way of attacking a city. The defences of a typical town were made for the 80 year war and not improved much since. As the French had the better artillery, they had a tactical advantage when facing older cannons. In Zwolle Mike had invested in two rifled guns, and they had a range of 1500 cubits and more. Add exploding shells, and the French commander of the German troops had a problem. They could not put their artillery with the Keller system within range of our two pieces. Their only weapon was the mortars that could lob the ball. Actually quite far, but these bombs were inaccurate, and only destroyed roofs. They also were short on these. Another unpleasant surprise for them was intermittent shots from the city. They didn't know from where, but usually an officer died. Only the wind played in their favour as their commander in chief and Duke of Luxembourg came for inspection, and the latter got wounded by a shot at 2000 cubits distance.
It was irritating that none could get hold of Mike. At the same time I heard from Lucas that he was all right and well after fending off the English state sponsored pirates that were prying on the spice fleet. The stock-market in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Horne were in disarray, so I took the liberty of securing all the shares that could be bought from people trying to sell before they lost everything. I had the advantage of knowing they were approaching Calais, and I gambled on them being able to pass. I also bought some of the not-yet delivered cargo, a pracitice which in modern terms would be called Futures. Anna helped me with this, and it was just in time because a few days later the saving of the joint venture Mike/Paul was gone. Paul had turned up in Amsterdam and emptied the company account there.
The two small monsters were constantly craving milk. In a simple christening, they were named Hein and Michael. It was fairly easy to hire a wet-nurse. Two days after Hein and Michael were born, a young mother of the area - a farmer's wife gave birth to a daughter, but she lost the child after 3 days. She desperately needed a job. Her husband was a farmer, but the fields were fallow and trampled upon. I could pay her to be a wet-nurse. I continued to give some milk, but of course my breasts didn't grow so big. It was great to breast-feed, but then you have to have the babies around you all the time. Pregnancies followed by a permanent job feeding them was the main reason why women were discriminated throughout aeon.
I didn't know I almost killed the General Luxembourg, I just know I missed an officer. The church tower was still a ruin, and the “Peberhuis” as the next tower was going to be called was not yet finished. So I climbed up on either one of them. The wind was steady. The target was wearing an enormous feathery hat. But at least I saw that I missed my target, as I hit him in the thigh. It was the wailing of one of the brats down there that disturbed me. I shot a few others, and I hit the powder depot. No problem hearing that. It was not going to drive them away, but it gave the bastards something to think about. I later learned they lost 60 men in that shot alone. They could not use the guns, as the guns could not be moved within range. Extremely frustrating, for them that is.
One guy tried to take the rifle away from from me, He was so much stronger than me, so that was no contest, but he didn't know what to do with it, as he was not aware my three shot mag was empty. And he had not seen how I inserted the cartridges, nor did he notice the safety catch. He made a fool of himself, and the brewers came to my rescue. I may not be a member of the all-male guild, but I was the owner of the most successful brewery, and the orphaned daughter of a very respected master brewer.
I was suddenly acknowledged as a fighter, although they didn't like to have me on the defences of the city. Everyone wanted to see my sharp-shooter rifle. I explained I had made the telescope myself, but please don't touch as it was easily misaligned. Suddenly I felt like I was one of the buddies. I also could give them information of what happened around. Officially it was my late father's pigeons that brought me messages. So I told them of the nomination of Wilhelm van Oranje as Commander in chief, then as Stadhouder (Cheers, we're saved) the flooding of the waterline, and the fall of Utrecht, (Disaster we are doomed) and that the Emperor had declared war on France. (First time for a century or more there was a hooray for the Habsburgs here, except when forced to do it) At least some news gave the city - more crowded and cramped than usual some way to not feel completely cut-off.
There was only two remaining approaches for the enemy: Rush the ramparts, or starve us out. They attacked before dawn on the same day Naarden fell. It was a desperate move of the German commander (Luxembourg was recovering in Nijmegen). The guns in the city may be old, but they worked perfectly well at short range, and I had unpacked the rack full of Congreve rockets, which were used for the first time. Their range was not fantastic, but far superior to what the city otherwise had available, so the rear of the attackers were decimated at the same time as the front. The number of corpses left to rot in the mid-summer heat was staggering, and then it was not going to be the least. Only a few came near enough to fire a shot at the defenders, as many drowned in the ditches, and then met a hailstorm of Minié bullets, that also gave the defenders a better range. Two muskets blew up, because the pressure in the chambers exceeded tolerance, but otherwise the success was resounding.
Plan D for the allied forces was to starve us. That was a tedious affair, and I could calm everyone by telling them that van Zevenhuis was on the way. The city's councilmen tried to get control over my homing pigeons. Only the pigeons did not want to bring any messages out, and they never got any messages in, while I could get a message through to the cousin of some important guys, and got a suitable response back. The council was ridiculed. In the stock of food that Mike had stored here was Indian corn imported from the Spanish Americas. It had the advantage it was not stolen, not commandeered, as few knew how to use it. I taught the women how to make tortillas, and we used the corn to feed the chicken, so there was actually not much of a shortage.
The fall of the attackers came as a surprise to most of us. I knew that Kampen was re-conquered the evening before. The Germans move their forces northwards in response to the threat, thus we were surrounding them with the cities to the west and south, the Zwartemeer to the North and their army ended up fleeing to the East.
When Mike came it felt first like an anti-climax. It was weird to see Mike, as Maria, in a dress. She looked regal in her French creations. She kept her promise to de Witt, even it meant riding in a side-saddle.
The crowd didn't even know who it was. They were a bit stunned that their liberators was led by a young woman. She met the gaze of those staring at her with calm simplicity. In the euphoria as they realized who she was, she was claimed by the brewers guild. And the drapers followed suit. She made a passionate speech to all, and all could hear as we had installed the only PA system. Strange to see some like Mike, shy, and very awkward in public performances, suddenly show a fantastic presence. She talked about the infamy of all rulers, she talked about freedom. She talked about freedom to the people.
I helped in the vetting of the prisoners. We found and identified Maximilian Henry - Archbishop of Cologne, and Liège amongst the prisoner. He tried to hide in anonymity, but I heard him whisper in German that they shouldn't divulge who he was, presuming this woman didn't catch the instructions. Mike kept it secret for a quite a while, so there would come a time to exploit-it politically. I suddenly understood why Mike had been so keen on having a small – but well-trained troop of mutes and deaf, persons who would be dedicated to the task.
*_*_*_* Carl *_*_*_*
Carl von Rabenhaupt was old school military. He had seen fighting since he was young.. He had even hoped to be called back to duty in his old age. He was old, but not too old, only three score years and ten (70). It felt good to be useful again. Kolonel (Colonel), of the Rabenhaupt regiment, an honour that made the old Rabenhaupt feel young again. Organizing the defence of Groningen felt great, and they had no shortage of black powder as there was a large plant producing saltpetre just outside the city - that is... it was there until the forces of the Bishop of Münster arrived, and they had to blow it up. The advantage of having the raw-material stockpiled separately, rather than as black powder was that it made it safer. Now there was a detail of women mixing the stuff together together with sulphur and charcoal. They also had food and resources for a two year siege. The canals had been breached to allow flooding of the area. Friesland is not as low as Holland, but this is reclaimed marshland. Dikes breeched added water. The rain had also helped turn the fields around the town to a very muddy and unpleasant area which did not dry up after a few weeks without rain. It rained. The rain had made it utterly miserable, and helped fill the fields even more. The challenge was to get the help of the farmers to do this. They saw crops disappear, and famine looming as the water was rising. The attackers had only very small areas on where to stand and camp without getting soaked. On the other hand, the colonel was confident as the enemy had made a strategic mistake by concentrating their strength on taking this city, instead of first securing the smaller fortified towns, of Bourtange, Oudeschanz and so on. The fall of Assen was quite irritating of course, but Assen was not as defensible, as flooding the surrounding areas of that town was not possible, and the men from Assen provided more troopes for defending the Frisian land As a political refugee from the 30 year war, he had always been irritated and exacerbated by the petty squabble between Dutch provinces. Had they cooperated better, they would not now face this deluge.
The foundry had to be demolished before the enemy took it. That woman married to Councilman Zevenhuis, and who claimed to be a physician as well as a surgeon had directed the salvage crew, that recovered something that must not fall into enemy hands: twenty new ship-guns. But they were no good because they had such a small bore - were far too long, and it was difficult to ram the bullets down the barrel. He had heard they could shoot much further than the types he was used to, but they had proven to be difficult to use. There was no hole through which to fire could be brought to the powder. He had heard a lot of good about those Zevenhuis brothers. He was even indebted to the younger one, at least morally. Now he considered them fools. Why produce useless artillery pieces?
The stench was strong as the enemy used a lot of stink bombs, Sulphur and iron burned together, which creates obnoxious fumes when it hit water, and water was prevalent. These bombs were lobbed over the wall by some powerful mortars, but had little impact as they didn't have explosive shells, just a stench.
The defences were strong, although the enemy were trying to storm the glacis, while his men were safely firing from the parapets, and they were in for a tough time. The cities guns were soon too hot to fire more. They would reach up to a a thousand roede ( less than 4000m) at maximum elevation, but for a bullet to have chance to butcher some attackers, they were not effective beyond 300 roede (about 1000 m) They needed each their own set of bullets, as they were of slightly different gauge. They needed to cool down, otherwise they could either ignite the powder, spontaneously, or break. The Germans had stopped firing with their pieces, to avoid hitting their own men. Women were used to load muskets and pass it on to their men who then could fire twice as fast. Soon they would be down to defending with bayonets.
Oh, the Germans had started to shoot again with their guns.
Carl never liked the safety of his command post, he wanted to be where the action was, and now he had an excuse. He was about to go out when Adolf von Peizen, his only relative to come from Bohemia to Friesland came running and babbling and shouting in German. "Die Belagerer sind belagert.- The besiegers are besieged - It is a relief force, and they have surrounded the Germans ."
He was stunned of the view for several reason: The enemy camp was completely levelled. Where an hour or two ago regiments of musketeers had stood proudly , and safely out of range of his guns, there was now only piles of dead. The only survivors were those that had been in the trenches. And just then when the smoke from the black powder lifted, an odd-looking regiment came in from the South. Good heavens - Carl had problems reading messages, but he could clearly see they were wearing skirts. A message was shouted to the Germans. Carl's hearing wasn't up to hearing that, so Adolf relayed: They are shouting - Get out and no weapons. - not even a knife. A German got on a horse and tried to make a dash for it. One rifle-shot hit the horse, who died instantly throwing the cavalier into the ditch, and then the man was executed. There were maybe a few thousand German soldier surviving, but they were so stunned by the hailstorm of steel that rained on them, and all their brothers in arms that were lying about wailing in agony.
Shouts of victory from the city wall tore Carl von Rabenhaupt out of his thoughts, and then he noticed a woman on horse coming in. One part of him wished he was fifty years younger, the other half of him was appalled at having women soldiers. A group of Germans tried to run away. That must be the "Liebregiment zu Pferd" led by von Schade. Those bastards were using some confusion to bolt. Some were hit at incredible distances by a few of the women, and those muskets didn't need to be primed. Still the regiment, with their leader managed to get away. From the West came more men behind red while and blue flag of the United Provinces . At least they were men. Their progress was slow in the muddy ground even if they were riding horses.
"It is nice of you to come to help us, but we could manage on our own" Carl shouted above the sound of cheers from the crowd.
"You certainly would have, but you would have needed about a month to do that, and we don't have time", the woman answered.
Carl got the impression they had met before. Maybe time to present himself.
"Lieutenant General Carl von Rabenhaupt, baron of Sucha, at your service Madame"
She smiled a bit and said.
"We have already been introduced to each other about two years ago. Maria Van Zevenhuis - though I know that it is not old age that gives you problems to remember me. as Mike"
Holy **** , so this was the weak looking merchant that had given him a loan on extremely good terms when he needed it badly some years ago. He had thought the guy was weak and effeminate then, but assigned it to the young age. He had been far too busy the last five months to listen to gossip, but he had heard there was a scandal about someone posing as a man. Leaving him time to close his mouth she added:
"I hope you appreciate that your excellent defence of the city, and the moats made it possible for us to lay the trap "
Then she said she had relieved Zwolle and Kampen before coming here. Carl felt this was a sign of divine intervention. He felt like he was given hope to yet live longer. He remembered the book of Psalm; “Him was given three score and ten year, and if for reason of strength they be fourscore years, is labour and sorrow.” Right now he felt joy, and relief, but he was not sure. A woman-colonel, that was so alien that he could not accept it -yet .
*_*_*_* Mike/Maria *_*_*_*
Men are ever so often so stunned that women could do anything out of the ordinary. War is often thought about as a man's only-ting, but how many wars have had had absolutely no women in the fight. Most of them have had camp-followers, which of course does not give women in the army a good reputation. In a few hours Assen was ours too. My toughest units was composed of those girls that collected leeches. They were used to hardship, and willing to get wet in order to crawl behind enemy lines. Many of them were promoted to sergeant, and as you know the seageants are the backbone of of the army, giving it a spine down to the privates. No pun intended.
In the deserted HQ we found documents. They were encrypted, so they gave it to me. There was quite a lot of documents. They used the Vigenère cipher.
It was trivial to translate, as I found one document with the translation, so then I had the key, and those stupid guys used the same key for all correspondence. Most of it was out-of date information anyway.
There was no time for enjoying the laurels. There was considerable confusion. The body of the Bishop of Munster was nowhere. Had he escaped? It was a good omen that the mercenaries from Switzerland were less affected by the killing, and they were more than willing to forfeit their engagement with their former employer, and join Carl, who tripled the size of his army. On our side the Commander in Chief General and Admiral Hans Willem van Aylva, was reported missing. A very wise commander who had recommended guerilla-tactics against a numerical superior force. When we found his remains, we discovered that he probably died, with his unit, from our own guns, when we rolled up the German army from behind. A casualty of friendly fire, an unfortunate effect of war.
"Women have no place in MY ARMY" Carl shouted, when I tried to join him.
"Didn't I just help you liberate your own city"
"Precisely - Women - particularly one as beautiful as you has no place in any army. They must stay at home"
"But all are volunteers, and they have special skills"
"No way"
I didn't even get support from his ADC von Peizen. He said:
"You can't change mentalities overnight"
"Overnight - There are several thousand years of women taking part in war: The Vikings had shield-maidens. In France Jeanne Hachette and Joan of Arc, and not so many years ago [1652] Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans fired the guns on the royal troopes in Paris."
"She just gave orders to do it, and she didn't man the guns herself - like you do"
"Precisely, and she probably saved the life of the prince of Condé by doing so"
I was furious. I tried to direct my arguments back to the baron of Sucha. I knew it would be of no help to mention the example from the far away land of Cathay, where Shen Yunying and Gao Guiying had been a general only a few decades ago.
"The Countess did assist you in exhorting the troops" I added, selecting an exemple very close to home.
"But Albertine Agnes van Nassau is our liege lord. Otherwise it is against Gods Will"
"And what does the holy book say about the will of God on the subject?"
The Count fumed, and left. He believed in the Bible, and he knew the bible said no such thing that a woman couldn't lead an army.
After we beat the Germans in the first battle at Zwolle, I had to go and greet. There had been so many things. Getting everything ready took some time, but I was helped by the efficient organisation developed which was my entreprise over the years, and which was largely intact because the members were not drafted by the militias. Coded messages from Greta told me where to find the weapons we had produced over the years. A building housing manure, guano and fertilizers also had the rockets we manufactured. On Terschilling what looked like ships-equipment was hiding field-guns and the much needed rifles. Grenades were under production. Gathering two regiments after I received permission by the countess to do so, and thus becoming a colonel, getting to Zwolle, by freeing Kampen, and Meppel, and … At least they didn't try to steal my little army of women, and young boys. The Marines led by Lucas, were still in Mepple. The liberation of Coevorden was his prioritization. I pointed out that the German front would collapse now unless supported from the French, so beating the French was more important.
It was then Greta got access to the Countess, and she arranged an audience.
The countess received me, because I was now a woman, otherwise it would not have been proper, as it was late at night.
"Wonderful to see you in a dress - and what dress!"
"I had it made in Paris. I had messages hidden in the shipment, but they were not picked up. At least I have a wardrobe"
"I heard that you were arrested. Was it tough?"
"If you think being paraded around as an monkey, and then locked up is easy, then lets say it was not the way I would have preferred to be outed"
"At least you got out!"
"But only thanks to Johan de Witt. He is a very decent kind of person ... and he has got a wonderful family"
"Yet his name is our enemy"
“There is a difference between enemies and political rivalry. The enemy is killing people. Political rivals differ on opinions, but with the public good in mind, and anyway his career is in tatters, as he resigned, and Wilhelm's supporters control several provincial governments.”
I was getting nowhere with tangled political scheme. I couldn't tell her that her descendants would become long living regents of the Netherlands, like Queen Wilhelmina, Queen Juliana, and so on. I was by now more than aware that I was shattering the course of history. As to the evil tongs, there were enough of them, pointing out that liberating Kampen was due to surprise, that the relief of Zwolle was precisely that – relief of a city that resisted, and not a victory, wile the collapse of the Germans near Meppel was due to a freak weather- thunderstorm that had drenched the Germans, and you can't fire a blunderbuss and matchlocks in heavy rain, and finally that the victory at Groeningen was a joint action. I quite justly pointed out that it was the scheme of subsidizing foaling and raising horses that made the frisian army in no lack of cavalry. I really needed a cavalry regiment.
Greta surprised me at least by suddenly speaking.
"May I remind your Grace that you once promised support when needed"
"I allowed her to gather a regiment of women – thus colonel over your own regiments. I can't give her any more, and I can't force men to follow a woman. "
Greta spoke low with her Grace. I understood she was calling in an favour. I didn't know for what, but it had to be big,
"We don't have manpower for 5 new regiments, and most of those are now under von Rabenhaupt. I am about to promote him to full general, taking over from our sorely missed van Aylva"
"I don't need full 5 regiments- I need the title. Titles are important
-as Countess of Friesland you are respected, you even preside, though officially it is your son.
- As a 'doctor' one is more respected in academic circles
I know you are competent from your late actions on the front, but without the title you would not allowed to do what you did.
It may sound like vanity, but titles opens doors, and in some circles they even supersedes common sense.”
“I am also but a woman, and the power I wield is on behalf of my son, but I will see what I can do”, the Countess answered.
I noticed some exchange of nod between the Countess, and somebody behind me, but that could be someone I didn't see. Lady Albertine-Agnes called on her son Henry Casimir to be at her side, when she then announced;
"Doctor Maria van Zevenhuis - you are now appoint Lieutenant General of the Southern Frisian army- although I can not provide you with little if any manpower. My son is convinced you are a magician, so go out and do the impossible. I will try to send you more capable offices and troopes, otherwise you are on your own! Go get it yourself."
I was stunned how suddenly it came. When I was almost losing hope of achieving my goal.
Anna had taken time off the procedures she was performing, to sympathize with me, and she said she was even worried about Paul's mental situation. She saw it coming, and had managed to do something a wife should not do: she tricked him. She made him believe almost all the equipment was with me, so there was no use for him to replenish stocks in Altana. The missing guns were on Terschilling.
Anna gave me several gifts.
First she gave me her savings: enough to continue produce ordinance, and provide food for my troops. I would not manage a lengthy campaign. Almost just as important - she sent half her trained nurses/surgeons with me. The male surgeons were mostly mobilized by van Ayla and now von Rabenhaupt.
******
The land was ravaged by fire long before the German attack, and looted. Savagery by the attackers may generate despair, but more often strengthening the feeling of us against them. The patriotic feel was high and even young boys wanted to join me, and I thought - why not? the Lords Resistance Army lcontinued to ravange central Africa for years by recruiting or actually kidnapping kids younger than teenager, and trained them to use the Kalashnikov, so why not me? Muskets are too heavy, but the repeating rifles I had with a practical range of 300 metres could be handled by kids, as well as women. Powered by Acetone and water-peroxide they could kill people at up to 500 elen. An el is a Frisian cubit, that makes 500 elen, about 300m. Greta and her friends were using the rifles, and could kill at 2000m, but that requires skill, and modern armies does only give such long distance rifles to specialists.
On calling volunteers, there was a suddenly loads of them. Two hundred young boys between 12 and 16. I felt like the pied-piper, but then the area from where this person whose body I was occupying, Maria von Arnsberg zu Siebenbergen, originated is not that far from the town called Hammeln, which once upon a time was cleared of rats, and later children. Paul had discounted the training rifles of light calibre when he went off, probably because we were short on ammo at the time. At least that is what I let him believe when I was becoming uncertain of him. . I knew better, as these rifles used peroxide, but I had a production of the same type of ammo with smokeless powder which gave more than enough penetrating power at 500 elen,( 300 m). Those equipped with those would be within range of cannon-balls, and stray musket-balls, and with a rate of fire that was almost like an AK 47.
My heavy artillery was on barges and boats, so I didn't bring them to the battle of Groningen , so when we had crushed the enemy there, we had only used the lightest pieces - the Congreve rockets and ten 4 inch guns.
From the refugees of towns that were still in the hand of the enemy, we also got some new adult recruits. Men that suddenly believed that victory was possible. I didn't want them at the front, but they were excellent labourers, and they could move the guns, and they could dig trenches faster than any of us women could. They also were very useful to drive the carts containing the shells, and they could use muskets with Minié type bullets moulded to fit the bore. .
I was still a bit irritated for being let-down of Carl von Rabenhaupt. I had helped him when he needed help, some years ago, still he let me down.
Back in Zwolle to re-stock, and then on to Deventer. Historians will disagree on the expression “female army”, because by now I had large following of men, mostly youngsters, but at least I had enough women sergeants, trained for a few years, and who knew how to shoot from hidden positions, to exploit the terrain. With weapons that don't produce smoke, you can do that, while the opponents would give away their location at once a shot was fired, so I was confident in the tactical capabilities of the core. The challenge would be the new ones.
My strategy was now to keep as close to the Ijsel as possible. Tactical constraints meant I had to be close to the artillery which was in constant readiness on the boats and barges. The untrained troopes would be no match to veteran forces, so I needed them mostly to stand guard on and near the river, and bolster the morals of my little core.
Deventer was lost in June to the German allies of Louis XVI, and was administrated by Maximilian Henry, while the next town in the Ijsel branch of the Rhine river, Zutphen was conquered about the same time. Deventer had been betrayed by the mayor. While Zutphen resisted almost two weeks. A very important difference was also that Zutphen had then a quite large garrison, while Deventer had mostly armed citizen, the famous Schuterij.
I found it strange that by now the Sun-kings glorious army hadn't started to move to re-take Kampen, or re-enforce Zutphen and Deventer. It would later turn out that Louis XIV had assumed that the Dutch were on their knees begging for peace, and had liberated POWs, and at the same time laid down completely unacceptable demands that amounted to converting the United Provinces of the Netherlands into a catholic country. The misunderstanding, and the fear of antagonising the written orders gave us a respite, and a usually resourceful Grand commander of the army Maréchal Turenne was for a short while in doubt at what to do. He had planned to help the German allies take Zwolle, but was stopped by the kings cousin Condé, who said that Zwolle would fall any-time, as all the other cities had, no point waste French lives for something the Germans Prince-Bishops would reap the benefits of, and they could live with a single town resisting within their area-
Wasn't the fortress at Maastricht still resisting, while they had taken almost all the eleven provinces, except Holland and Zeeland? It was important to concentrate on the main goal which was Zeeland and Holland. Then the news that Kampen had been lost was disregarded a while because of the imminence of the negotiations. Too many good generals in the same area, and an absent king who wanted to hold his hand on the steering-wheel was actually playing in in our favour. When Turenne heard that Deventer also fell, and there were rumours that the war of the two allies in the North had gone very bad, then he decided to send 50 000 men and take Zwolle and re-take Deventer and Kampen, but the political situation had changed. The Emperor of Austria, had declared war on France. He was more than anyone aware of the objectives of France was not so much the independent provinces of Netherlands, but Habsburg land, and thus Turenne had to comply with his king's command, to leave the Netherlands, and start to razing of Westphalia.
It was mostly an un-eventful trip. The best sharp-shooters were sent over the Ijsel during the night, and shot the messengers that the French sent with letter to their HQ. When they saw that they started to tear down the bridge over the Ijsel. Fine - that meant we did not have to put so many "men" on that bank. We were setting up the batteries, while I decrypted the messages. There was an eerie feeling in the air. We had arrived by the north-north-east, and not far from the road was a small hill with the gallows, and it was full of bodies. Crows and Ravens were picking the eyes out of the craniums. The stench was unbearable. The German have hung about 20 citizens. We were going to make them pay.
I was nervous, and I felt the need to pee. In order to ride I had made this skirt with legs, that allowed me to sit astride a horse, but with artificial petticoat so it looked like I was wearing a full dress. I was quite proud of the way to circumvent the promise I made to the former Grand Pensioner of Holland, and still be able to function. But it was a nuisance when I had to pee. I had to bend to the realities of life, and accept to ride with a so called amazon-saddle.
The girls wore these uniforms with hitched-up skirts, and leggings. Buckles kept the skirts up, and when we felt it was necessary for decency - they could unbuckle and go floor-length. They could therefore just squat instantly when required. A good combination unless you are on a horse.
I wish I had some of the rifle companies on horse that Paul had trained, but that were taken from me. A general is blind without riders skirmishing, and scouting ahead of the main column. I had a trick up my sleeve to counter this short-coming. Those with sharp eyesight would notice some weird birds flying during the day high above the ground. Elements of the enemy forces were very easy to distinguish as they had clothes with very bright colours. It was considered a necessity as the battlefields of the 17th century were covered with acrid smoke, and only very distinct uniforms made it possible to minimize the accidents that inevitably happen, and is called Friendly Fire. The mechanical birds were remotely guided by Greta, and she gave me regular updates on where the French had their checkpoints. Only once did they manage to free carrier pigeons, the other times they tried to send messengers by horse. .
I got the message recovered from the messengers. Two pigeons were also shot. The message they carried was coded, with the celebrated Vigenère cipher, also hailed as the uncrackable code, but what does that help, when those stupid guys used the same key as the one used to communicate with the Bishops, to encrypt all messages - so it was ridiculously easy to read even this short message.
"Dutch troops seen near Deventer. Probably from Zwolle"
Nothing new. That is the problem with "intelligence" in warfare. You never know if you can trust information, as it may be planted, or wrong because the enemy soldiers do not always manage to follow orders. You can only trust the information that is about you that you know is right or wrong, and even then it can be used to slip false intelligence through.
The next was to kill the enemy, and we started by sniping them. There is this challenge in war that you really don't want to hit civilians, unless you want to terrorise them. With countrymen inside the wall, it was obvious we needed to be more surgical than the US air-strikes in Iraq.
When the guns arrived with the boats we directed them at city gates- Two shots - one to adjust the barrel. the next hit the Northern gate. We then took the windmills to the North, assuming there would be few citizens there so close to the walls. The observes inside the mill died.
I talked to them before we set up the plan: a small group would attack North-western side supported by fire to keep the defenders low. We had to get wet in the moat, and then climb the glacis. On my raid of the secret documents in the ministry I came across a book with limited distribution – by a person named Vauban. It described how to make trenches and get close to forts. With my superior range and accuracy, some of those considerations were not necessary.
While planning our next move, the the enemy sent out a skirmishing party. Hundred men, and they must have seen with the spyglass that they were facing women, and only a thousand men, and no cavalry. On horse they raced on the road against our first line. They happened to go straight towards our best markswomen, equipped with rifles with 10 shots in their magazine, and they took pride in precise shooting, and not hit the horses. Horses were valuable.
Meanwhile our planning went ahead.
We had some elements of surprise - like hand-grenades and not the least - the flame-thrower or what some called Greek fire, to link it with something to classical teaching. These girls were not very educated, didn't care for references to bygone times, and we called it flame-thrower vlammewerper. The primitive fear of fire is the psychological advantage of that weapon.
Then there was a thing I had trained the toughest girls to do, each was associated with two less experienced, volunteers and together they executed it nicely.
They found some relatively safe place to weather the hailstorm of musket-ball, and then we concentrated fire on the section of the defences. Almost windless conditions, maybe a small southerly draft was perfect. When shooting the French created a dense cloud around them, that both gave away their position and created a smoke-screen for our advance. The next team to cross the no-man's land had grenade-launchers, or used slings to throw these cannisters further than girls normally can throw. Lobbing the grenades over the wall at a distance of up to two hundred paces was easy. Some of them had been manufacturing those cannisters, so they knew the power, and the dangers. The mechanism to fire these things was a great technological step ahead compared to the crude black-powder bombs used by all other armies. When the bombing of that section moved to some other part of the wall, they continued, and climbed the defences without a problem. The final objective was not yet reached. There is an older medieval wall on the inside of the more modern fort, but as my girls used the flame-thrower with great success on the western guard tower, the French had no stomach to continue. All their artillery was on this outer wall, to prevent easy capture by the people of the town. We joined those twenty brave ones, that captured the objective, and at the same time the German and French forces inside surrendered. There was new scenes of joy as the citizens that had suffered the attack in June, were now liberated. It was quite a shock to discover that there were close to a thousand defenders, and they were all appalled to have to surrender to women.
The mayor of Deventer Hendrik Nilant was apologetic about his quick surrender a month earlier. We arranged a quick referendum, and he was no longer Mayor of the city. I appointed a council, and they had one objective: arrange free election within a few days. Persons that had supported the rendition were excluded.
Our next objective was Zutphen. First of all it was the next town up the Ijsel, and the Ijsel was of strategic importance. Most goods are easier to transport on water than on muddy roads. My heaviest guns were transported on barges and ships. They were far too heavy for the muddy roads. With the ships came also more troops. Success had made more men dare to volunteer. The Countess kept her promise and more. She had even ordered Rabehaupt to concentrate on the main problem, which was the French, now the threat from Munster was over. These new recruits, and particularly their captains were more difficult to manage, and they thought they knew how to fight because they had been trained to fire a musket, but they were far too undisciplined, almost a liability. About half of them I had to send back to Kampen, which was a good thing there, as they participated in the defences of the city. French troops were quartered all over the occupied territories, and some enterprising captains tried to re-conquer the town. They certainly did not take into account that the Dutch defenders had now access to better weapons. One of our sharpshooters even managed to hit the barrels of black powder on a wagon - at the incredible distance of 2km. The wagon load set off fire on other wagons, and destroyed food and tents, and other supply.
Zutphen was packed with troops. A large regiment of Irishmen was quartered there, and they were ordered to move towards us. Of course we did not know that. We were short on cavalry to provide the screening required. Without cavalry a general is blind, my birds were down because of technical problems. So I improvised. I used what I had:some young boys riding around, and with strict orders to flee back to us when they saw something - anything. Fortunately they did follow that order, and only one got killed, and we now knew where at least some of the enemy was located.
On the river one of the three armoured riverboats was coming up. The "de Zwan" had one more feature that made it special: it had one of these extra tall masts, and on the top almost 100m off the ground was a "crow's nest" - a lookout point for one of the sailors. It was a tough climb up, and even tougher to stay there, but the reports I got from "de Zwan" was invaluable, and somehow the Irish regiment failed to notice it before it was too late. They died to a man, but the shooting had alerted the soldiers inside Zutphen and the XIIth cavalry regiment was mobilized, and they galloped out. As the lookout followed their advance, I could give orders to create a trap. We even got barbed wire from the boat. Rolls of barbed wire protected the ditches where our guys were hiding. Barbed wire is difficult to see, and the horse gets tangled in it, which is worse that a fixed obstacle, where a horse and the rider can see what it must avoid at all cost.
After this victory we made camp a bit further on, but re-used the barbed wire to help against surprise-attacks, and in the morning we took Zutphen much like we took Deventer, but with a lot more civilian casualty, as the bombing went on much longer. With what the French assumed was a lucky shot we hit two of the powder-towers, and with the stock gone, they didn't have much fire-power to defend themselves. The next round blew the gates open. These gates would have withstood prolonged hits with lead bullet. Even kegs of powder would have failed, but TNT filled grenades with proximity and impact fuses really blew their way. So they surrendered. Still - we almost lost it....
The French commandant had just surrendered, and we were about to occupy the city when a huge cavalry force was sighted. Some 30 thousand cavalrymen. The Frenchmen tried to grab the weapons they had just surrendered. Thanks again to a vigilant, who ordered the girl holding the flame-thrower into action. It was a massacre, but prompted by their own stupidity at trying to undo the surrender. Several building caught fire in the process. The guns on the "de Zwan" started to work, and stopped the advance of Turenne. Much discussion arose years later about what the French portrayed as the massacre of prisoners that had already surrendered, but my view of it was that it was a combination of unfortunate circumstances and the action of French commander that had not understood they had lost.
Regiments of Dragoons are the most powerful force in the army of the sun-king. A normal soldier on a horse is best at shock-attacks with lance or sabre, used efficiently to further round up an enemy in disarray. The hand-guns are only short-range weapons like pistols, and a standard manoeuvre is to shoot one pistol, and then the second before charging with a sabre. Dragoons on the other hand mostly used the horse for fast deployment, and then fight on foot where the musket can be reloaded. This was a whole army of dragoons. The bridge across the Ijsel was already up, so it was no immediate danger, but we had barely time to get the ones on the exposed West side to a safer position.
Only the armoured river-boats "de Niewe Tulp and "De Zwan" managed to get along, and we had to make do with whatever they managed to have on-board. I sent the Zwan towards the area where the Rhine river splits into Waal and Ijsel, and I was commanding the Ijsel-line forcing the French to attack, as they could still get some goods down the Meuse, but their main line back to France was cut-off.
At least there were some reinforcement coming by horse from the North. The guards checked that they were OK. I had to prioritize the emplacement of guns - to measure up angles and distances - get the rockets placed in the right locations.
Citizens had been pressed into carrying the ammunition off the barges containing supplies - One of them tripped in the darkness, and the little crate - which he was told to carry as if it contained eggs was dropped. It contained shock-sensitive fulminate fuses. Not a very big explosion, but a terrible loss for us, but most of all for the guy losing the box; he died, and several others were wounded. I happened to be on the esplanade, exercising my sad skills at sitting with both legs on one side of the gelding and my horse bolted. I didn't fall off, but I barely managed to hold on, as I lost hold of the reins, a beginners mistake.
A man on horse caught up with us, and he forced my mount to change direction, and his thoroughbred stallion was fast.
I was caught in the strong arms of one of this riders. I felt foolish, but done is done. At least my saviour was a gentleman.
"A dangerous evening to ride about, Madam"
"I have much to see to, and I was in a hurry- Your name Sir?"
"August Ambrosius van Hornes, Madam" , and added "Ritmeester (cavalry captain) of Hornes regiment of Groeningen – leader of 200 men"
He reeked of sweat, after a long ride, his accent was cute, and softer – that is with less of the sounds generated at the back of the throat. Obviously not from Holland, or Friesland, still a native speaker. I was very happy to have reinforcement, but would he accept orders?
"And you?"
I woke up from an almost dreamlike state. He seemed not to know who I was.
"Lieutenant General Maria Zevenhuis - leader of too few, and whoever wants to win"
His eyes showed he was a bit startled, and then he said
"I am your man"
The guy was obviously a born leader despite his young age. He managed to get his men to quiet down, as they were shouting that he had made a quick conquest. My whole body felt like on fire. I never was going to learn. Just like with Johannes I was again subject to the whims of my hormones.
*_*_*_* Augustus Ambrosius *_*_*_*
The moon was in its last quarter. That is not a romantic information for lovers, it is just critical information that the night was pitch-black until 3 hours before dawn. I couldn't sleep. The last days had been tough, so I was thoroughly beat by the ride from Groenlo to here. I came too late to really participate in the reconquest of Coevorden, and it was strict orders and direct orders by the Countess of Friesland, that I join as soon as possible the southern army, and put myself at the service of Lieutenant General van Zevenhuis, who had paid the cost of mobilizing this unit, and giving me the opportunity to show myself off.
My brother hadn't paid for this commission. I got it because I managed to get access to the Countess, and as a noble I didn't want to enlist with the more common riders. I managed to get in contact with Lt Geneal von Rabenhaupt. I showed my orders to join Lt-general M van Zevenhuis. He seemed a bit flustered, and mumbled something, and sent me towards Ommen, and finally I was here
I heard the explosion and saw the horse running with the woman trying to hold it. It was relatively easy for me to get a grip, and save her, although it was partially instincts. I have been horseback riding since I got pants at the age of 5. She was a bit flustered. She was young and really a beauty. I thought she might be a daughter of a rich tradesman. Her mount was a hackney, and not a thoroughbred.
I was therefore stunned when she turned out to be this Zevenhuis , leader of this madness - attack the French when all Dutch generals were retreating.
I had mixed feelings of discovering the gender of my commander, but I have to admit she was a beauty. White teeth, no foul smell from her mouth (Yes we had been close enough), light blond hair.
She assigned some quarters for me and my men, showed me the remaining French prisoners, explaining tersely that there had been a misunderstanding of the terms of surrender, and most of the prisoners died.
She then said she went to have some rest - although a force of 3000 French dragoons were on the west-side of the river. They were probably waiting for reinforcement and artillery. 3000 dragons. That was 5 times the forces at Miss Zevenhuis' disposal.
It was well past midnight and I couldn't sleep. I saw here face when I closed my eyes, and I had to concentrate on my first battle. I had not been blooded yet. I walked over to the city hall, which was the HQ. I was stopped by the female guards. I explained who I was.
"Let him in", I heard a gentle female say.
"Mijnheer van Hornes - you are the most welcome, but at some time you must let us do the planning. The Frenchies are on the move, probably planning a night-attack, or they maybe try to cross the Ijsel. It's a bold move, but it requires stealth, and they don't know that we know... "
It was van Zevenhuis that spoke. She introduced some women. Five of them, and said shortly that they had each a specific task- of which one was to start light-grenades every five minutes. She asked me specifically to have my men calm their mounts as the guns were going to startle them if they had to be fired. I was curious, but I did as she told, and when I came back I joined to see the activity.
It was more of a rocket than a gun-shot, but it was fired from one of the guns on the square, and over the roof-tops. The rocket had a strong glow, but high up there something happened because it really shone, and was up in the air for a very long time. A second shot was directed to the south-west, and a third to the north-west. Rifle-shot were heard, and shouts.
"Sector 7 Alkmaar 12kel " "Sector 2 Dokkum 6kel "Sector 3 Texel 5kel"
General Zevenhuis just was present. These women seemed to know what they were doing. A young boy came running with a message that she read. She sent him off. She then explained while showing on a map.
"They have tried that night-time move, to cross the river here, and here. We have anticipated that, and let them through, into a trap formed by barbed wire.”
“Barbed wire?”
“ Eh” – she searched for a word, “could call it Frisian horses. These are worse. As a cavalryman you are going to hate it”
I knew about Frisian horses, and I hated them. Spiked stakes bundled, to tear up the belly of the horses. I hated them. But she was right. Barbed wire was worse.
“We caught them in time, and are shelling them. Sector is the location on a grid. Alkmaar and so-on are codes - the last information is the distance. It is a modified system from what the Finns used against the Soviets during the Winter-war"
I had no clues what the nations like Finns and the Soviets were in this world, nor had I heard of a winter-war. Most military operations were limited to summer due to the cold. Wait - I had heard of Finns in association with the Swedes. So rather than totally exposing my ignorance I asked.
"What is kel - I have not heard that - is that keel (throat)?"
"No! we measure in Groningen cubits (in Dutch el plural: ellen) and kel is a contraction of thousand, in greek kilo - ellen"
"So 12kel is 24 thousand feet -... that is 4½ mile ... So you are almost shooting to Alkmaar! "
I said, a bit stunned, as I knew that these guns hardy if ever were used on distances above a mile
"Captain van Hornes is good at calculus, but you under-estimate the distance to Alkmaar" she said just as someone shouted:
"'Sector 7 Alkmar reduce to 6 kel 6Bourtange and increase "
"Sector 7 Alkmaar reduced to 6 kel aiming at 6Bourtange - asking for backup"
"They are shooting with something that is a bit like grapeshot, only it spreads out not here, but there - and kills everyone within 200 el" Maria explained while we watched.
"Sector 2 Dokkum - enemy retreating"
"Sector 2 Dokkum - Cease fire - move up to sector 3 Sinterklaas 7 kel"
The crews knew their job obviously.
A fourth gun was turned around, and started to fire - This one was manned by a male crew, but one woman supervised. I now understood why those guns were located at the city centre and not on the ramparts. Many more things surprised me, besides the gender of the crew members, that the guns did not create a gigantic cloud of acrid smoke, although the smell was distinctive, and they did not clean the barrels, and they were just pulling a cord to fire. Four women were doing something with the bullets. I learned later that it was the setting of the ignition-timers. Ever so often a new rocket was sent in the air, and gave light to the spotters – men and women reporting on the presence of enemy.
"They are all retreating" was shouted - and some new positions were given. - and then Maria gave orders to cease fire, and send scouts
The scouts came back at dawn with some Frenchmen. Several of them had terrible wounds. Some with limbs torn off. I went out there in daylight and I saw piles of dead soldiers and horses. I became sick. Maria Zevenhuis did not laugh at me, but praised me and said I was human, with a heart, which is very important. She said: In war you remember the names of generals, but the families weep those to us nameless that are lost, even when the victory is great.
The French tents were still standing - looting of them started, but some soldiers were assigned to recover the documents, and we tried to limit looting by organising it, and dragging corpses into heaps, and trying to record names of the fallen. Thousand soldiers and horses were found dead in a small area. Maria also spotted something she called a UXB - Unexploded bomb, and she gave orders to clear quite a large area, while waiting for a crew with explosives to make it explode.
What impressed me maybe most was that she seemed to have no problems to read the encrypted military correspondence- she said: “Those guys are using the same key as we got from the Germans, so they are failing on elementary security, which is to never re-use a key.”
She came back a bit pale: she said the French troops seemed to include the French Maréchal Turenne. After some search - we found a body, that could fit, and in the bushes we found a staff - the symbol of the office. We didn't know what Turenne looked like, so it was an assumption, but we started to move the body that was completely stiff, and in an unnatural position.
We heard a noise and from the bushes a bit further away rose two French dragoon, one of them aiming at us with a musket.
"You have lost - surrender" I shouted while I moved in front of Maria to protect her..
The problem is that frightened men are not rational, and they seemed to be in some kind of daze. I thought my last hour had come, but I was in a way happy it was while doing something manly such as protecting an attractive woman, that obviously was destined to be remembered.
A shot tore me out of my thoughts of death, and I had thought it was me getting hit, but it was the guy aiming, that was hit in the middle of the body. His body armour was no protection. Maria shouted in French to the remaining Dragoon:
"Surrender - if you want to live" - which he did.
Name - and rank : Bérenger la Forge. - private and he could confirm that the body was Turenne, killed by a fragment of metal that had cut his jugular artery. One of the thousands that died in the middle of the night.
Maria said then something really weird:
"So Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne - you did not die in Alsace in the midst of winter, but here in a muddy field in the summer night - still dead is dead" and then she said a bit loader: "Let's give him a reformed burial - you once was baptised in our church, and I think only convenience made you swear obedience to anti-Christ"
Mistress van Zevenhuis was obviously anti-catholic, and that tore my heart. Although I wasn't as devout as the rest of my family, I was still respectful.
As we got back to town, there was news that Carl von Rabenhaupt, and the main Frisian army was within an hours march of Zutphen. They had heard the thunder during an otherwise quite night, and wondered. Maria told me that Willhelm of Orange was stuck behind the water line - the flooded areas towards Holland. She seemed to get some intelligence for somewhere, as it would prove to be accurate. But we still did not know where the French army was, and what did the commander in chief Turenne do here with "only" 10 000 men?
Maria corrected me - she said:
"There are about 10 000 dead on the field, but I suppose that several thousand managed to get away. The documents recovered seemed to indicate he had up to 20 000 men - and that is a normal army. It is difficult to move the main army, while making sure the enemy does not wake up right behind you. One thing is certain: the top French officers are better than any men at similar level we have here"
I felt stung by that last comment, but she seemed oblivious.
"Ludowik of France has chosen them, though he has outstanding issues with them. Condé led an insurrection against him. Turenne was of the wrong faith, yet faithful to the crown. These guys have proven their worth, their competence as military leaders. The level below is more a mixed bunch - people that have bought their promotion, and have most of all a noble lineage as the only reference to get the job"
I felt a sting there too. Most certainly the right birth made a man more suited to command. I don't know if I like this girl!
She also had no respect for Carl von Rabenhaupt when he arrived. She talked to him as an equal, and I noticed that Carl now did consider her an equal too. He later admitted he was most impressed by her swift recapture of Zutphen.
It was a privilege to be present when they discussed, particularly on the road towards the south. We still had no clue where the enemy was, but Maria claimed they just had to move south. She listed:
"One: They must assume we intend to relieve Maastricht which was our only fortress that resists.
Two: After recovery of the Ijsel - they have only one way out of the Netherlands, and that is towards the south, as we have now blocked the road to Westphalia, and they may use a number of points across the Wall, but Arnhem is the logical point, as they could use the bridge of that city, and avoid crossing where they waded across a bit earlier. Condé received quite a serious wound at the ford, so I don't think he is fond of the place. Even if they control Arnhem and other cities, we will blow up the bridges, so this humongous army will need several days to cross the Rhine.
They may try somewhere else, but I have provided the places like Kampen, and Deventer with artillery that punches them at a distance where they can not retaliate - which is extremely frustrating, and will delay them until we arrive. Crossing the Ijsel branch of the Rhine will also take take days, and it leads them not directly towards France
Finally: they have to meet us in battle, as they cannot return home without a good fight. the prince of Condé is still officially in disgrace - as is the case of the the Duke of Piney-Luxembourg. "
She looked at me and said: "These are men that are the best generals of Europe at this time"
(She use the Dutch word man - not mens which means human )
"I just hope Arnhem is not one bridge too far for us" she muttered.
Again one this weird things she said.
Historical note: I have tried to weave a fictional story that includes many historical persons, maybe too many. The source material on the internet about Louise Marguerite de Bréville / Louis de Préville, is not abundant. I have only found these two references :
http://www.opex360.com/2012/03/08/louise-margueritte-de-brev...
and
http://www.confidentielles.com/r_14256_decouvrez-louise-marg...
I have not found any articles in English; sorry... I suppose you will now find one entry linked to Bigclosetr.us :-)
Years of preparation come to a close.
*_*_*_* Mike/Maria *_*_*_*
I loved watching this Ambrose August van Horne, as he was riding around inspecting his men, and checking things. Most of us can sit on a horse, though some are scared of it. Some persons learn to be a good rider, but August was amongst the select few who are one with the horse. He may be young - though nominally a few years older than me, he had this boyish charm, and yet he did care about his responsibility as an officer; a quality not very common either in this times where leadership in the army was a consequence of paying for your position. He obviously was of good stock, looked aristocratic, but could be son of a wealthy merchant, and the name from north Holland, I presume. I didn't ask too much details there and then. He was recommended by my friend the Countess, so I hope her judgement was sound. I must keep focused on the task ahead, and not think about boys, even if he was radiating maleness. It could cloud my judgement, just as it had in the case of Johannes van de Goes. Funny, I had practically forgotten Johannes now, as the name Augustus Ambrosius was singing in my heart.
I was all to aware I was behaving like a teenager, infatuated in every handsome boy that happen to be nearby. Where had the good old Mike gone. Was I completely Maria now? Scenes from my past were re-emerging. A father dying when his horse was shot under him, and he broke his neck, and us still forced to flee. A dim glimpse of my mother coughing blood, followed by her body in a bier.
We met the refugees on the road, in tear and hungry, Our food was quickly depleted. The looting was bad enough, sending poor people on the road - sick and old , women with small babies or pregnant. Some even giving birth on the side of the road. There were too many - to give relief for all. I had anticipated some, so extra tents and food was available, by they were too many. Too few for all. The boats sailed up the Ijsel, they came with herring, flour, as well as the heavier pieces of artillery and ... yes that was going to be surprises. One surprise: Anna was on one of the boats, with medical supplies. I told her she was out of her mind - she had left the baby at home. Claimed that she could do something, and she had a nurse to take care of Wilhelm back in Altana. She said: "I owe you at least that". There and then there wasn't time to ask her for more details.
With her came loads of ammo. The money, and the promise of more money from the VOC had made the production of cartridges possible, and the women in Altana worked overtime to send what was needed. Greta had between her other tasks written letters to those who owed money to Zevenhuis Bros, and told them to pay up. The promissory notes from the VOC were still worth their weight in gold. Anna added:
"You gave them the first good news in a long time when you conquered Kampen. They felt so awful for having laughed at you. And when your victory at Groeningen was known, there was a party that lasted ..."
"I was too busy trying to get my troops organised"
"That is why they have sent their loved ones, sons and husband"
I looked at the rabble - their enthusiasm could not compensate for lack of discipline. Their willingness to die for their country could so easily be just that.
Anyway - we had to put them to work lest they do mischief.
*_*_*_*Augustus Ambrosius *_*_*_*
"I have a bad feeling" said Carl von Rabenhaupt.
"Are you just as superstitious as the sailors. Still don't want women on board the ship?" Maria asked.
"No - I have faith in you "
"Thank you! At least that is something. There is always something that goes wrong with the best of plans. As von Clausewitz said: The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan. There are many reasons why this is true. One of them is that you lose the initiative if you try to be too clever, and the second is that you'd be amazed about how many generals have refused to accept new information because it doesn't fit with their so called perfect plan."
"This von Clausewitz - is he a friend of yours?"
Maria took some time to answer - as if she had said something she shouldn't.
"Ah, I just found some notes written by him - clever chap - but some of it is just obvious such as: 'Fighting is the central military act' or 'Engagements mean fighting'. 'The object of fighting is the destruction or defeat of the enemy'. In this case I am all to aware that destruction is necessary, as Hannibal son of Hamilcar discovered: the Roman senate would not negotiate a peace even if they were defeated in many battles. Just look at England - we have the third war now in less than twenty years. Their parliament will maybe behave like the Roman senate. Then we will have to fight to the last drop of blood."
We then rode on. Carl and Maria discussing why Hannibal, though he won stunning victories at Trebia, Canna, and still lost so absolutely at Zuma. I was silent as I was fascinated by their discussion, and the way they discussed: as equals.
"I would never thought I could discuss Hannibal and Alexander with a woman; much less one who knows what war is!" said Carl.
“What kind are those birds”, I interrupted them, pointing towards some large birds hovering above the southern and western skies.
The Baron of Sucha squinted towards the skies. “Young man. You shouldn't interrupt your betters, even if your pedigree is perfect.” he reprimanded me.
“Those are my birds” Maria said in a much more conciliatory tone- “Don't worry about them. They look for a prey”
They continued discussing war.
“Why are you so certain that the French will come and meet us there” , Carl said while pointing on the map, that almost was blown out of his hands.
"It has the advantage for them also to concentrate the army, instead of having it spread out on the front. They must think themselves invincible against a relatively puny Dutch force. To quote an old master 'Pretend Inferiority and encourage his arrogance' "
"Are you quoting this von Clausewitz again?"
"No - a man that lived far from here - two thousand years ago - Sun Tzu was his name", she said.
Strange but fascinating woman, this Maria Zevenhuis.
A boy came on a horse with an encrypted message to Maria. I noticed that Carl was curious, but he had no way to read it himself.
"An army of English soldiers, beefed up with French units were trying to take Kampen by surprise – They got a surprise, but not their own. The duke of Monmouth has surrendered. "
She also got another message from Greta. “A large section of the French army is moving towards us. Probably 100 000 men. Our prey is closing in”
“How does she get that information?” von Rabenhaupt asked.
“My little birds are speaking to her and me”.
I don't think the old Baron had an eyesight good enough to see those things that were circling around to the west, and sometimes circling in other places too.
****
The towns of Arnhem, and Nimwegen (Nijmegen old spelling) are strategic, as they are located where large rivers meet. The Ijsel branch of the Rhine river makes another natural barrier, and the Maas (Meuse in French) for the other city. The Waal branch is the main flow of the Rhine. The Nederrijn (lower Rhine) is another branch. Crossing these waterways require boats or bridges, and takes time to cross for an army. Bridges were fastest way of getting wagons across, and then a boat with impossible tall mast managed to blow up the Arnhem bridge, thus forcing a large battle: as the river-transport was closed off it was increasingly difficult to provide for the large army, unless the English fleet could get a break-through, which they were incapable of.
It was me and my men's main task to draw the French into the mouse-trap. We were equipped with new weapons - a "Caliver" as those short muskets were called, short - and looked ridiculously puny compared to the six feet long muskets, and the precisely that length made muskets impractical for most of us.
"Cavalry don't use muskets because they are too long and heavy." was a comment from one guy, who should know better than to talk back to a General, but then he said what I thought.
General Maria Zevenhuis smiled back, and said:
"You make a common mistake in logic - What's you name and rank"
"Private Durk van Dijk, Sir ... Eeeh … Madam"
"Has it struck you private van Dijk that there must be a reason the I am now General, and you are still private, although you are a man?"
"No My General"
"Liar - but it is forgiven " Maria said, and faced the rest of my men. "That is however not important - You see those three elm-trees over there, about 150 paces away- Imagine it is three French dragoons. Private van Dijk's assignment is to kill them. They are not supposed to report back our position.
They are pointing at you with muskets, and their horses are with them, but you want to capture the horses. Execute with your favourite weapon from a horseback" -
Durk was a bit bewildered, but mounted and engaged rode down 100 paces, discharged one pistol, performed a volt that was a variant of a caracol to draw his second pistol. and then rode back. One of the shots had hit the trees - actually only one tree.
"How many Frenchmen did you kill?" Maria asked.
" Eeh " , Durk suddenly remembered that his assignment was to kill three..
"And do you think they would not have shot back at you? You leave one - and you are probably dead, and anyway you fail your mission because the remaining will report back"
Some men laughed at the unfortunate private.
"I hear there are guys here that would solve the assignment better? Anybody want to try?"; they stopped laughing.
She was already mounted. What had seemed to be a skirt was split in the middle, so she could sit astride the horse in a normal saddle. The spurs on her boots had torn a rift in the long fabric. Although she had used side-saddle the other day, she was using a normal saddle now, and for good reason as she was guiding the horse with the spirs, and not the reins. She was a good rider after all. She showed the rifle and said:
"I will now show you how you can execute the assignment - and remember - I have no doubt YOU tough men are better riders and better marksmen than me, a weak woman"
She got the horse into canter. She was not that bad a rider as our first encounter could give the impression of. With her spurs she guided the horse, while it cantered, leaving the hands free to shoulder the rifle, and shoot at the trees while circling my men, sometimes shooting over their heads and never closer to the trees than 100 paces. No priming and reloading seemed necessary. White marks on the trees marked where the bullets had torn off bark. Ten shots is a short time.
"Do you think the French Dragoons are dead now?"
"Yes"
“Yes what?”
“Yes Madam”
"I, Maria van Zevenhuis, pledge you this- I will give you dangerous assignments, but never an impossible task, and I will try to give you the tools to do it so you can come home to your loved ones".
From that moment I had nothing else than respect for her, and I understood how she could give hope in an utterly desperate situation, and I understood why Albertine Agnes had promoted her to General.
I was learned that I had been wrong in one detail. The caliver required loading and priming, but it was done so quickly.
My men were divided in groups of 6 and 6, and girls that knew everything there was to know about the calivers showed us how to shoot. As they pointed out: “You men are supposed to know how to ride. We teach how to handle the rifle”. The instructions continued with: How to disassemble, how to clean, and explained how it worked. They were insisting on keeping the barrel clean of dirt, and in dry condition, although they claimed it could work when coming out of the water, as the small "cartridges" were watertight.
Maria provided me with a pistol. She said:
"An officer is supposed to have a small hand-weapon. I only have a few of these. Can't give one to everyone. They work the same way, but produce even less smoke, and of course the range is about the same as a musket, so don't use it against your enemy - it is to shoot deserters and so on"
As she showed me how to use it I got really close. She held around me, as she showed how to aim along the barrel.
General Zevenhuis was not small, but very thin. She seemed like she could blow away with the next gust of wind. I sniffed her hair that smelled like a field of flowers.
We were all nervous, and we had constant skirmishes with the French, I learned to like these "Rifles" -as they got us out of trouble at least six times in five hours. When you can hit someone half a mile away, while they have to be less than a hundred paces from you, there is really no way we could loose.
"Don't get cocky - you are very young - but not too young to die." said Maria - "There is no honour in getting killed, and if you are taken prisoner, I will kill you myself, " she said with a cold smile " and remember to tell the men that - just by being here today will make them heroes - even if they hopefully will find that the best place to be is hiding in a ditch by the Ijsel."
I relayed this to my men, but I don't know if they took it seriously.
The Veluwe is a higher area than the rest of the Rhine delta, and is sand and gravel deposited by glaciers, Maria was going to tell me later. She could tell me strange things that were not written in the Book, but she was right about so many things so why not that too? The main point was that it was not good farmland. It was forested, but the forest was used to build ships, so it was no longer as large as it once was. And the farmers were letting livestock graze here, preventing re-growth. Good for me, because there was far too many French. More than there were trees, and they came from everywhere. We retreated, and a few were hit by bullets as the volley of musketballs can hit due to random chance. Actually I got hit, but the bullet had lost velocity so it just hurt like H***. It was only when we forced our horses back and into the river that it struck me that my pants were already wet before I went in, and the fluid was neither blood nor water. Lt-General van Zevenhuis was worried about me when I was brought back bleeding. She was otherwise pleased. The French would assume they were leading 0-1, while we had not seen any casualties.
From the other side - a company of musketeers, German weergelders - mercenaries- from Saxen, were shooting at the French. Useless - I wondered why not use the new weapons, when it dawned on me that Maria was trying to make the French arrogant. You don't need much to do that.
I got back to HQ, and found out that Carl Rabenhaupt was indisposed. Some Captains and Colonels didn't want to have Maria leading. I supported her, because she had got us this far. When she spoke all men in my regiment listened.
They consulted Carl Rabenhaupt, or rather his ADC Adolf von Peizen, who came back with an answer. "The commander said the following: «Denn de HERR wird den Sisera in die Hand eines Weibes fallen lassen.» which is a quote from the Book: "So the Lord will sell Sisera unto the hands of a woman."
This silenced the officers, who anyway had much to do as the plain between the river and Arnhem filled up with French infantry. We were outnumbered - we didn't need to know how to count, it would be later calculated to be in the ration 1 to 20. But Maria asked me to ride along, and we talked to the men. Men who were about to wet their pants just as I had done. She talked to the Germans in German- she talked to the local men who just joined from this area Gelderland. She talked with the marines that actually had wanted to follow Lucas, but were following her, because they had orders to guard the ship-lane: the Ijsel. The French guns- most of then 12 pounders, but some 16 pounders, were approaching with wagon-loads of black-powder kegs, and wagons full of bullets. With a 12cm or 13 cm bore , weighing about two ton per piece, they were difficult to move. We could see the the guys taking away the six to eight horses needed to pull them.
Compared to those guns, Maria's naval guns looked puny, but as in love and war: size matters, but is not everything. The French had the largest guns, a monstrous army, and were led by competent generals.
On the East of the Ijsel was placed two captured guns and one of our own. - an old one with uncertain calibre. Windage was going to be a problem for that one - Maria said, and explained that the bullet is always smaller than the calibre of the gun, otherwise it would take forever to force it down. Windage was a major problem of any gun.
My leader radiated calm and control. She was so confident in her actions and speech, and there couldn't be any doubt that she had chosen this location for battle because it was where she wanted it to be.
*_*_*_*Mike/Maria *_*_*_*
I laid out my strategy:
"Gentlemen - my plan is to pack as much French soldiers together, and then let my guns talk. When they have finished talking you have to act- your actions depend on the result. I hope they pack tightly, as that makes it easier. If they don't it will take longer to achieve total victory. In these envelopes are your instructions on how to behave depending on what happens. It is of course of utmost importance that our men, and … women … are not taken by panic, but feel confident that they can do their job. You three - will cross at the bend of the river - Most of you others will have to try to cut the French off by crossing the Rhine - there - I have prepared a temporary Bridge – You,van Horne - and most others will have to stay on this side, and wade across the Ijsel if the opportunity is there. Fall-back position are here and Zutphen.” She pointed at the map - “just in case we have to fight another day... That is not part of the plan, but who knows. We have to pray this my be the last battle for a while. Good luck Gentlemen, and help keep my artillery safe- The Lord will decide today, and I am confident"
The Zwan was located at the location where the Rhine divides into the lower Rhine and the Ijsel. The barges with rockets were located at various locations - and one of them was next to the Niewe Tulp, with the ship-gun. Greta was one of the spotters up in the crows nest where they were busy feeding information. I had the Captains and Colonels of the units in stand-by present here in the beginning, so they could understand how I managed the battle plan without being at the front, not even on a horse. The enemy units were marked with small black figurines, some of which were from chess. Their army was huge. Soon the HQ was located, as the French "haut-commandement" selected a good location to view the area. There and then we did not know exactly who were present, but there was a large amount of dashing hats with ostrich feathers. They didn't know that that hill had been accurately surveyed, so our gunners knew the range. The fallow fields now in bloom with dashing soldiers and officers of an aristocracy that was so full of themselves. All units were identified on their flags, most with a white cross on a coloured background, the French flag: white with golden lilies was also seen a lot. The drums were rolling a beat. The fifes were whistling tunes. Their guns were rolled forward on the ground.
Actually the French opened the ball, but their bullets just rolled aimlessly on a field where no-one was, as the weergelders from Saxen fled. Of course there was a stupid boy who thought he could kick the rolling bullet as if it was a football. That kind of stupidity is rewarded with the loss of a leg. Most bullets were stopped by stacks of sandbags. Some rolled into the water of the Ijsel, or in a swamp or in the lake. I had tried to distribute some guys with experience from Groeningen or Zutphen or Kampen to explain to the soldiers why I did not want them to lump together, as was usual, but rather stay on line - three deep, and with some distance between each of them -Each company stood with a huge distance from one another. A few shots were fired from our guns , but seemed to most French soldiers to not cause any harm as the projectiles flew high above their head, and little did they know the target was far away to the rear, and the fire was answered by French guns placed on the ridge. Even experienced officers were fooled by this. The guns were re-aligned and .... our answer came from the seven guns were allowed to talk at the same time from a location called Giesbeek. They were aiming at the hills of the Veluwe where the French HQ was located - as it gave the view required to check what was going on on the plain. Bad luck for the gentlemen of the staff - as only 30 seconds bunch of officers gathered there were dead or wounded. The officers in front of the men were not yet targeted, but they would as the riflemen aimed at them, and there was riflemen that shot the gunners, or hit the powder-kegs so everything blew up. - and then a wall of fire rose behind, cutting off the retreat to Arnhem. Greek fire was used - mostly to prevent soldiers to flee that way, and the "De Zwan" was spraying the shores of the Rhine. Horses with or without riders. There were French soldiers on the southern banks, but their shots could not dent the hull of the "De Niewe Tulp", and two got fried, as a spray of flames suddenly was sent at them. The sight of men running away with flames emerging from their back was quite demoralizing for anyone seeing it.
The officers of the various French regiments were waiting for orders. They saw their own men fall. It was eerie, the survivors would tell, when the rockets flew high, and exploded with bright lights as a firework, yet suddenly some soldier next to them would crumble hit by a viscous bullet. No orders came from the HQ. One man came down and cried above the sound of falling bombs - They are all dead. - As he said that the first volley of rockets came wailing, and made huge dents in the originally so neat line-up of soldiers. Soldiers fled the only way open to them - towards the village of Rheden and they ran without their heavy rifle. They ran leaving their regimental flag behind.
Racks full of rockets had been brought to the left bank of the Lower Rhine river, and from there they shot volleys after volleys of these crude weapons that were equipped with a device that made each rocket go through the air screaming like Scottish banshees. That was part of the plan - to seed panic in a mass of soldiers that have nowhere to go, but to climb on his fellow soldier in order to escape certain death. Several Frenchman got a bayonet from a fellow into his back. Greta was going to tell later how large dents in the regiments formed, a bit like what happens when a heavy rainfall hits a field just before harvest. Only in front did it look like the farmers were advancing with their scythes, mowing down the corn - only forgetting some straw here and there. The red colour of the harvest was a reminder that this was a slaughter. The whole battle or rather carnage, didn't last very long.
In an hour - we saw the surrender of 60 000 men that had to be herded north - ultimately imprisonment on some of the islands. Many a French woman would sing "Auprès de ma blonde", with emphasis the couplet that says that he is in Holland, the Dutch have taken him.
I bade van Horne to mount, and secure the enemy HQ, with whatever means was necessary. I detailed some civilians equipped with orange capes to move over the grounds and collect weapons and dead, and identify unexploded bombs if any ( there were a hundred of them). I had to change as a delegation with the white and golden French colours approached.
*_*_*_* Guy Aldonce de Durfort *_*_*_*
Guy Aldonce de Durfort firmly believed that he was destined for something great. As the nephew of Turenne, and the brother of the duke of Duras, he was aiming for the most prestigious positions in the army. Actually there was not much options. He was dirt poor, as his older siblings inherited the earth. He was not inspired to pursue an ecclesiastical career, and he imagined he was destined to command the king armies. He had really enjoyed to make war in Holland. It had started so fine. Well if it hadn't been for the wet rain, the damp, and the cold, and this sudden reversal. He got unconfirmed news some days ago that his uncle was dead. He was full of lust for revenge. Spirits were running high again, as the news their German allies had lost. The condescending attitude was driven by the experience that French artillery was the best, they had a longer range than Dutch pieces and French musketeers were more numerous and better equipped than the enemy, and even their ally the soldiers of German Prince-Bishops. The Dutch towns surrendered when their defences could hardly hit the French troops, while the attackers could bombard the ramparts of the towns. Then their success of May and June had withered. It was a literally bog-down army, trying to cross the large moat created when the dikes were broken. At last they had hoped to see action again. Condé had announced “The bear has been lured out of its den”
That the got the news half a day ago that the small English army led by Monmouth, had to surrender at Kampen, was only ample proof of superiority of the French. The rumours that the Dutch were an army of women, only heightened the feeling of superiority. To speculate how his noble uncle Turenne could have met his demise, was defeatism.
Condé had barely had time to eat his breakfast, and observe that the different units were put in the right places. The cavalry was moving on the flanks towards Erbecque (Eerbeek in Dutch), with plans to encircle the foolish Dutch, when hell broke loose. One of the few large oaks remaining protected him, but not the majority of the staff.
He had found Condé in a pool of blood. He was wounded in the abdomen. Prince of France, yet still a mortal, Condé was in agony, but instructed him to do the necessary, as the game was over. It was so clear that the regiments were decimated. Total disaster. Condé reminded him that he was the most senior officer present- a mere Colonel, and he had to surrender. There might be more senior officers somewhere on the field, but he was on the HQ staff, otherwise well furbished with princes of this and marquess of that. His career was in ruin, but duty called; it was the only thing he could do: he carried out the order of surrender. Half the army had already come to the same conclusion, and were waving shirts and whatever. He prayed those damned guns and rockets to stop stop.
The enemy guns finally grew silent
At the front - apparently unharmed, was an officer. He recognized Roger de Guénégaud , the marquess of Plancy, and supposed to be 'mestre de camp-lieutenant' of the regiment royal de cavalerie. But there was no regiment left, all his men and the king's hoses were lying about dead or dying.
The regimental flag with the text "Nec pluribus impar" no longer legible was in the mud. Who cares?
A half mile further on, next to the green regimental flag of the Auvergne regiment. A bloody brocade uniform told him were the duke of Luyns once stood. A leather boot with a loin probably had belonged to the corpse.
His horse refused to step on a pile of tripe. His thoughts wandered to the dukes son, who was now two, or was it three? How many more children had lost their father?
Towards him rode a regiment of dragoons. At least he assumed they were as they had muskets as their main armament.
The officer saluted him as he got closer.
“Sir! I am the regimental captain van Horne” the officer said, in a very good French. At least this Dutchman were civilized and talked like a cultivated person, and not with the ape-like sounds he had heard from the commoners.
“I am Colonel Guy Aldonce de Durfort. My Commander, the prince of Condé, has requested me to surrender to the Commander in Chief of the Army of Holland. Do you mind escorting me to him. ”
The captain smiled a bit,
“I would have pleasure in accommodating your request, but my orders are quite specific. I am however prepared to give you one man as escort. We are a very small army. By the way … This is mainly the southern Frisian army, so the commander in officer is only Lieutenant General”, the man said with a mischievous smile.
Under a flag of truce, a white shirt, with the Kings flag - white and the golden lilies carried by his orderly he rode towards the enemy, screams of pain from dying getting a bit fainter. His horse wasn't the fine steed he wished he could find. Few horses survived the carnage The gun-positions were facing him. He got a bit closer to the trench, and found women busy cleaning the guns. Was this some kind of joke? He had seen it happened that women were handling this when a city's defence was at its last. Here he was soon surrounded by women carrying muskets. The incredible story was true. He was told to walk on the last hundred metres. MERDE - the commander was a woman too.
"Let me surrender to a real officer"
"Actually - I may not look like it, but I am Lieutenant General van Zevenhuis. The Lieutenant-General von Rabenhaupt, is more senior, but was inconvenienced during the night, and had to stay in bed. But you are free to return and die with your men. Just remember there is no honour in being dead for a stupidity .... although some believe that too!"
He looked around, defeated in many ways. He remembered having read the first half of a comedy sent to him by his young friend, the prince Eugene of Savoy. Written by someone called Montfeury, the “Fille du Capitaine” portrayed a girl going into the military while a man shirked his duty to king and country. Prince Eugene was just as likely of becoming a great leader as that pathetic Le Blanc. The Prince had like all young boys no idea what a carnage was. Better for him to pursue an ecclesiastical career.
Forget fiction , back to reality. He handed over his sword, and the one of Condé.
"The Prince of Condé asked me to surrender it, lest it be stolen by some lout"
"Is the prince of Condé alive?"
"Alas! He suffers terribly as he is wounded here" - Guy said, and pointed a bit below his middle section. Everyone knows that nobody survives a wound in the abdomen.
“I will ask my sister-in-law to have a look at him. Maybe we can save him. We have had but few causalities ourselves.”
Some hours later he had to facilitate the surrender of six regiments that had walked across the Veluwe, from Amersfoort and other smaller towns. Men that had missed the fighting, or rather the slaughter, and never understood they had lost. They were just instructed to surrender.
*_*_*_* Mike/Maria *_*_*_*
There are millions of things to handle when you are at war. We were lucky that they finally gave up, as our ordinance of grenades and rockets was depleted. The Congreve rockets had so effective, but it took two -three hours to mount in the launchpad. They were inaccurate, but with the plains tightly packed with soldiers, there was always someone to kill wherever they went. This respite, if it was was a good time to grab some food, and as the sun was climbing high, and the weather was nice it was almost like a picnic. My sister-in-law Anna had arrived late in the evening, but was busy with the refugees, as there was no hardly wounded on our side. She was worried about Paul who had conquered the former Bishopric of Münster. The delegation approached, so I got some help to look presentable. It felt kind of ridiculous, but some are partial to that.
Von Rabenhaupt was still out of commission with his lose bowels. I had slipped some laxative in the old fools food, a small revenge for his lack of supporting me after Groningen, and he still believed it was typhoid fever. Later I would look him in the eyes and say:
"God had healed you", then he believed it. Meanwhile....
I appointed a group of guardsmen and officers of the Schuterij of various cities - to supervise the procedure of processing prisoners, securing weapons, with orders to hang thieves, in any camp. All the messy administration of a victory started. I could delegate a lot to the official business to him commander in chief, as he got on his feet again. Anna had arrived the night before, and had helped me give Carl the potion. Poor Carl- he really thought he had caught Typhoid fever. Now I gave Anna the assignment of getting Condé back from the land of the nearly dead. She wanted the Dutch refugees to first priority, but there was so much prestige if she could get the remaining internationally known Humpty Dumpty French general together again, then we could forget about all the kings horses Van Horne came back from the HQ of the defeated army. It was in such a shamble that they had not managed to recover papers, except what was burned by our bombs. I wrote in my report that August and his men conquered the enemy's HQ, although by now it was a walk in the park. It also gave me a reason to be with him afterwards. I asked his advice, even when I didn't really need it.
Was it a decisive victory? Clausewitz' words came to mind "There is only one decisive victory: the last.”
I was also worried about were the remaining French soldiers were located. They could continue a desperate fight despite orders of surrender. Furthermore Louis XIV was not a king to give up unless he had some kind of gain, however small.
It was great to find the archives, and there was the Dutch proposal, and there was the French proposal for a peace settlement. I knew very well that the offer from William and Johann de Witt was done in a difficult situation, but it was horrible from the point of view of Dutch national pride. Most of the demands of king Louis were known, but there were these details that were absolutely unacceptable, and the translation had not been exact. This had national importance- I had to show this to the Dutch people. Carl received a messenger from the East: Paul had finally taken the city of Munster, otherwise meeting little opposition. He claimed the Bishopric for himself calling himself Herzog (Duke) von Münster. I realized that the worries of his dear Anna were not unfounded.
It is quite frustrating to not being able to be in several places at once. I was about 100km from Amsterdam the Hague. In a motor vehicle you can get there in two hours even with moderate traffic, while here I had to travel at a lesser speed, and the trip took more than one day, unless you jumped from horse to horse like the messengers did. Words of our victory travelled fast, but would it travel fast enough? Von Rabenhaupt decided I should go to Holland, with the most distinguished prisoners. He said the
"Victory belonged only to you and God. I dream of Glory for myself, but this victory belongs to you and only you."
I will kill the one who tells him what I did to keep him away during the battle.
We boarded "De Niewe Tulp" as it was quite large, and could accommodate some of my girls, as a guard of honour, and some of van Horne’s regiment. They had to leave the horses. Anyway these were not the best mounts. On board "De NieweTulp" I had the Duke of Monmouth, six French officers, including Durfort, and François de Neufville, who was partially recovering from lesser wounds, and two German noblemen. I had ordered most of my girls, the ones that knew how to handle the heavy guns, to get back to Deventer and Zwolle, and take residence. with artillery and all.
"Leave it to Rabenhaupt and his men to get all the way to Maastricht. - You have liberated your country - now you must fight to keep independence from those who want to profit from the risk you took", said Augustus.
I showed the documents recovered to August, and the decryption of the secret letters sent to the HQ of the Armé de Hollande. as Louis XIV called his northern army. Augustus was appalled at contents the demands of the French was, though as a catholic himself, he saw that the proposal had nothing to do with religious rights, but political power. But even more at what the commander in chief had as a counter proposal. Even that was unacceptable.
"Remember Augustus - the offer was done while the Dutch army seemed to lose everything"
"Still - It is a complete servile offer - "
"Most of it is known - Wilhelm has published the French demands, and parts of the Dutch proposal to bring down de Witt, he just didn't publish his counter-offer"
"B-but his counter offer is almost as bad", he stammered.
"He saw an opening to bring down a man he hates more than anyone else."
The wind was a gentle southerly so we had a nice progress to . On the way we we were hailed, as the news of our victory spread. A boat moves day and night. The mood on board was great - except for the prisoners stowed away in a locked room. I loved every second of it because I was with August.
"So you are the woman, that was the talk of the town about a month or two ago, that was arrested posing as a man."
I felt the heat reaching my sun-burned face. A week outdoors a short time after having spent a month in the dark did not prepare it, and I felt ashamed for not having the milk white skin of noble women. The large brimmed hat worn during the campaign did not prevent the sun from afflicting my skin.
"Yes - proves that it is the kinky side that is remembered. Nobody remembers that I managed to have a doctorate at La Sorbonne, and that I have financed almost five regiments, omitting what Paul has managed to embezzle, and now achieved the total destruction of the French northern army"
"So - so. In the the long run they will forget the cross-dressing because so many have done that, and no other have crushed so large an army with so few losses. Common people do not care for academic achievements. Had you got a theological degree, it would have been more scandalous. By the way; won't you ever wear trousers again, will you?"
"Oh- No, I gave my word of honour. But breaches or dress is not the issue. What prevents a person for doing what they want to do, and are good at, is the issue. I made a promise to de Witt, and I will stick to it even if inconvenient. My word is my bond. Eventually I hope I can fight inequity in treatment of gender. "
"I have to admit I prefer to see women in female clothes. I am glad I didn't see you then. Yet you are entitled to be different - You are a renown scientist, and have proven you are a great general"
"I feel like I am cheating. They didn't stand a chance against science and industrial technology applied to warfare. But … Augustus You are an astounding rider. You would not be happy if you were forced to wear something that prevented you from sitting astride a horse. Try one day to guide your horse without reins, and with both your legs on one side. Try climbing a tree or onto the mast of a ship. That is almost impossible even with the split dress I now wear, that allows me to to sit astride, and still gives the impression of being a decent dress. These wide skirts would far to easily make me slip. However my goal goes further: I want to make the society more equal or rather equitable for all; men too."
"How so?"
"You may not think it is an issue, but in most countries, brilliant seamen, like Michiel de Ruyter or Cort Adelaer would never command a ship, because their fathers were commoners. The latter is even a foreigner. The greatness of the United Provinces is that such talent can flower. Johan de Witt has ruled the United Provinces almost like a King would, because he was the best. In any other country he would have been relegated to a servile position, and discarded when the Monarch was not pleased with him.
The United Provinces would already have lost if the officers were limited to your kind - sorry - but it is the truth - not all noblemen are natural riders like you - so not all are suited"
"I hadn't though about this way!" He said, looking a bit uncomfortable.
"The same applies for the fairer sex. Not all are suited to cook and sew, and some of us probably suck at tending our husband. Choice is the essence! Freedom, and if you want my opinion, the discrimination against Catholics is also wrong”
I was a bit passionate about it. Augustus did not quarrel on this. I think I sowed a seed of understanding.
We ate dinner together, mostly in silence. The girls were still afflicted by the horrors they had seen, but they also knew it was necessary. I warned them that difficult times were not over.
After dinner I ordered a round of juniper spirits to everyone, although most girls preferred beer. I gave orders, warning them that next days may be joyous, or tough. I explained that for some reason Wilhelm van Oranje had not followed the French retreat. It was almost as if he was unaware that we had won. But it could also indicate he was busy with a power-struggle. That again could point towards civil war.
I was exhausted - I used the last opportunity to distribute the watches. The sun was setting. The stars became visible, first Venus, then Sirius.
In the darkness Augustus was daring to touch my hand. I could feel my heart making several leaps. I suddenly wanted to wear something nicer than what I was currently wearing, as the grime and dirt of riding and fighting was sticking to the fabric.
"Maria"
I faced him as he looked at me. My legs felt weak. I could hear the beat of my heart.
“General – during ...”
“Hush – Now – at this time and place we are not General and Captain. We are Maria and Augustus” I heard myself say – feeling bolder than in the heat of battle.
“I was afraid you die during the battle”
I can't remember if it was my line in the dialogue or Augustus who said it.
We stood there for a long time just touching each other. Of course it had to end, and Augustus did by putting his foot in it.
"Maria - do you think that your brother ... "
"If you have a question to Paul you better ask him himself. He is raving mad and wants to conquer the Bishopric of Munster, and Cologne. And all this because I have killed the first, and I have Maximilian-Henry as a POW. So the victory is mine, and he tries to steal the fruits of the battle. When you have a question involving me - ask me! Understood?"
My temper was a bit short, and I had to remember to change the rags around my crotch soon. He was stuttering when he answered Yes
"I need to go to bed -and get some sleep"
The "De Niewe Tulp" was not a passenger boat, so there was only one suitable cabin - usually used by the captain. Now it was used by Maria.
As we neared Rotterdam by early light, we were stopped by several armed vessels. Their crew was not aware the French had withdrawn, and surrendered, thus they broke into a joy when they got the news. We were bringing the highest ranked prisoners to the prison of the capital. We made good progress because of the secret propulsion engine on the Niewe Tulp and the Zwan.
*_*_*_* Mike/Maria *_*_*_*
We navigated the canals through Delft in the early morning. I couldn't sleep, even when Greta came to take my watch. I was all excited. I think it shone through.
“You have fallen in love.” Greta said. Neither a question nor something that surprised her.
“I am so happy for you”, she added.
“Yes but I am not so sure I am worthy of him.”
“You – not worthy? You have achieved miracles. You are his superior in military grade. You have achieved the highest scientific distinction”
“Well... You and I know I am a fraud. I have stolen knowledge from the twenty-first century, exploiting my fairly good memory.”
“Precisely – you managed to do that, working your way out of poverty while I was just living like the daughter of a commoner”, Greta said.
“Speaking of commoner. Paul is the bastard son of the late count Günter von Arnsberg zu Siebenbergen, who lost most of his land during the 30 year war, and his remaining land, and the castle was taken after his assassination. We were lucky as we happened to be outside the castle when it was taken. Anna tells me Paul is now planning to retake our land with some mercenaries”
Greta looked at me for a while, and then she says
“You remember nothing from before? I mean as Maria before you took possession of the body?”
“I have only some vague ghostlike memories. I remember a huge man I adored, but only his coat. I remember I was treated with respect. A scene from a time when I entered a church and everybody bowed or curtsied to me, even if I was a little girl.” I said.
Greta pulled out the silver chain she kept around her neck. At the end was a small silver schilling. The chain must have cost more than the coin with a hole in it.
“You don't remember this coin?”
“No” I said a bit bewildered.
“Let me tell you a short fairytale of a poor little girl, who received four coins like this. She was hungry, and sad because her sister died. The one who gave these as alms was a little girl named Maria, daughter of the count. Her brother was standing by and criticising her for wasting money.”
My father remembered the name of the place and confirmed 'the little rich girl' had to be the count's sole heir, as that was public knowledge in the village. I kind of knew that when I saw you the first time in Zwolle, although afterwards I was not so certain. When you got pneumonia this winter I had to take off all your clothes and wash you as well as them. Then I saw you had the arms of the Arnsberg, the eagle, on your lower back. It may be the more complicated composite coat of arms of the Arnsberg zu Siebenbergen was too difficult for the tattoo artist, but I did send one of the agents of our company to the area, and he managed to find little Maria's wet-nurse, who confirmed it was the oldest form of the coat of arms that was used.”
Greta waited a bit – to give it time to sink in. Maybe also to give me time to ask questions. She then added:
“You may know that Paul, whose name was Friedrich after your father, is only half-brother. He is the result of a youthful fling with the scullery-maid. Your father couldn't marry her, but he took responsibility for his deed, and raised Friedrich like a son, but with no prospect of inheritance. His only hope was a military career followed with a promotion if he was successful. A title would require the goodwill of the emperor, and as long as the emperor is a Catholic, he would be on the wrong side, as the Emperor would never support an Arnsberg claim against Bishops with strong ties to powerful families like the Wittelbachs. ”
I saw the logic of it, yet in the long run it is the ability to rule and control an area which counts. So I said:
“The only reason why women are historically kept out of the political sphere unless it suits men around them is because they do not wield the big equalizer. Equal opportunities and true democracy is something that goes hand in hand. But as be both know: Power grows out of the barrel a gun. ”
The guards challenged us, then let us through towards the city. They had every reason to do so, as we told them of the happy news of our great victory. I didn't quite understand - that information had been sent with a messenger first priority to the commander in chief - it should have been communicated to the public. The commander in chief was was out of town, somewhere near Bodegraven, if the information was to be trusted. Of course it was possible that the Stadhouder had not received the message, though it was sent with a French officer in tow, to make sure the French let him through.
The Hague - or 's Grevenhage differed from most cities as it was not enclosed by walls. There were checkpoints, and some hastily built fortifications; no wonder the Spanish troops had just walked in, occupying the city hundred and some years ago. We left the boats at Scheveningen, and moved fast, but in marching like good soldiers. We were stopped, but hardly checked, as women are can't be dangerous. We came through the streets, until we saw the lake called "De Vijver", where the walls of the castle Binnenhof could be seen. I give it credit- it looked less gloomy than the Bastille in Paris , or most of these medieval castles designed to oppress and defend the persons in power, but still - the wall were hiding such bad memories, as inside there was the main prison. In front of us was a gate, but unwatched ... strange. On the inside was a huge crowd. Behind me I noticed a woman running to catch up with us. O.M.G. It was Wendela Bicker, and she told me she was so worried about her husband. Johan was called upon to make arrangements after the trial of his brother.
“Did he go there without good bodyguard? The fool –- I warned him”
I had an inkling that something was about to go very wrong. In the back of my head was some information of the importance of the 20th of August, and we were the 19th. What had changed? I quizzed some citizens that were just there because something was afoot: they knew just that there was some success in defending Groningen, but Holland and Zeeland didn't care one duit (one cent) about the war against Munster. Their war was only against France and England. Some armed citizens were supposed to prevent civilians from leaving without permission from the right authorities. Our arrival was unexpected, and they gave their place to my girls although they claimed they were acting on orders of Johan van Banchem. The latter was the leader of all the schuterij of the city. Since when? I told these guys they were not real soldiers.
Something was very wrong. I asked my girls if they believed in my sound judgement? They all shouted yes! I gave my orders, and we approached the crowd. The dreary grey roofs of the Gevangenpoort could be seen. I hated the place, but maybe because of my experience in being a client of that institution. There was the Groene Zoodje, where I had been paraded half naked, and threatened with public whipping.
"Hey - those soldiers are women!"
I took a chance - facing the crowd, and they faced me.
"Look there is that woman who dressed as a guy!"
"She wants back in prison" someone laughed
"De Witt, let her go- She is one of De Witt's agents"
The mob moved dangerously towards me.
The girls were not seasoned enough to follow my orders unconditionally.
“Shoot over their heads” - they hesitated.
Magdalena who carried the flame-thrower couldn't get the system to work.
The mob moved closer.
"She is in league with the French. She was in Paris less than a year ago!"
Someone had done their homework. I noted the face of the guy.
“She looks like a peasant now”, another guy shouted.
They referred to my sunburned face.
I readied my pistol, but I knew I could just as easy start a full riot by shooting someone.
They were now too close to use the flame-thrower safely as just a deterrent.
Suddenly he stood there: Ambrose in his elegant, yet rough male clothes, that expressed he was a man to be noted. He shouted "Stop"
"Stop - this Lady has something important to tell you"
His baritone voice carried, and dominated more than any female voice can manage.
"SILENCE"
His vice commanded respect , as if he was a seasoned Sergeant Major.
"You may not know me, but I am Augustus van Horne. My Granduncle was executed with van Egmont in Brussels. I am a mere Captain, but I was with the army of these woman- Maria Zevenhuis - appointed Lieutenant General by Countess of Frisland. I was under her generalship when we crushed the French army- with the help of our Lord, at the battle of Arnhem.
I repeat: Lieutenant General Zevenhuis has crushed the whole French army. We have won a stunning victory"
There were cheers, but also some disbelief.
"Lieutenant General Zevenhuis has killed Turenne, and Condé, and we have prisoners to prove it"
Some more cheers.
"You accuse a man - a whole family of being in the pocket of the French. Without proof, no proof, just by listening to evil whispers, you were ready to do some atrocious deeds.
Shame on you.
Thou shall not kill says the book. Do you not fear God? What were you about to do?
You accuse some men of being paid by our enemy, some who have served and fought personally at the front, while the accusers have not.
I have here in my hand a peace proposal from the evil king of France. It is recovered from the HQ of the adorers of Antichrist.
Listen: The United Provinces must give away the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam to England, and give the leadership of the cities to Catholics.
Quiet
and Listen; I have here the proposal signed by Stadhouder van Oranje: Give 's Hertogenbosh and the other area south of the Waal to Lodewijk (Louis XIV) .
I have here a proposal by the same prins to give Sluys to the English together with the rights to fish herring in the Northsea.
Prince van Oranje - I tell you: The United Provinces are united, and not for sale.
Prince van Oranje - you are not supporting the fishermen who toil to make a living.
People of the Hague: You who listened to the false prophets and are dancing around a golden calf: Repent.
People of Holland: Love thy god - as he has given us a great victory.
People of Holland. I tell you this war - we will win."
Augustus was a good orator, he used far more references to the scripture, than I would. Maybe the right thing to do. He had been listening to my arguments and managed to convey it in a simple fashion. His voice carried strong and loud. He moved the audience. Proves again that popularity is fickle. The crowd cheered, and started to go home quietly, and we could start to question the suspects.
Just as a carriage was exiting Binnenhof. It was the De Witt brothers. A guy ran towards the carriage, and ... fired a pistol into the wagon. Somebody shot back. I reacted on instinct, and lifted my "caliver" rifle, and shot the guy. Ten of my girls did the same, and the body of Pieter Verhagen was literally torn to pieces. One voice said: "Attack - they have to reload" - the voice was later identified as belonging to Marten van Valen, a navy lieutenant. I shot him, and so was those that tried to come closer.
The girl carrying the flame-thrower understood she had to act. One unfortunate guy was too close, although she told later she tried to avoid killing anyone. The bloke ran around screaming, burning, and dyeing.
Nothing stops a crowd more efficiently than flames. On the scene - adding to the confusion came the cavalry detachment led by Claude Frederic t'Sercelar, rushing back in. Some of the girls got killed, as they were reluctant to shoot on their own countrymen, but the truth was that these were mercenaries, acting on orders from someone without scruples. Against repeating rifles, cavalry with lances and single-shot pistols stand no chance. The survivors were told to stay on face down on the ground, some would have to stay like that for a few hours while we assessed the situation.
Inside the carriage my Lieutenant found Johan de Witt still alive, but with a shot in the belly. His brother Cornelis was unharmed by the shooting, but in a very bad shape. His shoulders were practically dislocated after the interrogation he had received. I had no time to dwell on this. There was so much to do. Most important for me was to question one prisoner.
Minutes later Wendela came wailing, angry at me for not saving the life of her husband. How could I console her? Telling her about a different reality where she would be long dead, and Johan and Cornelis not only killed, but most brutally stripped and emasculated? It was bad enough to feel I failed. Even worse to hear I was responsible for this mess.
*_*_*_*Augustus Ambrosius *_*_*_*
We had to search the Binnenhof, but most of the important persons inside fled. That some documents were not destroyed was important. Most instructive was the office of Johan van Banchem, where it was possible to recover written order for the protection of the de Witt brothers, and orders to get rid of them too.
"It was Admiral Tromp that made me do it" -
They squealed like a dying sow. I must have looked like the devil incarnate, because the man also confessed that Johan van Banchem had also been present when they were paid to look the other way.
The trick about interrogation is to make every cover-up to be exposed as a contradiction. Barber Surgeon Tischelaar was the last one to be questioned, and he understood the game was up, and he nailed Johan van Banchem, as well as Tromp into the conspiracy. The only one who's involvement was not easy to prove, because nothing was signed by him, was the Stadhouder and commander in chief of the army Willhelm van Oranje. However the prince knew that his army would refuse to fight their own countrymen, as some of his more radical supporters were eager to .
Admiral Tromp was on board his ship when he was about to be arrested. He jumped overboard into the sea, and his body was found after some hours of searching.
Wilhelm of Orange had the big army, but it was a small army that had beaten both the Münster army, and then the French. The news that Admiral Tromp's suicide as was deep into the plot to kill the de Witt brothers, and the victory over the French had changed the mood. The official blame was assigned to Rear Admiral Tromp. A dead man can't defend himself. Wilhelm could get off the hook, but not completely. Maria had talked to him in private, and Wilhelm agreed afterwards to compromise. He would step down as Stadhouder of the United Provinces, and let the general council decide. Probably expected to be re-elected. A few hours later came the news that Johan de Witt had died from his wound. Cornelis de Witt was quite maimed from the torture. Shoulders dislocated, ligaments torn. He could not work. It was decided that the judges that had ordered the torture, and denied a proper hearing, had to pay the man full pension every month.
We commandeered a house, and hired some servants to run the place. I had to arrange most of this as Maria was very busy.
Maria had arranged election of representatives of towns and provinces that were liberated. It was a clever move, as it exposed the dysfunctional oligarchical system, and it was popular with the poorer people. I think the rich thought they could get elected anyway. Then came the general assembly. Wilhelm was present, but it was funny in a way. Maria was a lot taller than the “almost king of Netherlands”, and a much more imposing figure. The discussion went on for a while. I was the chairman, considered as “neutral” - having a name which was almost as prestigious as the princes of Orange, and still remembered as an important part of the war against Spain. Maria just asked me to allow her to speak just before Wilhelm.
The crowd grew hushed, when I gave her the chair. Maria said: "I have defended the United Provinces, and I will continue to do so. The country needs inner strength against an outer enemy. I am sorry about the death of Johan de Witt, but he has sided too much with the wealthy, and I did try to make him do something about the poor state of the army.
The problem was that too much was done in the matter of governance the land without proper rules, I suggested separation of power, and independent judges with a high-court elected amongst the more merited judges. As to the necessity to have a stadhouder:
I propose one person that has shown great personal courage, and is not involved in any way in this mess,
I propose we elect dowager Countess Albertine Agnes van Nassau. "
There was a stunned moment. Everyone saw the advantage, as it restored the "face" of more than one. There was just this automatic reaction of "b..but she is a woman". However she was the leader of Friesland, and it gave an opening to her son -Henry Casimir- of Orange, to inherit the post some day in the future. So "why not?".
Wilhelm tried to speak to the assembly, got up on the rostrum but he was suddenly unable to breath. We could all hear some wheezing from his lungs, and he simply had to step down, and be carried out in a very undignified way.
Maria admitted a day later that she used a dirty trick. She told me “He has asthma- and I spayed an irritant.”
This woman was devious, yet I admired her. Her accent was harsh compared to my native Flemish, yet her words were singing in my heart. She may look like a peasant with a sun-baked face, yet she was very beautiful. She had all these strange and wonderful quotes, but her behaviour reminded me of something Niccolo Machiavelli once wrote “Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”
She certainly was a master of cunning deceit.
Eventually even Wilhelm voted for this solution. I just hoped Albertine Agnes would accept. She would have to change residence.
*_*_*_* Colbert *_*_*_*
"Let the devil take Zevenhuis"
Colbert was trying to get some steam out of the system. First he had hoped van Zevenhuis was neutralized although the plot to get him killed. He was stunned to learn the it was a woman behind the disguise. He should have noticed, but he was duped by her hight and the fact she had applied a small amount of facial hair on the upper lip, so common among young men just getting that masculine attribute.
That she was a woman should have played into his hand. Van Zevenhuis could end up under a guardianship, and neutralized.
Quite the contrary occurred.
He got the news of the defeat on the Rhine even before the king, and the minister of War. It was one of the commercial spies that reported it to him, by sending pigeons. His contact had said the following:"They are reminding everyone in Holland that this is the centenary of the massacre of St Bartholomew. It is time for all reformed Christians to unite".
“The prince of Condé received a gash in his abdomen. His intestines were out”
The king's cousin was as good as dead. Nobody survives wounds where the guts are protruding. At least he did not have to report this to the king, and this could bring down his rival Louvois, if played right. It was anyway Louvois' turn to feel the Kings spite.
His thoughts went also to his daughter. The message had contained a strong indication that his son-in-law had died on the battlefield. Maybe just a well. The king had called him a coward some years ago. Though it saddened him, he still considered it best to be the father in law of a man who died fighting, thus presumed to be a hero.
The story about this cross dresser had spread like bushfire in Paris, and he had been ridiculed. It was well known that this Zevenhuis was accepted as a member of Institut de France, one of his pet projects. Zevenhuis, exposed as a woman, tarnished the lustre, it had made the institute the laughing stock of Paris. "L'école des femmes" [Women's school] it was called colloquially, named after a play by Molière.
As if it was bad enough; a few weeks ago the rumours spread that the Navy; his Navy; had a female captain, that was captured alive. The rumours even had substance. Admiral d'Esté was called on the carpet. He confirmed that the person registered as Capitaine de Préville was the daughter of a childhood friend, de Bréville, so - yes - he was aware of the gender, yet had some lame excuse, “but she was hunting boars when she was 15, and she killed a man in a duel”, and the capture of the navy ship was done after an intense fight. Colbert was sure the report was inaccurate, that they had been tampered with, but d'Esté was the best man for the job. The French army had a plethora of excellent Generals, but the Navy was short of men with such distinctions.
Colbert considered the idea of spreading a rumour that Van Zevenhuis was a hermaphrodite like this Marie le Marcis who was one vote short of being hanged for sodomy back in 1601. It was tempting, but he discarded the option for the time being.
Colbert was also aware he had another problem: the pills he got from Maria Zevenhuis were poison. He had never heard about such poison before. They worked in the beginning to help him keep his work ongoing. Now they didn't help any longer, and the body felt ill when he tried to stop taking them. His agents in Holland was put on the job of getting more, The price of those pills had gone up because of the war, and a nice sum of money was for grabs for the French alchemist that could create an antidote. He was however reluctant at making an inquiry with a woman with an unsavoury reputation called La Voisin... What about Quid pro Quo?
*_*_*_*Maria *_*_*_*
I was so happy Augustus had taken the reins on the Buitenhof. I was almost ready to shoot the whole crowd, which was bad for my karma points; not that I cared so much for that any longer. What I cared about was this young man. He was fantastic. I didn't know how to handle it. Ever so often I could feel my face grow hotter than glowing coal. It made me almost forget that my mission to prevent this evil deed was mostly a failure.
….
Albertine Agnes arrived, and it was a relief in more than one way.
She hugged me while I tried to do a proper reverence, a deep curtsy, which I already felt very awkward in executing with all the grace that other ladies managed.
“You did it- You did – My son was right, you are a magician”, and she shouted for all to hear:
“Maria van Zevenhuis is my most loyal subject.”
In a more private setting I told her about the battles, and about him.
“So you fell for him? That's what I thought when we managed to raise a new cavalry regiment, so I gave him that regiment”
“What? Did you know him?”
“Well – not personally. I knew of him. He is certainly not a villein. Nothing wrong with his name!”
I understood there was something I did not understand.
“He makes my heart beat fast, but I don't know how to … say it to him
… and there is also the issue … I don't want to lose control and ownership over my factories.”
How could I explain I though I was a male in a woman's body? Yet I felt like a woman, this love I felt for Augustus the proof that my brain was very female.
“So you have not completely lost your bearings?”
“No – but how could I keep control, and still be married to him? Isn't it so that married women have to let their husbands rule in all matters, and then there is this issue of consent. I am still legally a minor, even though it has not been raised as a problem. Just remember how the courts ruled in the case of Agatha Welhouck. She was almost 30, and still the court ruled that her marriage was illegal.”
Albertine Agnes smiled,
“As to limiting the fortunes and goods in a marriage, there is a way which is valid according to the law”
“Please tell, your Grace”
“There is something called a morganatic marriage, and as to the matter of consent, the Stadhouder has some prerogatives that transcends the law. I can take the place of a legal guardian.”
The information needed some time to be processed. I had one more issue.
“How can I make him understand that he could propose if he so wishes.”
Albertine Agnes had a good laughter, and said.
“The mighty general that just crushed a foe ten times the size of her army, is not bold enough to propose herself! Yes... there is this custom that it is the man who asks the woman. You have to engage a matchmaker.”
“How do I do that?”
*_*_*_*Augustus Ambrosius *_*_*_*
I was very nervous when the stadhouder Countess requested my presence.
I owed her a lot for providing me with a regiment, when I wasn't quite qualified. I have to admit that I had learned a lot during the campaign. Now was the time to give a report to my sponsor. She let me talk first before she commented:
“I hear from my informers that you had some very cosy moments with Lieutenant General van Zevenhuis.”
“No..Nothing inap..inappropriate ha..happened” I started to stammer. “She is a very beautiful woman”
“If you could – would you marry her?”
I was taken by surprise. The Countess was most direct.
“Yes – but I am without means to support a wife and family. You know my brother has inherited all, and nothing is left for me”, I said, and felt relief for expressing the biggest hurdle I could see for entering a permanent relation.
“Should this issue with your financial situation be arranged, would you marry Maria van Zevenhuis?”
“Yes - I would propose to her immediately”
“Maria has more money than you can imagine. A contract aiming for a morganatic matrimony could be set up providing a very substantial dowry, so you wouldn't have to worry about being destitute.”
“I”, I started to say, yet a bit lost for words. “I am pleased to hear that, but why a Morganatic contract? I am the youngest son of 3, and my oldest brother Eugenius Maximiliaan has a son, eleven years old and healthy. There is no way I can inherit...”
“Well – I suppose we specify that your children will inherit your titles if you ever get any. That is the beauty of the morganatic marriage, it can specify the details, unlike a common wedding …
Maria – you may approach”, the last words were said load enough so Maria would hear and step out of the closet.
I understood what I had to do. I met her midway on the floor, went down on one knee, and asked: “Maria – do you want to make me the happiest man, by accepting me, although I am poor and destitute.”
She looked me in the eyes, and blushed, and said
“for better or for worse”, and then she started to cry.
Maria was just fantastic. I was in love with her, and she admitted that she was in love with me. Still she seemed somehow absent-minded, and sullen, despite her strong involvement in the reforms.
"Have I done something wrong?" I asked her.
She denied it. She just said she had problems with her family.
Family can be troublesome- nice when they support you, arseholes when they let you down.
I told her she need not worry that she was not a princess. I told her a short version of my life.
I started with the information of who my parents were. She seemed unruffled, oblivious to the fact that my name was known to most in the Low Countries as my ancestors. Hadn't she noted that the former and the current Stadhouders had greeted me like some long lost friend? I thought it was auspicious when she told she came from Altana, but it turned out it was not the village near the castle Altena where my origins could be found, Altena, where the family originated was near Eindhoven and Breda, but they acquired the county of Hornes just north of Luik/Liege. I suddenly understood. My county was restored to me by the power of Maria's field artillery pieces. They didn't want it falling into the hands of the Habsburg through my older brother.
It was not my great grandfather who was executed on the express order of the duke of Alba. He was a great-great uncle.
About myself... Why did I end up in this war? I am from Brussels. I studied with the the Jesuits, but I felt no calling for entering the holy orders. Maybe this ambivalence runs in the family. I knew Grandpa was Protestant turned Catholic, mostly because it was the only way to keep the family fortune.
"Oh I though you were from Horn north of Amsterdam, in Holland" , interrupted Maria.
“My Horne is in the province of Brabant. Our family's land is mostly in the Spanish Low countries, but also within the Bishopric of Liège. and Philip II of Spain was losing in the north, but was unstoppable in the South. My ancesto accepted the realities and re-joined the Roman faith, otherwise our land would be confiscated.
Father died when I was 8. It was quite a shock,as he had a special bond to me as we had practically the same name. My older brother became my legal guardian. I am sorry to say we are not on the best of terms.
I loved riding and shooting, and in the beginning I found it difficult to learn how to read and write, which earned me a lot of trashing by the fathers. I learned my prayers in Latin, but found it boring.
My brother wanted me to enter the holy orders, but I have no love for those hypocrites, and I am much too fond of riding. Then about three years ago I was practically crippled by a bad fall from the horse. I heard about the miracles of surgery performed in Friesland, so I begged him to send me here. Your sister-in-law performed her miracle, and to skip the recovery phase... I was still in Leeuwarden as the war broke out. I wanted so much to participate.
I was without a horse- until somebody told me the army needed trained officers. Well - I exaggerated my war experience, and I had the right name. My great-grandfather had fought with William the Silent. I used the name of my brother - Eugène Maximilien - as reference, and was relieved they did not require money. I had to provide sword and pistols, which I had, as well as boots and a dashing hat. I had to use the sign-on money to get myself two decent horses. That was how I ended up with van Hornes' regiment of van Zevenhuis' army.”
“Maybe I can win back your ancestral land for you.”
She explained that as an act of state, the county was now in the process to be restore to me personally. The procedure should be easy. Horne was within the bishopric of Liege. The bishop was none other than Maximilian Henry who was Marias prisoner.
***
We had a private wedding. Witnessed by the countess of Orange-Nassau, Greta, and a few other important persons. There was no time for a big feast. The marriage was consummated and said she was happy with the experience. I was about to fall asleep, drained with satisfaction as my semen had practically filled her up. She went out of bed, performed her ablution, and came back to bed with cold feet, even though this was still the month of August. That woke me up.
Maria couldn't sleep, that was obvious. That woke me up, and I insisted she tell me what was wrong. Finally she told me what was on her mind:
"The guy who attacked me, was named Hendrik Verhoeff. originally a silversmith, but ridden with debts. He was released when Gaspar Fagel became prime minister, and was found dead!"
“Did your brother have anything to do with that?”
"Probably not. Paul never had that kind of political clout to make a minister do his bidding. Never mind – that's not evidence it was Paul- I just don't trust him any longer! He betrayed his wife; he betrayed a very close friend, and he seems to have betrayed me by embezzling money from my business. But it may be too easy to blame him for everything. No! Someone much more powerful is behind this. ”
Maria stopped a bit and then continued.
"I recently started to remember thing that happened before we fled from Germany. I remember that I was treated with enormous respect, although I was about 10 years younger than Paul, and a girl, while Paul was treated ... like he was Paul- nothing special. I have the Prince-Archbishop of Cologne as my prisoner, and as you know Horne is part of the bishopric of Liège, so that is why I can almost promise your land back. Anyway I started to make him talk. He was more than desperate to talk after weeks without anyone to talk to.
Did you know he was incognito in Amsterdam in 1667? He was looking for me. He thought that my father was protecting me, by claiming I was a girl, and raising me as if, so I wouldn't be murdered. Like the brother of the king of France. You know – small boys don't get breeches until they are 5 to 7 years old, so it is not easy to tell, but Queen Anne made her son wear dress until he was 14, making it more difficult for would-be assassins to target the right person. Anyway … He didn't find me or Friedrich -that is Paul- there. He is also besotted with alchemy, and thinks I have found the philosophers stone. I think I will keep up some pretence. How else could I have become so rich, so young, in so little time?”
She didn't say much more. Her story didn't make too much sense. But it was so exciting to be near her.
“But why would a Wittelbach try to kill you?”
“Because of my name. Arnsberg were once the counts over Cologne”
It made a bit more sense now. I thought I had married a commoner, and it turned out she was my equal!
"I will follow you and promise to protect you. "
She smiled in return, a wonderful smile with those perfect teeth of hers, and she said
"Oh my Dear! I need mostly protection from myself. In the marshes of the lower Weser, I had to kill two mercenary soldiers while I started unarmed, ... but they were caught unaware"
It certainly was not boring to talk to Maria! I got to see new facets of this gem. But why then declare this a morganatic marriage?
“August – can I ask you a favour?”
“Anything in my power, my love”
“Do you mind moving your hand onto the area where you proud cock has been and then find a little hidden place ...”
She didn't say much more. I think I found the place, she asked me to do it a bit faster, and her breathing was sign enough that my fingers were on the right location.
On the next day there was a reception and ball, as the new Stadhouder was sworn in. Present was a representative of a minor German state. He tried to get the attention of Maria, but got lost as she was now no longer van Zevenhuis, but van Hornes. As he didn't manage to get close to her, as she was on duty with the Countess/stadhouder, like a queen bee by courtiers and other people that wanted to be in good grace with her. As he was about my age, the ingenious diplomat ended up hanging around me. He was trying to sell some kind of peace-settlement whereby the king of France would end up as lord of Egypt. I told Maria about him some days later, and she said:
"O My God! Godtfried Leibnitz was there. Shame! I would have loved to discuss mathematics with him!"
I then told her about his proposal. She laughed outright, and said:
"Poor Leibnitz: A bit full of himself. How on earth would the Sultan accept that his most Christian Majesty (the official title give by the pope to the Kings of France since Clovis) , as the ruler of Egypt. Ludowik knows the difference between a dream as a grandiose scheme and a pipe dream! It is even possible that the French have sent him off to get a feeling on our willingness to bring the war to them. They have to get some kind of honourable settlement before General Raymondo Montecuccoli gets on the scene."
"Do you think he is a spy or an enemy agent?"
"Not very likely, but I assume he is naive; he thinks the best of all people, he very 'positive', and therefore easily manipulated"
*_*_*_* Anna *_*_*_*
The battle of Arnhem was terrible for my nurses, and battle surgeons. Fragments of steel and the Minié rifle bullet creates terrible wounds. In two days they performed almost 2000 surgeries , of which a substantial part was amputations. I got the more difficult cases, and I understood the political priority of healing Louis of Bourbon-Condé, although I could probably have save the lives of ten with the time spent on this very difficult case. Had he been lean like most his soldiers he would have died, but the fragment that had torn up his belly had exposed mostly fat - huge quantities of fat. His kidney was also damaged, but nothing that wouldn't heal.
All too many got treatment too late, and died of sepsis, yet a large number the wounded got antibiotics, and survived.
I followed the VIP prisoners as so many of them needed follow up. And the public relations part is important. The welcome at Scheveningen was astounding. There were people gaping at us all the way to the city centre. I never shared Mike's bad feelings of the city. I thought it looked so fantastic and almost modern compared to so many walled-in places. Ah- it takes time to get used to call her Maria.
When she told me she was married, I was completely stunned, but very happy for her, even a bit jealous. My marriage with Paul was now a joke. I couldn't dream of being near him again. She even told me about her suspicion that he was behind it, when she was almost assassinated in the Hague. But it couldn't be him. At least I thought he was still raising an army in Poland Saxony or Denmark or somewhere. A German merchant from Rostock, informed Lucas, that Paul had been conned in Poland, so he was destitute and without an army. He was the perennial failure.
Maria took me to see inside the buildings of the government. She showed the prison where she was incarcerated for some weeks, even the cell. She took me to see where she was ambushed. Maria even said hello to the pockmarked woman. The one who had probably saved Maria when she signalled that something was very wrong. Her face was like the surface of the moon, and I knew the rest of the body was probably not better. There is little one can do about that. The ugly woman looked at me and said “Solveig”
For at least ten seconds I assumed it was a trick of my hearing, but it was said with the tonality that is so distinctive that it was not said by a Dutch woman.
“Excuse me very much Madam” She said, kind of ashamed.
I looked at her, and saw those eyes – the iris is not affected by scarring.
“Sunniva”
We hugged and cried, and I forgot her current appearances. She was still my big sister.
I was on my way home with my sister, just stopping over in Amsterdam. We spent a peaceful night at the residence in Prinzengracht. The mornig calm was broken, Lucas stormed in and cried “Maria is unwell – symptoms of cholera”.
Full speed back to the Hague, where I found her in bed with her husband, both with severe cramps. The servants had fled the house, one of them never to be found again. Of course it wasn't cholera, and even with my medical knowledge from centuries ahead there was no way I could heal this massive arsenic poisoning. I wept a lot.
Waking up from a dream
The cramps in my intestines still lingered. The headache was intense. It was all quiet around, except for a regular beep-beep. So I opened my eyes. It was in a sterile looking room. Basically what you expect in a hospital. I was not really expecting a modern hospital room, so I was a bit bewildered.. Just then the door opened and a nurse came in. Correction a member of the cleaning staff entered with her trolley. I made a sound, and tried to move my head. She babbled something and ran out of the room, while the instruments said beep beep beep. I managed to lift my hand. It was my hand and still looked different; thinner than I remembered But also thicker than I remembered.
I tried to lift myself a bit up, but I was too weak, and was exhausted by the effort. While recovering the door opens and a platoon of nurses led by some doctors stormed in and took up positions around my bed. Orders went around and obeyed. They spoke strange and yet I understood, but it took a while to decipher. "Welcome back amongst the living" was easy enough to understand, but the female doctor said "willkome" , or was my hearing impaired? Before I could process the rest in my mushy brain I heard her say. "You are at the Catharina Schrader sick house in New Or" I was bewildered. She said sick house, not hospital and that name Catharina Schrader was a name I had heard of, but, I couldn’t quite place. Now I remember. Anna had proposed we sponsor her education.
"You have been comatose for two years”
The nurse opened the curtains and continued her chatter:
“You have had a wonderful view over the North river. It was almost wasted on a comatose patient.”
I was thirsty, and requested some water. The nurse understood, and regulated the IV, and left and came back with a glass and a straw.
When she gave me the water she said “Her is the water”, but I thought she also said “‘ir is de water”. Why did she try to speak to me in Dutch, and it wasn’t quite Dutch. My brain felt all mush.
"I am in New Or?" I managed to stutter through parched lips and throat
"Ja - you are in Niew Orange", and the 'you' she pronounced as a 'ieuw'
By the time I had take a few sips I was exhausted.
I quickly recovered my wits and a few days later I was able to finish the fictional story of a world where the English managed to keep their colonies in North America.
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Notes: Some comments received has revealed they did not read the initial chapter where I pointed out that this was a contrafactual story, as it has to be when you send one or several persons back in time. Computer games recreating past battles are also contrafactual, as such. I have tried to show some of the quirks of history.
The changes in the course of “true history” is less important than trying to give a flair of a time when a woman could get away with an indiscretion by claiming her child was brown because of excessive chocolate eating.
The Danish scientist, Ole Rømer, managed to get a indirect measure for the speed of light, but was given the position as chief of Police and Mayor of Copenhagen in 1705. He used all his ingenuity to make life miserable for the prostitutes in the city, but he also started to work on sanitary improvements.
That Philippe of Orleans (brother of Louis the XIV) was a cross-dresser and fond of men, is well documented. His mother made him wear dresses until the age of 14! Still – he managed to be the father of four, and his descendant would eventually become king of France after Napoleon lost power in 1814.
The descendants of Albertine Agnes are still head of state of the Netherlands as that branch of the house of Orange rose to progressively more power, and royal status after the Napoleonic wars.
Catharina Schrader (1656-1746) became an excellent midwife. She would have become a very good MD, given the opportunity.
There was even a real Ambrosius Augustus van Horne at the time ( 1648-1692), but I have just used him here in a pure fiction.
William of Orange may not have planned the murder of the de Witt brothers, but it suited him fine, and he may have known about the plot where Tischelaer accused Cornelis de Witt for planning to murder William.
The Dutch re-took New York in 1673 and for a short period did not call it Niew Amsterdam, but Niew Orange. This seems to be forgotten, but it was all in all a parenthesis in our history anyway. This war did little officially, as the French had to withdraw eventually, and the Dutch and England had to agree to restore the situation before the war, but it broke the impressive evolution of The United Provinces of the Netherlands, ending the golden age, and started a downward path, while England rose to world supremacy.