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A Wind Among Grass

By

Kim Mackey

Lennart Torstensson glanced out the Palace window of his

office. Down below workmen were just beginning to survey the

square for the new Hans Richter Monument. Less than a week

had gone by since the battle of Wismar. So many changes. But

one thing remained constant. War.

Torstensson turned back to the officer in front of him.

Henri, Duc de Rohan, had joined Gustavus Adolphus'

forces in December 1632. Earlier in the year Richelieu had

put pressure on the Venetian government to dismiss Rohan from

his post as a general in the Venetian Army. As compensation

Venice had appointed Rohan as an ambassador extraordinaire to

the new Imperial court in Magdeburg. Soon after arriving

Rohan had terminated his employment with the Venetians and

enlisted in the Emperor's army. Fellow Huguenots from all

over Europe had been attracted to enlist with Rohan, and

Baner had praised his service in 1633 in the Upper Palatinate

and along the Danube.

But now he was needed elsewhere.

"You understand Henri, that I can only offer you limited

support in addition to your own troops for this mission. A

battalion of Finnish cavalry and two batteries of howitzers,

with gun crews. That's it. We're stretched very thin."

The Duc de Rohan nodded his head and smiled. Rohan was a

balding man with curly hair on the back of his head and awide frown line etched between his eyebrows. His small

mustache and narrow goatee were flecked with white. But his

posture was ramrod straight and he exuded an undeniable

charisma.

"I understand General. Will the Finns have their hounds

with them?" One technique used by the Finnish cavalry was to

carry their hounds into battle and release them at the

appropriate time. The hounds would run in front of the

cavalry and leap on the enemy horses, biting their nostrils

and disrupting the enemy formations so that they were

unprepared for the shock of the charging Finns.Torstensson laughed. "Indeed they will, Henri, indeed

they will."

Henri nodded. "Then I am prepared to do as much as I can

to disrupt Richelieu's forces in Trier and Lorraine. As you

know, the French Army, even the entretenue regiments, require

a constant supply of fresh recruits, especially outside the

boundaries of France. They are like a bathtub with an open

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drain. Without constant replenishment the bathtub will run

empty."

"And the etapes, the supply points," said Torstensson,

"destruction of those will make it very difficult for France

to support forces along the Rhine."

"Assuredly," said Rohan.

"Before you go, I am curious about one thing, Henri,"

said Torstensson. "Why did you join the Empire? Gustavus

Adolphus has never mentioned it, even in private."

The Duc de Rohan was silent for a long time. For a

minute Torstensson cursed himself for having intruded onto a

matter that the Duke clearly felt was very private.

"Have you ever gone to Grantville, General? Have you

ever read what was written about you in this other up-time

universe?"

Torstensson shook his head. He'd thought about it, but

his duties had always kept him too busy to investigate such

things himself.

"When I came north to Magdeburg, I first spent several

weeks in Grantville. Naturally I was curious about my own

fate, as well as the fate of my fellow Huguenots. In the end,

General, I died at some obscure battle. Alone, nothing more

than a gentleman adventurer. Not a very glorious end. And

later in the century the Edict of Nantes was revoked and tens

of thousands of Huguenots were expelled from France."

Rohan looked at Torstensson with a piercing glance. "I

think I, and my co-religionists, deserve a better fate, don't

you?"

Torstensson nodded.Rohan rose abruptly. "I think it best if I return to my

men General. My staff and I have much planning to do."

Torstensson nodded again. As the Duke left he passed

Mike Stearns entering the office and Rohan saluted the Prime

Minister sharply.

"Who was that Lennart?" asked Stearns.

"Henri, Duc de Rohan. We are sending him on a mission to

disrupt French supply lines in Trier and Lorraine. Hopefully

that will keep the French armies off our backs for awhile."

Mike smiled. "Duke of Rohan? The Riders of Rohan?"

Torstensson nodded.I always did like that scene at Helm's Deep in

Tolkien's Two Towers about the Riders of Rohan, thought

Mike. How did it go?

"They rode like a wind among grass," said Stearns

softly.

"Prime Minister?"

Mike shook his head. "Just wishing the King of Rohan

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good luck Lennart."

"Duke of Rohan."

"Whatever."

***

Task Force Rohan began its campaign of disruption in

spectacular fashion. On a dark and stormy night in late

February 1634 Rohan's dismounted dragoons captured the

fortress of Ehrenbreitstein across the Rhine River from the

mouth of the Moselle. French forces gathered in Koblenz to

retake the fortress but by the time they were ready Task

Force Rohan had left, marching up the Rhine River and

crossing at Bingen. Arcing back to the northwest, Task Force

Rohan began destroying the French Army's etapes along the

Moselle. In less than a month the Task Force was in Lorraine,

attacking etapes, and capturing or killing the flow of

recruits to the French Armies in both Trier and Lorraine. In

late March the Task Force captured its richest prize near

Toul: the montre, the monthly convoy of pack horses carrying

the pay for the garrison of Nancy. Unfortunately for the

French Army, the pay convoy of pack horses actually contained

several montres of silver coin as the Bureau des finances had

delayed sending earlier montres due to bad weather and lack

of sufficient silver coin of the right weight.

Marechal La Force, commander of the French Army in

Lorraine, was not amused.

Pointing out in a letter to Richelieu and Louis XIII

that any French campaign into the USE was totally dependent

on the security of the supply lines in Lorraine and Trier, hedemanded, and got, additional reinforcements, including

several elite petit vieux and vieux regiments.

The governor of Nancy, Jean de Gallard de Bearn, comte

de Brassac, who had refused to allow any of his artillery to

be removed to meet the needs of La Force's field army, was

replaced by one of Richelieu's intendants. Finally, in the

middle of May, 1634, Task Force Rohan was brought to decisive

battle near Luneville on the Meurthe River.

Task Force Rohan had had two days to prepare the

battlefield.

They wasted none of it.

***

Marechal La Force looked at the field fortifications in

front of him with distaste. Three times he thought he had

cornered Rohan, and three times he had allowed him to slip

away by not focusing his forces for battle quickly enough.

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But this time, he was ready.

"Send out the parley party," he told his adjutant, "We

can at least offer them a chance to surrender."

On the other side of the battlefield the Duc de Rohan

was exhorting his troops. Most of those remaining were

Huguenots who had served with him during the Wars of Religion

or along the Danube under Baner. To say that his men idolized

him would be an understatement. To Huguenots throughout

Europe Rohans exploits in Lorraine had given them new

courage and a fresh pride in their confessional allegiances.

As Rohan spoke to each battalion his officers

distributed draughts of fighting potions to their men made

from fresh spring mountain parsley or hemp seed oil. While

each battalion received their own individual words from the

Duke, he ended each speech the same way.

"This day, we do not retreat. This day, we do not

surrender. For Huguenot honor, For Huguenot pride, For

Huguenot glory, this day...WE FIGHT!"

As La Force's parley party approached, Rohan turned to

his own adjutant.

"I think, Michel, that it is time for song. The usual

psalms, if you please, but let's end with that Welsh song

with your new English lyrics. The men seem to like it. What

was it called again?"

"Men of Harlech, my Duke. Renamed to Men of Rohan, but

with the same melody."

Henri, Duc de Rohan, smiled. "Excellent!"

Across the field, the Catholics of the French Army had

already prepared for battle by celebrating the sacrament ofMass and confessing their sins. They listened in silence as

the Huguenots sang French psalms and then German ones,

including "Ein fest Burg is unser Gott" and "Es wollte uns

Gott gnadig seyn", accompanied by trumpets. The last psalm

was unusual, because it was in English, and bits and pieces

of it drifted across the battlefield.

"Men of Rohan stop your groaning, can't you hear those

balls a-moaning? Mighty host resoundingMen of valor onto

GloryRohan shall not yield."

In another universe, the Welsh ghosts of the 2nd

battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot from the battle of Rorke'sDrift, Natal Province, 1879, were smiling.

When Marechal La Force could finally see his returning

envoys clearly his lips pressed themselves into a narrow

angry line.

The envoys had been stripped, bound, and rubbed with

horse manure from head to toe. The message was clear: Task

Force Rohan was prepared to fight to the death.

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***

18 times the French assaulted the Huguenot lines. 18

times they were repulsed.

On the right the vieux Regiment Picardie attempted to

flank the Task Force through a dense woods. But the Task

Force was prepared and pre-set bundles of kindling were lit

and the forest set on fire. Fewer than a hundred choking,

soot-covered survivors of the Regiment emerged alive.

On the left a cavalry charge turned to disaster as it

found itself amid a host of camouflaged ditches and buried

clay pots covered with a loose layer of soil. In other areas

the fussnagel, caltrops, forced cavalry into pre-arranged

lanes covered by the canister fire of Rohan's howitzers.

On the 19th assault Henri, Duc de Rohan, fell, mortally

wounded by a slim piece of bronze shrapnel when one of his

two remaining howitzers burst from overuse. Under heavy

pressure by the last of the French reserves, the petit vieux

Regiment Rambures, the remains of the Task Force continued to

fight stubbornly until they were completely surrounded. At

the end, Rohan's body and a dozen bleeding officers were left

to face the pikes. Offered a chance to surrender they

refused, and then detonated the last of the Task Force's

gunpowder, killing another hundred pikemen.

When news of the battle reached the rebels in Lorraine

along with the money from the pay convoy that Rohan had had

spirited away from the battle at the last minute, the

fractious nobles banded together, especially those inoccupied Nancy. Thousands of fresh French troops had to be

diverted to deal with the Lorrainers.

In France, the outcome of the battle fostered darker,

more unholy alliances.

Decades later, a monument was built on the battlefield.

Mike Stearns, in the twilight of his years, remembered the

Tolkien quote he'd thought of upon seeing Rohan in Magdeburg

and wrote to the Huguenot commission building the monument.

The chairman of the commission was a Tolkien fan and decided

to include the quote on the commemoration plaque.

***The Riders of Rohan

For Huguenot honor, for Huguenot pride, for Huguenot glory

This day we fought

May 12, 1634

"Down from the gates they roared, over the causeway they

swept, and they drove the hosts of Isengard as a wind among

grass." Tolkien.