Fire and Sword

by Simon Scarrow

  ‘Difference?’ Napoleon thought for a moment. ‘I wonder if there is a difference in the end. One cannot have one without the other.War is an extension of diplomacy by other means, and peace is merely the continuation of war by other means. There will always be war and peace, Josephine, just as surely as the rising of the sun. All that one can do is try to keep winning, however one can. Else there is only surrender or defeat. To me, war is not an aberration, but the essence of human nature.’

  Josephine straightened up and regarded him with a look of despair. ‘God save us,’ she muttered in a low tone that only the two of them could hear. ‘You are a monster.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I am Napoleon.’

  As the first hint of dawn lightened the horizon, the men of the Grand Army formed into their battalions and tramped across the border. The night had been cold and the chilly dawn air about the marching columns was marked with the swirling puffs of exhaled breath as the soldiers hunched in their coats, waiting for the warmth of their exertions to spread through their bodies. The din of nailed boots crunching over the hard ground was accompanied by the jingle of harness and rumble of heavy wheels as the limbered guns and wagons of the Grand Army rolled forward between the columns of marching infantry.

  Napoleon had taken his leave of Josephine in a soured atmosphere. She had kissed him dutifully, but there was no warmth in her embrace, no affection in her eyes, and he felt an ache in his heart at her cold expression. He hoped that it did not portend an ill outcome for the coming campaign. Fortune had blessed him in the past, and where many men had been killed or crippled on the field of battle Napoleon had come through unscathed. The odds against his survival must surely be growing with each new campaign, he mused, as he took her hands and squeezed them.

  ‘I will return, my love.’

  ‘Yes,’ she responded softly. ‘I know. Until the next war.’

  Napoleon looked sadly into her eyes, then released her hands and turned away to mount the horse that was held ready for him by one of his staff officers. Once he had heaved himself into the saddle, Napoleon adjusted his stirrups and took up the reins, and at a click of his tongue and a nudge from his heels the horse walked forward.

  ‘Napoleon!’ Josephine suddenly called out. ‘Be careful, my love. Come back to me.’

  Napoleon turned to her with a smile and waved his hand, then spurred his horse into a trot and rode away to lead the Grand Army to war.

  Berthier and his staff proved their worth once more as the three columns of the French army followed their carefully planned marching orders. They passed swiftly through the Thuringer forest in an orderly manner and emerged into open countryside towards the end of the second day of the campaign. The reports from Murat’s scouts still provided no conclusive intelligence as to the location the Prussians had chosen to concentrate their forces.

  Then, on the morning of the third day, a hurried despatch from Lannes informed the Emperor that he had encountered a Prussian corps blocking his advance through the town of Saalfeld. After a brief struggle the Prussians had been routed, leaving their commander, Prince Louis, dead on the battlefield. Napoleon read the report with a degree of satisfaction. Prince Louis had been one of Prussia’s finest generals and they could ill afford to lose him in such an insignificant battle.

  Berthier had chosen an inn in a village ten miles from Saalfeld for the imperial headquarters.The rest of the houses and barns of the village had been occupied by the officers and orderlies attached to the staff. After a day visiting some of his marshals Napoleon returned to the inn and saw Berthier bent over a large table in the main room. Around him several other officers sat at smaller tables hunched over their paperwork. One of them looked up, and called out, ‘The Emperor is present!’

  At once the room was filled with the sound of scraping chairs as the officers rose and stood at attention.

  ‘At ease!’ Napoleon waved them back to their desks as he crossed the room towards Berthier. He quickly related the details of Lannes’s victory at Saalfeld and then asked, ‘What are the latest reports on the main enemy force?’

  Berthier reached to one side of the table and pulled a map over. He unrolled it and weighted the corners before leaning forward and tapping his pencil where the town of Plauen was marked.‘I’ve had word from Soult that he has beaten an enemy column here. They are now retreating towards Gera.’

  ‘Gera?’ Napoleon leaned over the map and traced a line from Plauen, through Gera and on towards Leipzig. ‘It’s as I thought.They are in this direction.’ He paused and frowned and thought aloud. ‘Then why send that column of Prince Louis’s so far to the west where it would be cut off and powerless to act on its own? It doesn’t make sense.What reports have we had from Murat?’

  ‘I’m still waiting for today’s reports, sire.’

  ‘Very well.’ Napoleon took a last look at the map before he straightened up. ‘I am going to rest. As soon as you hear anything about the enemy’s location wake me.’

  ‘Yes, sire.’

  Napoleon took a seat by the inn’s fire and helping himself to a staff officer’s rolled-up coat to act as a pillow he eased himself down and closed his eyes. It seemed like only a moment before he was gently shaken by the shoulder.

  ‘Sire?’

  Napoleon’s eyes snapped open and he saw Berthier looking down at him.

  ‘Sire, we have a report from Marshal Lannes, and news from Murat.’

  Napoleon sat up, wincing at a stiffness in his neck. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Five o’clock, sire.’

  Little more than an hour and a half had passed, then. Napoleon stood up. ‘Well?’

  ‘Lannes’s prisoners say that the main Prussian army is situated towards Erfurt.That’s confirmed by Murat’s scouts.’

  ‘Let’s see.’ Napoleon yawned as he led the way back to Berthier’s table and examined the map. ‘Erfurt, eh? Seems that I was mistaken, Berthier.’

  His chief of staff remained silent and Napoleon could not resist a small smile. ‘It happens, Berthier. So, our enemy is to the west of us. Well, once he receives word that Lannes is at Saalfeld, he will know that we have got between Berlin and the Prussian army. They will try to march round us to get back on to their lines of communication. So we must march faster than them and cut them off.’ Napoleon made a sweeping gesture across the map. ‘The Grand Army will turn west. Davout and Bernadotte can outflank the enemy to the right, at Auerstadt.The rest of the Grand Army will concentrate here.’ He thrust his finger on the map. ‘At Jena.That’s where we will humble Frederick William.That’s where we will crush Prussia and end the campaign.’

  Chapter 22

  Jena, 13 October 1806

  ‘I would say that there are perhaps forty, maybe fifty thousand Prussians to the west of us,’ said Marshal Lannes as he slowly scanned the enemy positions through his telescope.

  Beside him Napoleon considered the estimate for a moment and nodded. ‘In which case, that should be the main body of the enemy. There will be other formations nearby, guarding their flanks, but that must be the main body.Very well then, we must concentrate the Grand Army at once. I want every available man here within twenty-four hours. Meanwhile, you and the Imperial Guard must hold this position.’ Napoleon gestured to the surrounding heights that rose up between the town of Jena to the east and the plateau to the west where the Prussian army was making camp for the night.‘What do the locals call this place, Berthier?’

  ‘The Landgrafenberg, sire.’

  Napoleon shook his head. ‘These Germans come up with some incomprehensible place names.When the campaign is over, I will make it a priority to cut them down to size.’

  His staff officers laughed, and Napoleon was grateful for their good humour.There were risks involved in choosing this ground for what he hoped would be the decisive action of the campaign. Given a full day he could summon nearly a hundred and fifty thousand men to the area around Jena. Until then, Lannes and the veterans of the Guard must hold th
e heights. If the Prussians decided to attack in the remaining hours of daylight, or even early the next morning, the French troops who had crossed the river Saale to occupy the Landgrafenberg would be hopelessly outnumbered. If they were forced down the heights into Jena there would be a bottleneck at the bridge and the Prussians would inflict heavy losses. Everything depended on holding the hill, Napoleon decided, looking up to the highest point half a mile away.

  He turned to Berthier and indicated to the ridge.‘We have to fortify that position. I want as many guns up there as possible.Twelve-pounders would be best, so that we can command the approaches to the slopes.’

  Berthier stared at the steep rise that led up to the ridge, then sucked in a sharp breath. ‘Twelve-pounders? That won’t be easy to do, sire.’

  ‘I didn’t say that it would be easy,’ Napoleon replied quietly. ‘I said that it will be done.’

  ‘Yes, sire. I will give the orders at once.’

  Napoleon nodded, then folded his arms as he turned to regard the Prussian army again. The autumn evening was drawing in and already the fine spirals of the first campfires were marking the clear, still sky. Apart from a handful of cavalry pickets patrolling across the plateau there was no sign of any activity that presaged any attack. Napoleon called for his horse.

  ‘I’m going back to the headquarters in Jena. Lannes, you can stand your men down. But be ready to form up at the first sign of any movement the Prussians make.’

  Lannes bowed his head. ‘Yes, sire.’

  ‘Good. If the enemy are content to sit on their arses through the night and into the morning, then they’re in for the surprise of their lives.’

  As night fell the staff officers of the imperial headquarters worked at a frantic pace to issue the orders to concentrate the separate columns of the Grand Army. The Emperor had decided on a battle the following day and marching schedules had to be drafted and issued to every division. Ammunition trains had to be brought forward ready to replenish the cannon and muskets of the army. Since foraging was not possible so close to the enemy the rations carried with the army had to be distributed along the approaches to Jena.

  Napoleon and Berthier had taken over a large room and at once spread out maps of the surrounding lands across the floor. Napoleon took note of the scale of the main map and adjusted his dividers accordingly to measure half a day’s march. He knelt down on the map and leaned forward to inspect the details of each unit Berthier had marked in pencil. Every so often Napoleon walked the dividers across the map towards the area around Jena and then made appropriate allowances for night marches, and the reported conditions of the roads and tracks his men would have to march along. Any questions he asked about the strengths of the units sent Berthier scurrying to the small chest of notebooks, which were updated every day from the returns sent directly to headquarters from each brigade.

  At length Napoleon was satisfied that he would be able to amass sufficient strength before noon the following day to mount a successful attack on the Prussians. The critical phase of the coming battle would occur well before midday. In order to provide room for the advancing French columns to cross the Saale and make their way through Jena, the bridgehead would have to be pushed forward. That meant that Lannes and his men were going to have to advance against the Prussians on their own at first light, and hold the enemy back long enough for the rest of the Grand Army to deploy. Napoleon stared at the map again. Not the whole of the Grand Army, he decided. There was an opportunity here for an outflanking movement by Davout and Bernadotte’s columns. If they could cross further along the Saale and move against the enemy’s left, then the Prussian army would be caught in the jaws of a vice and crushed.

  Napoleon dictated the final details to Berthier, then stood up and announced his intention to return to the Landgrafenberg and spend the night there with the Imperial Guard. He took up his hat and buttoned his greatcoat and strode outside. After the warm fug of the crowded headquarters the air outside was cold and crisp and the clear heavens were scattered with the brilliant pinpoints of stars. Napoleon paused a moment, head tilted back, and admired the view. He had read that astronomers claimed that each star was like the sun and that vast distances separated them so that the earth, and all who dwelt there, were as insignificant as dust on the great scale of the universe. For the briefest instant Napoleon felt a tremor of despair in his heart, then quickly dismissed it with a snorted inhalation of the cold air, and strode towards his horse and let one of his escort help him up into the saddle.

  Above the roofs of Jena loomed the dark mass of the Landgrafenberg, lit here and there by the dancing flickers of torches and campfires.There was a concentration of torches on the lower slope and by the dim loom of their light Napoleon could just make out the forms of some wagons and gun carriages. He frowned, dug his heels in and galloped down the street towards the road that led up to the heights. A short distance outside the town he came across the tail of the artillery train that had been ordered to the summit of the Landgrafenberg. On either side of the track, the battalions of the Imperial Guard were waiting to move up to the heights and some of the men stirred at the sound of approaching hoofbeats. Even in the dark the keener-sighted of the men recognised the distinctive shape of Napoleon’s hat and a voice cried out excitedly, ‘It’s the Emperor! On your feet for the Emperor!’

  As word spread along the line of vehicles dark figures rose up and waved and cheered as Napoleon and his escort trotted past without acknowledging them. The road began to climb the slope and as the gradient steepened the road ended and a crude track began, snaking up the hill. Here Napoleon found the head of the artillery train, where a small crowd of gunners and their officers stood in the light of several torches and lanterns. Scores of men were labouring on traces to haul a twelve-pounder up the narrow track, and every pace gained came with painful slowness.

  ‘What is going on here?’ Napoleon called out sharply as he reined in. ‘Why the delay? These guns should be halfway up to the ridge by now.’

  The brigadier in charge of the artillery train stepped forward with an apprehensive expression and gestured towards the track.‘Sire, you can see for yourself. It’s the track. Little more than a bridle path. It’s poor going for anything larger than a dog cart.’

  Napoleon swung himself down from the saddle, took a lantern from one of the artillerymen and began to examine the ground just in front of the leading gun.The path was narrow, uneven and littered with small boulders, some wedged into the soil and loose gravel. More than enough of a challenge to the artillery train, he conceded. Nevertheless, the guns had to be in position on the ridge and ready to fire at first light. Napoleon strode back down the hill towards the brigadier.

  ‘Order the artillery train to halt.’

  ‘Yes, sire.’

  ‘Then give the order for every pick and shovel in the artillery train, and from the engineers back in Jena, to be brought here.’ Napoleon turned to one of his escort.‘I want each battalion of the Imperial Guard to work for an hour on improving the track before they move up to the ridge. Pass the word.’

  While the two officers hurried off to carry out his orders Napoleon walked a short distance up the narrow path, inspecting the ground closely. In places the track was little more than a pace wide and that width would need to be tripled before the twelve-pounders and artillery caissons could pass along it. In addition, the boulders would have to be dug out to make the route as level as possible for the heavy wheels of the wagons and gun carriages. It would be back-breaking work and the men would curse him for it, but there was no other way to get the guns to the top of the Landgrafenberg by dawn.

  As the first of the Imperial Guard battalions reached the head of the artillery train the gunners handed the small supply of ready tools to the men and the sergeants directed them to begin cutting into the embankment beside the track. As more tools came forward other companies moved further up the route to work by the light of lanterns set up on posts by the engineers who had hurried forw
ard from Jena. The air was filled with the thud of picks, the soft scrape of shovels and the grunts of the men labouring in the chilly night air. Napoleon walked slowly up and down the track for the next half-hour, offering encouragement, cajoling, and swapping greetings with his veterans. Then, satisfied that the work was well in hand, he passed the lantern to an artilleryman, climbed back on to his horse and made his way up the track towards the ridge.

  He found Marshal Lannes and a handful of his officers on the knoll on the crest of the heights.They were staring out across the plateau to where the campfires of the Prussian army sprawled across the darkened landscape.

  ‘Any signs of movement?’ Napoleon asked as he slid down from his saddle.

  ‘No, sire.’

  ‘Any reinforcements?’

  ‘None that we have detected.’

  ‘That’s strange,’ Napoleon mused. ‘They know we’re here. They will want to concentrate their forces to make or meet any attack. Are you certain there’s been no sign of activity, no fresh columns arriving in the enemy camp?’