* * *
Brigade Leader Hans von Reuter raised himself to his hands and knees, then staggered to his feet wiping at the blood at the corner of his mouth. Around him his headquarters staff were doing the same, righting pieces of equipment that had toppled when the salvo landed practically right outside the cave. His ears were ringing, and he worked his mouth carefully and spat to get the iron-and-salt taste out of his mouth.
“Location,” he said. His face was impassive, a square chiseled blank. Now I know how von Paulus felt in Stalingrad, he thought. Duty is duty, however.
There were screams from outside, from men and the worse sounds of wounded horses. They grew louder as wounded were dragged inside and carried over to the improvised aid-station on the other side of the big cavern, laid down amid the glossy stalactites that sprouted from the sandy floor. Corpsmen with red M symbols on their jackets scurried among them, sorting them for triage and slapping on hyposprays of anesthetic. Outside a slow series of rifle-shots gave the horses and mules slashed by shrapnel or pulped by blast their own peace.
“Here, ah, here, sir,” the plotter said, drawing a black circle on the plastic cover of the map, once the easel was back up.
“Hmmph,” von Reuter grunted. Too far. The Royalist position was twenty kilometers back, and the only weapons he had available that might reach that far were twisted scrap under a hillside half a kilometer away.
Infiltration? he thought. Again, no. The enemy had gotten much better at that sort of thing; also, there were just too many of them, and clearly they intended to pound him to bits before advancing. They’d be inserting those SAS teams across his retreat routes, too. No dangerous subtleties or daring sweeps, just a straight hammerblow, rolling northwest and then veering northeast toward the exact location of Base One. The Royalist columns were coordinating well, with intensive patrolling between. He was having enough problems stopping them from infiltrating his own positions. Mostly they were bypassing or punching through any screen he put into place, the lead elements encircling the Helot blocking forces for the foot-infantry marching up behind to eliminate.
This is the set piece battle the Royals have always wanted. Now they have it.
It shouldn’t have happened. When the Senate passed its Ultimate Decree the Helot army should have dispersed, disbanded if necessary. Let the Royals have the bulk of the equipment and stores, take the irreplaceable equipment and retreat to the hills and wastes with the even less replaceable trained officers and non-coms— We did not do that in time. Field Prime was certain that we would have more time, but there was no time at all. The Legion SAS forces, then Royals, both with those damned missiles, were in place in hours. We could have fought past them if we had sent everything immediately, but Field Prime tried another plan, then another when that failed, and now I am defeated.
Doubly defeated, because it had taken all his skill to preserve the Stora Commando as it attempted to retreat from the determined attention of the Brotherhood forces and militia. When he was ordered to return to defend Base One, the Commando was doomed as an organized force. Except for those already extracted. Some of the best of the Commando. And many of the politicals. And it was the same here, many of the best gone before I arrived. Gone to I do not know where.
Doubtless Field Prime has a plan, and doubtless it will be brilliant, and complex as usual. Amateurs believe simplicity means that a few things can go wrong and the plan will still work. She has no concept. Falkenberg’s people well understand that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Field Prime has heard the words but they have no meaning to her.
Yet she has come close to success. Perhaps this time it will work.
She only has to win once.
And none of that was important. His mission now was to delay the enemy as much as possible. He could use anything left of the equipment, and delay was more important than preserving his force. Of course they must not know that, or they will simply run away. Already they resent that Field Prime is no longer here. Von Reuter sighed. He had taken no part in the attack on non-combatants at the Stora Mine, but he was quite certain to be tried as a war criminal for his part in the poison gas attack in the Dales; and even if he could surrender he would not. He had his professional honor to consider.
The orders are to delay. I am not told why, merely that it is important. It is not easily done. His forces simply could not move as fast as the Royals, not at foot and animal-transport speeds; it was difficult even to break contact once the Royals advanced. His heavy weapons were outranged, and could be used once and once only: then they were destroyed by the suddenly excellent enemy artillery.
They find us easily. Almost as if they have a satellite. Surely they do not, Field Prime would have told me?
Small arms fire crackled; he looked up sharply, estimating distances.
“Evacuate,” he snapped. “Company Leader Gimbowitz.” The chief of the field-hospital looked up. “You have the enemy wounded here as well?”
The doctor nodded, swallowing; he knew as well as the commander what came next.
“We cannot take prisoners or wounded with us,” von Reuter said regretfully. “I must ask for medical volunteers to remain with them until the enemy arrives. They will have permission to contact the Royalist commanders once their troops are in the immediate vicinity.”
That made it unlikely the Helot wounded would be slaughtered. Individual soldiers of both sides were as likely as not to shoot out of hand individual soldiers of the other who tried to surrender, but the Royalist senior officers were sticklers for the Laws of War. For that matter, wounded men and medics in an organized setting were reasonably safe.
He turned. “Quickly, please,” he said. “Group Leader Sandina, please see to the demolition charges on the equipment we cannot remove.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There are two central causes of the generally poor Western military record in the field of counterinsurgency. The first is that Western armies are either not large enough or do not consider it important enough to maintain a full-time, well-qualified cadre for counterinsurgency tasks. This is perhaps a good choice, because the main task for these organizations is to ensure an adequate response in the event of higher forms of conflict. The resulting cost, of course, is to occasionally field partially qualified novices in counterinsurgency situations where professionals are required. The second cause of lackluster Western military performance is that Western peoples will not long tolerate the use of their soldiers in suppressing rebellions in a distant land, whether their soldiers are in a direct combat role or serving as advisors.
An international corporation composed of former Western officers and soldiers skilled in acceptable counterinsurgency techniques would largely solve both of these Western counterinsurgency problems . . . Considering the record of most Western governments in the field of counterinsurgency, the corporation would not have to work very hard to achieve comparatively superior results. And a commercial concern would likely attain those improvements at considerably less cost.
—Rod Paschall
LIC 2000: Special Operations and
Unconventional Warfare in the Next Century
(Institute of Land Warfare,
Association of the US Army, 1990)
* * *
If, in the future, war will be waged for the souls of men, then the importance of extending territorial control will go down. Long past are the days when provinces, even entire countries, were regarded simply as items of real estate to be exchanged among rulers by means of inheritance, agreement, or force. The triumph of nationalism has brought about a situation where people do not occupy a piece of land because it is valuable; on the contrary, a piece of land however remote or desolate is considered valuable because it is occupied by this people or that. To adduce but two examples out of many, since at least 1965 India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads over a glacier so remote that it can hardly even be located on a map. Between 1979 and 1988, Egypt spent nine years of diplomatic effort in order to recover Taba. Now Taba, south of Elath, is a half-mile stretch of worthless desert beach whose very existence had gone unnoticed by both Egyptians and Israelis prior to the Camp David Peace Agreements; all of a sudden it became part of each side’s “sacred” patrimony and coffee-houses in Cairo were named after it. . . .
Another effect of the postulated breakdown of conventional war will probably be a greater emphasis on the interests of men at the head of the organization, as opposed to the interest, of the organization as such . . . Individual glory, profit, and booty gained directly at the expense of the civilian population will once again become important, not simply as incidental rewards but as the legitimate objectives of war. Nor is it improbable that the quest for women and sexual gratification will re-enter the picture. As the distinctions between combatants and noncombatants break down, the least we can expect is that such things will be tolerated to a greater extent than is supposed to be the case under the rules of so-called civilized warfare. In many of the low-intensity conflicts currently being waged in developing countries this is already true, and has, indeed, always been true.