November 1635 The dark, broad seas

Tetschen, near the border between Saxony and Bohemia The view from Freiherr von Thun's castle was magnificent. Set on a rocky knoll right above the quays of Tetschen, called Decin by the Czech locals, the old castle not only dominated the river Elbe, but provided a fine view to the north. The building had been designed more as a customs and toll stop, rather than being a fortification built with combat in mind. Its old-fashioned curtain walls were ill-suited to receive artillery fire of any kind. Still, its few guns covered the riverfront from bank to bank and they could be expanded by leaving behind some of the Third Division's artillery.

For the purpose Mike Stearns had in mind-possible purpose, he cautioned himself-Tetschen was better than any other place the Third Division had passed through since they entered the low range of mountains that separated the Bohemian and Saxon plains. Those mountains were called the Erzgebirge in German and Krusne hory in Czech.

Tetschen had three things to recommend it:

First, it was obviously the best bottleneck to thwart an army trying to enter Bohemia from the north or Saxony from the south.

The Erzgebirge were not tall mountains. The two highest peaks, Klinovec and Fichtelberg, were only four thousand feet high. The terrain resembled a scaled-down version of Mike's familiar Appalachia. It was nothing like the Alps or the Carpathians, much less the Rockies. Moreover, Klinovec and Fichtelberg were quite a ways to the west. Here, in the eastern part of the mountain range, the terrain was much lower. The Third Division's engineers had told Mike that the altitude of Tetschen itself was only four hundred and fifty feet above sea level.

Still, as low as they might be, the Erzgebirge were mountains.