What if someone told you that a
widely-accepted event from history didn’t happen the way you think it did? This
story reimagines a well-known chapter from Brno’s history-and might just have
you second-guessing what you think you know.
Brno, April 1645
The bastard Scotsman, Ogilvy, stood
atop the battlements at Špilberk. The ground to the North of the city walls was
the most obvious side for attack. Lines of attack from the South would be
hampered by a rough, scrabbly cliff face covered in thorn bushes and easily
defended. No—if attack came, it would come from the North: the ground was solid
and sloped gently down from the hill. Ogilvy gave orders for the city walls to
be manned and for scouts to be sent out. He scratched his scarred chin,
enjoying for a moment the warmth of the South Moravian spring sunshine on his
face, and turned inside.
Vienna,
April 1645
The impetuous Frenchman, De Souches,
saluted smartly, turned and left. He quickly gave orders to ready his horse and
went to pack. He’d be back with that grumbling Scotsman before the week was
out—he smiled. They’d seen action together: they both fought for Denmark, then
Sweden, and then they’d both changed sides after the Battle of White Mountain.
It was funny that fate would draw them together again—and again—with that
maniac Torstensson, although this time, Torstensson was the enemy.
Brno, May
1645
De Souches and Ogilvy greeted each
other curtly and officially, with their men standing around watching the
awkward greeting in the central courtyard of the castle. Ogilvy took De Souches
up to his private chambers which looked out over the scree and cliffs and away
down to the flat plains that stretched down to the distant, hazy hills at
Palava.
“I can’t believe they’ve sent you to replace me,” grumbled
Ogilvy dropping the feigned formality as soon as they were alone. He groaned
and pulled out two chairs by the window and removed a stoppered bottle from a
drawer. “Join me in a Slivovice, won’t you?”
“I’m sorry about that. I guess my old papers were more
convincing than yours. The Habsburgs have some odd notions about rank and
title. Idiots, but I’m not complaining.”
Ogilvy grunted and grinned at De Souches with his head
turned sideways. “You were always more suited to that courtly nonsense. It
suits you and your floppy French hair.”
De Souches gave him a playful kick. “And you are more suited
to being a grumpy castle guard.”
“Listen, Torstensson is coming,” Ogilvy said, getting down
to business. “He made a mess of Jihlava—knocked a hole in the castle wall the
size of a church inside two days. He’s gonna make short work of us here. Brno
isn’t built for siege.”
“I know, we’re almost certainly doomed. I suggest we try to
hold out for a few weeks at least. He won’t be able to put his siege engines to
the South, so at least we know where he’ll attack from. If we can hold out a
few weeks, then we can always surrender without too much embarrassment. It’s
Torstensson, after all—no one beats him.”
They grinned mirthlessly and drank.
Brno, May
1645
The most obvious approach to Brno
brought Torstensson round from the Southwest. Once his armies were out of the
hills to the West and on the plains, they were an imposing sight. The men
settled in a large encampment deliberately visible from the castle. They set up
camp with ease and comfort. The warm weather had made the area around the
rivers very pleasant, even for an army of 28,000. There was no need for an
advanced scouting party, no need to prepare the ground—it was 28,000 men with outstanding
siege equipment and one of the greatest military tacticians of the Thirty
Years’ War against a provincial castle and city with—maybe—1,000 people inside.
Inside the city walls, the inhabitants, a mixture of German-
and Czech-speaking shopkeepers and artisans, crowded around the Church of St.
Thomas, where the priest, Father Martin Středa, came out to talk to them. He
held his hands up for calm.
A woman wailed, another sobbed. Gruff male voices swallowed
back tears. They’d seen the soldiers to the South.
Brno,
February 2017
“Wait, stop!” blasted the editor,
Holsteinová, a severe, bespectacled woman with grey hair pulled back tightly on
her head. “It’s rushed. The tone is messy. Muddled, even. There’s no
description. It’s not supposed to be genre fiction.”
“You asked for it to be in an approachable style,” said Anna
Kovářová, the young historian, with a submissive, apologetic shrug.
“OK, well, get to the point—what have you discovered that’s
new? Up ‘til now, that’s all in standard history books. Well, apart from the
fact that the three men knew each other, perhaps.”
“Well, here’s the thing.” Anna straightened herself in her
seat, pulling down the hem of her serious grey skirt. “Torstensson and his men
camped to the South, naturally enough, but there was plenty of room to the East
to skirt the city and attack from the North. But he didn’t—he attacked up the
hill from the South, where the train station is today. Torstensson was a master
gunner, he was used to lining up his heavy artillery and blasting apart castle
walls, yet here he doesn’t use them.”
“Go on.”
“In fact, there are only two days of fighting in a siege
lasting more than three months. And no real casualties on either side.”
“So?”
“Let me go back to the narration—I’ll pick it up from the
first parley.”
“OK.”
Brno, May
1645
De Souches sent out two men under a
white flag. They approached Torstensson’s entourage slowly and nervously and
were shown into a field tent. The pennants and tent flaps shrugged lazily
around in a silky spring breeze.
Brno,
February 2017
“OK, now you’re overdoing it—ha!”
The older woman sneered.
“OK, look. Simply put, the general arranges a secret meeting
with the two men later that night. They are nervous but trust him to a certain
extent. They meet him in his private quarters late at night. Torstensson is
lying in bed, wincing. You see, he’s got gout—it’s well-documented. He’s also
been on the road on one campaign or another for twenty years or more. He’s done
in. And if he defeats and conquers Brno, it’s a straight run down to Vienna,
and he’s not going to get within 60 miles of Vienna before they throw the full
might of the Imperial Habsburg army at him. He’s done for.”
“This is good, you can back it up?”
“Yes, there is all kinds of good evidence, even from
Habsburg sources, talking about Torstensson being carried around on a litter
for the whole campaign.”
“OK, so he’s sick, old, tired and doesn’t want to attack
Vienna.”
“So, what does he do? He calls Ogilvy and De Souches in for
meeting.”
Brno, May
1645
The three old comrades reclined
around a brazier in the centre of the field tent.
“Gentlemen, I’m finished. I don’t want to fight. I cannot
continue. I could send the might of my 28,000, with 15,000 reserves a week
away, against the city and crush it by nightfall tomorrow. But...”
“My Lord?” Ogilvy and De Souches looked at each other,
eyebrows raised.
“I have the makings of an idea. Let us sojourn here and
enjoy this warm season and this pleasant land. I’ll move up into the castle
with you. You can continue to use the secret entrance to the Church of St.
Thomas as a passageway for getting supplies in and out of the city—yes, I know.
My troops will camp to the South of the city and enjoy the spoils of the land.
We can dine and drink and enjoy each other’s company in the castle. Then, at
the end of the summer, after we’ve failed to break into the castle, we’ll head
home with our tails between our legs. Defeated but not
embarrassed. You two will be made freemen of the Empire and
will dine out for years on the defeat of the Swedish. And I can go home and
retire before the road kills me.”
“My lord, a noble plan! We’ll save lives and make names for
ourselves.” Ogilvy and De Souches looked visibly relieved.
Brno,
February 2017
“Jumping Mary!” exploded the editor.
“You’re joking! That turns everything on its head. But what about the heroic defence
of Brno by 1,000 soldiers? What about ringing the midday bells at 11 o’clock on
the information of spies to make the Swedish leave early? Are you sure about
this? Have you made this all up? This is the Siege of Brno you’re messing
with.”
“No, there’s good evidence. I have documents showing
requisition orders actually went up during the siege—you’d expect them to stop
completely if the city was under siege. There are Swedish army documents
showing all three men fighting together in the same division earlier in the
Thirty Years’ War. There are all kinds of documents.”
“What about the noon bells at eleven story?”
“Well, any local historian will tell you that part is
suspect. I think the main part of their plan was carried out in secret but that
most people guessed something was up. Perhaps they just made up the story of
the bells after the fact to make it seem more realistic. I, uh, don’t actually
know that part.”
The editor snorted with good humour. “Anyway, it’s
brilliant. Are you sure about the main parts of the thesis?”
“Yes. As I said, I have good documentary evidence from the
city and castle archives and from Vienna, Scotland and France.”
“Wow.”
Holsteinová, certainly the older of the two, had heard the
original story of the Siege of Brno countless times, but this... This was
shocking. She looked up, took her glasses off and stared out the window. Heavy
rain battered the crumbling white window and rattled the old pane in its frame.
The padded inside of the typical Czech institution door was patchy, and many of
the rivets had popped off and the stuffing was poking out. The peeling wooden
sign swinging outside the window read, at a squint, “The Journal of the
Historical Society of Brno”.
Holsteinova seemed lost for a moment, eyes defocusing in a
middle-distance stare. Her face changed, moving through pinched concentration
and into set-jaw determination. Her eyes drifted onto the papers between them
on the coffee table, and she let out a big sigh. The two women sat opposite
each other, a heavy tension in the air. The silence making the rain seem
louder. Then, all of a sudden, the editor’s posture changed again, and she sat
up and turned slightly to focus on Kovářová. She put her glasses back on and
said,
“No, I’m sorry. We can’t publish it.”
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