In the last chapter, Raj returned from his scouting mission with some bad news.
"Gentlemen," Raj said. "That's the situation. Your Reverence."
The story begins with Raj finishing his recon report to the gathered military personnel of Sandoral. The only civilian present here is Sysup-Suffragen of Sandoral, whose presence is apparently mandatory for the spiritual reason I suppose (it wouldn't hurt morale either), and Wenner Reed who is the captain of city militia (so not completely a civilian). Suzette is also technically a civilian, but by this point, she is pretty much another of Raj's staff, and as the novel notes, no one is going to object after she saved Raj and other's asses in the previous chapter and mulched several Colonials in the process.
Pretty much everyone has come, even the two of Skinner chiefs, who doesn't seem to be that interested in the meeting or even understanding much of spoken words, but at least they are here, which means they are willing to listen to Raj's orders.
"Messer Reed?" A soft-looking man, if you only noticed the body and face and not the eyes.
"Sandoral was founded as a fortress-city," Reed said. "So long as Sandoral holds, the frontier holds, and we deny the Upper Drangosh to the enemy as a route of attack. Our defenses are the strongest in the Civil Government, outside the capital itself; let Jamal and Tewfik sit in front of them, until they starve and their army rots away from disease."
There were murmurs of approval; the local authorities here had been spending continuously since the last sack, three long generations ago. Sandoral had more than walls; concrete pillboxes studded the approaches, miles of ditch filled with razor-edged angle iron, massive covered redoubts filled with obsolescent but very functional muzzle-loading guns.
Sounds impressive. I wonder how good they are, in comparison to RL 1860s-70s fortification?
Naturally, the Center disagrees and shows a rather grim simulation. As Raj explains:
"No, gentlemen," he said, uncovering the map on the easel at the head of the room. "Observe." He tapped Sandoral city. "There are nearly a million people in this County—" probably an underestimate, nobody liked the census takers from the Ministry of Finance "—of which no more than seventy thousand live in Sandoral City itself. It isn't the trade or manufactures that constitute the value of this city, it's the fact that it keeps the Upper Drangosh in Civil Government hands."
His pointer swept downstream. "When Tewfik comes up with the Army of the South, the Colonists will have more than enough manpower to invest Sandoral closely, then burn and kill their way north around us—while the only Civil Government field army in the east sits and eats its boots; a few months, and the dogs will have gone into the stew pots." Not so much to feed the inhabitants, as because each ate more than a dozen humans. "And there goes our strategic mobility.
"The plain truth of the matter is that the Colonists are closer to the centers of their power—" he tapped the stick down on Al-Kebir "—than we are." Moving it two thousand kilometers to the east, to the Hemmar Valley and the coastlands of the Peninsula.
"This land north of Sandoral is the only densely populated and productive area available to support a defense line. If we let them into it, the Colonists can wait for Sandoral City to wither on the vine, no matter how long it takes. And I doubt we'll be able to hold them south of the Oxheads or west of Komar. It would take centuries to rebuild what they destroyed, even if we could." He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment, and then opened them with a brilliant smile that almost fooled himself.
He didn't mention the starvation and inevitable cannibalism that the simulation had shown him. I am certain that there will be a plague outbreak, too, with that many people bottled up in the city. Maybe he thought that was too much, or that he thought the above was enough to get his points across.
We also see that not everyone is impressed with Raj:
sneers or doubtful mutual glances from some of the other battalion commanders, who had heard of his fits of introspection.
To be honest, it will look rather strange in RL as well, since it will appear Raj randomly zoning out before or during the conversation, sometimes even during the mid-speech. And as Chapter 3 noted, his eyes glow strangely during the simulation, enough for people to notice.
In any case, Raj made up his mind:
"I am instructed to defend this frontier. The only way to do that is to remove the threat posed by the Colonist field army operating on the Upper Drangosh; which means, to meet it outside the walls and crush it utterly."
Decisive battle it is, then. The meeting erupts into chaos before da Cruz restores order.
Reed is the most vocal opponent to Raj's idea, and there is this part:
The militia commander's eyes narrowed: not fear, Raj decided, but the look a man gives an enemy. "How?" he said.
Still, he has a point: how do the Civil Government make the enemy come for them, and if that works, how do they defeat them? Raj has an idea, and you'll see why Reed is so hostile to it:
"Messers, I don't intend to fight an open-field battle of maneuver . . . not against an enemy one-third again my strength and more mobile to boot. Instead—" he flipped back the map, showing another of the city and its immediate environs. "I intend to entrench to the west of the city. Even if they have thirty thousand men, Tewfik and Jamal cannot invest a perimeter that includes the field army and the city both. Nor can they leave an intact mobile force of fifteen thousand in their rear, and the city with its steamboats blocks the passage of supplies by river. If I move to the west of the city, they must destroy the Army of the Upper Drangosh or force it back within the walls before they can proceed."
A hand raised by one of the battalion commanders: Beltin, the 12th Rogor Slashers. "Commander, if we stretch our line so that they can't outflank it, they can punch through. And if we thicken our firing line, they can outflank us; even if we dig in, we don't have the men."
Raj nodded. "Time, space, and force, gentlemen. You know what the terrain right along the river is like; impossible, and worse as you get north. Furthermore, north of the frontier forts—" which mounted huge cast-steel rifles, capable of smashing anything that floated "—we control the river; that is why they're building a bridge sixty kilometers downstream.
"They'll have to march every meter of the way, tending away from the riverbank. Twenty, thirty thousand men, possibly forty thousand, but let's not scare anyone, as many animals, every one of which has to eat, and still more importantly, drink, my friends. More than once a day. How many thousand liters carried up from the bridgehead? This—" the stick was unsatisfactory; he snapped the tough oak across and stabbed with his finger on a dry riverbed running east just southwest of the city "—is where we'll entrench. Impassable terrain to our left; bad-to-rough to our right, and supplies only five kilometers behind us in the city—and a line of retreat, worst comes to worst. If they move to the west, they make their supply situation impossible and expose their flank to us. If they wait, fine—we're on the defensive.
"Of course," he added, "we'll have to thicken the defenses any way we can. We'll strip the city of all movable artillery—" Reed shot to his feet, genuine horror on his face. Raj looked at him for a moment, lips pulled back from teeth. Please. Give me an excuse. I won't have even you taken out and shot out of hand for personal reasons, please give me an excuse. The Companions' heads turned toward Reed like gun turrets tracking. The civilian swallowed and slumped back into his chair.
"—for the field fortifications. The militia gunners will accompany me; the remainder of the militia will hold the walls. All refugees in the city—" they had been trickling in for weeks "—all able-bodied persons not members of the militia or the medical teams, and all transport animals and equipment are hereby conscripted as labor battalions." He took out his watch. "I expect to begin in about two hours. Any further questions?"
"Sir." Menyez again, frowning down at his notes. "Sir, we'll need overhead protection for the entrenchments." An airburst could turn an open trench into an abattoir, and guns and dogs were even more vulnerable. "Timber, sir."
"There's plenty on the slopes of the Oxheads," Raj said, and laughed aloud at the expressions. "And they've been shipping it down the Drangosh and putting it into buildings for a long time, gentlemen; we'll just take it out." Reed looked ill; he was about to lose a considerable proportion of his income, even in victory.
To Reed, Raj is trampling over what he sees as his privilege and also harming his business. This battle, I believe, is based on Belisarius'
Battle of Dara, where he had Hunnic mercenaries and used field fortification as part of strategram.
The battle is also referenced in the Belisarius series, obviously, since the first book starts around that time. I think it was either skipped or butterflied away, due to the changed circumstance making Belisarius and his men travel to India.
Raj finishes the meeting with this speech:
"Messers," he said, deliberately pitching his voice low, watching them strain forward to listen. "You're all fighting men; worse, many of you are cavalry—" a brief flicker of humor "—so you've been raised on stories of victories. Elegant victories, somebody takes somebody in the flank, a commander's nerve breaks, a dashing charge disrupts the enemy's line."
His head turned, singling out one man after another. "Those battles are like two-headed dogs; they happen, but you can't count on them. They usually turn on one side being grossly inferior, in numbers or weapons or morale, training or leadership."
One fist rapped the wood lightly. "We're not fighting barbarians. We're fighting a big, tough army, well-equipped and trained. Men not afraid to die, under commanders who've learned in a hard school. I'll use every trick, every surprise I can—but tricks and surprises will not win this battle.
"There is," he paused, and frowned as he sought for words, "a certain brutal simplicity to most engagements between well-matched forces. We're going to fight that sort of battle, and our only real advantages are interior lines and position. The enemy will march right up to us, and we're going to plant our feet in the dirt and systematically beat him to death. Kill, and keep killing until their hearts break and they run. And then, we will have fulfilled our mission and made this province safe."
He is right, though. The Colonists are NOT a barbarian warband. The difference will become starkly clear as we go to the next books, where Raj does face off against the MilGov barbarians, and boy, they do have a serious problem where the Colonists don't.
Meanwhile, Fatima and other household women of the 5th Descott had been conscripted into auxiliary labors. Fatima has a mixed feeling about the current situation because while she is happy about her turn of fortune, she is also sad at the fact that Staenbridge and Foley and Raj, and other soldiers are now about to go to what may be their last battle:
"I happy there," Fatima said softly. "Nobody beat me, scorn me, tell me I stupid useless imp of Shaitan; house my own." Her head came up. "Pray Alia—Spirit of Stars our men return safe and victorious."
As you can see, she is still acclimating.
Meanwhile, Menyaz is working on the engineering, and has an introspective moment:
Menyez straightened, putting his hands to his back; it was cool as the desert nights always were, and the stars had a hard brilliance. Only a winter night had that sort of clarity up in Kelden County; summer nights were softly luminous, smelling of clover and dew-damped ground. That was a rich land, rolling hills and orchards and thick oakwoods, not like this country south of the Oxheads; here the bones of the earth showed through, and the only fertility was what men had made. The desert waited, with sand to fill their canals and scorching winds, waiting for their labor and vigilance to stop.
"And we put half our efforts into killing each other," he murmured.
This is also the point the Center has made: that the environment of Bellevue is not exactly friendly to humans, that the current civilization is built on a rather fragile ecological foundation, and that if it falls, the next one will have a harder road ahead.
"Jorg?" Raj said, looking up from his mapboard. Officers clustered around it, making quick notes on their own pads, occasionally jogging off to fix a view in their minds.
"I was thinking we should have a permanent engineering corps, the way the Colonists do," he answered, a little ashamed of the unsoldierly thoughts.
"Hmmm, there are arguments both ways," the commander answered. "More flexible, our way, giving everyone the basics. Although I'm lucky you made such a study of it; too many of my cavalry commanders might as well be Squadron or Brigade nobles, not interested in anything unless they can drink it, hunt it, ride it, or fuck it. Right, here's the schematic and perspective."
In RL, most armed forces are rather more like the Colonists, to the point where I am surprised that the Civil Government apparently has no permanent engineering corps. This is certainly one of the greatest advantages the Colonists have. Military Engineering is a complex, highly sophisticated matter, even in the 19th century - a lot of infrastructures in the US during that era were built by army engineers, and it was regarded as the most prestigious branch in the US Army, too.
Raj's schematic is like this:
"From above, like this." Raj's finger traced a broad V with its point toward the enemy; the arms were of slightly unequal length. "Two-point-eight clicks on the left, two-point-two on the right; that's the easier approach and I want it defiladed from the center. Right here—" his finger tapped the point of the V "—is where the command post will be, the redoubt, and where the 5th will stand. Also half the artillery, the heavy pieces from the city. Space the rest of the stuff from the walls, and all the 75's and field-howitzers, in 4-gun batteries down the wings at equal intervals, except—" he tapped the extreme right, the western anchor of the line "—I want this to have six of the howitzers, sighted in on the ravines off our flank, just in case they get cute. Also, I'm putting the bordermen in there." Two hundred had shown up a week ago.
(...)
"Now, apart from the 5th, I want the cavalry battalions in a second line about fifty, sixty meters back from the first—just far enough to have a clear field of fire over the front line. Cover for the dogs just behind them. And behind all that, pile the spoil and then dig in a road, nothing elaborate, right across the arms of the V. Communications trenches between all positions."
(...)
"Furthermore," Raj continued, "I want a staggered line of holes, about two hundred meters up the opposite slope—" he pointed "—thirty of them. Slanting upslope in the direction of our gallant wog adversaries, just enough to hold a hundred-liter urn, you know, the type they use for oil and wine around here?"
With the last paragraph, you can easily guess the surprise Raj is planning. An old trick, but a potentially devastating one if pulled off successfully.
Also, Messer Falhasker has come to see Raj and the prepared trench line. He has donated many of his merchandise into the defense preparation, and while that is partially due to Suzette's charm, I get a feeling that he is a decent enough man who loves his city. He is certainly more helpful than Reed, at least.
We gets the description of the finished defense, as well as something interesting:
Forty thousand pairs of hands had been at work for thirty hours; the five-kilometer stretch of dry valley looked like a garden plot infested with geometric-minded gophers. The basic outlines of the trenches had been dug, the main line for the infantry to hold and the fortlets behind them where the cavalry would support their fire and be ready to block a penetration or launch pursuit. Evenly spaced semicircles marked the gun platforms, and zigzag communications trenches linked them all. The redoubt at the center was a huge pit right now, nearly two stories deep; the fighting deck would have a cellar beneath it. Even as the long timbers went in to support the floor hands were stacking powder and shot on the bottom level.
Temporary ramps had been left, and two hundred soldiers and civilians were backing a cannon down it, heaving against a spiderweb of ropes. The gun was one of the city's defensive weapons, a three-meter tube of black cast iron on wheels taller than a man, throwing thirty-kilo shot. It trundled the last few yards and set-tied onto the overlapping timbers of the redoubt's floor with a rumbling thunder; there was a ratcheting pig-snarl behind it, as one of the armored cars backed and turned, ready to follow the gun. Raj looked at the turtle shape without affection: there were a dozen of the armored vehicles in Sandoral, shells of wrought-iron boilerplate driven by the only internal-combustion engines in the Civil Government. There was room for a dozen riflemen within, and the armor would turn small-arms fire and shell fragments. It would not turn any sort of artillery projectile, and the things were monsters to maintain, broke down at the slightest excuse, suspensions so fragile they had to be hauled to the scene of battle on ox-drawn timber skids . . . and potentially decisive, at the crucial moment.
Unfortunately the Colony had them, too.
Emphasis mine. An armored car in 1870s technology, driven by the early ICEs? Sounds cool, but probably rather impractical as the paragraph notes. I can see Stirling's handprint over this, as he really likes the schizo-tech and steampunk. However, I think, admittedly without any basis, that Drake might have given his own input into this idea - if this was entirely Stirling's thing, I bet armored cars would have had steam engines instead, since steam vehicles and airships are Stirling's 'thing'*, as seen with Draka and ISOT, plus the Chosen book of this series.
*Meanwhile, it appears 'Rocket Chariot/Primitive Katyusha' is Drake's 'thing', judging from the Belisarius series and The Heretic.
It is also a nice demonstration of the fact that the Colony is the Civil Government's equal, although we already knew they had them since the last chapter.
Meanwhile, according to Suzette, Reed is up to accusing Falhasker of spying for the Colony. Raj is not sure whether to believe it or not, and he doesn't like either of them very much, since both of them are a bit too much interested in Suzette. He decides to throw a bait:
"Suzette," Raj said after a moment. "You know, it might be . . . advisable to let Falhasker know that we were only able to scare up five generators for the fougasses. So only five on the far right flank are hooked up, the others are quaker cannon."
Actually, each generator powered a board that would fire six of the flame weapons.
In the next chapter, we will see the climactic battle of The Forge.
