vpn with redundant servers

Hi there!

I try to connect to a vpn-server, which works fine, but additionally I
want to setup another redundant vpn-server, which will be used if the
first-one is unreachable.

When I try:

"pptp <my-unreachable-server> name <my-name>"

it won't connect, which is ok, but the really bad thing is that I do
NOT get a error-message by pptp.

It hangs and does not try the second redundant server.

Question: How can I make pptp try to connect and if it does not fail
after 10 seconds?

Is there a workaround, maybe start a process (alarm-signalled) after
10 seconds, which checks whether the connection has been established
and if not, it kills pptp?!

Any help is highly appreciated!

Thanks in advance